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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 16, 1967] What's Going On Here? (June 1967 Galactoscope)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

State of Confusion

Two new science fiction novels feature protagonists who get into big trouble without understanding things until the end. They don't know who's fighting them or who's helping them, or why. One book comes from the pen (or typewriter) of a relatively new voice in SF, the other from an old pro.

The Rim-World Legacy, by F. A. Javor


Cover art by Paul Lehr.

F. A. Javor has published about half a dozen stories here and there, sometimes using the first name Frank instead of the initial. My fellow Galactic Journeyers have not been greatly impressed by his work. He's never scored higher than three stars, and sometimes earns two or one. That's not promising, but let's keep an open mind as we take a look at his first novel.

The book starts with the narrator running from an angry mob. He hides himself in a swamp by breathing through a reed. A flashback tells us how he got in this mess.

Our hero is a professional photographer down on his luck. He gets an assignment from a mysterious woman. It seems easy enough; just take pictures of her husband, a magician, performing his act.

Things start to go bad when it turns out that his camera has been rigged to kill the magician. As luck would have it, the assassination attempt fails. Our hero isn't out of the woods yet, however. Somebody takes a shot at him, barely missing.

On the run from the cops as well as the bad guys, the photographer tries to stay alive while figuring out what the whole thing is about. Along the way, a guy he never saw before offers him a bunch of money for information about the boy. The narrator doesn't have a clue what the fellow is talking about. It all has something to do with an incredibly valuable item.

You'll notice that the above synopsis doesn't contain any speculative elements. That's because this is a crime novel disguised as science fiction.

It takes place on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. (Hence the title.) The camera is rigged with a laser. The hero almost gets killed by a ray gun that leaves him with intermittent muscular and neurological effects. The thing that everybody is trying to get ahold of isn't the Maltese Falcon, but a matter duplicator/teleportation gizmo.

As a suspense novel, this is a decent if undistinguished example. The plot moves quickly, with plenty of twists and turns. As science fiction, it's so-so. I'll give the author a few points for considering the social, economic, and philosophical implications of the device that serves as the book's MacGuffin. Worth killing a few hours with, but forgettable.

Three stars.

Bright New Universe, by Jack Williamson


Cover art by John Schoenherr.

Veteran author Jack Williamson hardly needs an introduction to SF fans. Suffice to say that he's been going strong for forty years, and shows no signs of slowing up.

His latest novel takes place in the fairly near future. There's a thriving colony on the Moon, but no mention (unless I missed it) of the rest of the solar system, and certainly not of interstellar travel.

The protagonist breaks off his engagement with his fiancée, instead choosing to take part in a long-term project on the Moon. This upsets the young woman, of course, but it also distresses the hero's family and acquaintances.

He's willing to turn his back on everyone he cares for in order to pursue a dream. A lunar facility is searching for messages from aliens. Our hero believes that contact with extraterrestrials would benefit humanity to an almost unimaginable degree. As a secondary motive, his father, who died before he was born, was killed in an accident on the Moon, and he wants to find out what happened.

His stepfather argues with the protagonist, believing that progress is inherently bad. This scene serves as the philosophical heart of the novel. The stepfather points out the many dystopian works warning against the advance of technology. He argues that an alien species would lead the human race into this kind of dark future.

The book's title appears to be an allusion to Aldous Huxley's famous novel Brave New World, and Huxley is specifically mentioned in the text. Bright New Universe is the antithesis of that work. The hero believes that progress is good, and Williamson is obviously on his side.

(An in-joke appears at this point. Among other books depicting technology as a threat, the stepfather mentions This odd old book about the perfect machines, the humanoids, smothering men with too much perfection. This is obviously a reference to Williamson's own novel The Humanoids.)

On the Moon, the protagonist meets an alluring Eurasian woman. Unfortunately, her mission is to shut down the project as a waste of resources. She is much more than she seems to be, however, and we'll see a lot of her, in different roles, throughout the book.

Complications ensue when the hero finds out what really happened to his father, and winds up accused of murder. Back on Earth, he discovers a secret organization dedicated to fighting off aliens. (This group also happens to be extremely racist. Williamson is stacking the cards a bit here, making the xenophobes completely evil. I suppose the point is to compare two different kinds of prejudice.)

It's probably not giving too much away to reveal that highly advanced aliens have, indeed, been in contact with Earth. The protagonist's struggle to find out why this fact has been kept hidden leads up to a climactic confrontation between the xenophobes and the extraterrestrials.

The author depicts the two sides in this argument for and against progress in black and white, with no shades of gray. The aliens are completely benevolent, their opponents absolutely in the wrong. Although this renders the book's theme somewhat superficial, it's definitely worth reading. In addition to an action/adventure plot, you've got some very interesting aliens, and an enjoyably optimistic view of the future.

Three and one-half stars.


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The Kill[er\ing] Thing, by Kate Wilhelm

Just to explain the odd title, in the US Doubleday published this as The Killer Thing. However, my UK edition, from Herbert Jenkins SF, changed the title slightly to The Killing Thing. I am guessing they believed it was moderately more grammatically correct, although to my ear both are just as odd phrasing. I suppose the phrase “The Killing Machine” sounds slightly better than "The Killer Robot" but if they were that concerned should they not have called it The Thing That Kills?

All clear as mud? Good, good.

Kate Wilhelm is an author I have enjoyed via her short fiction but have yet to be impressed by her novels. The Clone read as an unnecessary expansion of Thomas’ excellent short and, whilst my incredibly smart colleague Victoria Silverwolf gave it 4 stars, The Nevermore Affair’s description sounded exactly the kind of book I do not enjoy and so I am yet to pick that one up.

But will her third foray into full length works be a marked improvement?

From the beginning there is definitely a sense of strangeness and unknowability to the whole enterprise, giving you more the sense of Moorcock’s New Worlds then Lalli’s Fantastic & Amazing (which formerly published a number of her pieces). We are immediately thrown into the fight against the titular robotic “Thing”, but it is not setup as an action-filled running commentary, but instead concentrating on lush imagery and the thoughts and reactions of those encountering it.

Within the text, I cannot help but read this as an anti-war novel. By this I do not mean the absurdist comedies of recent years, such as Bill The Galactic Hero or Catch-22, but more of a traditional serious piece like Wells’ The War in the Air or All Quiet on The Western Front. Whilst people seem willing to write about the potential horrors of the atom bomb, authors since World War 2 have seemed to shy away from criticizing conventional warfare. I cannot help but think this is due to current attitudes about it. Most new war films seem to portray the whole experience as a jolly jape of fine upstanding fellows and, in spite of some protests, polls still show a majority of the American public support the current US involvement in Vietnam. I feel the general view is summed up by Ian Chesterton in Doctor Who:

Pacifism only works when everybody feels the same

Large crowd of Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York May 67
Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York last month

Therefore, it is a pleasant surprise to see a work that is so clearly pacifist. Whether it is in the clever title, the horror of the action, the horrified responses to what they are seeing or the brutal statements of the generals, e.g.:

You have to take lands with your blood, yours and theirs, mixing together in the dirt so that in the ages to come you can’t tell whose blood it is that nourishes the trees and grasses. Then you know it’s your world, Colonel, and not until then.

As a member of the Society of Friends, pacifism is part of my beliefs and understanding of the universe. Given how rare it is to see displayed in fiction (although Dickson did a very good anti-war novel a few years back), I found it warming to read.

However, more there is a significant flaw I found, one that overrides my appreciation for the whole work, that is in the style. It unfortunately engages in one of my biggest pet peeves, that of over-description. Where we will get one line of action or dialogue and then nothing but description for ages, on a loop. For example:

He turned to look about.
The carrier was on tracks that were six feet above ground level… [23 lines of description]…Their heads as well as their faces were clean shaven.
‘Nice isn’t it’ Duncan said, at Trace’s side.
He was tall as Trace, and a twenty-three, three years younger. Both were second lieutenants. His black eyes were shining with the excitement of leave after four months’ running battle with the fleet dispatched by Mellic. ‘You have any plans for the duration?’ he asked.
They had come to a large shopping area, where stores were open to the warm, air and sunshine, and good were spread out to be seen and handled.
‘No,’ Trace said. ‘You?’

It creates a sense to me of a picture book with a complicated painted image and a tiny description without any feeling of motion.

As such, in spite of the ambition, I could not really love this particular thing.

Three stars (four for effort, two for execution)


by Jason Sacks

The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker, by Otto Binder

No, this novel isn't an adaptation of the wonderful Avengers TV series starring Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as the eternally delightful John Steed and Emma Peel. Instead, it's an adaptation of those other Avengers, the Marvel super-hero team which features Captain America and his pals. (By the way, if you are looking for a good novelization of those British Avengers, I can recommend the book below. It's apparently written by MacNee himself!)

Written by longtime comics writer (and science fiction writer) Otto Binder, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker had much promise. After all, Binder has written hundreds of comic book stories, including classic work on Captain Marvel as well as long runs at both National and Marvel, plus he's logged time at nearly every comic book company over the last 25 years. Beyond that, Binder has published dozens of prose novels, some under his own name and some under pseudonyms. Most of those books have been quick, fast reads.

Thus, with Binder at the helm, this book seemed like a big win for every Marvelite.

Sadly, though, Earth-Wrecker is pretty dire work. The book begins slowly and never improves from there, delivering a dull, sometimes campy work. This story likely would have been rejected by Stan Lee if it had been submitted for publication in the Avengers comic.

Earth-Wrecker begins as Captain America is leading a press conference to introduce his team of Avengers. The heroes quip and banter to the media in the most boring way (ten-foot tall Goliath complains about hitting his head, for instance) before the Avengers all agree to have a quick warmup battle for the media by playing their "Gladiator Games."

"Gladiator Games" seem like a combination of the X-Men's Danger Room and some arbitrary test of feats of strength. They also are something that never has appeared in any of the 43 issues of Avengers comics written by either Stan Lee or Roy Thomas.  Mr. Binder obviously wanted the readers to get a sense of how the team bickers their way to victory, but the whole sequence falls completely flat. It's action for its own sake, without any consequences involved. Thus there's no reason for a reader to care about what they read.

And in fact, it falls even flatter as one of the Avengers suddenly realizes their teammate Iron Man isn't there with them and begins to wonder why that is the case. No member of the team thought they should try to get in contact with him or were keeping tabs on where Iron Man was. Maybe the team doesn't have telephones or telegraphs to stay in contact with each other?

Regardless, Binder's ramshackle plot has Iron Man flying over the Himalayas for some unknown reason when he's caught in a downdraft. That downdraft sucks our hero down towards Mt. Everest. Never mind that there's no explanation of how Iron Man can breathe in that thin Himalayan air, or even any good reason for the Armored Avenger to be there at all. No, the character just happens to be wandering through Asis so he can advance the novel's plot. And while at the roof of the world, Iron Man just happens to be attacked by a guy who wants to destroy the entire world.

That evil villain is called Karzz the Conqueror. He comes to our times from the 70th century. Karzzd has an extremely covoluted plan to conquer his future Earth by destroying it in the 20th century, and honestly his plans were so weird and complicated it gave me a headache to contemplate them. They verge on camp, on the sort of thing you can imagine the Riddler trying to do on the Batman TV series.

And that's on top of the fact that Marvel already have a a villain from the 70th century called Kang the Conqueror, who's been groomed for years to be the team's greatest enemy. Kang is fun, has a complicated backstory, and would have made comic readers smile. But no smiles are earned here. Nope: for no good reason, Binder decided to create an amazing facsimile of that real Avengers villain instead of having ol' blue-face appear in his novel.

Cynical me wants to say that's because Binder had never read an Avengers comic in his life, and was given a weekend to write this 120-page quickie. That complaint is certainly reflected in the book's pages. It may be why the book's plot seems to ramble and amble aimlessly, or why the Wasp is always described in the most sexist terms, or why Hawkeye is such a jerk, or why the ending seems so rushed and bland.

Oh heck, I could go on and complain more about this book, but perhaps I've said enough to persuade you to just give this one a pass. Roy Thomas and John Buscema are doing excellent comics in the monthly Avengers series (I'm very intrigued by the Red Guardian, an actual hero of sorts from the USSR!) So stick with that book and leave The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker for some other sucker to pick up at your local Kresge's.

1 star (the cover is nice, anyway)



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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 16, 1967] From the Sea to the Stars (May 1967 Galactoscope)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

A trio of new works, two of them inside the same book, take readers from the far reaches of the galaxy to the depths of the ocean. (Sounds like last month's Galactoscope, doesn't it?) Let's start with the latest Ace Double, containing two short novels (or long novellas) set in interstellar space.

Gedankenexperiment


Cover art by Peter Michael.

The Rival Rigelians, by Mack Reynolds

This is an expansion of the novella Adaptation, which appeared in the August 1960 issue of Astounding/Analog. (That's during the brief period when both titles appeared on the cover of the magazine. Confusing, isn't it?)


Cover art by John Schoenherr.

The Noble Editor thought it was so-so at the time. Let's see if it's any better, like fine wine, after seven years.

Cold War Two

Long before the story begins, Earth colonized a large number of planets with about one hundred people per world. Over several generations, the colonies degenerated from scientifically advanced to primitive, due to the lack of support from the home world. Then each slowly made their way back up to a particular level of technological sophistication.

(If this sounds like a really lousy way to populate the galaxy, I agree. The author is clearly more interested in setting up a thought experiment than in ensuring plausibility.)

It seems that two inhabited worlds orbit the star Rigel. One is similar to Italy during the time of feudalism. The people on the other are similar to the Aztecs.


Rigel is part of the constellation Orion; one of his feet, to be exact.

Earth sends a team of folks to Rigel to bring the colonies up to a modern level of technology. They argue a bit about what to do, then finally agree to split up. One group will bring the free market to the feudalists, and the other will impose a state-controlled economy on the Aztecs. It's capitalism versus communism all over again! Long story short, things don't work out very well for either bunch.

The main difference between the original novella and this expanded version is the addition of two female members to the visiting Earthlings. Both are physicians. Unfortunately, they are pure stereotypes.

One is the Good Girl, doing the best she can to help the colonists while remaining loyal to the man she loves. (To add a little romantic tension to the plot, the author has him choose to go to the Aztec planet while she opts to work on the Italian planet.)

The other is the Bad Girl, teasing the men by exchanging the standard uniform for a sexy gown before they even reach Rigel. On the Aztec planet, she sets herself up as the mistress of whichever fellow happens to be in power at the time, and rules over the locals like a wicked queen.

The author's point seems to be that both pure capitalism and pure communism are seriously flawed. I've seen this theme come up in his work before, most recently in his spy yarn The Throwaway Age in the final issue of Worlds of Tomorrow.

This story isn't quite as blatant a fictionalized essay as that one was, but it comes close. Besides the two-dimensional female characters, we have male characters that are mostly either fools or scoundrels. It's readable, certainly, and you may appreciate its satiric look at humanity's attempts to create workable socioeconomic systems.

Three stars.

Naval Maneuvers

Born in England but living in Australia since 1956, A. Bertram Chandler has been working on merchant ships since 1928. It's no wonder, then, that the space-going vessels in his stories often seem like sailing ships. One can almost smell the salt air and hear the wind rippling in the sails.

Many of his semi-nautical tales feature the character of John Grimes, sort of a Horatio Hornblower of the galaxy. My esteemed colleague David Levinson recently reviewed a pair of these yarns that appeared in If. Why do I bring this up? You'll see.


Cover art by Kelly Freas.

Nebula Alert, by A. Bertram Chandler

This latest work once again makes space seem like the ocean, and those who journey through it like seadogs. (It also serves as a nice bridge between Reynold's interstellar allegory and the sea story I'll discuss later.)

All Hands On Deck!

The starship Wanderer is under the command of a husband-and-wife team. She's the owner and he's the captain. Among the crew are another married couple and a couple of bachelors. They accept the challenge of transporting several Iralians back to their home world.

Iralians are very human-like aliens. So similar to people, in fact, that romance blooms between one of the bachelors and one of the passengers. (They're both telepaths, which must help.) There are some important differences, however.

The Iralians have a very short gestation period, and multiply rapidly. Their offspring inherit the learned skills of their parents, in a kind of mental Lamarckism. Unfortunately, the combination of these traits makes them valuable slaves; the owners have a steady supply of fully trained workers.

During the voyage, a trio of pirate ships threatens the Wanderer. (The identity of the would-be slavers on these vessels is an interesting plot twist, which I won't reveal here.) In order to evade the attackers, our heroes take the very dangerous gamble of entering the Horsehead Nebula.


The real Horsehead Nebula, which is aptly named.

It seems that no starship has ever returned from the nebula, and there are indications that it does something weird to time and space. In fact, the Wanderer enters a parallel universe, where they encounter a ship under the command of none other than John Grimes! Suffice to say that the meeting leads to a way to exit the nebula safely and defeat the pirates.

Unlike Reynolds, Chandler doesn't seem to have any particular axe to grind. This is strictly an adventure story, meant to entertain the reader for a couple of hours. It succeeds at that modest goal reasonably well. It's not the most plausible story ever written, and you won't find anything profound in it, but it's not a waste of time.

Three stars.

The Patron Saint of Science Fiction

Margaret St. Clair (no relation to actress Jill St. John, who recently appeared in the big budget flop The Oscar, co-written by none other than Harlan Ellison) has been publishing fiction since the late 1940's. Much of her short fiction is strikingly original, with a haunting, dream-like mood. (I particularly like her stories for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which appear under the pseudonym Idris Seabright.)

She's offered readers a few short novels as halves of Ace Doubles, as well as the full-length novel Sign of the Labrys. Both the Noble Editor and I agreed that this was a unique, very interesting mixture of apocalyptic science fiction and mysticism, if not fully satisfying. The book featured quite a lot of lore from the neo-pagan religion Wicca, and I understand that St. Clair was initiated into that faith last year.


Cover art by Paul Lehr.

The Dolphins of Altair, by Margaret St. Clair

Dolphins have appeared in science fiction for a while now, from Clarke's 1963 work mentioned below to this year's French novel Un animal doué raison by Robert Merle. Some of this seems to be inspired by recent attempts to communicate with dolphins by the controversial researcher John C. Lilly. Or maybe they've just been watching reruns of Flipper, which was cancelled last month. In any case, let's see how this new book handles the theme.

People of the Sea

(Apologies to Arthur C. Clarke for stealing the title of his Worlds of Tomorrow serial, now available in book form as Dolphin Island. I hope he's too busy scuba diving off the coast of Ceylon to notice.)

Appropriately, the novel is narrated by a dolphin. He relates how three human beings came to the aid of his kind.

The first is Madelaine. She is particularly sensitive to telepathic messages sent by the dolphins. So much so, in fact, that she suffers from amnesia when they call her. Nonetheless, she answers their distress signal by journeying to a small, rocky, uninhabited island off the coast of Northern California.

Next is Swen. The dolphins don't directly contact him, the way they do Madelaine, but he overhears the message and shows up at the same place.

Last is Doctor Lawrence. He becomes involved with Madelaine when he treats her amnesia. Although he has no ability at all to receive psychic messages from the dolphins, he follows her to the island.

The dolphins, some of whom have learned to speak English, are fed up with the way that human beings pollute their sea and keep their kind captive. They seek help from the unlikely trio.

At first, this involves rescuing several dolphins from a military facility. The plan is to use a powerful explosive device (which Swen has to steal) to trigger an earthquake that will break open the seawall that keeps them in captivity. Although the three agree to take this action, which will inevitably cause great destruction and is likely to cost human lives, they try to minimize the harm done to their own kind by timing the quake when the fewest number of people will be around.

If this all seems to strain your willingness to suspend your belief, wait until you see what we find out next.

It seems that both dolphins and humans are the descendants of beings who came from a planet orbiting the star Altair (hence the title.) They showed up on Earth about one million years ago. Some chose to remain on land, others went to the ocean. Over many thousands of years, they diverged into the two species.


Altair, located near a very appropriate constellation.

The dolphins remember the covenant made so long ago, that the two groups would remain on friendly terms. Betrayed by the forgetful humans, they are ready to use any means possible to end the abuse of their kind. The next step is to use ancient technology from Altair to melt the ice caps.  As you might imagine, this leads to an apocalyptic conclusion.

Unsurprisingly, given the author, this is an unusual book. It combines a science fiction thriller with a great deal of mysticism. The author is obviously incensed by the way people enslave dolphins and dump poison into the ocean. The reader is definitely supposed to root for the dolphins in their war against humanity.

The three human characters are quite different from each other. Swen is probably the most normal, and serves as the novel's action/adventure hero, at least to some extent. Madelaine is an ethereal creature, almost like some kind of mythic being. Doctor Lawrence is an enigma. He informs the military about the dolphins, leading to an attack on the island, but he is also a misanthrope, the most eager to wreak destruction on humanity.

Like Sign of the Labrys, The Dolphins of Altair is a fascinating novel with disparate elements that don't always quite mesh, and an odd combination of science fiction themes with the purely mystical. I can definitely say that I'm glad I read it, and that it is likely to stay in my memory for some time to come.

Four stars.

To Outrun Doomsday, by Kenneth Bulmer


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

4 Kenneth Bulmer Works

Bulmer is very much a mixed author for me. He has produced great works, like The Contraption or City Under the Sea. But also, less interesting pieces, such as Behold the Stars or his Terran Space Navy series.

Which Bulmer do we get in To Outrun Doomsday? Luckily for me, it is definitely the former, as I think this is his best work to date.

Balance of Imagination

To Outrun Doomsday by Kenneth Bulmer

I think it is worth quickly addressing the issue some readers have with Bulmer’s work. Much of his writing hew very close to real world scenarios, such as war novels. For some people this presents the same issue I have seen discussed in the recent Star Trek episode Balance of Terror.

They ask, “if you have the limitless possibilities of science fiction, why would you do submarine warfare in space?” I say, “if you have the limitless possibilities of science fiction, why wouldn’t you do submarine warfare in space!”

As such, it is with the scenario To Outrun Doomsday. Jack Waley is a gadabout on a starship which seems to be acting as a cruise liner. He sees himself as a kind of old-fashioned rake, seducing women and generally pleasure seeking across the galaxy.

This life falls apart when an accident befalls the ship he is on and his lifeboat crashes on a planet that has, apparently, never encountered people from Earth. There he lives with the tribe of “The Homeless Ones” learning their ways whilst also facing the hostile “The Whispering Wizards”.

This all seems like it could be an old-fashioned castaway story in a boy’s adventure magazine from the 30s, and I am sure his critics will say as such. But there are a number of elements that raise it up.

To Outrun Cliches

Firstly, when Bulmer’s writing is good, it is so good it fully takes me away into his world in a way I am in awe of. For example:

The ship blew.
How then describe the opening to nothingness of the warmth and light and air of human habitation?
From the fetus of womblike comfort to space-savaged death-the ship blew. Metal shivered and sundered. Air frothed and vanished. Heat dissipated and was cold. Light struggled weakly and was lost in the multiplicity of the stellar spectra. The ship blew.
Here and there in the mightily-puny bulk, pockets of air and light and warmth yet remained for a heartbeat, for the torturing time to scream in the face of death. Some, a pitiful few persisted for a longer time.

But then is also at other times willing to bring in silliness when the scene requires it:

“I’m sorry that-“ Waley began.
A hand shook. “Quiet!”
Waley stopped being sorry that.

These are merely a couple of examples. Bulmer uses a full literary toolbox to make an exciting and engaging adventure.

Then you have Waley’s character. He is the kind of fellow you expect to hang around in bars until the wee small hours and take Playboy articles as his guide to life. But as we are not meant to see this as something to admire, he is at different times referred to as “a walking lecherous horrid heap of contagion” and ends getting chained up as a galley slave for following his licentious urges. Throughout we follow the journey of him learning there are more valuable things in life than carnal pleasures and forging real friendships with people.

At the same time this is balanced by the abundance of different women throughout the story. Their journeys are independent of Waley’s adventures and often are quite dismissive of him. They are simply well-rounded inhabitants of the world.

Further, this surface story is slowly revealed to be covering up something deeper. There are intriguing breadcrumbs laid out for you. For example, Waley never sees any children, buildings collapse and no one takes any notice, and, strangest of all, praying for any item (assuming it is not or has not been living) results in it appearing instantly. I will not reveal the mystery, but it adds strangeness to what could be a middling space fantasy tale like Norton’s Witch World saga.

The story is not without flaws. Whilst the emotional conclusion is very strong, tying up the main plot mystery made me put my head into my hands at how silly it is (if also reminding me how important it is I get it to the weeding).

It also occasionally goes into racist language when describing enemies. For example:

Small wiry yellow men with spindly legs and bulbous bodies, with Aztec lips and grinning idiot faces

These are very rare occurrences and not a core part of the story, but still wish they had been excised.

I also wished that the book was longer. Whilst I noted there were a number of interesting characters, particularly among the women, we do not have as much time with them as I would have liked. If it could have been allowed another 40 or so pages, it would just have allowed the extra space needed to flesh them out.

But I am happy to give it a very high four stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The Time Hoppers

The jacket for Silverbob's latest novel notes that he "and his wife live in Riverdale, New York, in a large house also occupied by a family of cats (currently four permanent ones), a fluctuating number of kittens, and thousands of books, some of which he has not written."  This only slightly overstates the prodigiousness with which Mr. Silverberg cranks out the prose.  Sometimes, Bob gives it his all and turns out something rather profound like his recent Blue Fire series, which was serialized in Galaxy and came out in book form this month as To Open the Sky.

Other times, we get books like The Time Hoppers, clearly produced in a pressured week, perhaps between passion projects.  The short novel takes place in the 25th Century, but this is no Buck Rogers future.  Rather, we have an overpopulated dystopia where almost everyone is on the dole, society is calcified into numbered levels of privilege, and most live in enormous buildings that soar into the sky as well as plunge deep in the ground.  Within this crowded world, we follow the viewpoint of Quellen, a Level Seven local police boss, hot on the trail of the time hoppers.  These are folks who are leaving the future for the spaciousness of the past.  They know these temporal refugees exist because they are already recorded in the history books.  Can Quellen stop them before the trickle becomes a flood?  Should he?

There are a lot of problems with this book.  Quellen is a fairly unlikeable person, a sort of Winston Smith-type at the outer levels of the party, enjoying a few illicit pleasures like a second home in Africa (conveniently depopulated by a century-old plague).  Society in the future makes no sense–it seems an extrapolation of a 1950s view of American society, where the men work and the women are shrieking housewives or grasping adventuresses.  Never mind that, in a world where everyone is unemployed, why there should be a sharp dichotomy between male and female roles goes unexplained.  Just "Chicks, am I right, folks?"

There a sort of shallowness to the book, and the time travel bit is almost incidental.  Particularly since, as the hoppers have already been recorded in the past, any efforts to stop them in the future must inevitably be thwarted.  Also, the idea that these hoppers wouldn't be of prime concern to the powers-that-be (or in the case of this book, actually just one power-that-is) far earlier than four years into the hopping seems ludicrous.

But, I have a perverse penchant for books with the word "Time" in the title, however misleading, as well as stories that have explicit social ranks for people.  And Silverberg, even on a bad day, has a minimum threshold of competence.

So, three stars.

And that's that!  While you're waiting for the next Galactoscope, come join us in Portal 55 to chat about these and other great titles:



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Comics

[May 4, 1967] The Marvel Superheroes Have Arrived!  (Marvel Comics in the UK)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Last Weekend in London, the most happening party of the year took place, The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream.

The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream Poster

In order to help raise funds for International Times legal defence fund, Alexandra Palace was hired out for an extravaganza of the most “out there” artists around. Throughout the whole of Saturday Night there were a wide array of different entertainments to enjoy.

The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream crowds at Alexandra Palace
The crowds at Ally Pally

Whether that be the psychedelic music of Pink Floyd, the films of Kenneth Anger, the auto-destructive art of Yoko Ono or just Beatniks throwing flour bombs, it was an experience that London has never quite seen before. Quite a long way from the extended poetry reading at the Albert Hall less than 2 years ago.

Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd being filmed
Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd being filmed

With ads everywhere, from the underground papers to the up-market boutiques of Chelsea, it became the place to be seen with everyone from members of The Beatles to Warhol. From Dick Gregory to the near mythical Suzy Creemcheese.

The Exploding Galaxy Dance Troupe perform ‘Fuzzdeath’
The Exploding Galaxy Dance Troupe perform ‘Fuzzdeath’

Whilst some of the mods in attendance didn’t really dig the young men in long scruffy hair wearing cowbells or some of the interactive art, it has been hugely popular with an estimated 7000 attendees. There have been discussions of what to do with all the money, although a hitch that some of the tickets appear to have been stolen, so proceeds may come up short of what is expected.

A person Preparing to make another cut as part of Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’
Preparing to make another cut as part of Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’

With this new generation of flower loving beatniks (or ‘hippys’ according to the American press) coming up there is definitely a change in the kind of artistic expression they like. And one surprising thing they seem to enjoy is Marvel Superhero comics:

Getting Here From There

When Marvel’s superhero line began a few years ago there were two main ways to read them in the UK, neither of which were easy.

Creepy Worlds Fantastic Four

The first was via reprints from Alan Class. This company has several titles devoted to reprinting American comic strips. The problem with these is they would often be a pretty random selection of titles, considering these superheroes not really as ongoing stories, just the same as one-off horror and SF tales to sprinkle occasionally through issues. Also, at a shilling these are at the more expensive end of the comic book market, where around sixpence is the usual price.

Marvel Edition of Spider-Man with UK Price Stamp on it
Spidey reminding you to pay 10 pence, not 12 cents!

The other was through direct import, predominantly via Thorpe & Porter. These, however, did not have wide distribution compared with British comics and, when the company went bankrupt last year, it was purchased by IND, National’s (AKA DC) distributor and the flow of Marvel imports slowed to a trickle.

So, acquiring these stories was a real challenge for UK readers. That is until another surprising source came through. One due to the success of British Comics superstar, Leo Baxendale.

A Non-Cowardly Lion

Minnie The Minx

Starting in the early 50s Leo Baxendale began working for DC Thompson on The Beano, Britain’s top selling comic book (over a million issues a week, about the same as national newspapers like the Daily Telegraph). For it he created some of their best loved strips, such as Minnie The Minx, When The Bell Rings and Little Plum.

When The Bell Rings and The Tiddlers Panel Comparison
Spot the difference, When The Bell Rings and The Tiddlers

After leaving DC Thompson, Odhams hired him to create a new humour comic for them, the result was Wham! launching in 1964. Whilst containing some new ideas, it contained a number of very similar ideas from DC Thompson titles (e.g. The Beezer has The Numskulls, about the inner life of a child’s senses, Wham! has Georgie’s Germs, about the lives of germs on a dirty child).

Smash! cover Man From BUNGLE

However, it was successful enough for Odhams to want a second title in the same style. This was Smash! which followed in early 1966 in much the same style, with the Minnie-esque Bad Penny and another microscopic strip The Nervs, along with parodies, such as The Man From BUNGLE.

House Ad for Hulk’s arrival
House Ad for The Hulk’s arrival

A few months in they began to import two American strips. The Newspaper version of Batman and Marvel’s The Hulk.

Hulk Smashes On To The Scene

Smash! Hulk Cover
A much older Banner and a flesh toned Incredible Hulk make their first appearance in Smash!

I think it is important to start with the differences in the importation of these strips. The first, and most obvious point, is that British comics do not have many colour pages. Smash! itself only has them on the front cover (used for the first half of the Batman strip) and the back (currently occupied by surreal humour strip Grimly Feendish), and, even then, in a limited number of tones. As such all of the Hulk’s exploits are in black and white.

Comparison of Marvel and Odhams hulk Pages
How a page break becomes an issue break for Smash! (Notice the slight difference between bottom left and bottom right panel).

Secondly, as this is in the standard British weekly anthology style of comic book, it does not often have the space to reprint an entire story. As such they have to be broken up into multiple issues. At the same time, British comic dimensions are slightly different, so some panels have to be either rearranged or modified to fit.

Two Letter to Smash!
Contrasting views on the changes from David and Nicholas

Whilst some readers did not appreciate their Baxendale style comedy being interrupted by superhero antics, in general the changes have been well received and Hulk continues to lumber on. Which leads to third difference: Odhams made the choice to follow the characters through their appearances as best as they can, regardless of what book they were originally published in. Which leads us to the arrival of The Fantastic Four.

(Flower) Power Comics

Fantastic Four Ad in Wham!
A reminder in Smash! of where to read The Fantastic Four

As Marvel readers in the US will probably recall, there was a period between the ending of Hulk’s own series and his continued strip in Tales to Astonish. Rather than simply stopping one and starting the other, they follow his continued exploits. Next is his encounter with the Fantastic Four, so they are the next to be imported. After an introductory story, the tales of them facing each other begin in Smash!, followed by The Fantastic Four appearing regularly in big-sister title Wham!.

Hulk and the Avengers

Next, he is on to The Avengers where things get particularly interesting. First off, these are rebilled as The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers (later V. The Avengers), to reflect the continuing adventures of Bruce Banner’s alter ego. However, what it also did was introduce readers to a whole range of characters they wanted to see more of.

The Incredible Hulk: The Monster and the Matador
The story you always wanted, what happens when The Hulk becomes a bullfighter!

Secondly, there are gaps in the Hulk’s story between issues, so they have their own strips drawn to fill them in. the first of which explaining what happened to him after he goes into the sea near Gibraltar.

Power Comics Christmas Message
Christmas wishes from Power Comics (which Tony Stark seems to take as a sales pitch)

This combination of showing off the range of heroes available and willingness to play with exclusive material opened the floodgates, leading to new branding of them as Power Comics and the launching of three primarily superhero titles.

Pow! Comics Cover Issue 1

First, is Pow!. In this are two reprints, Spider-Man and Nick Fury (originally Agent of SHIELD but since replaced by Howling Commandos era). In between are a few forgettable humour strips and two new adventure strips, Jack Magic, about a magician’s assistant who is transported to the present day, and The Python, where two adventures fight snake men and their giant mechanical reptile.

Fantastic Issue 1 Cover

Missing Link Panels

Then came Fantastic, this time containing three Marvel titles, Thor, Iron Man and The X-Men. In addition, they have their own superhero series, The Missing Link. Originally a Hulk like character menacing London King-Kong Style, he has recently got into a nuclear reactor accident which has given him super-intelligence and a normal appearance, whilst keeping his superhuman strength.

Terrific Issue 2 Cover
The most recent to debut is Terrific, which is entirely reprints, giving us the adventures of The Submariner, Dr. Strange and The (now Hulkless) Avengers. Plus occasional horror shorts from Marvel’s back catalogue in order to fill the space if the main stories run short.

Ad for four of the five Power Comics
Ad for four of the five Power Comics

All of this means the majority of Marvel’s superhero line is now being reprinted in these “Power Comics”. With a recent announcement that Daredevil is in negotiation, this just leaves Giant Man, who I don’t see anyone crying out for, and Captain America, who might need some localization to work. Maybe he could follow GI Joe’s lead and become “Captain Action”?

The Power-House Period

End caption of comic strip referring to the Power-House Period
Doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Marvel Age” does it?

Now, going back to my introduction, what we are seeing is the new generation of beatniks seem to love them. Reportedly a recent poll of Berkley students placed The Hulk as the 6th greatest man in the world (Dylan won, obviously) and I regularly see ads in British fanzines and underground presses for people seeking out copies of the American originals.

Doom Patrol and TV Century 21
Why does free love not extend to the soapy antics of Doom Patrol or the TV Century 21 crossovers?

What is the reason for this? Some have cited some of the technical innovations with more serialization, crossovers and soap opera dynamics. However, many of these are elements already present in many British comics and certainly seen in more recent DC titles like Doom Patrol and The Legion of Superheroes.

Dr. Strange and Fantastic Four Panels
Psychedelia and Progressive Politics? A Power-House indeed!
(from Dr. Strange and Fantastic Four respectively

I think the answer lies in the characters they are creating. The Hulk and the Thing are figures of great angst. Peter Parker and Johnny Storm are much more relatable teenagers than the richer but flatter Teen Titans. Nick Fury appeals to the Bond fans, whilst Dr. Strange is pure psychedelia. There are also regular smart uses of progressive politics, such as dealing with hate organizations or the existence of an advanced African society. A stark contrast of the excruciating message issues we get from other companies.

“It's a sign of the times, and a year ago I never could have seen it”

Until recently both Odhams and the British youth scene seemed mired in the past, with Eagle being a shadow of itself and extremely high-priced boutiques churning out the same modish styles for rich kids to dance to the same beat sounds since ’63.

Over the last year we have seen fascinating new life emerging, with the Americans trying to teach us Brits a thing or two. Let’s see if we can learn the lessons.

Elektra Ad for Doors and Love Albums
The latest exciting American bands coming out from Elektra



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Movies, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 28, 1967] Tempest in a Teacup (The Terrornauts)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Next week will see the launch of third satellite in the British Ariel programme. Assuming this is successful, it will be significant for a couple of reasons.

UK3 Satellite, hoping to become Ariel 3 if it gets in orbit
UK3 Satellite, hoping to become Ariel 3 if it gets in orbit

Firstly, whilst it is being launched in partnership with NASA in California, it will be the first satellite to be entirely made and tested in Britain, whereas the first two were made in the US. In cooperation between the Royal Airforce, British Aircraft Corporation and General Electric Company, its success would help show that Britain can, if not exactly compete in the space race, at least get a nice chance at a bronze medal.

Secondly, it is carrying five different experiments for UK research facilities, from measuring electron density to atmospheric noise, all of which are going to be important for a more detailed understanding of our world.

One of the most interesting experiments to me is that Jodrell Bank is using it to study medium frequency waves that occur in space. As well as helping understand radio transmissions better this may also help better detect signals coming from extra-terrestrial intelligences. Which is what The Terrornauts is concerned with.

Mr. Brunner…We’re Needed!

The Wailing Asteroid

Back in the ancient days of 1960 our esteemed editor gave a rather damning review of the original novel. However, largely this was due to the prose and the story being dragged out and it was noted that “the premise is excellent”. As such, if a good team was assembled it might well make a good motion picture.

John Brunner

Step forward the first member of this team, John Brunner. One of Britain’s brightest SF authors. Whilst, to the best of my knowledge, he has not written a film script before, he is adept at producing both readable space operas and extremely literary works. He reportedly wanted to remove all the dated pulp era material to concentrate on core science fiction ideas and character work.

Montgomery Tully

Next up, a steady experienced hand of a director is needed, enter Montgomery Tully. Director of over 60 films across 4 decades, including last year’s excellent horror thriller Who Killed The Cat? Although not experienced in SF, many of the best productions of recent years have come from experienced directors outside the field. I will take a Godard or Kubrick experiments over another Irwin Allen or Ed Wood picture.

Amicus Posters

This production is from Amicus studios, the main rival to Hammer studios, with the enjoyable horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, the middling Dalek films and…. whatever The Deadly Bees was. Whilst they do not have the budget of their competitor, they have had ambition to try to do interesting films. Could this be their next success?

Added to this an array of talented actors listed on the cast sheet and things seem setup for a great cinematic experience.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

As it turns out, a lot!

Working in the Lab

Let us start with the plot itself. It begins with people working in a field of current interest to many SF fans, attempting to use high powered radio telescopes in order to attempt to find intelligence life outside of our solar system. Dr. Burke’s team have been working on the project for 4 years but failed to produce any results, to the frustration of Dr. Shore, who is annoyed they are using the equipment on the project. Having just 3 months left to discover a sign of life, they receive a repeating signal from an asteroid.

Finding the Cube in an Archeological Dig

What is particularly surprising is it is the same signal Dr. Burke heard as a child. At an excavation with an archaeologist uncle, a mysterious black cube was uncovered. He was given it as present and inside he found strange black crystals that hummed. Falling asleep holding one, he had a dream of an alien world. On that world he heard the same sound. As you can probably tell, this is going to require you to accept a lot of coincidences.

Lab is Taken

After sending a signal back, a spaceship comes and takes the lab away (although not the control room or telescope it was sent from), along with Dr. Burke, his assistants Lund and Keller, and two comedy characters, the accountant Yellowlees and the tea lady Mrs. Jones.

We do have to talk about the odd comic turns. There's no problem with having some light comedy to emphasise the drama and the use of ordinary characters out of their depth is a common charming feature of Nigel Kneale’s SF plays or Hammer Horror films. The issue here is that it is played so broadly in contrast to the po-faced stance of the rest of the cast it sticks out. Charles Hawtrey is a regular member of the Carry-On cast and Patricia Hayes is probably best known for her regular appearances on the Benny Hill Show. I could not help but wonder at times if they had just walked off of those sets temporarily. Just toning down their performances and lightening the others would have done wonders.

ultrasonic hallucination monster
A terrifying ultrasonic hallucination as part of the tests.

Our five space farers find themselves in a structure on the asteroid and spend a lot of time wandering about and solving a series of logic puzzles to prove intelligence (likely inspired by a similar sequence in The Dalek Invasion of Earth), they are given a cube like Dr. Burke received as a child. It turns out to be a store of information on their mission. An ancient race explored the stars and encountered a race only known as “The Enemy” that want to eliminate other intelligent life by using rays that reduce intelligence. The signal from the base indicates The Enemy’s signals are approaching Earth and it is up to these five to use the base to defend humanity.

There is also a brief side trip where Lund trips on to a ‘Matter Transmitter’ and gets sent down to a planet full of green people in togas and shower caps who want to sacrifice her, but this seems largely to be a way to have a traditional pulp action sequence more than anything else. In fact, for such a short film, there is enormous amount of time being wasted. Most egregious is a sequence where they are trying to find a cube to help them and spend ages sampling them all, only to have the real cube presented to them by the unconvincing robot of the base.

Wobbly robots and very unconvincing moons
Wobbly robots and very unconvincing moons

Although looks are not everything it has to be said this film looks cheap. Yes, the budget was smaller than Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. or Thunderbirds Are Go, but it is at a comparable level to Island of Terror and The Projected Man, neither of which look as bad as this (despite their many other faults). Even BBC episodes of Doctor Who or Out of the Unknown, which work on less than 10% of the budget for similar runtimes, rarely resemble this level of shoddiness.

The Torch of Doom vs. the Flappy Base
The Torch of Doom vs. the Flappy Base

At the end it looked like we could have a tense and exciting space battle, but instead we have the attacking ship opening to reveal a red torch light and the fortress flailing about like a drunken Octopus.

Finally, the attacking fleet is destroyed but not before the final ship comes to crash into the base. The team manage to use the Matter Transmitter to escape and land in the same archaeological dig the black cube was found by Burke’s uncle. However, not having passports, they are arrested by a local police officer. Given how much The Terrornauts tends towards terrible cliché, it, of course, ends on a bad joke from Mrs. Jones:

I never did much like foreign parts

Hilarious…

Naut The Best Film

Mrs. Jones brings lab techs tea
Why not have a cup of tea and read a magazine instead?

As you can probably tell, this is a poor picture. Logic is consistently tenuous. There is barely enough plot to fill a Ferman vignette, instead being reduced to run-arounds. If I didn’t know its origins, I would have assumed this was a fan’s attempt at a Doctor Who script that was rejected by the production team.

But I think its worst sin is it is just incredibly dull. I don’t think this is due to lack of incident, but it is not about anything. There are no themes or interesting ideas I can tease out, it is just some people from Earth put into space to fight invaders, which they do via following recorded instructions.

Even this might have been salvaged if we had good character work but they all as thin as cigarette cards. Burke is the hero who is always right and can apparently do anything. Lund is his assistant who does whatever he says or randomly gets into trouble so she can be rescued. Keller is there for Burke to talk to. Yellowlees is the fussy and cowardly comic relief. And Jones is the ordinary person who does not quite understand what is going on, also for humour value.

They do not have any growth or go on a real quest. There is no significant difference I can see between the people when they leave Earth and arrive back.

In the end I cannot give this production more than one star.

Future Terrors

2001 Set photo
Kubrick and Clarke, on the set of what we all hope is not The Terrornauts Raid Again

Coming out very soon (we are continually promised) is 2001, the collaboration between another British SF author and experienced British director. Will this end up meeting the same fate? We shall see…



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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 18, 1967] From Both Sides of the Curtain (New Writings in S-F 10 & Path into the Unknown)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The House That Socialism Built

21 years ago this month, Winston Churchill gave his famous lecture “The Sinews of Peace” at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Where he declared that:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Atlantic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent…this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of the permanent peace.

The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.

Today Europe remains divided not just down the middle, but with the Northern states kept out of EEC, and right-wing dictatorships remaining in place on the Iberian Peninsula. However, so far warfare has remained largely absent from the continent and the debates within the Soviet Union do not seem all that different from those in Britain.

New council estate in Basford, England
New council estate in Basford, England

In the USSR, it has been announced 22 million people moved into new communal housing, but many of these higher paid workers are opting for new resident owned cooperatives instead. Whilst in England council house building has reached its highest level at 364,000, but that has been equalled by the boom in private housing.

New Khrushchyovkas in Moscow
New Khrushchyovkas in Moscow

Yet even with all this house building too many ordinary people have trouble getting a decent place to live. In Russia the necessity for putting up so many “Khrushchyovkas” is due to housing having been so poor for so long. In a survey in 1957, only 1% of the structures in Leningrad were given the highest rating by building inspectors, with more than half given the lowest. Whist in Kiev over 70% were given the lowest rating. In the UK the problem of the current housing crisis is perfectly illustrated by the harrowing recent film, Cathy Come Home.

Similar debates seem to be taking place in other areas, whether it is in as wages, healthcare and food prices. More and more it seems that sabre rattling and arguments over the best system of government are not dominating the headlines but, instead, how best to balance equality and pragmatism in the different economic systems.

With this alignment between the countries seemingly appearing, it is worth comparing two new anthologies, one from the UK and the other of writers from the USSR:

New Writings in S-F 10

New Writings in S-F 10

Carnell does not cite a theme for this collection, instead talking about breadth of ideas on display. For me, however, these all seem to be dealing with perspective and the nature of reality in some form. Unfortunately, these are not the best examples of this type of work.

The Imagination Trap by Colin Kapp

This is a sequel to Lambda One (which was also adapted for Out of the Unknown’s most recent season) where we get to see Bevis and Porter work on a new problem in Tau Research. Apparently not put off by the problems they encountered last time, a project is going ahead for “Deep Tau”, to use the same principle used to travel through inter atomic space within the Earth, to allow for a form of interstellar travel.

After last time, why would they agree to an almost suicidal trip into Deep Tau? On the Lambda II no less? Because of the titular 'imagination trap', which says that an expert in a field will always be compelled to follow a problem, no matter how dangerous to themselves. This kind of logic is the sort of thing which annoys me about this story, it continues to throw scientific mumbo-jumbo and ideas at you for almost 50 pages that don’t actually hold up to any scrutiny and expect you to go along with it.

My esteemed colleague Mr. Yon liked the original story significantly more than I did so there is clearly a market for what Colin Kapp is trying to do. But for me I will only give it two stars.

Apple by John Baxter

As a result of an unspecified war, all humans are now really tiny. Billings is a Moth Killer who goes into the tunnels inside an apple to slay the insect.

These kind of perspective stories have been with us throughout science fiction’s existence. From Voltaire’s Micromegas, through A. Bertram Chandler’s Giant Killer to Doctor Who: Planet of the Giants. And whilst this is very descriptive, I don’t see what this adds to the millions of other tales of this type.

Two Stars

Robot's Dozen by G. L. Lack

Unfortunately, G. L Lack continues to live up to their name with another disappointing story. In epistolary mode, we learn that Arthur Willis of Bath hires a robot duplicate of himself to watch his house whilst he is on holiday. The robot apparently takes to staring at the neighbours and so Arthur is forced to hire the robot again to prove it was not him. However, the robot rather insists on staying.

An obvious tale where the ending can be seen coming from the first paragraph.

Two Stars

Birth of a Butterfly by Joseph Green

For a century, humans have been exploring the galaxy trying to find intelligent life without success. However, it is a child travelling with his parents that discovers a unique form of intelligent life, small sentient stars that seem to resemble butterflies.

This could easily have been unreadable, but it ends up being a fascinating look at first contact with a totally alien form of intelligence and a rather sweet set of family dynamics. If nothing else, a definite relief after the first half of this anthology.

Four Stars

The Affluence of Edwin Lollard by Thomas M. Disch

Mr. Disch’s recent trip to England certainly seems to have been a success in terms of sales, for here is yet another tale from him appearing in a British publication. Unfortunately for us, this is not one of his best.

We follow the trial of the titular Edwin Lollard, who has fallen in love with the idea of poverty and a simple life of reading. However, in an affluent society obsessed with consumption this is hard to achieve and has to go to great lengths to try to get it.

This is the kind of dystopic satire I would expect to read a decade ago. You can see echoes of it in Brave New World, The Midas Plague, Fahrenheit 451 and a dozen similar works. The twist in the tale and courtroom proceedings aren’t bad but I cannot give it more than two stars.

A Taste for Dostoevsky by Brian W. Aldiss

Always a delight to see something new from Aldiss as, even if not successful, it will usually be different. This is a very strange type of time travel tale where someone seems to be jumping between different bodies throughout history or into alternative histories. Or possibly he is just an actor getting so involved in his roles he cannot determine the difference between fact or fiction?

This is certainly interesting, but I am also not sure what to make of it. Possibly if I was more a fan of Dostoevsky and familiar with the Freudian analysis of the texts that it seems to draw from I would possibly understand better what Aldiss was trying to say. Add into that that his attempts to explore ideas of race in it end up coming off as clumsy rather than profound, it ends up being a more middling tale to me.

Three Stars

Image of Destruction by John Rankine

Dag Fletcher first appeared in the opening two volumes of New Writings, but his subsequent adventures have been published in novel format. This picks up some time later in the series where Dag is now the chairman of Northern Hemisphere Corporation and is doing more work from behind a desk. The Interstellar Three-Four, captained by Neal Banister, is sent to Sabzius, a planet where the Commissar has recently disappeared. In order to oversee the situation, Dag heads to Sabzius with a skeleton crew.

This is 47 pages long, but it felt to me like 300. The prose was like wading through treacle and the story just kept dragging on. This could have been the kind of tense political thriller I enjoy but it didn’t go anywhere interesting and I failed to see any point to it.

I found the original stories dull and old fashioned so have not bought any of the continuing tales. This has not changed my opinion on this series.

One Star

So not such a good score from the capitalist society. Let’s see if the communist one can do any better:

Path into the Unknown: the best Soviet SF

Path into the Unknown: The best Soviet SF

The Conflict by Ilya Varshavsky

In a society where intelligent robots are employed as nannies, Martha feels threatened that her son Eric seems to prefer the robotic helper Cybella.

This is the kind of satirical vignette you would see as a space filler in F&SF. Add in that it is all layered with messages about a woman’s role and maternal instincts, and I found this to be a very poor start to the anthology.

One Star

Robby by Ilya Varshavsky

Another android tale from the same author. Here the narrator relates how he was given a self-teaching robot, Robby, on his fiftieth birthday, which he tries to use for household chores. However, it proves too literal minded for the tasks, cleaning shoes with jam if not given exact Cartesian coordinates or being unable to divide a cake into three because of recurring decimals. As Robby learns more about humans, he becomes increasingly difficult to live with.

This is a slightly longer story than the previous piece but no better. It is an incredibly simplistic machine logic narrative, more one I would expect in a children’s comic strip than as a piece of adult science fiction.

One Star

Meeting My Brother by Vitaly Krapivin

Three hundred years ago the Magellan photon space cruiser, captained by Alexandr Sneg, set off for another star system hoping to find an earth-like planet. They were never heard from again and assumed to be lost.

One of Alexandr’s descendants, Naal Sneg, is an orphan who sees the ship returning. With time only passing at one tenth the speed in cosmic space, Naal hopes to meet his ancestor and gain a brother he never had.

This is a slow meditative story, told in multiple parts, covering different facets of the tale to uncover the whole truth. I really liked it, if Robby feels like a story from a children’s comic, this feels like a strong novelette from Impulse.

Four stars

A Day of Wrath by Sever Gansovsky

A secluded laboratory developed a new kind of creature, the bear-like Otarks. They have a high degree of logic and intelligence but lack compassion, so will think nothing of attacking children, if the risk is not high, or just eating each other when hungry. Journalist Donald Belty is sent to investigate these creatures and to see whether they qualify as human.

This is an odd story. It is quite an engaging piece as it goes along but I struggle to understand quite what the point of it is. A criticism of unfeeling science, a satire on capitalism, or just a supposition extrapolated out? Whatever it is, the ending left me feeling quite uneasy and I am not sure if the author intended that or not.

A low three stars

An Emergency Case by Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky

The Strugatsky Brothers will be familiar to long time journey readers as we have covered their material twice before. This is first of two tales dealing with alien life.

After dropping off supplies to Titan, Victor Borisovich discovers a fly on board their ship. Initially the crew are uninterested but when Malyshev, the ship’s biologist, recognises it has eight legs he realizes it is an undiscovered extra-terrestrial life form. Soon, though, the ship is overrun in these flies which seem to be resistant to insecticide. Can they contain or destroy them before the crew runs out of air?

Once you accept the unlikely life form they encounter, it is quite exciting monster science story that reminded me a bit of Vogt's Space Beagle tales. What lifted it up more is the excellent character work done, where each of the scientists has their own personality and are believable individuals in a small space of time.

A strong three stars

Wanderers and Travellers by Arkady Strugatsky

This is predominantly a conversational piece. Stanislav Ivanovich and his daughter Masha are marking Septapods, a type of freshwater cephalopod, with a supersonic tracking device to try understand their behaviours. They meet an astro-archaeologist, Leonid Andreevich, who tells them about the problem of “the Voice of Empty Space”, an impossible sound that is picked up by auto-wirelesses on space voyages.

I feel like there are some interesting ideas touched on here, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, except to suggest that the universe is perhaps illogical and unknowable. If that is the point, I believe it could be presented in more interesting ways than as a trialogue.

Two Stars

The Boy by G. Gor

A surprisingly intelligent schoolboy named Gromov writes the stories of the sole child on a long interstellar voyage. When these are read out to the class, all the other students highly entertained by them, but are they just fiction? Or do they have some connection to his father’s discoveries of alien artifacts.

This is an incredibly complicated piece of fiction involving narratives about narratives, theoretical physics, music, identity and perspective. And yet, it is also a story of friendship, where two lonely children form a bond. Really impressed with this and I hope more works from this author are translated soon.

Five stars

The Purple Mummy by Anatoly Dnepov

An interstellar signal has been decoded and used to reconstruct what appears to be the body of a woman albeit all in purple. The head of the Museum of Regional Studies in Leninisk comes to Moscow and shows the team holding the mummy that (apart from the colour) it is the mirror image of his wife. This appears to prove the theory that this signal came from a mirror universe of anti-matter, and it may also contain the secret of how to save his wife’s life.

As you might expect from the title, this reads like one of reprints from the Gernsback era you might find in Amazing or Famous these days. Even discarding how nonsensical it all is, no one’s reactions felt realistic to me and the plot with the illness is poorly handled.

One Star

Two systems, similar problems

Brezhnev Dancing
Brezhnev, dancing for joy at Soviet success

Whilst this represents an overall win for Soviet architecture, in this case, both collections have their highs and lows, and there are definite areas for improvement. We will have to see if the next releases from either the UK or the USSR can build better structures.



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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 18, 1967] Six!  Count them — Six! (February Galactoscope)

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by Gideon Marcus

Failing Fair

Three titles for you today across two books (reminds me of the old astronomical saw: "Three out of every two stars is a binary"). None of them are great, but one of them is surprisingly decent given the source.

Twin Planets, by Philip E. High

"Fast-paced, readable fun," pretty much describes everything Mr. High has written of late, and perhaps ever (my records only go back to 1961). His latest effort, Twin Planets, (from Paperback Library) does not break the mold.

It starts promisingly enough: A fellow named Denning is driving his car when it suddenly becomes very cold, the policemen are dressed quite oddly, and the sun is now a sullen orange orb on the horizon. Has he traveled to the future? Into another dimension?

Turns out, the answer is both. Earth has an analog that the natives call "Firma", with a slightly different history. Centuries ago, aliens appeared and froze the planet's rotation (with attendant momentum-related catastrophe). The world is now divided into a temperate zone, a hot zone, and a frigid region (where Denning had been transported).

Denning has a twin on Firma, name of Liston. Possessed of insatiable sexual desire that couples with his intelligence and strength, he is banished to one of the inhospitable zones early in the book, to be recruited by the resistance. Said resistance also taps Denning, who comes into his own superhuman powers–as well as a raging libido and attractiveness to women.

Turns out Denning and Liston are biological constructs, originally to be linchpins of the resistance, but by the end of the book free agents with a hankering to topple the aliens who run Earth from the shadows. Lots of running around, killing people, implied sexual exploits, and a happy ending.

This is a very old style of book. And while some of the ideas are quite interesting, for the most part, they are set aside for the action. Also, the competent women characters suffer for being hapless victims of their hormones, unable to resist the pheromones of their superhero companions. I raced through the first quarter of the book, but the last quarter took me several days, despite the novel's brevity.

Two and a half stars.

Envoy to the Dog Star, by Frederick L. Shaw, Jr.

Next up is Ace Double #G-614. Ace is known more for publishing "fast-paced, readable fun" than "thought-provoking classics" but you never know. After all, Tom Purdom's I Want the Stars and Terry Carr's Warlord of Kor both came out as halves of Ace Doubles.

Not so this first novel, I'm afraid. Mr. Shaw, whose name is completely unknown to me, starts off with a bang. If Anne McCaffrey wrote The Ship Who Sang, this book is the tale of "The Ship Who Barked". On board the inventively named "Spaceship-One" (presumably, Mr. Shaw is English) is a lone crewmember: a disembodied dog's brain. His mission is to scout out the Sirius system, which has been identified as a likely target to possess planets. Indeed, it has four planets, all identical copies. Only one of them is inhabited, by a Eloi-ish race of humans with Greek/Italian-esque names and blonde hair, who live symbiotically with a race of prehensile-handed dogs. Turns out the canines are the real power behind the throne (with truly groan-worthy names like "Chienandros" and "Perralto." Our hero, who calls himself "Ishmael", must work with them to secure colonizing rights while also delivering a message of warning to war-ravaged and overpopulated Earth.

There are things I liked about this book. Ishmael is a fun narrator, reminding me of Hank "The Beast" McCoy from Marvel's X-Men comic. The opening forty pages or so, before the ship gets to Sirius, are quite fun, indeed. The ship uses time travel as a space drive (letting the universe move underneath, as it were), which I've only seen once before, in Wallace West's The River of Time.

But the science is about thirty years out of date (planets formed by stellar collision, indeed), every gizmo is detailed for the pulp fans, and the setting and characters have as much subtlety as brutalist architecture.

Three stars for some vapid fun.

Shockwave, by Walt and Leigh Richmond

This is the one I was really worried about. The Richmonds, a married couple that (reportedly) collaborates telepathically, have heretofore been Analog exclusives. The best they've managed thus far are a pair of passable three-star shorts, the rest being bad to dreadful. And in contrast to the other three tales, it's the beginning that's discouraging. Terry Ferman ("Terran Freeman?") is an electrical engineering student who, upon twiddling with a certain radio transmitter, finds himself on a faraway planet. He is now a captive of a computerized jailer, who refers to him as a basic galactic citizen and impresses upon him a rudimentary knowledge of the star-spanning polity he is supposedly a member of. Terry is also given a set of nifty tools including a ray gun, X-Ray glasses, a pocket translator, and a compass. At this point, I was sure this was going to be some kind of interstellar spy story, thinly cloaked wish fulfillment for boys.

But as the book goes on, Terry's situation becomes more complex. He meets Grontag, a dinosaur-like alien, also a student of electricity, who was similarly summoned unwillingly. They befriend "Tinkan", a robot that has become independent of the computer and developed a will of its own. It becomes clear that some sort of catastrophe has befallen the galactic civilization, and the marooned team must figure out what happened, why, and who might be responsible.

It's a very technical story, with lots of doodads created by someone who clearly has a background in electrical engineering. The pacing is excellent, however, with each section more interesting than the last. The Richmonds also have interesting things to say about repressive civil relationships like slavery and marriage. After the slow start, I finished the book in just two sessions, which is saying something.

Three and a half stars.

Five out of Two


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

One of the little curiosities of the ease of getting American science fiction novels in Britain depends on whether they have a UK edition coming out.

If there is no UK publisher on the horizon it is a little harder to get hold of, but no one worries if a bookseller imports them. You may not be able to pick them up at WH Smith’s or your local library but most good booksellers with an interest in SF will probably be able to help you find a copy.

On the other hand, if it has a UK edition coming out, you will really struggle to get hold of an overseas version and have to wait for the local version to be produced. This is the case with both the books I am reviewing, and whilst I had a contact send me an early copy of The Einstein Intersection, I had to wait for The Revolving Boy:

The Revolving Boy, by Gertrude Friedberg

The Revolving Boy by Gertrude Friedberg

Thankfully, it is well worth the wait.

At the start of this book there is not much to suggest this is going to be science fiction. Yes, this is set very slightly in the future, but it is simply a slightly more conservative United States of the 1970s, not something requiring much imagination given signs of backlash like Republican gains in US midterms or Mary Whitehouse’s crusades over here. At first sight it appears to be about a good relationship between a mother and a child with autistic tendencies. The common depiction of autism in science fiction is often very negative.

Take, as an example, this passage from Disch’s recent Mankind Under Leash:

The nuts – in this whole cellblock you won’t find anything else. And these, I should point out, are only the worst, the most hopeless cases. ‘Autism’ is the technical word that the psychologists use to describe their condition.

Whilst in The Revolving Boy young Derv feels the need to spin around on occasion. His mother is willing to accept this as something he does. She only interferes when he is spinning on the stairs and so works for a compromise:

She told Derv in an offhand way that he must not spin on the stairs and why.
‘But what if I have to?’
Although she knew he thought of it this way, in terms of coercive psychological need, she was a little taken aback by the straightforward way he put it.
‘How many do you have to take?’
‘Just two on the stairs. I take another when I get outside.’
‘Then suppose you take the three when you get outside.’
‘All right,’ he said
It was as easy as that.

It shows such a mature and well-reasoned approach to a child with autistic tendencies. No suggestion it is caused by a ‘refrigerator mother’, not showing a complete inability to communicate with the outside world, but a child with a different perception and how you can work with them in a loving way to allow them to function in a world where most people do not have these tendencies. As someone who appears to have a lot of these tendencies, I was very heartened by this.

At the same time he makes friends with Prin, who is quiet and has perfect pitch. Together they are able to form a bond that allows them to connect in a world that can be hard for those that do not fall into patterns expected by wider society.

The source of science fictional content comes from the fact that Derv turns out to have been the first child born in space. When he was weightless and away from other signals he seems to have become connected to an electromagnetic signal from another solar system. As he gets older he finds himself leaning towards this signal whenever he is awake. This comes to the attention of Project Ozma who believe he may be the key to discovering extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Despite the concept of a child being able to point the direction for our radio telescopes, the whole story goes to great pains to appear realistic and make it seem less fantastical than most of what you would read in Analog or If.

But at its heart it is also a character story, the tale of him and Prin growing up. It is heart warming, clever and a real delight to read.

Five Stars

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

All of us here at Galactic Journey see Delany as one of the brightest talents currently writing science fiction, so it is with great anticipation we wait for his next novel. He began with writing his tales of a fantasy-tinged future Earth with The Jewels of Aptor and the Toron novels, but more recently has moved to outer space tales such as Babel-17. He seems now to have come back down to Earth but is also attempting to do something more ambitious than before.

Greek myths have been a regular source of inspiration for writers of the fantastic. The tale of Theseus and the Minotaur itself has been retold by authors as different as Jack Williamson and Thomas Burnett Swann. Here Delany blends in a number of Greek myths into this tale, but adds a kind of Ballardian spin to it, where our popular culture is seen just as much of a myth to these folks. With The Beatles being seen as a later example of the Orpheus myth and advertising slogans used as nuggets of wisdom at the start of chapters.

The Orpheus myth is probably the most central of the tales here, for Lo Lobey himself is a musician and his driving force is to save his beloved Friza from Kid Death. However, the way legends are treated in this book is fascinating, that there is not really a distinction between truth and fiction, and it is entirely possible for one to imitate the other. I can’t help but wonder if Delany has some familiarity with the ideas of C. S. Lewis but is choosing to apply them in a non-Christian context.

In this future, humans have all left the Earth and others are inhabiting it in the remains of humanity. We are introduced to this concept so casually I almost missed it when it is stated by PHAEDRA (a computer with the kind of silly reverse acronym people are fond of these days). It is an interesting concept that manages to at once be central to the story but also you could enjoy without knowing. For this is what Delany does, carefully layering understanding so it can be read in multiple ways, just like the myths that are being imitated.

For there is so much more in here than I have space to elucidate. Among others it touches on areas such as racism, gender, ESP, colonialism, the nature of truth and more besides.

I have seen Delany’s earlier works compared with the late great Cordwainer Smith’s writing. The Einstein Intersection, I would posit, is much more reminiscent of Zelazny. As such it is less accessible than The Ballad of Beta-2 but also more ambitious and thankfully succeeds.

Delany continues to be one of the brightest new lights of science fiction writing and this continues to reveal new depths to his talents.

Five Stars


by Jason Sacks

Sometimes Too Much Plot is Too Much

One of the things I love about Philip K. Dick’s novels is how they always seem to be about one thing but usually end up being about something very different. Usually his fake-out strategy works brilliantly, but in his latest novel, Dick seems to believe his own fake-out.

Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick

Counter-Clock World starts with an idea which could inspire a full novel just in its implications: What if time, somehow, started rolling backwards? How would living in a counter-clock world affect human relationships, our relationship with history, families, the economy, society? Would rebirth be a horror or pleasure? How would those who mourned the dead, maybe even moved beyond their mourning, handle the change? What would be the implications to a society if a specific person was reborn, a person who might be especially evil or especially good or just especially controversial?

These are all tantalizing questions, and Dick does explore most of them in this fascinating book. Of course, Dick being Dick, he explores many of them obliquely, in veiled allusions and small asides in dialogue. Far from making his ideas feel weaker, though, this commonplace element gives the book a naturalistic feel (as outlandish ideas often do in Dick novels) while also feeling profoundly strange.

I gotta say, there are also plenty of ridiculous ideas in this book, like how he shows cigarettes are smoked from stub to full cigarette (with the odor diffusing as the cigarette grows), or the idea that food is regurgitated and reconstituted into its source foods (okay, rather a disgusting idea), or how eventually everyone reverts to baby age and then has to crawl back into a womb and be absorbed into a body (a surprisingly moving scene in the book).

But there are also plenty of eerie moments in Counter-Clock.  As the book begins, Officer Joseph Tinbane is cruising past a cemetery when he hears a voice beckoning him from a grave. Landing, he discovers an old woman has woken up in her coffin and is begging for help escaping her home six feet underground. Dick quickly establishes this as a normal part of Tinbane’s job, as Dick relates this event often becomes an all-night ritual which requires enlisting the services of something called a Vitarium.

Thankfully, the officer knows a man named Sebastian Hermes, reborn himself and the owner of The Flask of Hermes Vitarium.

This being a Dick novel, rebirth hasn’t been an ideal experience for Hermes. Sebastian is even more neurotic than he was when alive, haunted by nightmares of his awakening in his grave and stuck in a complicated marriage with someone who doesn’t quite understand him. Hermes sort of dreams of emigrating from California to Mars, but he’s literally grounded on Earth, digging up the bodies of those who died, more or less systemically since the Hobart Effect struck and changed everything.

So I’ve given you an idea of this book, and its world, and yeah, you say, I’m in. I'll buy the book because this all sounds fascinating.

Hold off for a second before running to the paperback stands at your local Korvettes, because all my setup is kind of prologue.

A rare photo of Mr. Dick, his wife and child

What if I told you Dick’s main topic for this issue is the idea of what happens if a popular religious prophet is reborn, and the prophet is in opposition to an evil Library?

Yep, it’s a Philip K. Dick novel, so you gotta be ready for a swerve.

See, Dick’s attention is really on the recently resurrected body of the Anarch Thomas Peak, dead prophet and founder of the Udi cult. The Anarch is articulate, philosophizing from the likes of Plotinus, Plato, Kant, Leibnitz, and Spinoza.  Naturally, a group of fascist librarians hate the Azarch, and somehow the book descends into being a crazy oddball escape heist which involves LSD bombs, the slowing down of time, nuclear weapons striking a library, and the odd paradox of what happens when you kill someone who was already dead.

Yeah, Counter Clock World is more than a little crazy, which is no surprise really. What is surprising, though, is how Dick never quite gives this book the usual foundation in humanity most of his novels contain. This book lacks the warmth of Dr. Bloodmoney, or the existential horror of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer or the deep empathy of Martian Time-Slip. Instead we get an inelegant jumble which never quite lives up to the considerable potential of its amazing premise.

Three Stars

 



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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 10, 1966] Hot and Cold (December Galactoscope #1)

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But first, please read this brief interlude!

As you know, in addition to Galactic Journey, I also run Journey Press, devoted both to republishing classics discovered while on this trek through time, but also to publish new works of science fiction in fantasy that (I hope!) live up to the quality and tradition of the classic works we offer.

If anyone would enjoy these works, we know it will be you.  This holiday season, pick up a title or three from Journey Press!  It's the best present you can give yourself, a loved one…and us!


Gideon Marcus

Moon of Three Rings, by Andre Norton

Andre Norton has maintained a steady output of books, mostly adding to existing series like Witch World and Crosstime.  With Moon, she opens up an entirely new (at least to me) vista, and it's a beautiful view.

Krip Vorlund is a Free Trader, one of two merchant leagues with stops at a myriad of planets through the galaxy.  Moon takes place on Yiktor, a backwards world at the edge of known space, where Vorlund's ships makes planetfall.  There, in the trading town set up for star merchants, he encounters Maelen, member of the native Yiktor race, living among the more primitive human settlers. 

Maelen is a beast tamer, with a menagerie of disparate creatures that can make the performances on Hollywood Palace look like child's play.  Krip is enchanted, with the show and the showmaster, but this causes the spaceman to become thoroughly embroiled in a local political struggle with galactic ramifications.

Before Krip now lies imprisonment, physical and then mental as the only way to avoid capture by rival factions is to transfer his consciousness into the body of a native animal.  So begins the parallel journeys of Krip and Maelen, one to return to his original form, and the other to weave a destiny that allows the aid of Krip while betraying as few of her race's principles as possible.

The more I think about this book, the more I like it.  Both Krip and Maelen get equal time as viewpoint characters, the perspective shifting every chapter.  Their "voices" are distinct, Krip's being straightforward (if a bit formal) and Maelen's more abstruse (yet eminently readable), as befits an alien.  Any animal-lover will find this book compelling, as the actions and feelings of the various beasts are integral to the story.  Norton is particularly good at having two characters of different sexes forming a deep bond without being lovers. 

In true Norton style, she's also set things up for this to become a series.  I don't know if further adventures of Krip Vorlund and Maelen will be quite as compelling as their first (you'll understand why once you're done with this book) but I'll probably read them, nonetheless.

Four stars.


Kris Vyas-Myall

Saga of Lost Earths & The Star Mill by Emil Petaja

Emil Petaja Saga of Lost Earths & Star Mill

The return of Emil Petaja to science fiction was a delightful surprise to me. A writer from the pulp era who I had no memory of, produced one of my favourite novels of last year, Alpha Yes, Terra No!, along with a number of other strong pieces. So, when I heard he was doing a science fantasy series for Ace, you can be sure I picked them up.

Let us start with a quick summary of the context of these books. In the future, the world has eliminated violence through selective breeding, in order to avert yet another atomic war. In Saga of Lost Earths, a strange metal is found that appears to be causing destruction. Into this situation comes Carl Lempi who, according to Dr. Enoch, has the three characteristics required to face this new threat: 1. The capacity for violence, 2. A high level of extra sensory perception, and 3. A knowledge of Finnish and early legends.

In The Star Mill, we meet Ilmar, man who is rescued from an asteroid by a space crew and finds he has no memory of his life before. But then the space crew start dissolving around him. Is he a weapon designed to destroy humanity? Or its saviour from the approaching black storm?

These tales most remind me of Andre Norton’s adventures. Like in her recent work Moon of Three Rings, Petaja blends the kind of fantasy tale you would expect from Moorcock, Lieber or Jakes with well-conceived futures, without it being the Burroughs\Flash Gordon style of Sword and Wonder tales. A fusion of spaceships and sorcery that does not sacrifice either. Perhaps the best equivalent is Anderson’s The High Crusade. A clash of genres that avoids feeling anachronistic.

If there is one concern I have, it is the tendency, which does occur in a number of fantasy stories, to imply there is something magical about Northern European DNA. Whilst clearly stemming from fairy stories, this has two flaws; one, these kinds of myths exist within a number of cultures and there's no reason to assume that people of African descent have fewer myths and legends. Two, and more problematically, it obviously links into a kind of Nordic racial superiority. I do not assume this was the intent, but it is something that should be acknowledged, and of which other fantasy writers should be wary.

Also, like the aforementioned Norton tales, they contain solid character work and entertaining plots. But, at least for me, they also fail to rise above the level of escapist adventures. They are fun books that I will read once, enjoy, and probably never pick up again.

The next book in the series is scheduled for March and I am certainly going to be ordering my copy. After all, as Prof. Tolkien said:

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory.

And, by that measure, these are indeed glorious

A high three stars for each volume.


Jessica Dickinson Goodman

From Carthage then I came by Douglas R. Mason

The first opera written in the English language is called "Dido and Aeneas" by Henry Purcell, based on Vergil’s 19 BCE epic poem The Aeneid. First performed by an all-women company in 1689, it is a love story of equals: Dido, the African queen of Carthage and Aeneas, the erstwhile Trojan hero. In the final scene of the opera, Dido holds her best friend and sister Belinda’s hand as she sings what is known as Dido’s Lament, before climbing onto a pyre and setting it alight (it’s opera; it’s always this dramatic). Purcell’s Dido is a complete person: a ruler, a lover, a strategist, a flawed and tragic figure. Singing her lament was what made me fall in love with opera when I was 14, and the hope that Douglas R. Mason’s From Carthage then I came might include references to her was what made me pick up this book.

None of the women in Mason’s piece live up to Purcell’s Dido; when Tania Clermont dies by fire, she dies simpering and the narration swiftly focuses on her abuser's pain. All of Mason's women are poorly written and one-dimensional; incapable of forming strong bonds with other women and only existing in the negative space that the male characters permit them. I found it telling that in two separate scenes I was unable to tell if one of the women characters was unconscious or not, given how much the men around her were tossing her body around like a sack of potatoes (in one scene a man had knocked her out; in another she was theoretically awake). In From Carthage then I came, one male hero gropes a woman he is holding captive and forces her to sleep in his bed. The author makes clear we are to read this as romance.

The best thing about From Carthage then I came is its premise. The book opens on a prelude to revolution. For 7,000 years a pocket of humanity has been frozen inside of a climate-controlled dome as an ice age raged around them. Gaul Kalmer believes it is safe to leave, and is gathering a group to escape the mind-monitors and electric sun of Carthage to form a more natural colony called New Troy past the newly iceberg-free but still wine-dark Mediterranean Sea. But the weak writing fails to live up to the possibilities of the plot.

Instead of reading From Carthage then I came, let me recommend hunting for a recording of last summer's London Philharmonic’s performance of Dido and Aeneas at Glyndebourne, with the incredible Janet Baker as Dido. I promise it will transport you just as far as Mason’s piece promised to, contain just as many classical references as Mr. Kalmer tried to shoe-horn into his many speeches, and give you a newly rich appreciation for the now-Tunisian island of Carthage. I hear that Mason will be publishing more soon; let’s hope the next women he writes aren’t so lamentable.

Two stars.

(Did you remember to check out Journey Press? I promise our offerings as good as the best books reviewed here!)



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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 16, 1966] Is Censorship Heating Up? (Fahrenheit 451)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Once thought to have died after the Chatterley trial, it looks like the Obscene Publications Act has risen from its grave and is out for fresh blood. Its latest target? Hubert Selby Jr.’s controversial Last Exit To Brooklyn, which has finally made its way over to Britain.

Last Exit to Brooklyn
British Hardback edition from Calder and Boyars Ltd.

A favourite novel of beatniks like Ginsberg and Burroughs, it tells unvarnished tales of lives of the poorest in New York in rhythmic prose. I really liked it myself, but it was clearly going to provoke a response. Australia had already banned its import last year, and Anthony Burgess said “American books like Last Exit to Brooklyn…go about as far as fiction may be expected to go.”

Cyril Black, MP
Cyril Black, MP

What is perhaps surprising is it did not come through the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney general, but rather is a private prosecution by Cyril Black, MP for Wimbledon. A Conservative and strict Baptist, Black has recently spoken out against Premium Bonds, decriminalizing homosexual behaviour and changing Sunday trading laws.

The trial is set for next month but, whatever the result, the debate over what is allowed to be published continues. This makes a new film release well-timed, the adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:

A Metropolitan Setup

Ray Bradbury is probably the most popular living science fiction writer, with his works being adapted for numerous television shows and even being able to demand higher rates for them than contemporaries such as Asimov, Pohl or Wyndham. There has even been an unofficial television adaptation Fahrenheit 451 which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit. However, his feature film works have been limited to the monster films of the 50s. As such there has been much excitement around putting his only adult (non-fixup) novel on to the big screen.

Director Francois Truffaut
Director Francois Truffaut

This is not, though, an American production, rather the result of a hodge-podge group of Western Europeans. The film is directed by French New Wave figure Francois Truffaut (most famous for The 400 Blows) with a script by French Actor/Writer/Director Jean-Louis Richard (who previously worked with Truffaut on Soft Skin). Given that we have also recently seen Goddard’s Alphaville and Marker’s La Jetee, there appears to be something about Dystopic fiction that attracts the French New Wave (maybe we will see Claude Chabrol making a version of The Drowned World in a few years?).

Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago
Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago

Unlike these productions, however, this is a British film production, made at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, with the hottest (pun-intended) British actress of the moment, Julie Christie, playing both the leading women. Already known to British SF fans for her wonderful performance in A For Andromeda, she led two of the most acclaimed films of last year, Darling and Dr. Zhivago.

Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools
Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools

Opposite her is the similarly acclaimed Austrian actor Oskar Werner. After appearing in Tuffaut’s previous beloved production, Jules & Jim, he last year appeared in both The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Ship of Fools. Add to this an equally impressive supporting cast, we have a confluence of talent from disparate sources.

Into The Fire

aerials in opening titles
The unusual opening credits

Rather than going for a point-by-point comparison of novel to film, I want to largely consider it as a work in its own right. I will touch on some changes where they deserve analysis but let us start with what actually happens in this movie.

After the credits being read aloud over a series of vibrantly lit TV aerials we see a group of firemen travel out to a flat in what appear to be very modern tower blocks. However, there is no fire, instead they are raiding the property for books to burn. We learn that in this world reading is banned and the role of firemen is now to raid properties (largely with the aid of informants) for this contraband and then burn it.

Montag and Linda watching an intersoap

Werner plays Guy Montag, a fireman on his way to promotion. His wife Linda (played by Christie) seems to be mostly obsessed with the interactive soaps on the TV and is regularly taking high amounts of medication. On a train he meets Clarisse (also played by Christie) a teacher who questions the world around her.

Montag’s first taste of Dickens
Montag’s first taste of Dickens

One day, curiosity gets the better of him, and Montag takes a book and begins to read it. Fascinated, he starts stealing more and more. One day he has to go to raid Clarisse’s house and finds her family have a secret library. A woman, possibly related to Clarisse, chooses to burn with the books rather than leave.

Horrified, he meets with Clarisse, who tells him he can run to The Book People, but Montag says he wants to take down the system from within. Unbeknownst to him, Linda has informed on him, and the firemen go to burn down his house. They order him to burn all his books but he keeps one and burns the other firemen.

Clarisse and Montag become living books
Clarisse and Montag become living books

Eventually fleeing to The Book People, he discovers each of them memorizes one book and become the living text of it so it cannot be destroyed. He does so with the book he stole and remains among The Book People with Clarisse.

Mixed Messages

Soviet Workers Poster
Soviet Workers Poster

The first question that arises is what is Truffaut trying to satirize with this? When I first started watching I was instantly reminded of the posters of workers I have seen from the Soviet Union. And the end with The Book People brings to my mind Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, which survived Stalin’s censorship by by her teaching it as a spoken poem to her friends.

Montag's secret collection of books is burnt
Montag's secret collection of books is burnt

But then there are definite allusions to contemporary capitalist culture. The profusion of television aerials appearing on otherwise picturesque houses, for instance. Further to this point about the profusion of television is the character of Linda, the soap obsessed and heavily medicated housewife. This is a dig not only at the prevalence of television, but the current phenomenon of the isolated housewife. In addition, in the shots of books burned, a number of works are shown that have only recently come out of censorship in our world.

f451 Burning

Additionally, the self immolation scene will surely remind most contemporary viewers of the death of Thich Quang Duc, who set himself on fire protesting the treatment of Buddhists in South Vietnam.

To add to the confusion, there is a reactionary point present here. When Montag and Beatty walk around the secret library, Beatty tells him that this all started because people were getting offended, citing complaints by minority groups about Nietzsche and Defoe (also including a copy of Mein Kampf in shot). This is further enforced by the TV screen, where the host is at one point emphasizing the importance of tolerating minorities and making sure they do not feel excluded. As a tool of the repressive state Montag and Clarisse are apparently fighting against, it seems logical that we are meant to take their pronouncement as wrong.

f451 hitler mein kampf
Sometimes this film is subtle. At other times… less so

I find this is a bit of an odd statement (and I found it so when I read it in Bradbury’s novel as well) as I have not come across the NAACP or the Anti-Defamation League leading the charge of banning books. Instead, it has seemed to be conservatives (like Cyril Black) who have been leading the charge out of prudishness or political beliefs.

Perhaps it is best to see it as a general libertarian argument about censorship coming from all sides and the need to be watchful for it. However, this does make the point more of a blunt one. And this bluntness extends to other areas of the production.

Translation Errors

Montag attending the unconscious Linda
Montag attending the unconscious Linda

I have heard much about Julie Christie’s performance in this film being poor, but I would push back on that somewhat. I think she is fine in the role of Clarisse, but for Linda she works hard to differentiate her characterization, playing it in a more heightened manner. This does make sense for Linda’s role in the story but it just seemed out of place as everyone else is so incredibly sedate.

One other complaint is that the picture is dull. I found it engaging enough, but I can see where this is coming from. Partially, I think this is the sedateness in performance I just mentioned along with Truffaut’s restrained film making. Against beautiful scenery, Fahrenheit 451 can feel more like looking at a painting than a motion picture. Partially it is trying to spend much of the time conveying the experience and the joy of reading, which can mean many scenes of people just reading books.

Then it is not aided by some of the dialogue, which can feel very unnatural at times. Apparently, this is the result of Truffaut not being strong in English and so some elements did not translate well.

A Case of Self-Censorship?

Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?
Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?

One change from the book that I feel needs to be called out is the book that Montag memorizes — literally becomes — at the end. In Bradbury’s novel it is the Book of Ecclesiastes, but in the film it is Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The change to a horror collection likely makes it more acceptable to a speculative fiction audience, but it is also a less interesting choice. Ecclesiastes, as many critics have noted, highlights the parallels between Montag and Solomon. If there is similar significance to Poe’s tales I cannot appreciate it.

Removing the references to the Bible means the filmmakers did not have to entertain complaints that might have arisen from both sides of the religious debate. A holy book at risk of being burnt that may upset some religious people, whilst having the person in pursuit of knowledge come to it through a book of belief might upset atheists.

But in a story about censorship, making a decision that is less brave feels disappointing and weakens the message of the film.

Accentuate The Positive

Fahrenheit 451 Book Cover

I have been predominantly critical so far, but it should be said there are some great parts to it.

Whilst a little confusing at times, the world Truffaut depicts is vivid and extremely intriguing. There are many great moments of the uncanny that are able to unsettle us. For example, the women who believe only “other people’s husbands” die in wars, or the neighbour who notes that Clarisse’s family are not really like them.

A commuter, desperate for connection?
A commuter, desperate for connection?

Many of the shots in it are also beautiful. One that stands out in my mind is when we see people on the monorail just silently running their hands over their bodies, as if they are looking for a connection they cannot find.

And the plot itself is engaging and pulls you through. So overall it is a good film. It is just it comes so close to being something great and reeks of a missed opportunity.

A high three stars

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Comics

[June 26, 1966] Justice League of Britain (New British Superhero Comics)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

World Cup Stadium
Wembley, one of the main venues for the world cup matches.

World Cup excitement seems to have hit fever pitch in the UK. For the first time the international tournament is to be held in England and even non-sports fans, like me, are finding themselves caught up in the drama.

Pickles The Dog
Pickles the Dog being rewarded for the return of the World Cup trophy

It has certainly been an eventful run up. Whether it be the trophy being lost and then found by a dog, or the CAF refusing to play over the number of pre-agreed qualifiers, it seems like there is always a new twist in the story.

Whilst, obviously, I am hopeful that England will do well, I personally expect it will be West Germany that will retake the title. However, the Soviet Union are not ones to count out, with a lot of expectation for them to do very well this time around.

World Cup Willie
World Cup Willie plays a football match against The Martians

There are the even adventures of the mascot World Cup Willie appearing in TV Comic. This is not the only change happening right now in the world of British comics.

The Next Shift

Sometimes it seems the only constancy in British comics is change. Whilst there are some long running strips like Garth, Dan Dare and Roy of the Rovers, the contents of most magazines are largely revised every few years, whilst new comic books spring up and others merge.

Vic Gunn Final Strip

Recent excellent new publications Ranger and Champion are both coming to an end, being incorporated into Look and Learn and Lion respectively. Whilst in Lion itself, the excellent long-running dystopian series, Vic Gunn, has been wrapped up, with Emperor Rudolph imprisoned in exile and democracy restored to Britain.

But rather than talk about what is disappearing I want to talk about a new trend that seems to be appearing. The return of British superheroes.

Super Absences

Captain Universe Electroman Ace Hart Comic Covers
Just a few of the many short-lived British superhero comics, with plenty of WHAM! for your sixpence

Following the arrival of American superhero comics on British shores (and their subsequent disappearance) there was short lived explosion British superhero comics. However, most did not last more than a few issues.

Marvelman Family Marvelman Family Young Marvelman Covers
Some of the Marvelman titles

One of the few that stuck around was Mick Anglo’s Marvelman. Starting in 1954 , it was an intentional copy of Captain Marvel, designed to continue after the collapse of Fawcett comics in the US. However, even this ceased publication in 1963.

So, what remained of these kinds of marvels? Whilst British adventure comics moved to a mix of War, Crime, Sport, Science Fiction and Spy Stories, there are some which border on the superheroic.

The Steel Claw
The Steel Claw’s power, becoming invisible via electrocution!

The biggest are more anti-heroes than heroes. Louis Crandell is The Steel Claw, who after he had a series of accidents, became able to turn invisible if electrocuted. After originally becoming a criminal for a time, he has now begun to work for The Shadow Squad of the British secret service. Another is The Spider, a technologically advanced supervillain, who often battles other violent supervillains but more for control than out of a sense of altruism. Neither strip feels much like a typical American style superhero tale.

The Iron Man
Robert – The Iron Man surviving ray gun attacks

There are also some incredibly powerful robot titles such as Robot Archie and The Iron Man. In these the robot hereos will sometimes battle supervillains and display unusual powers.

Brassneck
Brassneck – “The funny adventures of a metal schoolboy”

However, these feel as much science fiction and colonial adventure tales as superhero stories. Also, robots are generally a pretty common feature of British comics, even starring in schoolboy humour series, like The Tin Teacher or Brassneck.

Kelly's Eye
Kelly demonstrating his invincibility by smoking a stick of dynamite like a cigar.

The closest hang-overs are probably Kelly’s Eye and Garth. In the former, Kelly has an amulet that makes him invulnerable while wearing it, allowing him to do outrageous deeds such as sitting on a lightning rod for charity. The stories are fairly repetitive and dull though, as they have to keep finding excuses to lose the eye temporarily, as a way of maintaining the tension.

Garth
Garth uses his sword to fight a sea monster on an alien world

In the latter, Garth is sometimes referred to as a superhero due to him being extremely strong, but his adventures tend to be more cosmic, much closer to a Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers character than Superman or Green Lantern.

Whilst there a few that could count, this set would make a very paltry Justice League of Britain. But we have just recently started to see the arrival of a new wave of British superheroes, who I am going to attempt to match with their American counterparts.

New Heroes

Smash Ads for Batman and Hulk
Ads for Batman and The Hulk comic strips in Smash!

Smash! comic was designed to be primarily another humour comic building off the success of superstar artist Leo Baxendale’s Wham!, combining cheap parodies like The Man from B.U.N.G.L.E. and Danger Mouse, with rip-offs of D. C. Thompson characters such as Bad Penny and The Swots and the Blots. But recently there has been more of a shift. First off, they have started reprinting US superhero comics which are hard to come by on this side of the Atlantic. Secondly, they have also produced their own superhero strip, Rubber Man:

Britain’s Elongated Man – The Rubber Man

The Rubber Man

Cursed by an Indian Fakir, Jim Hollis finds himself able to stretch himself like rubber. The series has only just started but seems to be following the standard superhero formula, as we follow Jim becoming Rubberman and facing off against Jonas Sleech, a super strong villain.

The Elongated Man

Apparently, these kinds of stretchy superheroes have been common in the US since Plastic Man appeared in the 1940s. However, I am reminded of the character I am most familiar with, National Comics Elongated Man, who appears in the pages of The Flash, with similar powers and even a similar look.

Britain’s Hourman – Thunderbolt The Avenger

Thunderbolt The Avenger

Mick Riley is a police constable considered too wimpy by his colleagues and consigned to desk duty. When escorting a Professor Markham he is given a wristwatch will give him a wide range of superhuman abilities but only for a period of 2 hours. With it he adopts the secret identity of Thunderbolt, a masked superhero.

Hourman

Thunderbolt seems most analogous to Hourman, recently revived in Showcase. He has his own source of power which gives him superhuman abilities for an hour. I would not be surprised if he was an inspiration on the Thunderbolt strip.

Britain’s Mera – Marina Girl of the Sea

Marina

Marina Girl of the Sea is a prequel to the Stingray TV series run in the Lady Penelope comic. Ostensibly we are told this will be the story of how the titular Marina became non-verbal, but it is more of a fantasy undersea epic about the Princess of Pacifica dealing with an invasion of her kingdom.

Mera

It could be argued whether this counts as a superhero tale, but I am definitely reminded of Mera in the Aquaman comics. These both share a sense of adventure and the mix of fantasy and undersea politics.

Britain’s Atom – The Mini-Men

The Mini-Men

The two Mini-Men are secret agents Pete Stevens and Tim Bailey, shrunk by shrinking gas to only two inches. They are sent into Scarvia to rescue Professor Hannah from the dictator general Borgos, who is forcing him to work on deadly mechanical rodents.

Atom

These two bring to mind National Comics' own shrinking hero The Atom. Although he tends to be more focused on crimes than spy missions, these kinds of scientifically focused tales are very much part of his repertoire.

Britain’s Kid Flash – Billy Whizz

Billy Whizz

More of a humour strip than a straight superhero adventure, Billy Whizz follows the comical antics of an incredibly fast boy dealing with ordinary life and its travails.

Kid Flash

Whilst he is slightly older, I am definitely reminded of the Wally West as Kid Flash, appearing in back up strips in some issues of The Flash. These have often emphasized his youth and sometimes show him dealing with real-life problems in the midst of heroics.

Britain’s Beast Boy – The Amazing Jack Wonder

Jack Wonder

Jack Wonder is the result of another scientific experiment. The evil scientist Varan uses him as a guinea pig and the result allows Jack to transform into any object, whilst still retaining his sentience. As a “freedom loving adventurer”, he uses his power to fight the evil dictator Quantro.

Beast Boy

Jack Wonder most reminds of The Doom Patrol’s Beast Boy. Rather than being able to transform into any object, Beast Boy can transform into any animal. Both also have rather a great sense of fun and make their adventures a joy to read.

Britain’s Thor – The Phantom Viking

Phantom Viking

New magazine Champion has produced some really innovative strips such as Return of the Stormtroopers and Hunters Without Guns. One less inventive creation is The Phantom Viking. Here mild-mannered school-teacher Olaf Larsen discovers an ancient Viking helmet. When he puts it on, he transforms into a superhero with superhuman strength and the ability to fly. He decides to use this power to confront evil.

Mighty Thor

Anyone vaguely familiar with North American comics will probably be aware of how similar this is to the Marvel character of Thor. In fact, the Marvel readers I have shown the strip to have commented how much it looks like they resemble Jack Kirby’s illustrations. But then, I guess if you are going to copy, why not copy from the best?

Britain’s ???? – Sugarman

Sugarman

Finally, from the unoriginal to the decidedly unique, this one coming from The Long-Hair Times, the recently launched alternative magazine filled with discussions of drugs and sex. In the centre of it we have the comic strip adventures of Sugarman. Here journalist Brad Calworthy goes into a fashionable boutique to try to find some hip new clothes. After ingesting a sugar cube left over from the night before he finds himself as Sugarman travelling through the cosmic consciousness. At the same time, we learn of an evil plan being brewed by Harry The Nit (who appears to be modelled on Harold Wilson) and his secretary (who seems to be Charlie Brown from the Peanuts strip).

I am not sure what to compare this to as it is probably the most bizarre use of the comic book format I have ever seen. Also, it is hard to get a handle on where it is going when I have only been able to acquire one issue of The Long-Hair Times so far. Perhaps more will be revealed as future publications come out? Alternatively, it could just be a single piece of bizarre satire, but still an engagingly made one.

Super Staying Power?

Justice League of America

With these new heroes, I am sure Britain is much safer against alien super menaces, not just having to rely on Dan Dare, Jeff Hawke and other space pilots. The question remains whether these heroes will stick around in these pages or disappear as we get more of the American originals arriving?

For now, I will keep reading both the import and homegrown caped crusaders.

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Book, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 12, 1966] Which Way to Outer Space? (New Writings In SF 8)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Space has been big news in the British press recently. Not the current struggles of America’s Gemini-9 link-up, but rather the saga of the UK’s presence in the ELDO.

ELDO logo

The European Launch Development Organization was formed by a treaty signed in 1962 between Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands for the development of a three-stage rocket launch for satellite use (you can read an excellent report Kaye Dee did on the project two years ago). However, the new British Labour government has been unhappy with the increasing costs and with the fact that Britain was paying around 40% of the cost rather than investing in its own rocket program, like some of the other nations have been.

The issue apparently came to a head when estimates for the Europa 1 launcher had risen to £150m, with no expectation of much practical use before 1969. For the last week negotiations had been happening feverishly to try to come up with a solution, with concerns that Britain would have no involvement in space in the future and the whole Eldo project could end up being scrapped.

ELDO launch brochure
Brochure for the upcoming Europa 1 launches from Woomera

Thankfully, a solution has been found. Britain will still be involved but their share of the cost will be reduced to 27%, whilst other countries shares increasing to meet this shortfall, making the payments between the largest countries more equitable.

New Writings in SF 8

Space is also the main theme of this quarter’s New Writings anthology, with new angles used to look at the familiar subject.

New Writings in SF8 Cover

Before we start on the stories, can we address the fact that these Dobson hardbacks are incredibly ugly to look at? They are just the same image and format reproduced in different colors each time. The Corgi paperback editions all have much more attractive covers which are likely to intrigue the reader:

Covers for New Writings anthologies 1, 2 & 3 in paperback from Corgi
The first three New Writings anthologies in paperback from Corgi

Could the publishers please make more effort? Or at least give us some variety after two years of the same dust jacket?

Anyway, on to the stories, let us see what Carnell’s crew comes up with:

The Pen and the Dark by Colin Kapp

We have the return of Kapp’s Unorthodox engineers for a third installment (one in Carnell’s New Worlds and the other in New Writings 3). These stories seem to have fans enough to encourage more tales in this world, although I have personally not been enamored by what has been presented so far.

This time the team go to investigate a strange phenomenon on the planet Ithica. An alien vessel had appeared there, then vanished, leaving a mysterious pillar of darkness. The whole area appears to defy their understanding of physics and so the team must investigate further.

I have read some people find the stilted, unnatural dialogue in this series as a great way to give his world depth. To me it is just irritating, as it does not stray far enough from our own language to read as much other than wooden. This was also compounded for me by the fact that it is filled to the brim with scientific jargon I struggled to understand. I have a suspicion it may have been made up, as they say at the end:

And even if they’d tried to tell us, I doubt our capacity to have understood. Try explain the uses and construction of a Dewar flask to an ant – and see who gets tired first.

However, what I did appreciate was the atmosphere of adventure into the unknown he creates which dragged me along this obscure journey. Perhaps more one for the Niven fans out there?

Three stars

Spacemen Live Forever by Gerald W. Page

Page is a new writer to me but has apparently had a couple of pieces published in the American magazines. Here he produces a very grim take on the long intergalactic voyage.

Torman Graylight is first officer on a ship transporting a sleeping population to a new planet. He is the only person awake apart from second officer Kelly. But when Kelly dies in an accident, Graylight’s loneliness gets the better of him and he decides to wake one of the sleepers. But will this be enough for the two of them to survive the years of travel through the void of space?

Whilst these kinds of grim nihilistic tales are not generally to my taste, I do appreciate the skill with which he presents the atmosphere, giving us a real sense of hopelessness and isolation.

Four Stars

The Final Solution by R. W. Mackelworth

Mackelworth also serves up a grim vignette, this one on the inherent self-destructiveness of fascism. In this future, human racial supremacists (closely modelled on Nazis) encounter another species with similar ideology on The Rose World. They decide to do a series of tests to determine racial hierarchy.

Even though short it is a very poignant and necessary piece on the ease with which militarism and racism can take over a society. The only parts that stop me from giving it a full five stars are that some of the elements (e.g., calling the alien leader Slan) and the ending make the story a little too explicit, but it is still a very strong short.

A high four stars

Computer’s Mate by John Rackham

Captain Sven Soren is piloting the Stellar One through the gaps between atoms as a means of breaching light-speed, with the first attempt to Vega. To achieve this, they need a massive computer to control the ship’s complex mechanisms. Coming with it is Grant Wilson, whose job is to care for the machine and act as the link between crew and computer.

Their first “star-jaunt” is a success, with them finding an Earth style world and its inhabitants. However, the crew are distrustful of Wilson as he himself acts like a computer and are unwilling to heed his warnings of the dangers ahead.

I have decidedly mixed feelings about this piece. Whilst it is nice to see a story about a mentally disabled person (particularly where he gets to be the hero, rather than a victim) the abuse of the rest of the crew because of his differences still feels out of place. There are also large sections which are just philosophizing on the nature of life and humanity, which can be interesting at times but often seem to be used at the expense of the women crew members. And whilst it is nice to see multiple women involved in spaceship operations, they are not really shown to do much that is positive.

I think I will go straight down the middle and give it three stars.

Tryst by John Baxter

On the outer reaches of an Asimov-esque galactic empire, there is a barren, nearly forgotten colonized world called Dismas. their only real link with the central imperium is an annual ship sent to help support the colony and bring back any saleable merchandise.

However, on this shipment all the boxes of equipment sent instead contain boxes of rose petals and the new machines are made from paper and foil. Even the ship in orbit is mysteriously deserted. The young rebellious Nicholas is sent to take the ship back to Centre and find out what has happened.

This is a thoroughly sensory story, beautifully described with a real sense of wonder and melancholy. Unfortunately, the ending was a bit of a disappointment for me and the only thing keeping it from a full five stars.

Four stars

Synth by Keith Roberts

And of course, at last we come to the obligatory Keith Roberts tale! This time making up the final third of the anthology. However, this piece does not seem to have any relation to the space theme of the rest of the book, rather being one of artificial intelligence.

In the twenty-second century, Megan Wingrove is named as a co-respondent in a major divorce case, between famous painter Henry Davenport and his wife Ira Davenport, with it being claimed Megan had an affair with Henry whilst working as their maid and Ira’s companion. What makes this case unusual is that Megan is a synth, a kind of advanced robot with an organic skin and muscle structure.

As well as seeking damages for mental anguish, Ira wants to have Megan destroyed for being dangerous and behaving immorally. We observe the case unfolding as they debate as to whether or not it is possible for a human to have a sexual relationship with a synth and whether a synth can be deemed to be responsible.

I was initially cynical that Keith Roberts would be able to do this kind of tale justice but he manages to produce both a really tense courtroom drama as well as delving into questions of consent and love. This story manages to be applicable to real life (you could see the same questions emerging in a similar situation with a domestic servant) whilst also being distinctly science fictional. He gives more thought to what it would mean for human emotions and longings to hit up against our technological capabilities than I can think of in any similar story.

I am as surprised as anyone to find myself giving a Keith Roberts story a full five stars!

Back to Earth

Readjusting their focus back to traditional science fictional subjects and having a nice mix of new and old talents has really brought out the best in Carnell’s anthology series. Here they put new perspectives on these subjects and come out with a marvelous selection. Even the stories I didn’t like as much I think may have more to do with my personal foibles than the quality of the writing.

Hopefully, this can continue in issue #9 and not regress to the poor state of affairs we saw in the prior collection.

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