There’s trouble brewing in the east. The border between the Soviet Union and China has long been a point of contention, going back over 100 years when the Czars imposed a border treaty on a weakened imperial China. All the socialist brotherhood in the world wasn’t enough to fix the problem in the post-War years (admittedly, the Nationalist government complicated things), and things haven’t gotten better since the Sino-Soviet split.
An agreement was almost reached 1964, but some impolitic comments by Mao got out and prompted Khrushchev to block the deal. Sino-Soviet relations got very tense during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia last summer, and the Chinese have been poking at the border, seemingly trying to get the Soviets to overreact.
The chief hot spot has been a small island in the Ussuri river claimed by both sides. Called Chenpao by the Chinese and Damansky by the Russians, it’s only 0.29 square miles; that’s a little over 185 acres or 17.5 American football fields. On March 2nd, a Chinese force surprised (or ambushed, depending on who you ask) a Soviet force on the island. After fierce fighting, both sides declared victory and withdrew. On the 15th, the Chinese shelled the island, pushing the Soviets back, but the afternoon saw a Soviet counterattack with tanks and mechanized infantry, which drove the Chinese off the island. The next day, the Soviets returned to recover their dead, which the Chinese allowed, but when they tried to recover a disabled T-62 tank (one of their newer models) the day after that, they were driven off by Chinese artillery. On the 21st, the Soviets sent a demolition team to destroy the tank, but the Chinese drove them back and recovered the tank themselves.
A map showing the location of Chenpao/Damansky Island
China is reportedly ignoring diplomatic overtures by the Soviets, and the situation remains tense. There are signs that China is preparing for a potential invasion by the Soviets, but the U.S.S.R. seems less inclined to escalate. It’s easy enough to want to sit back and watch a couple of powers hostile to the West fight, but both sides have the Bomb, and even a limited nuclear exchange could have severe consequences for the northern hemisphere.
Chinese soldiers pose with their captured Russian tank
Confronting the past
Though set in the future, most of the stories in this month’s IF have characters dealing with the events of the past. Or even experiencing them. But first a word about the art.
The cover illustrates Groovyland and is credited as courtesy of Three Lions, Inc., but see below
From what I can find out, Three Lions is a photo agency. If you want a picture of a boy eating ice cream or someone famous (they have a large collection of JFK photos from before he ran for president), they’ll license one to you. Apparently, they’re branching out into art. This is a reasonable illustration for the Bloch story in this issue, and I suspect Bloch used it as inspiration for his story. However, it was originally done by Johnny Bruck for the German magazine Perry Rhodan #216. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Bruck’s work has been repurposed many times as cover art for Amazing and Fantastic. I hope Galaxy Publishing isn’t going down the same road.
Here’s the original art by Johnny Bruck.
Groovyland, by Robert Bloch
An out of work screenwriter runs into a young woman at the employment office who offers him a place to stay. On the way back to her place, they hit a little green man, who says he’s here to conquer the world. When they find out he can replicate any song he hears once, including harmonies and instruments, they and their housemates offer to help him. Things kick off at the titular Groovyland, a theme park in the desert west of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, everybody has their own agenda.
The entrance to one of Groovyland’s main attractions. Art by Gaughan
Humor is subjective, and I said in the teaser last month that I find Bloch’s humor to be hit or miss. Never before have I read a story, even a much shorter story than this, where almost every paragraph expects a rimshot. And the paragraphs that don’t want a rimshot are more than made up for by those that want multiple rimshots. Some of the satire works, a couple of the band names are mildly amusing, and there’s a decent story in there somewhere, but it’s all drowned out by jokes that deserve a chorus of boos and a hail of rotten vegetables.
Barely three stars.
If… and When, by Lester del Rey
This month, del Rey looks at the way the growth of scientific knowledge has gradually depopulated the science fiction solar system. In doing so, he also looks at the sort of things life needs to flourish, not just air and water, but energy as well. Luckily, it’s almost certain that life exists somewhere in the galaxy.
Aboard a generation ship on its way to a distant star, something went horribly wrong (as things tend to in science fiction stories) and the personalities of various crew members that had been transcribed in to the ship’s computers fought a war among themselves. The people of Sinus B only have contact with the personality of Captain Gerlik who is mad, but keeps them alive. Now Pryboy Thorp finds himself making a perilous journey to the Nose Cone, for what reason he isn’t sure.
Pry makes a mad dash past a pairbot under the mad captain’s control. Art by Fedak
MacApp is a pretty good writer, and stories like this make me regret all the time he wasted on those awful Gree stories (some of which actually weren’t bad, and there weren’t anywhere near as many of them as loom in my memory). This is one of his better tales. Its biggest flaw is the description of the ship; I never felt like I understood how things were laid out. However, that doesn’t detract much from the enjoyment of the story.
Spork is a human raised among the alien Ayor, whom he guided to a new way of living in the previous story. The crash of a ship bearing other humans leads to the Ayor exploring their solar system and encountering a grave danger on one of the inner planets.
Spork and one of the Ayor have lost their ship. Art by Reese
The adventures of Spork continue, and it looks like there’s more coming. The comparison to Tarzan is inevitable, but it’s Tarzan written by A.E. van Vogt in one of his more esoteric moods. If that sounds interesting to you, you might enjoy it. Unfortunately, neither of those things appeals to me very much, the combination even less so.
A low three stars.
Destroyer, by Robert Weinberg
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride again, and Destruction is their fifth. Or is that an illusion created to keep the mind of a man implanted into a killing machine sane and functioning?
Making his first professional sale, Bob Weinberg is an active fan with a special interest in the pulps. You may have encountered the reader’s guides he created last year for the works of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. His freshman effort feels more like Zelazny than the pulps, but there’s a bit of Howard woven in there, too. It’s a good start, and I look forward to more from him.
In Part 1, dreamer Tamisan took Lord Starrex and his cousin Kas into a dream based on an alternative version of the history of their world. Unable to break the dream without both companions, she found Starrex, but now Kas is not where they expected to find him. She will have to enter a dream within a dream, in the hope of getting them all home.
Starrex fights to keep Tamisan safe while she tries to break the dream. Art by Adkins
I said last month that I’m not a fan of this kind of story, and this didn’t do anything to change my mind. It’s not Norton; give me some Time Traders or the Solar Queen, and I’ll happily read it. Even so, this is objectively not one of her better works. It’s never made clear whether they’re in a dream or have slipped into a parallel world, and the answer to that question has a big effect on the meaning of the ending. At least, apart from that issue, Norton writes well and entertainingly.
A low three stars.
Authorgraphs: An Interview with Lester del Rey
This month’s interview must have been easy to get, since del Rey is right there in the office. He expounds on his career, science fiction in general, critics, TV and movies. But Lester, you’re too young to be such a curmudgeon.
Three stars.
Portrait by Gaughan
Summing up
IF continues rolling down the middle of the road. Even that’s shaky. The three longest pieces are a low three stars at best. At least we got a good, if not great, MacApp story and a very promising new writer, if he’s not another one-shot wonder as so many of the IF firsts have been.
A new Reynolds novel could go either way, but that title invites comparisons to Heinlein.
When the Indian subcontinent gained independence, the Muslim and Hindu regions went their separate ways, contrary to the hopes of Gandhi. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, and there have been several conflicts between India and Pakistan over the border. But there is another problem which is beginning to make itself felt.
There are two Muslim regions of the subcontinent separated by India, and so Pakistan is split into East and West Pakistan—but unlike East and West Germany, they are a united country. The west comprises the Punjab and points west to Afghanistan, while the east is made up of eastern Bengal and the Ganges delta. West Pakistan holds a majority of the population and almost all of the political power.
East Pakistanis have felt increasingly marginalized in the twenty-two years since independence. As an example, the only official language is the western Urdu, which uses the Arabic script, while Bengali, with its own script and long literary history, is ignored. Civil unrest in the east has grown, led by the Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. They aren’t asking for full independence, merely autonomy with Pakistan becoming a federation of two nations with joint defense and foreign policy.
President Ayub Khan’s rule is becoming increasingly shaky. It is widely believed that the 1965 election was fraudulent and he actually lost. The military now supports Zulifikar Ali Bhutto, and there have been massive student protests in the last couple of years. Ayub Khan thought he had a way to regain support, but it seems to have blown up in his face.
Ayub Khan greets LBJ in Karachi in 1967.
In January of last year, the government announced they had uncovered a plot for the secession of East Pakistan with the help of India. Over a thousand people were arrested, among them Sheikh Mujib. Originally, the plan was for a court-martial, but President Khan later opted for an open trial, perhaps thinking he could move public opinion his way before next year’s elections. As a result, the number of accused was reduced to 36.
The trial was set to begin in Dacca on February 6th, but public unrest resulted in a delay. Then on the 15th, Sergeant Zahurul Haq was shot and killed in his prison cell. When word got out, East Pakistan exploded. The rioters tried to set fire to the State Guest House where the judges and chief prosecutor were staying. The officials escaped, but some of the evidence was destroyed. A week later, the government dropped all charges, and the prisoners were released.
It’s a huge embarrassment for Ayub Khan, and it’s hard to see how he survives this politically. Meanwhile, Sheikh Mujib and the Awami League are riding high. Let’s hope that a peaceful resolution can be found.
Sheikh Mujib (center) emerges from prison.
Science fantasy
And now, this month's first magazine, featuring (like the Pakistans) a single entity with two names—Worlds of IF and Worlds of Tomorrow.
Once upon a time, the term science fantasy was another name for science fiction. These days, it usually refers to work that combines elements of both science fiction and fantasy. Spaceships and magic, that sort of thing. This month’s IF runs strongly in that direction, starting with a new serial from one of that movement’s most prominent authors.
At the urging of his cousin Kas, Lord Starrex buys Tamisan, a powerful action dreamer. Seeking to craft a dream that will impress a former adventurer, she hits on the idea of setting her creation in a place where the history of their city and world turned out differently. Before she can finalize her plans, Starrex demands her services, and Tamisan learns that both he and Kas will be sharing this dream, which has never been done before. The dream appears to be all too real, and Tamisan discovers that she can’t break out of it unless both of the other dreamers are with her. She finds Starrex, but Kas seems to be aboard the approaching spaceship. To be continued.
A spaceship approaches to meet a different welcome than it actually did. Art by Adkins
As you might expect from Norton, this is a well-written adventure, but it’s just not my cup of tea. The mix of science fiction and fantasy is similar to her Witch World books, and I haven’t really enjoyed those. The casual acceptance of Tamisan’s slavery—even if it’s not called that—is also very off-putting.
Three stars for now, but those who like this kind of thing might rate it higher.
Starbright, by E.G. Von Wald
Starbrights are gemstones that take ambient light and emit a color characteristic to the individual stone as long as the wavelength of the stone’s light is longer than that it takes in. Gem collector Sean Macnessa has come to the Aldebaran system, following a rumor of seven rare red starbrights. His search will involve him with local politics, a missing princess, and a Golden Ruberg.
The story is a trifling adventure tale, but it’s fun. It’s not overly long, the humor works, and the reader is given just enough information to work out the solution.
A solid three stars.
A Report on the Sixth International SF Film Festival, by Luigi Cozzi
What it says on the tin: a quick rundown of the festival held in Trieste, Italy. 2001 was naturally a big hit and the only film we covered here at the Journey. The big winner, though, was the British film The Sorcerers, which took awards for the film and its stars, Catherine Lacey and Boris Karloff (who died at the beginning of February).
Three stars.
That Season, by Lawrence Mayer
Humans are rare, maybe unique, among mammals in that they don’t have mating seasons in which females go into heat and males compete violently for access. But what if that changed? That’s the question new author Mayer asks, looking at the events right before, during, and immediately after one season a few generations after such a change. I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions—once could even argue he presents a best-case scenario—but he tells it well, particularly in exposition provided by showing us things rather than “As you know, Bob” conversations.
Expectations can have a large effect on how you feel about what you read. Where I grew up, “spork” was a humorous name for a spoon with tines on the end (spoon+fork=spork), so I was expecting a farce. Instead, Chapdelaine gives us a straightforward tale of a human raised among intelligent beings not of his kind, who must use his innate human skills to save his adoptive people.
Spork learns to use direct action against the Tepen. Art by Reese
From that picture and the title, you can probably tell that this is basically Tarzan, just with aliens and mental powers. It’s fairly typical of other Chapdelaine stories I’ve read: decently written, but much too long. From the loose threads at the end, it looks like we’ll be getting more. Unfortunately, I’ve never been a fan of Tarzan.
A low three stars.
If… and When, by Lester del Rey
This month, del Rey looks at the brain and sleep. He starts with electronarcosis, which may be able to cure insomnia and treat schizophrenia. He then discusses the idea of recording dreams and playing them back for others. Lester is making good use of his time in the Galaxy Publishing office. This is the third month in a row in which his article has directly referenced a story in the current issue of either IF or Galaxy. I like it; it gives the article a bit of extra relevance to the reader.
Three stars.
The Light Bearer, by William M. Lee
Pete Coghill is a biochemist with a knack for finding flaws in other people’s research. It hasn’t made him many friends, but management loves him. After accidentally dosing himself an LSD derivative, he has a strange encounter with a prominent scientist. It changes his life for the better, but he will have to pay for it one day.
This story isn’t what it looks like, or what Pete thinks it is. It’s actually quite fun and turns the whole concept on its head.
A high three stars.
Authorgraphs: An Interview with Jack Williamson
An interesting interview with an interesting man. Some of that’s down to the life he’s led so far, but some of it probably due to his being a university lecturer who knows how to engage his audience. This is the first time the interview has been with someone who isn’t in the issue, which contrasts with what I said about the del Rey article.
Jack Williamson. Art by Gaughan
Four stars.
Tourists Welcome, by Roger Deeley
The sleepy British town of Maxcombe Parva has been hit with a spate of car thefts in one night. Police sergeant Slocombe wonders if local poacher and con man Geoff Rye might know something. It’s not his style, but he has been known to sell tourists something he doesn’t actually own.
An amusing little tale, though it takes a dark turn right at the end.
Three stars.
Retief, the Long-Awaited Master, by Keith Laumer
The diplomatic mission Retief is on runs afoul of the Groaci, and it’s up to him to save everybody’s career and reputation. I’m going to keep a copy of that sentence on file; it will save time when reviewing the next Retief story.
Retief and Magnan meet the locals. Art by Gaughan
When this story was teased last month, I wondered if enough time had passed for it to feel fresh. The answer is no. Laumer isn’t just going through the motions, the way he was a few years ago, but these are all stamped out by the same cookie cutter. Only the frosting is different.
Three stars, but only recommended if you’re new to the series or are a really big fan.
Summing up
This is a typical middle-of-the-road issue. Rather than rehashing what I usually say at the end of theses articles, let’s talk about art. There’s not much of it, with only three stories being illustrated. No one seems to have paid much attention to it during layout either. The piece reproduced here for “Toys of Tamisan” ran on page 93 for “Spork,” and the piece reproduced here for that story ran on page 27 for “Tamisan.” You’d think somebody would have noticed that even the robots are posed much too naturally and dynamically to have been drawn by Adkins. The magazine really needs to do better with its art.
Bloch could be good or bad. His humor is hit or miss.
As people who read my review of last year’s Orbit will recall, I loved Joanna Russ’ new fantasy hero Alyx the Adventuress. These stories combined a modern sensibility, great characterization and the kind of fun you would get from Howard or Leiber.
Needless to say then, I was extremely excited to learn we would be getting a new novel of Alyx’s adventures so soon afterwards. Trying to go into the book with as little foreknowledge as possible, I found it was definitely not the story I was expecting.
When we last left Alyx she was escaping Orudh and planning her next move. In the opening paragraph of Picnic on Paradise we are reintroduced to her:
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I cannot believe you are a proper Trans-Temporal agent; I think-” and he finished the thought on the floor his head under one of his ankles… “I am the Agent, and My name is Alyx.
To understand what a sharp diversion this is, imagine picking up Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror and finding it opens in 1917 with Conan at the Battle of the Somme. A fascinating choice but also one that requires a lot of readjustment of expectations as well as explanations.
Eventually what we piece together is that while she was escaping by sea after robbing the Prince of Tyre, she was somehow brought to the future and has come to work for the transtemporal agency. Although she has learnt some elements and language of this future millennia and these weird new worlds, she is still largely a stranger.
What is continued from the previous installments is Alyx’s impatience for impractical people. Here it is the tourists she must shepherd across Paradise. They are all different representatives of this future, showing different facets of the time, but for Alyx they are all fools in one way or another, coddled by society and unable to survive without it.
In some ways this could be seen as a version of Montaigne’s Des Cannibales but it significantly improves upon it. Whilst the original uses cultural relativism as a means to critique contemporary society, Russ sets up two opposing societies as alien to us as each other: the ancient Mediterranean of Alyx and the highly complex future of the tourists, and compares them to make more complex points as well as building fascinating worlds.
It should not be thought as an old-fashioned kind of text at all, as it does not pull any punches. Instead, we have explorations of drugs, sex, religion, complex psychology, violence, humanity and much more. It is like all of society attempting to be distilled into one perilous journey.
I know it is only January but if this isn’t to be my favourite novel of 1968, something really special will have to come along in the next 11 months.
A very high Five Stars
by Victoria Silverwolf
Short and Not So Sweet
I recently came across a trio of new works of speculative fiction that don't require a lot of time to read. In fact, I was able to finish all three books in one day. Each features a fair amount of disturbing material, even though one is a comedy, one is intended for younger readers, and one is a action-packed thriller. Let's take a look at these brief, dark-tinged novels.
I use the word new loosely for this satiric Russian novella from an author who died in 1940. It was actually written in 1925, but has never been officially published in the Soviet Union. (I understand that copies of it have been circulated in the underground form known as samizdat.) Michael Glenny's translation is its first appearance in English, I believe.
Cover design by Applebaum & Curtis, Inc., according to the back cover, but the artist remains anonymous.
In classic horror movie fashion, a Mad Scientist adopts a homeless pooch for the bizarre purpose of transplanting a dead man's testicles and pineal gland into the animal's body. (The detailed descriptions of surgery are the gruesome parts of the book. Dog lovers beware.)
The mutt changes into a man, of a particularly vulgar sort. The canine fellow claims to be a loyal Communist, turning against the aristocratic scientist and siding with the bureaucrats who want the doctor to give up several rooms in his apartment.
It's obvious that the author is attacking the Bolshevik revolution in his portrait of the dog-man and the other collectivists. He also satirizes quack medicine of the time.
The narrative alternates from first person, in the dog's point of view, to third person, sometimes in a single paragraph. Some readers may find these sudden transitions jarring, although otherwise the book is quite readable. (Kudos to the translator.)
Despite the blood-soaked scenes of surgery and the savage satire of Communism, much of the novel is pure slapstick. There's an extended sequence in which the newly created man chases a cat, leading to the flooding of the apartment. Overall, the book is both amusing and thought-provoking.
Next we have an unusual fantasy for young people. I think this is the author's first book.
My sources suggest that this art is by John Holder.
We jump right into a scene of nail-biting suspense. A sixteen year old boy and his kid sister are trapped on a small rock in the sea off the coast of England. Folks with spears are ready to kill them if they make it back to shore. The tide is rising, ready to drown them.
The boy got hit on the head by one of the mob and has amnesia. This gives the girl a good excuse to tell her brother (and the reader) what's been going on for the last five years.
A mysterious something made the inhabitants of Britain hate machines. They've gone back to a medieval way of life. The boy was caught messing around with a motorboat, and his sister was seen drawing pictures of machines. The fanatical locals are ready to execute them for witchcraft. (Apparently the anti-technology effect has worn off on them.)
The boy is a weathermonger; that is, he can control the weather with his mind. (Every village in England has one, it seems. I suppose it's a side effect of the machine-hating phenomenon.)
He uses this power to create a fog. The siblings escape, make their way to the forbidden motorboat, and reach France. (The anti-technology effect is limited to Britain.)
That's just the start of their adventures. The French authorities, seeing that they are immune to the phenomenon, send them back to track down its source. Thus begins a wild odyssey to Wales, making use of a snazzy 1909 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost stolen from a museum. (I get the feeling the author is in love with that classic car.)
It's an exciting book, with one heck of a climax. The explanation for what's going on strains credibility, even for fantasy. The story is too intense for very young readers, I think, but it should be fine for teenagers. Adults who don't mind reading so-called juveniles should enjoy it as well.
The cover makes it clear that this is the start of a series. The name of the series, and the illustration, suggest that we're in for the kind of SFnal sword and sorcery yarn you might find in an old copy of Planet Stories. That's pretty accurate, but there's a bit more to it.
Cover art by Jeff Jones, who also provides a couple of interior illustrations.
The author doesn't waste any time. In just a couple of pages, a starship is destroyed by a weapon launched from the planet it's orbiting. A scout ship carrying two guys crashes on the planet. A few pages later, one of them is dead.
Let's catch our breath and see where we are. See the tiny black dot in the middle of the left side of the map? That's where the scout ship landed. The sole remaining hero won't get very far from that spot by the time the book ends. He just travels a bit to the northwest, not even reaching the coast. There are a few references to other places on the map, but the vast majority of the rest of the planet is going to have to wait for other volumes in the series.
The map art is not credited, but might be by Jeff Jones as well.
If you think the geography is complicated, wait until you hear about the population. There are humans of many different cultures present, for reasons explained later. There are at least four species of aliens, broken up into subgroups. The aliens who give the book its title, for example, are divided into the Old Chasch, the Blue Chasch, and the Green Chasch.
Complicating matters is the fact that some humans are (pick one) servants/slaves/worshippers/devotees/imitators of the various aliens. One such person is the book's most amusing character.
With all this going on, we still have a nonstop action-packed plot, as our hero sets out on a seemingly hopeless quest to get back to Earth. Along the way, he meets the traditional beautiful princess, whom he has to rescue from captivity no less than three times.
(At this point, I had to wonder if the author was poking subtle fun at the kind of work produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.)
The story is full of violence and, frankly, kind of puerile. What distinguishes it from a typical thud-and-blunder yarn is the extraordinarily intricate setting. The author is a master of creating exotic cultures, and that's a lot more interesting than the endless killing and corny plot.
If the male characters are two-dimensional, the females are one-dimensional. The princess exists only to be stunningly beautiful, get kidnapped, and fall in love with the hero. There's a cult of priestesses who hate men and loathe attractive women. There are no other female characters of any importance, just servants and the like.
Taking a break from her various long-running series, Andre Norton, one of the most prolific science fiction novelists, has produced a new one-off. It's a simple, dare I say, old-fashioned tale wherein ex-GI Ray Osborne gets inadvertently whipped into the distant past when he stumbles across an experimental time travel beam. Emerging into the primeval forests of "The Barren Lands" that will one day be North America, he is quickly captured by a party of Atlanteans (as in from the lost continent of Atlantis) and turned into a galley slave. Fortunately, he is able to make his escape, with the help of a fellow prisoner named Cho. The two, now sword-brothers, secure passage on a warship commissioned by Atlantis' rival, the Pacific continent-nation of Mu. On said ship, Ray and Cho make their way to the land of the Sun, where Ray is elevated to the aristocratic rank of Sun-born and welcomed.
But Ray is in for more than he bargained, as he is imbued with a subconscious geas to infiltrate the perfidious former colony of Atlantis and stop their nefarious plan to bring in other-worldly demons, their doomsday weapon in a cold war about to turn hot…
Operation: Time Search is all very Burroughsian in its setup and execution, up to and including the pseudo-scientific, modern era bookends (that do not add much to the book save padding). It's essentially riproaring action from beginning to end, and Norton delivers it competently. There are also agreeable relationships between the sword-brethren Ray and Cho, as well as, later in the book, Ray and a buccaneer captain named Taut.
This is a peculiarly shallow book, however. The Murians are portrayed as universally good and just (even when they commit actions that are not so nice, as in making Ray an unwitting weapon). The Atlanteans are foul in every respect. This could be fine–after all, when has Conan been subtle? But the writing is peculiarly sparse, almost oblique, when describing the many visceral horrors and foes of this bloody world, almost as if Norton were censoring herself (or perhaps she was censored after the fact). An encounter between Roy and "The Loving One", a gruesome Lovecraftian menace, in particular suffers for this.
Plus, I was sad that the potentially interesting Lady Ayna, captain of a Murian warship, essentially disappears shortly after her introduction. The saintly Lady Aiee, Cho's mother, is not nearly so compelling; in any wise, she is gone halfway through the book, too. Really, there just isn't a lot to become attached to in this book: Ray isn't a good enough character, and the setting is too one dimensional.
All in all, it felt like Norton was just going through the motions on this one. Three stars.
Until now, the protests and unrest have been confined to the bigger cities, particularly West Berlin. My hometown of Bremen did have its share of protests, but those were mostly just a few dozen people standing around on the market square, holding up placards. Though protests are getting bigger even here. On the day before Christmas, there was a protest against the war in Vietnam of several thousand overwhelmingly young people outside the US general consulate.
Right now, however, Bremen is seeing the biggest protests since the Bremen Soviet Republic fifty years ago. And for once, those protests are not against the war in Vietnam or the West German emergency laws or a visit of the Shah of Persia or former Nazis in positions of power, but about something far more mundane, namely an increase in bus and tram fares from 60 to 70 Pfennig for single tickets and 33 to 40 Pfennig for group tickets popular with students and apprentices. On the surface, this increase seems modest. However, for students, apprentices and young people in general who neither have cars nor a lot of money and rely on public transport to get around the city, even a small fare increase is a big problem.
The tram protests started small on January 15 with approximately fifty students of several Bremen high schools protesting the fare increase on the Domsheide square, one of the main tram traffic hubs in the city center. When the protest was ignored, the students decided to stage a sit-in on the tram tracks. The police removed the students, whereupon the protest continued outside Bremen central station – another major traffic hub – where other young people joined in.
Protesting youngsters on the Domsheide squarePolice officers face teenaged protesters on DomsheideProtesting students stage a spontaneous sit-in on the tram tracks.
In the following days, the protests continued to grow. On January 16, there were roughly 1500 young people staging a sit-in on the tram tracks, holding placards with slogans like "70 Pfennig – Lieber renn' ich" (70 Pfennig – I'd rather walk). The initial protesters had been high school students, but by now they were joined by students of the technical and pedagogical colleges and apprentices of various local companies. The protest managed to bring tram traffic in Bremen's city center to a complete halt with a backlog of trams stretching all across town.
Student leaders speak to the protestersStudent leader Christoph Köhler addresses the protesters.Young protesters hold up a banner saying "70 Pfennig – I'd rather walk"More placards. One protester announces that he will henceforth go by bike, while another declares "Avoid the tram – 70 Pfennig is crazy".
And the protest was still growing. The next day, there were 5000 young people protesting and blocking the tram tracks to the point that the public transport company BSAG suspended all tram traffic across the entire city.
Police officers stationed on the Domsheide square.
Bremen's chief of police Erich von Bock und Polach, who was a Colonel in the Waffen-SS before he reinvented himself as a member of the Social Democratic Party, proved that he had learned nothing whatsoever from the tragic events in West Berlin last June and ordered the Bremen police to attack the protesting students with truncheons, batons and water cannons. Hereby, the police not only managed to beat up several innocent bystanders, but the resulting unrest also caused damage to twenty-one tram cars and fourteen busses.
Sadly, we have seen pictures like these all too often. Police officers beat up a protester.A police water cannon attempts to blast protesters on Bremen's market square, but only manages to hit the stall of the Bürgerpark tombola and the Roland statue.A police water cannon blasts protesting students in front of the St. Petri cathedral, whose rector supported the protesters. Note the trams in the background.Two young protesters face off against water cannons and are clearly loving every minute of it.The police arrest a very dangerous protester who appears to be fourteen or fifteen at most.Police officers drag off a protester and chase a very dangerous kid on a bicycle.The editor of this student newspaper thought that marking his car as "press" would protect him from police violence, but the police officers dragged him out of the car anyway.This protesters holds up a placard asking the police not to beat up protesters, but negotiate, sadly without success.Protesters hold up placards decrying police violence.
Chaos on the streets of Bremen
And still the protests grew. The workers of the AG Weser shipyard and the Klöckner steelwork, the two biggest companies in Bremen, employing thousands of people, many of whom rely on public transport, declared their solidarity with the protesting students and apprentices. By January 18, twenty thousand people were protesting in the city center.
By January 18, the protest had grown to twenty thousand people and the protesters are no longer just teenagers.A representative of the metal workers' union speaks to the protesters.
The city was in utter chaos by now and the Bremen senate held an emergency meeting. Thankfully, cooler heads than the noxious chief of police von Bock und Polach prevailed and so Bremen's new mayor Hans Koschnik, who has only been in office since November, met with representatives of the protesters in the townhall, while the protests were still going on outside and threatened to boil over into violence again.
Bremen's new mayor Hans Koschnik has only been in office since November and really deserves better.The police has cordoned off the area around the townhall to allow members of the city parliament to attend the emergency meeting.
An unlikely heroine emerged in 54-year-old Annemarie Mevissen, deputy mayor and senator for youth, sports and education. Mrs. Mevissen left the relative safety of the townhall and went out to talk to the protesters directly. On the Domsheide, where the protests had begun four days earlier, Mrs. Mevissen climbed onto a crate of road de-icing salt, grabbed a megaphone and spoke to the protesters, explaining why the fare increases were sadly necessary, but also expressing sympathy for the protesters. Annemarie Mevissen's speech as well as the meeting with Mayor Koschnik did the trick and the protests gradually ceased. As of today, trams and busses are mostly running again.
Senator for Youth, Sports and Education and deputy mayor Annemarie Mevissen speaks to the protesters to express sympathy and call for calm.Annemaire Mevissen is a remarkable woman. Since she also is Senator of Sports, she is showing off her ball kicking skills while meeting with young football players.
By chance, I was shopping in the city center on the second day of the protests. I could still get into the city by tram, but by the time I wanted to go home I had to walk several kilometres to where I had parked my car. However, I still found the time to stop at my favourite import bookstore to peruse their spinner rack of English language paperbacks.
The Return of the Dynamic Duo: The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber's delightful pair of rogues, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have had a troubled publication history. They debuted in the pages of Unknown, Astounding/Analog's fantasy-focussed sister magazine, almost thirty years ago. After Unknown's demise in 1943, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser were left adrift, until they finally found a new home in Fantastic under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith Lalli. However, with the sale of the Ziff-Davis magazines to Sol Cohen, the appearances of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser in the pages of Fantastic became scarce. It seemed the dynamic duo was homeless once again, unless they shacked up with Cele Goldsmith Lalli over at Modern Bride magazine, that is.
So imagine my joy when I spotted the brand-new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser adventure The Swords of Lankhmar in the spinner rack of my trusty import bookstore. Nor was this adventure short fiction, like the duos' previous outings, but a full length novel. So of course I had to pick it up, even if I had to carry it five kilometres through the city, dodging protesters and aggressive police officers.
The story
Fafhrd and Gray Mouser return to Lankhmar, only to find themselves first attacked and then hired by Lankhmar's overlord Glipkerio Kistomerces to escort a fleet of grain ships to a neighbouring city. The fleet's cargo is a gift to Movarl of the Eight Cities in exchange for some help with a pesky pirate plague. Also aboard the grain ships – and another gift to Movarl – are the Demoiselle Hisvet, daughter of Lankhmar's wealthiest grain merchant, her maid Frix and Hisvet's twelve trained white rats. The ship's captain isn't happy about the presence of the rats, because rats and grain don't mix. Meanwhile, both Fafhrd and Mouser are fascinated by the Hisvet and her maid.
It does not take long for trouble to find Fafhrd and Mouser, who soon find themselves fighting off monsters, pirates and rat attacks. The two rogues also have their hands full with Hisvet and Frix. Luckily, they get some help from Karl Treuherz, a German-speaking time-travelling hunter capturing monsters for Hagenbeck's Zeitgarten. Karl Treuherz (his last name means "true heart") is a delightful character, particularly if you're German and can understand not only his dialogue in flawless German (kudos to Mr. Leiber), but also understand that Hagenbeck's Zeitgarten is a riff on Hagenbecks Tierpark, the famous Hamburg zoo, which apparently will open a time- and dimension-travelling dependency in the future. Cover artist J. Jones clearly likes Karl Treuherz, too, and put him on the cover.
The distinctive main entrance of Hagenbecks Tierpark in Hamburg. So far, they don't yet display alien monsters, but it's only a matter of time.
Something smells of rat here
If the story feels a little familiar, that's probably because it is. For the first half of The Swords of Lankhmar appeared under the title "Scylla's Daughter" in the May 1961 issue of Fantastic. That novella ended on a cliffhanger with the treacherous Hisvet and Frix escaping aboard one of the ships, leaving Fafhrd and Mouser marooned.
Fantastic's cover artist clearly liked Karl Treuherz as well.
The novel follows the two ladies as well as Fafhrd and Mouser back to Lankhmar, where even more intrigues await. For sinking a fleet of grain ships was just the start for Hisvet and her twelve trained rats. It turns out that Hisvet and her father are members of a race of intelligent rats, who live in Lankhmar Below and want to take over the entire city. Mouser shrinks himself down to rat size to spy on them, only for the mad overlord Glipkerio to ignore his warnings in favour of building a contraption that may or may not send him to a parallel universe. The way of defeating the rat invasion is as obvious as it is ingenious by using the rats' hereditary enemy against them.
The Lankhmar Below scenes were my favourite parts, probably because as a kid, I envisioned thumb-sized beings, both humans and animals, who inhabit a parallel city in the sewers, basements and walls of our world. In order to cross between the two worlds you needed a magical shrinking potion. Reading Leiber's descriptions of Lankhmar Below felt as if he had reached into my mind to bring my own fantasy world to the page. Or maybe there really is a parallel world of intelligent rodents and both Fritz Leiber and I somehow stumbled upon them in early childhood.
My imaginary parallel world of little people and animals sprang from the collection of small figures kept in this cookie tin featuring a picture of the Cologne Cathedral, hence I called them "church box people".
An ode to interracial and interspecies romance
Because this is a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story, there also are plenty of romantic entanglements. Mouser falls for Hisvet and finds himself wondering if she's human or rat underneath her floor-length gown and if it even matters to him. Fafhrd prefers Frix, but Hisvet likes Frix, too. Furthermore, Mouser is fascinated by Reetha, a maid at the overlord's palace who is completely hairless, while Fafhrd starts a relationship with Kreeshkra, a ghoul with transparent skin and flesh who is basically a walking skeleton.
Over the past few years, the amount of sex in science fiction and fantasy has been creeping upwards, as the sexual revolution makes it possible to write about previously taboo subjects. This is not necessarily a good thing, since some writers feel the need to foist sexual fantasies that had better remained private upon the unsuspecting reader – see Piers Anthony's Chthon or John Norman's Gor books. Thankfully, Leiber does not go this route, even though there is quite a bit of sexual content, including sexual content of the more unusual sort, in The Swords of Lankhmar. However, nothing here is even remotely as prurient as Chthon or the Gor books. Instead, Leiber's message – even spelled out at one point – is that love is love, no matter the gender, race or species of the participants. And indeed, none of the women Fafhrd and Mouser become involved with in this story are in any way standard love interests. Frix is a black woman, Reetha's hairlessness does not match any classic beauty standards, Hisvet may or may not be part rat and Kreeshkra is essentially a walking skeleton. Furthermore, there are several not so subtle hints that Hisvet and Frix are in a romantic relationship as well.
All in all, The Swords of Lankhmar is a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy adventure and a welcome return to the world of Nehwon and its most famous rogues. However, the plot meanders a bit, particularly in the second half. The genre that Robert E. Howard pioneered in the pages of Weird Tales almost forty years ago and that Fritz Leiber named sword and sorcery works best in the short form. Almost all of Howard's tales about Conan the Cimmerian or Kull of Atlantis, C.L. Moore's adventures of the medieval swordswoman Jirel of Joiry, which I hope will be reprinted eventually, as well as Michael Moorcock's stories about Elric of Melniboné and all previous Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories have been novellas and novelettes. A genre that focusses on action and adventures thrives best in the short form and tends to meander at novel length, a problem that's also apparent in Robert E. Howard's sole Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon, recently reprinted as Conan the Conqueror.
[L]et us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
– Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
A duty to a higher power
On April 28th, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (whom many papers insist on calling by his former name, Cassius Clay) refused induction into the United States Army. In a matter of hours, the New York State Athletic Commission revoked his boxing license, and the World Boxing Association stripped him of his title. For those paying attention, Ali’s refusal came as no surprise. He had been classified as 1-Y (fit for service only in times of national emergency) due to his poor performance on the qualifying test, but when the army lowered its standards last year, he became subject to reclassification as 1-A. The draft board in Louisville Kentucky did so, and he appealed, seeking exemption as a Muslim minister (often incorrectly reported as conscientious objector status). The board denied the appeal in January, and Ali vowed to go to court. After moving to Houston, Texas, the champ again sought reclassification and was again denied.
Muhammad Ali is escorted from the induction center in Houston, Texas.
When called up, Ali appeared as ordered at the Houston induction center and participated in all the pre-induction activities. But when called to step forward for induction, he refused. He was taken aside and the consequences were explained, but he once again refused. After that, he signed a statement indicating his refusal and was escorted outside. He didn’t address the reporters and television cameras waiting for him, but handed out copies of a four-page statement indicating that he is aware of the penalties he faces, but that accepting induction is inconsistent with his “consciousness as a Muslim minister and [his] own personal convictions.” The case has been referred to the U. S. Attorney. If convicted, Mr. Ali faces a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
A sense of duty
Like Muhammad Ali, almost everyone in this month’s IF is motivated by strong beliefs: their duty to king and country, humanity at large, or their own personal beliefs and obligations.
Uncle Martin and Tim (from My Favorite Martian) seem to have had a falling out. Actually, this is supposedly from Spaceman!
Art by Wenzel.
Hunted for being an Esper, Craike decides death is preferable to capture and hurls himself from a cliff. And finds himself in another world, one where people like him are seen as wizards who maintain order for the feudal lords and will not tolerate unregulated Espers. He soon falls afoul of these Black Hoods by rescuing an attractive young woman who was being punished for being outside of the established system.
Takya and Craike set a trap for the Black Hoods. Art by Gray Morrow
We’ve all read this story a hundred times. Man from our world or one reasonably close finds himself mysteriously transported to another world, where he uses his knowledge and different way of thinking to upset the bad social order and get the girl. From John Carter to Lord Kalvan, the template has few variations. Norton’s typical strong writing lifts this above the usual fare, but she offers us nothing new. And there are bits that bother me. For all her power and maturity, Takya is clearly meant to be a young teen, who spends the whole story clad only in her hair. Then at the end, the wooing she expects from Craike borders on rape, however consensual it may be.
Gilberto Klee was working on a youth farm when he was captured in a berserker raid. Now aboard a human ship converted to berserker use, he meets other prisoners, one of whom is sure he can fly the ship if only they can destroy the berserker brain piloting it. Because human captives are suffering from dietary deficiencies, the berserkers order Gil to grow something to end the problem. He suggests a fast-growing squash, though the others disdain him for aiding their captors. Is Gil trying to be viewed as “goodlife” or is there something else going on?
As fellow Journey writer Victoria Silverwolf recently noted, Saberhagen is able to return to this setting over and over again without repeating himself. Perhaps that’s because most of these stories, like this one, tend to be character pieces with the action secondary to the plot. The tight focus on Gil’s internal thoughts without giving away the ending is extremely well done. The ending is also quite symbolic for the overall struggle against the great killing machines.
A very high three stars.
All True Believers, by Howard L. Morris
Not quite two years after thwarting the invasion of Briden by the Freunch under Naflon (see Not by Sea), Sir Hubert Wulf-Leigh (Wilfly) stumbles upon a new Freunch plot: a simultaneous rising in Cullenland and a landing by the Pantlerist pretender in Celtland. Once again, his brilliant mind – aided by a regrettable lack of wine – is up to the challenge.
A strand-gleaner makes an important discovery. Art by Virgil Finlay
The previous story by this author, though readable, was a little too long and tried much too hard to be funny. Morris has largely corrected those problems, though he’s stuck with the ridiculous place names. This piece is clearly based on British fears during the Napoleonic Wars of an Irish rebellion and an attempt by the Stewart pretender to claim the throne and is really no more plausible here than it was in reality. Also the Finlay art seems to be repurposed from Treasure Island or something and doesn’t fit at all. Still, it's all an improvement.
Three stars.
The N3F and Others, by Lin Carter
After looking at a number of less successful attempts at creating national fan clubs last month, Carter looks first at the strange story of the Cosmic Circle and then the more successful National Fantasy Fan Federation. The N3F has lasted a quarter century at this point, but Carter seems ambivalent. In his opinion, it and its extensive membership list offer a reasonable first step and a way to meet fans near you and around the country, but he feels that the organization doesn’t really do anything in fandom. Nevertheless, it seems to be a good introduction for those without a local club in their vicinity.
Three stars.
The Castaways, by Jack B. Lawson
A handful of people are on their way to Smith’s World in suspended animation aboard an automated spaceship when an unexpected nova sends the ship off course. They’re able to find a habitable world, but it’s one without any other people. Can the end products of 6,000 years of civilization survive in a primitive setting?
While the writing is strong on a line-by-line basis, the story itself is so bleak and pessimistic I can’t bring myself to like it.
A very well-written two stars.
Spaceman! (Part 2 of 3), by Keith Laumer
Seeking shelter from a blizzard, Billy Danger accidentally stowed away on a spaceship, ultimately finding himself marooned with the beautiful Lady Raire and a collie-sized cat named Eureka. Raire was taken away by strange, dwarfish aliens, and Billy had to wait for rescue. Billy then spends a few years working his way up the ladder to Chief Power Engineer and also working his way towards Raire’s home planet near the galactic core. He learns that the aliens who took Raire are known as the H’eeaq. After several (mis)adventures, he finds himself in possession of a stolen spaceship and the assistance of a H’eeaq named Srat.
They begin scouring the scattered worlds of the Galactic Zenith, looking for those who took Raire. On the verge of giving up, he finds Raire enslaved and buys both her and another human. Staggering drunkenly back to his ship after finalizing his purchases, Billy watches as the ship takes off with Raire aboard and then finds himself arrested for illegally manumitting a slave. When he wakes up, he discovers that he has been implanted with a control device. Billy is now a slave. To be concluded.
Billy meets Srat for the first time. Poor Srat. Art by Castellon
This installment reminded me a lot of Earthblood, especially the protagonist rising through the ranks as he travels and moves ever closer to a seemingly impossible goal. While Rosel George Brown’s steadying influence there gave us moments of introspection, Laumer alone is free to indulge in wild adventure and action. He also has a tendency to rely too much on coincidence to move the plot along. It’s still an enjoyable read, though.
Three stars.
Family Loyalty, by Stan Elliott
A series of letters between Joe Seaworthy, who is emigrating off-world, and his cousin and former employee Harry Aimes, who senses a chance to get himself out of a bind.
Here is this month’s new author. The first letter feels very unnatural, although there are reasons for that. Things improve after that, and Elliott does a pretty good job of telling us a lot about the world without direct exposition.
Cal Svenson is an amphiman, someone who has been surgically altered so that they can live and breathe underwater. Eighteen years ago, he was severely injured while trying to lay a power cable in an oceanic trench known as the Slash. Unable to work due to a paralyzed leg and torn swim membranes, he has a pension and a house on the Brazilian coast provided by the company he worked for. He spends his days searching for driftglass (also called sea glass) and chatting with his friend Juao, a local fisherman. Encountering a young amphiman woman, Cal learns that the company is planning to try laying a cable in the Slash again the next day. Juao’s two children, Cal’s godchildren, have been accepted into the amphiman program and must leave for Brasilia the next day as well. Cal has to sort out his feelings about both of these things and their consequences.
Cal is injured. Art by Gaughan
Simple. Beautiful. Subtle. Delany writes with a maturity far beyond his 25 years. This story alone is worth your 50¢.
Five stars.
An example of some sea glass
Summing up
That’s another month in the books. Mostly fair to middlin’, but two of the shorter works stand out. The Saberhagen is very good, even if it doesn’t quite deserve a fourth star, and Driftglass is amazing. I expect to see it on all the awards lists. I’m nominating it for a Galactic Star right now, with not even half the year gone.
This is presumably the Riverworld story promised for Worlds of Tomorrow. The lack of other information suggests that Fred is scrambling to deal with the loss of a magazine.
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!
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.
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:
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!)
Well, so far this has been a great month. Last week saw the end of a dynamite World Series, in which Sandy Koufax, the greatest pitcher of his generation, showed himself to be one of the greatest Jews of his generation as well. It was tremendously meaningful to my family that Sandy refused to start Game 1 for the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins since the day coincided with our holy day of Yom Kippur.
As Sandy said, "I've taken Yom Kippur off every year for the last 10 years. It was just something I've always done out of respect."
As if that wasn't good enough, Koufax dominated games 5 and 7 of the series, with his electric fastball mowing down batters in a pair of crucial shutout victories. The Twins played well, and were outstanding American League champs – Tony Oliva is a monster – but it seems the Koufax gave the Dodgers the edge, and turned the '65 Series into a classic.
At the movie theatre, my wife and I caught The Bedford Incident last week at our favorite theatre here in north Seattle. If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, the film is well worth a night out — if, that is, you can handle an intense and sometimes bleak drama.
Richard Widmark turns in a powerful performance as a zealous battleship captain on the search for an elusive Soviet nuclear submarine. Also featuring Sidney Poitier and Martin Balsam, this black and white drama treads similar ground to last year's thrilling Fail Safe and ends in a similarly dramatic way.
If it seems like I'm dragging my feet a bit before talking about my entry for this month's Galactoscope, well, you're right. Gardner Fox's new novel is the epitome of mediocrity, a book that will give you 40¢ worth of excitement but not a whole lot more. The fantastic Mr. Fox is a prolific author who churns out more books and comic book stories than nearly anyone else living. Sometimes that causes him to create some delightful work. Other times it seems like he is just delivering words just to deliver him a paycheck. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that – I'm sure the man has a mortgage to pay – but it also represents a lost opportunity.
See, this book starts out with one of the most striking first lines I can remember.
I saw myself dying on the other side of the street.
The first page builds on that momentum, with the protagonist describing his body as "blood oozed over my fingers where I held that awesome wound."
I mean, seriously, how can you read a first page like that without feeling like you have to read more? Mr. Fox is an old pro and he clearly knows some classic tricks. As I read that book, I leaned back, took a deep breath, and readied myself for a page-turning thrill ride.
Cover by Gray Morrow
But, dear reader, I'm sorry to inform you that all the best writing in The Hunter Out of Time happens on the first couple of pages. It soon turns out that the man who falls to Earth is a time traveler from the far, far future who traveled back through a supposedly impregnable barrier to steal the man's identity. The time traveler is named Chan Dahl and soon other time-displaced men come to our time, confuse our guy, Kevin Cord for Dahl, and that unleashes the most obvious and cliched adventure you can imagine.
There's little in The Hunter Out of Time you haven't seen before. Fox gives us fantastic devices, headspinning time travel with seemingly arbitrary rules, and the obligatory beautiful, weak babe from the future. Of course Cord uses his native 20th century skills to overcome his opposition, of course Cord and the woman fall in love, and of course Fox leaves room for a sequel if somehow people want to read more of this frightfully ordinary pap.
I could go on and on about this book, but hey, it costs 40¢, it'll take you a couple hours to read, and it's got a pretty nice cover by artist Gray Morrow. I'd rather spend my time watching young Warren Beatty in Mickey One in the theatres, but you won't hate this book and it's pleasing enough entertainment for a rainy Seattle Sunday.
2 stars.
Solid Fuel
by John Boston
The rising star John Brunner has produced ambitious work such as The Whole Man and the upcoming The Squares of the City, both from Ballantine in the US, and a raft (or flotilla) of unpretentious upscale-pulp adventures for Ace Books. Some of the best of the latter were mined from the UK magazines edited by John Carnell.
by Jacks
But there’s a lot more. Brunner has been one of the mainstays of the UK magazines for a decade, but much of his best magazine work has not been reprinted because it’s too short for separate book publication and too long to fit in the usual anthologies or collections. The UK publisher Mayflower-Dell, previously distinguished by its unsuccessful attempt to bring Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure to the British public, remedies a bit of this omission with Now Then, a collection of three novellas, two from the Carnell magazines and the other, his first professional sale, from Astounding in 1953.
The book opens with the energetically clever and creepy Some Lapse of Time, from Science Fantasy #57 (February 1963). Dr. Max Harrow is having a bad dream of a group of starving people living in ruins, one of whom is holding a human finger bone in his hand. He wakes and there is someone at his door: the police, because a tramp has collapsed in his garage. The tramp proves to be suffering a rare disease (heterochylia, an inability to metabolize fats, which become lethal) that Harrow is uniquely qualified to recognize, his infant son having died of it only recently, and which should have made it impossible for the tramp to survive to adulthood. The tramp also has clamped in his hand a human finger bone—the same bone, the end of the left middle finger, as in Harrow’s dream.
Unintelligible to the hospital staff, the tramp proves when examined by a philologist to speak a badly distorted version of English, like one might expect a primitive and isolated group to use. Meanwhile, Harrow’s marriage is blowing up under the emotional stress caused by his son’s death and his own preoccupation. When his wife slams the car door in his face, she catches his hand in the door and severs the end of his left middle finger, which falls down a gutter. Meanwhile, the tramp is sent for a head x-ray, but he turns out to be so radioactive that not only do the films turn out unusable but he has to be put in strict isolation.
Brunner brings all these elements to a thoroughly grotesque resolution—it doesn’t entirely work, but is a grimly ingenious nice try. Others apparently think so too; it is rumored that a dramatization will be broadcast later this year in the BBC’s Out of the Unknown TV series. Four stars.
Next up is Imprint of Chaos, also from Science Fantasy (#42, August 1960), one of a number of outright fantasies Brunner contributed to that underrated magazine. This one introduces us to a character mainly called “the traveler,” who we are repeatedly told has “many names but one nature,” unlike the rest of us who I suppose contain multitudes.
The traveler has been appointed (by whom, or Whom, or What is not explained) as a sort of metaphysical supervisor over part of the universe, charged with ensuring the primacy of order over chaos. He is on his way to Ryovora, a formerly sensible town where they have now decided they need a god.
So the traveler nips out to our Earth and snatches the unsuspecting Bernard Brown from a hike in the wood, tells him he’s unlikely to find his way home, but gives him directions to Ryovora. There, to his discomfiture, Brown is welcomed as a god, and when the next city over hears about it and sends over their god, Brown sends it packing in terror. Then the Ryovorans say they could have done it themselves (though they didn’t), and excuse Mr. Brown, after a final scene where he and the traveler bruit the futility and undesirability of magic.
A fantasy writer bad-mouthing magic may seem incongruous, but this rationalist in spite of himself really hates it, and comes not to praise magic but to bury it, though only after enough colorful magical episodes to entertain the rubes. Here the tension is more extreme than usual. His earlier fantasies mostly featured incursions of magic into the world of ordinary salt-of-the-earth types. Here, the entire setting is exotically magical, and the story is told in the fey and pompous cadences of high fantasy.
For example, from a conclave of the necromantic elite of Ryovora: “The Margrave nodded and made a comforting gesture in the air. He said, ‘But this cannot be the whole story. I move that we—here, now, in full council—ask Him Who Must Know.’” Brunner walks the edge of parody at times (“Tyllwin [a particularly powerful magician] chuckled, a scratching noise, and the flowers on the whole of one tree turned to fruit and rotted where they hung.”). But the story is clever and entertaining and merits its three stars, towards the high end.
Thou Good and Faithful is older; as mentioned, it is the first story Brunner sold to an SF magazine—and it was featured on the cover of the top-of-the-market Astounding (March 1953 issue). Moreover, the readers voted it best in the issue, and it was quickly picked up by Andre Norton for her pretty respectable YA anthology Space Pioneers. Not a bad start for an 18-year-old! Though Brunner has had some second thoughts about showing us his juvenilia; the acknowledgements note it appeared in the magazine “in a somewhat different form.” I haven’t compared the two texts, though there’s clearly some updating; in this version Brunner refers to something as “maser-tight,” and masers were barely invented when this story was first published.
The story is for most of its length a bog-standard though well-turned rendition of a basic plot: find a planet, there’s a mystery, what’s going on, are we scared? The mystery is an idyllic Earth-type planet inhabited only by robots, who presumably didn’t make themselves; what happened to the makers? The final revelation is partly in the direction of, say, Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and partly in the one suggested by the story’s title, so in the end it’s much more high-minded than the puzzle story it starts out as. This is all older news nowadays than it was in 1953, but it too merits a high three stars.
Summing Up
Now Then is a solid representation of the mid-length work of this very readable and thoughtful writer, and there’s enough in the Carnell back files for several more worthwhile volumes of Brunner novellas.
Two by Two
by Gideon Marcus
The Journey has made a commitment to review every piece of science fiction released in a year (or die trying). In pursuit of this goal, I've generally tried to finish every book I've started, and if unable to, I simply don't write about it.
It occurs to me, however, that the inability to finish a book is worth reporting on, too. And so, here are reports on two of this summer's lesser lights:
The latest from Madeline L'Engle, author of the sublime A Wrinkle in Time, starts promisingly. Adam Eddington is a freshman biology minor tapped to work with a Dr. O'Keefe on the Atlantic island of Gaia off the coast of Portugal. O'Keefe (a grown up Calvin, from Wrinkle) is working with starfish, zeroing in on an immortality treatment. Just prior to Adam's departure from Kennedy Airport, he runs across the beautiful young daughter of an industrialist, Kali, who warns Adam to stay away from the sinister-looking Canon Tallis, who is chaperoning the O'Keefes' precocious daughter, Poly.
Adam finds himself embroiled in international intrigue, not knowing who to trust. This is exciting at first, but a drag as things go on. Gone is the quietly lyrical prose of Wrinkle, replaced by a deliberately juvenile style leached of color. Events happen, one after another, but they are both difficult to keep track of and largely uninteresting. By the time Adam made it to Gaia, about halfway through the book, I found myself struggling to complete a page.
Andre Norton has come out with the long-awaited sequel to her parallel universe adventure, The Crossroads of Time, starring Blake Walker. The universe Walker lives in is a bit like that of Laumer's Imperium series and Piper's Paratime stories: there's one Earth that has mastered the art of crossing timelines, and it has built an empire across these alternate Earths.
On Vroom, the imperial timetrack, there had been a devastating war that killed most of the female population, making them particularly precious. Also, mutation has made psionic ability the rule rather than the exception. The timeline is ruled by an oligarchy of 100 meritocrats.
At the start of Crosstime, Walker is dispatched to assist Marfy, whose twin sister, Marva, has been lost amongst the timeless — and all signs point to a kidnapping. Of course, the allure of all parallel universe books is the exploration of what-if, and so Walker and Marfy's trek spans a dead Earth where life never arose, a strange saurian Earth where sentient turtles and lizardmen rule, and ultimately, an interesting timeline in which Richard III won the battle of Bosworth Field while Cortez lost the battle of Tenochtitlan. By the Mid-20th Century, there is a Cold War between Britain and the Aztec Empire along a militarized Mississippi river. It is to this world that Marfy and her abductors are tracked, and it turns out that the kidnapping is part of a plot to topple Vroom's Ancien Regime.
True to form as of late, Norton sets up some genuinely interesting background, but the characters are as flat as the pages they appear on. This time, I made it through two thirds of the book, partly on momentum from the first book in the series, which I rather enjoyed. In the end, however, disinterest won out.
May's second Galactoscope reviews the latest works by two of the field's titans. Sadly, it looks like their best contributions are behind them, as the following article will demonstrate:
Andre Norton is a gem among authors. She is able to write everything from short stories to novels in quick succession, continues to be picked up by publishers (no small feat in the writing world), and has been able to carve out a reputation for herself as an author who can write extensive background lore into her stories.
That being said, I feel like Norton is in a bit of a writing funk lately. It hasn’t slowed her down, but her writing is starting to feel unbalanced. In particular, the trait that once was her strength – world building – is starting to weigh down her work. By the end of Three Against the Witch World, the third and newest short novel in the Witch World series, Norton successfully introduces better character development with respect to the earlier entries, but the world building is still too overpowering.
The Next Generation
Three Against the Witch World begins with a very condensed introduction to the early lives of Simon Tregarth and Lady Jaelithe's triplets. Told from the first-person narratives of the children, we learn that the first two decades of life have not been easy for anyone in the nation of Estcarp.
After the destabilization of Karsten at the conclusion of Web of the Witch World, a warlord stepped up to fill the power vacuum left by the former ruler Yvian and his extra-dimensional allies, the humanoid beings called The Kolder. Between the Alizon nation, the remains of Karsten and the formidable Falconers, Estcarp is locked in a long term guerrilla war that is slowly bleeding them dry.
Amazingly, despite marrying Earth man Simon Tregarth and thereby disavowing her role as a Witch, Lady Jaelithe still retains traces of the innate magic known (allegedly) only to be accessible in select virginal women. Unsurprisingly, given that Simon is also a Power user (albeit one from another planet), the couple's triplets Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea are also born with strong magical tendencies.
They are soon left on their own after their parents depart on vague and mysterious missions. Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea must contend not only with the front-line defense of the Estcarp nation, but with the jealousy and hostile machinations of the power hungry Witch Council. The Women of Power are determined to undermine the influence of Simon and Jaelithe, and the best way to do that is to take their daughter Kaththea for their own ranks.
By 20 years old the triplets are adrift in a highly unstable time with no nearby allies in all of Estcarp. Upon the ruthless kidnapping of Kaththea by the Witches, Kyllan and Kemoc decide to journey forth into the larger world to gain information and allies crucial to reclaiming the safety of their family.
What follows is a journey across all mapped nations, even into the twisted and nebulous eastern regions of the world – a massive mountain range interspersed with magically tainted creatures. It is literally a place which people are incapable of imagining due to a powerful collective compulsion in the human population. It's a race against time to save Kaththea, save Estcarp and prevent a horrific ancient accident from being repeated in the name of protecting their homeland.
The Witch World Lives On
Sounds like an amazing story, right? It's certainly an interesting premise with a solidly entertaining, if grandiose, climax. But is it a good read?
As I've noted in my review of Norton’s Witch World(1963) and its subsequent installment, if you like fiction liberally layered with lore and societal structures you will find this series intriguing. But just like before, Three Against the Witch World leaves the audience wanting a deeper connection to the main characters.
My, Oh My, Is It Ever So Dry
Stories that sacrifice character development for world building only engage their audience for so long before boredom begins to surface. With Kyllan, Kemoc and Kaththea as the beacons through Three Against the Witch World, it is a comparatively less tedious task to read through the extensive world history of Norton's realm. Three is still massively overwritten, but at least we have the enjoyment of seeing some of the cast grow instead of remaining stagnant cardboard cutouts.
Admittedly the triplets are not completely unique. They are rather standard fantasy warrior, scholar and sorceress/witch characters, but they are given more individuality than the previous protagonists of the series. Kyllan and Kemoc's strategics get much keener via increasingly difficult obstacles they face. Limitations are realized for Kemoc as he pieces together the knowledge held in Lormt, ancient bastion of scholarship, and Kaththea has to adapt to her increasing power.
However, Norton continues to hold her characters at arm's length. Her writing in general has been suffering of late because of this tendency: she is much more prone to showing her characters in action rather than letting us into their heads. Thus, the changes we see the triplets go through still have but a superficial connection with the audience. In short, within Three Against the Witch World we see that the series is still tripping over itself to engage with its audience.
Three Strikes and You're Out
At three entries into the series, the Witch World books continue to feel like Norton is far more interested in telling us about the mechanics of her world rather than the people living within it.
For existing Witch World fans, Three Against the Witch World offers new races and mysterious god-like entities, and I did appreciate Norton's attempts at expanded characterization. Nevertheless, that's not enough to save the series. After reading three books in the same series, I should have more than the shallowest of connections with the main characters. I should have a strong desire to continue to read further installments about their lives. The fact is, after reading Witch World, I don't. I know that Andre Norton is capable of better as a word smith and a story teller. Unfortunately, Three Against the Witch World is only worthy of a two and a half star rating.
Okay, that’s kind of unfair. It’s not that I read the man’s work and didn’t like it. Instead, I decided at a relatively early age that I didn’t want to read his juvenile sci-fi novels.
While some of my closest sci-fi loving middle school friends loved Smith’s Galactic Patrol stories, I never read any of his work, and the one time I borrowed one of his books from a friend I just never got around to cracking the cover. Maybe I felt an odd sort of aversion because I wanted to defy my pal Danny Alvarado’s deep love for Smith – you know, the way boys create friendly rivalries over nothing.
But that may be psychoanalysis after the fact. More likely I didn’t read Smith because I always wanted to read above my age group. Why read juveniles when there was so much great material being published by the likes of Asimov, Dick and Clarke?
Since I had never read any Smith as a kid, now seemed the perfect time to try out ol’ Doc’s work. I’ve grown older and mellowed a bit in my tastes in the last few years. So when my fine editor offered to have one of us staffers review a limited edition publication of Smith’s latest novel, Subspace Explorers, I jumped at the chance. Why not try a classic author, albeit one in the twilight of his career? I could either validate my pal Danny’s passion or smugly smile at myself that I made the right choice to skip Smith.
Well, young Jason is vindicated.
The rather bland cover of Doc Smith's latest novel
Subspace Explorers is an odd book. It’s breakneck space opera sci-fi juxtaposed against a sort of exploration of psionics which in turn is juxtaposed against a kind of screed about a battle between virtuous business leaders and corrupt trade unionists. If you’re wondering how these odd elements all fit together in the space of some 200 pages, well, the answer is that they don’t.
The sci-fi and psionic stuff works the best in this book. The first chapter sets the stage with a disaster in space and the few survivors of that battle. This section speeds along in a kind of hurtling, breathtaking tumble of events in which the action seems never to stop, no matter that readers don’t have much of an idea who these characters are.
Once all the action begins to play out, we find there are nine survivors of the accident: four mafiosos, a genius, two officers, and two women. One of the women has the amazing psionic ability to detect any metal in space. After the mobsters are defeated, the women and officers very quickly get married and each of the couples have a baby after a pregnancy which is elongated by their time in space. Their kids inherit the psionic abilities and form a union of explorers who drive the rest of the book.
Right there in that quick summary of the crazily energetic beginning, you can see the joys and flaws of this book. It’s got energy and thrills. It’s got oddball ideas and puzzling events. It’s got thin characters and arbitrary plotlines. It’s got a lot of good and a lot of bad and I’m not sure I want to get into the discussions of labor unions which might embarrass Barry Goldwater in their stridency.
Even there, I might have enjoyed this book either as a grouchy polemic or the rambling of “an old man screaming get off my lawn,” as they say. But the shambolic plot, which seems assembled from several half-finished novels with the barest plot threads to connect them all, left me more baffled and annoyed than thrilled. If Doc wanted to produce a fun throwback space opera, why add the strange political notes, and if he wanted to write a screed, why include classic cardboard characters with psionic powers to muddy the waters?
Doc himself
Publisher Canaveral Press is well known for their lovely Edgar Rice Burroughs reissues, most with lovely art by Roy Krenkel and J. Allen St. John. This book boasts of the same high production values as the Burroughs books. It’s just too bad this book isn’t nearly a match for those classics.
Maybe Smith can pull his disparate storylines together if he writes a sequel to Subspace Explorers, but for a book released in hardcover in a limited edition with a matching grand cover price, this is a tremendous disappointment. Sorry Danny. Hope we can still have lunch together and discuss more pleasant things.
March and April have been very satisfying months in terms of science fiction literature that really revels in the art of creating alien worlds and cultures. Between Andre Norton's next installment in the Witch World series, Web of the Witch World, and the Ace Double release of Jack Vance's novellas The Houses of Iszm and Son of the Tree, science fiction readers had their pick of genre crossing science fiction. Andre Norton's book was, like much of her works, a solid science fiction and fantasy blend with technology and supernatural elements working side by side to create a world of complicated politics and alliances. Jack Vance, on the other hand, displays an ability to write classic science fiction with a hint of sinister terror lurking at the heart of his stories.
Ace Double F-265: The Houses of Iszm / Son of the Tree, by Jack Vance
The Houses of Iszm (originally published in a shorter form in “Startling Stories” magazine, 1954) and Son of the Tree (“Thrilling Wonder Stories” magazine, 1951) are both older stories of Jack Vance's, but ones which have yet to show their age. In keeping with each other, the plot twist of both stories centers around strange societies with strange practices designed to keep an intellectual stranglehold on valuable information and technology. Vance likewise reuses similar settings and pacing in both stories, making them feel as if they could be long lost relatives of each other both existing in the same universe but not aware that they were related.
The Houses of Iszm follows the unassuming adventure of Earthling botanist Aile Farr's visit to the planet Iszm. While there he hopes to observe the unique and highly coveted native flora that the native peoples have shaped in wondrous ways. Through thousands of years of selective breeding the people of Iszm have evolved a form of plant that serves both as their domicile, their plumbing system, and their source of food and hydration. Only recently has Earth set up one sided trade relations through the house growing classes of the Iszic. The man who holds a monopoly on this off world house trade is the human industrialist K. Penche.
Unwilling to part with their trade secrets, the Iszic are the only ones in the universe who have access to the coveted techniques for the rearing of plant domiciles. Despite innumerable attempts to smuggle female seeds, cuttings or saplings off planet there has never been a successful attempt, although that doesn't stop the greedy and the blindly altruistic from trying – for the sake of personal riches or for the sake of the universe's homeless who would benefit from a self growing and repairing shelter. Aile Farr is one of the latter, and through a mix of professional curiosity in plants, bad timing, and naiveté he finds himself caught in the middle of one such ambitious attempt to get a Iszic house seed off world.
On the flip side of this Ace Double is Son of the Tree. This Jack Vance story unfolds around the revenge driven, and unassumingly named, Joe Smith of Earth. Traveling across the universe on whatever money he can gather, Joe is in pursuit of a man named Harry Creag who had an affair with Joe's wife, Margaret. Along his pursuit of the elusive adulterer, Joe comes to a feudal world whose ruling class is unified around a religion that worships a massive tree called The Tree of Life. Just trying to make enough money in order to continue his pursuit of the man who stole the heart of his wife, Joe becomes entangled in the dangerous back stabbing of opposing regimes vying for control of the minds of the planet's laity, as well as the natural resources of the newly industrializing neighboring planet Ballenkarch. He soon finds himself as an unwilling pawn in the mechanizations of many dangerous missionaries, spies and military personnel who see him as a means to their end. Joe struggles just to survive, but he is inexorably drawn into the intrigue as an active player.
While The Houses of Iszm is less plot heavy than Son of the Tree, it shows a more sinister world. In Son of the Tree there is no misunderstanding that literally billions of lives are at stake in the political power play between the Druids, the Mangs, and the Ballenkarts. But by the end of Son of the Tree the evil of the people-consuming Tree of Life and its offshoot is revealed and measures are being taken to stop its slaughter of the Druid laity. Granted, Harry Creath admits that it will be a blood soaked venture, but he suggests that it will give back purpose and self determination to the peasants on the Druid's world. There is a sense of justice by the end of the book, even if it is a bitter justice. The Druid laity will be free in time, Ballenkart has avoided disaster by killing the sprout of the Tree of Life that was planted in its soil, and the Mangs have not conquered the planet.
There is no such justice to be found in The Houses of Iszm. There isn't even any societal change, positive or negative, brought about through the suffering and sacrifice of the people caught in the heist of the Iszic house seed. After the initial field raid that Farr witnesses on Iszm, Farr is tested and questioned to see if he had any hand in the plot to steal the house cultivation secrets of the planet. Part of this interrogation involves him being shown the newest experiments the Iszic are testing – the merger of animal and plant to create new potential structures. The animal part of this experimentation is a living, sentient being that was captured during the raid and lobotomized. He was then “planted” before scientists coaxed vegetation to grow from his body.
It's a nightmarish concept, and one for which the Iszic face no consequences. Granted, the experiment is a failure, but the reader is not shown that the experiments will halt, or even that there is any remorse felt by the Iszic for what they are doing to the poor being. Indeed, it's safe to say that there will be other people who will be tortured in the same manner. After Farr leaves the planet and begins his journey to Earth, there is no sign that things will be anything but business as usual in the labs of Iszm. The plot continues on without a backwards glance.
This sense of “take what you can and run” is pervasive throughout The Houses of Iszm. Justice seems to be only that which you bargain for as in Farr's sale of the smuggled seed to K. Penche, or the quick cover up of the death of the Iszic after the final confrontation at K. Penche's house. More than anything, it seems as if the creed of Jack Vance's worlds is "he who can afford to buy the power (female house seeds, knowledge of the true nature of the Tree of Life, etc.) makes the rules."
It would be interesting to see these two stories merged to tie up some of the loose story elements in both books. For instance, what if the tree Aile Farr sold to K. Penche became the horrendous Tree of Life on Kyril? It being a male sprout Penche purchased from Farr, combined with the fact that Iszic house growing secrets would never be given up willingly, then Penche would be required to spend his resources learning to reverse engineer the Iszic growing techniques for the sake of mass producing tree homes. Zhde Patasz of Iszm made it very clear to Farr during his visit that trees are semi-sentient and directly interact with their occupants in a symbiotic way. But there is such a thing as a mad tree. An organic man-made monstrosity created in a lab for the purpose of mass marketing at an affordable price would be an very interesting origin story for the Druid's sacred tree.
Although at times wavering unsteadily between fun action adventures and pessimistic commentary on the balance of power, Jack Vance's works have definitely fired my imagination. I look forward to reading more of his work in the very near future.
Web of the Witch World by Andre Norton
Picking up shortly after the conclusion of Witch World, Web continues with the trials of the citizens of Estcarp and their allies as they fight to save Loyse of Verlaine from kidnappers and contain another attempt by the Kolder to return to the home dimension of the former witch Jaelithe, the Earth man Simon Tregarth, Loyse, Koris of Gorm. As in its predecessor Witch World, Norton's focus on the balance of power (both technological and supernatural) alongside the geo-political intrigue remains crucial to the advancement of the plot. But also just like Witch World there is little development in the characters' personalities.
It's not hard to empathize with Norton's characters, but it's difficult to rationalize why we should be invested in them. Other than the hardships endured by their physical characteristics (plain faced Loyse or oddly shaped Koris), or the duties of their positions (Falconer, Witch, Border Warder, etc.), what can be said about any of these people who inhabit the the lands of Witch World? To say that any one of them is persistent, brave or intelligent is too generic a statement since these descriptors apply to all of them. Koris could be said to be the more brash of the primary protagonists, but even that is tempered by a seemingly universal understanding amongst the characters that the greater good of Estcarp and the protection of Loyse could be jeopardized with too much bravado.
In both Witch World and Web of the Witch World there are precious few characters who will act outside of the universally held objectives of their respective groups – all Kolder (native Kolder as well as their agents) work for the goal of cross-dimensional conquest, and all Estcarp allies work for the wills of the Guardians. Putting the two stories side by side the only characters who felt as if they evolved somewhat into distinguishable people were Aldis and Simon Tregarth.
As mistress to Yvian, Aldis is in a precarious position of power that could easily be lost should Yvian tire of her company or if he should recapture his runaway bride Loyse and cement a union between his territory and Verlaine. We see her exhibit cunning, duplicity, manipulation and forethought in Witch World, as well as a hardened self-serving determination to survive in a society where women are secondary accessories to the lives of the men who rule them. Sadly, only a little of this characterization survives into the plot of Web of Witch World before it is overridden by the mind control of the Kolder. Once an unpredictable and capricious character who added an edge to the chapters she appeared in, the Kolder force her to take wooden actions with nearly none of her classic cunning.
Simon Tregarth, the man from another Earth, is one who I desperately wanted to see evolve from his flat personality in Witch World. Thankfully, in Web of Witch World he does mature somewhat as a character. Between the time when the first book ended and the second one begins Simon and Jaelithe have married. It feels like a massive waste not to have been privy to the turmoil that must have been present within Jaelithe during that time as she officially sacrifices her Witch power, her position amongst the leadership of Estcarp, and sole possession of her physical body for her love of Simon. Apparently she must have come to terms with the trade, because things seem to be peaceful between them until one morning when both she and Simon feel a call of the power. Elatedly she declares that she feels whole again and goes off on her path in the plot, leaving the reader with some of the first real insight we have had into Simon – and that insight is that he is wildly insecure about this return of Jaelithe's power.
In only a handful of instances does the writing dive back into Simon's head to analyze this development in their relationship and how it affects Simon, but through it we are treated to a small character arc in which a character is motivated to action by more than a call to a greater good or service. Simon goes through an initial bout of self doubt that he wasn't enough to make Jaelithe feel whole since the loss of her power. Now that she has it back he's worried that she will begin to prioritize her role as a magic user over her relationship to him. He worries that her career as a Witch will pull them apart from each other physically as well as emotionally. He even begins to resent her as “defecting” from him until he starts to realize that that kind of thinking is playing into the hands of the Kolder who intend to drive a wedge between all those who oppose them. Ultimately Simon realizes that Jaelithe's reestablished connection with magic is not a threat to their marriage. He comes to see her as an equal and a powerful ally in the fight against the Kolder.
Andre Norton's Witch World is shaping up to be a series that will be most appreciated by fans of fast action political epics. It's not a series for those who are looking for a character study, or for a story that develops due to interplay between unique and interesting people. Again, as I said about Witch World, Norton has laid the foundations of a world with many interesting facets. The inter-dimensional travel, technology so advanced people have reverted to calling it magic, and deeply divided cultures are fun, but this world building takes far more precedence in the plot than the people within it.
[Today is the last day to get your Worldcon membership! Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos.]
by Cora Buhlert
The Newest from Andre Norton
1963 is almost history and here in Germany, I'm getting ready for New Year's Eve. I have friends coming over, a bowl full of spaceman's punch, plenty of nibbles, champagne in the fridge, a record player with all the latest albums and fireworks to welcome the new year.
I've been a good girl and so Santa brought me presents, including science fiction paperbacks from the US. I dug into one of the books right on Christmas Eve, even before Gruß an Bord, a radio program sending greetings to the crews of German ships around the globe, had finished.
That book was Ordeal in Otherwhere by Andre Norton, whose real name is Alice Marie Norton. I've heard of Norton before, right here at the Journey, but so far I've never read anything by her. Time to rectify that.
Ordeal in Otherwhere is the sequel to a novel entitled Storm over Warlock. I haven't read it, though Terra – Utopische Romane ran a translation last year. Not that it matters much, for Ordeal in Otherwhere is perfectly understandable, even if you haven't read the earlier book.
The story, in brief
The novel starts with our protagonist, a young lady named Charis Nordholm, on the run. Via flashbacks, the reader learns that Charis came to the colony world Demeter with her father, a government education officer. The colonists, a religious cult, were wary of the government and considered Charis "unfemale" because of her education. Then disaster struck in the form of a plague, which first killed the government agents, including Charis' father, and then spread to the colonists, hitting only men and post-pubescent boys. The superstitious colonists blamed the government and hunted down survivors like Charis.
With any other author, this religion versus science conflict would have been the story, for there is certainly novel's worth of material here. And indeed, I wonder whether Andre Norton wrote that novel elsewhere. But here, the events on Demeter are merely background, By chapter two, Charis has left Demeter behind, never to be seen again except in a dream sequence. Though I wonder what became of the colonists and if they survived.
Charis' salvation come in the form of a dodgy trader whose rocket ship just happens to land at the very moment Charis is recaptured. The trader sells indentured workers to the colonists in exchange for Charis. A teenaged girl indentured to a space captain of questionable morality raises all sorts of unpleasant possibilities. But Norton's books are marketed as juveniles and so Charis' virtue remains intact. The trader sells Charis to the merchant captain Jagan who miraculously has no unsavoury designs either. Jagan has a trading permit for Warlock, a planet inhabited by matriarchal aliens, the Wyvern. The Wyvern refuse to negotiate with men, so Jagan needs a woman. The first one went mad, so now it's Charis' turn.
Charis manages to send a message to a government outpost on Warlock. But before help can arrive, she finds herself compelled to walk across Warlock to meet the Wyvern. En route, Charis also finds a friend, the curl-cat Tsstu. There is a dreamlike, almost psychedelic quality to Charis' journey. Andre Norton has a gift for evocative descriptions of alien landscapes, which she employs to full effect here.
Charis' sojourn among the Wyvern, who teach her telepathy and teleportation, is brief, then Charis uses her newfound abilities to return to the trading post, only to find it destroyed, everybody inside dead. However, Charis also meets a new allies, Survey Corps cadet Shann Lantee and his pet wolverine Taggi. Shann is the protagonist of Storm Over Warlock. He is also – and that's sadly still remarkable even in our otherwise progressive genre – described as a black man. Alas, the cover – an otherwise accurate illustration of Charis, Shann, Tsstu and Taggi – completely ignores this.
Shann believes pirates are responsible for the attack on the trading post. However, a mysterious spear found on site points at the Wyvern. Both theories are sort of correct, because outlaws have freed Wyvern males from female control and are using them as muscle. In retaliation, the Wyvern females want to attack all humans. Only Charis can prevent this.
After many travails, Charis finds Shann a prisoner of the Wyvern, unresponsive and trapped inside a dream. Joining forces with Taggi and Tsstu, Charis enters Shann's dream prison and breaks him out. In the process, a mental bond is forged between all four of them.
It turns out that the pirate attack is a corporate takeover. A company has sent mercenaries to gain control of Warlock.The mercenaries have taken over the government base. They also have a device that can nullify the Wyvern’s power. And only Charis, Shann and their animal companions can stop them.
Shann is taken prisoner once more, but Charis escapes and warns the Wyvern and Shann's boss Ragnar Thorvald. But the plan to retake the base hinges on Charis, who stumbles into the base, babbling about snakes. The mercenaries take her to the medbay, which conveniently is also where Shann is held, catatonic in an attempt to avoid interrogation. With help from Tsstu, Taggi and his mate Togi, Charis manages to revive him.
The novel culminates in a standoff between Charis, Shann, Taggi and Tsstu on one side and the Wyvern males on the other. Shann and Charis broker a peace between the Wyvern males and females, so no one can exploit the rift between the sexes (which makes me wonder how they manage to reproduce) anymore.
Thorvald is impressed and drafts Charis as well as Tsstu and Taggi into service. Charis doesn't mind, because by now she has become fond of Shann and not just because of their mind link either.
My Observations
Charis is a likable protagonist, a smart and resourceful young woman of the kind that is still too rare in our genre. She spends much of the novel reacting to events, but towards the end, Charis is clearly in control and even Thorvald must bow to her will. Charis also rescues Shann repeatedly.
Unfortunately, Charis is the only competent human female we encounter – all others are either aliens, animals, nameless colonists or Charis' crazed predecessor. Besides, neither the government nor the villainous corporation consider sending women to Warlock, though that's a no brainer. In many ways, human society or what we see of it is the polar opposite of Wyvern society, a world where men hold all the power and women, particularly educated women like Charis, are a rarity. In fact, I wonder if Norton wanted to make just this point or whether she unconsciously defaulted to genre conventions.
The genuinely alien Wyvern are neither portrayed as pure menace nor as beyond reproach – after all, the females control the males and consider them mindless brutes incapable of rational thought. The portrayal of an alien society where the rift between males and females is so great that they barely seem part of the same species brings to mind books such as Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir or The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, both of which diagnose the same problem in our society. I have no idea whether Andre Norton has read either book, but Ordeal in Otherwhere almost feels like a response to these and similar works.
Ordeal in Otherwhere is science fantasy rather than science fiction. There are spaceships and blasters, but Norton never gives much detail about either. Even the nullifier, the device on which the plot hinges, is never described nor do we learn where it came from. Meanwhile, "the Power" is basically magic, controlled via mystical symbols. Norton even acknowledges this, since the Wyvern females are referred to as witches throughout the novel. This seems to be a recurring theme with Norton, as her earlier novel Witch World shows.
The hint of romance between Charis and Shann feels like an afterthought. True, Charis is quite taken with Shann from their first meeting on and worries much more about him than she ever thinks about her late father. We don't know Shann's feelings, because we never get any insight into him; Charis is the sole point-of-view character. Nonetheless, the romance feels oddly chaste. There is no kiss, let alone more. Holding hands is as far as Charis and Shann go. Even when Charis searches the unconscious Shann for useful items or when they sleep huddled together in a cave, Shann's head resting in Charis' lap, there is no hint of physical passion. This total lack of sex is not limited to Charis and Shann either – absolutely no one in this novel, whether human or Wyvern, seems to have sex with the possible exception of Taggi and Togi, since they have cubs.
I'm no big fan of animal companions, since they often seem too anthropomorphic. However, I really liked Tsstu and Taggi. Both are fully rounded characters in their own right, yet it's clear that their thought processes are very alien, when Charis links with them. Animal companions seem to be another recurring theme with Andre Norton. At one point, Charis asks Shann whether he is a Beastmaster, which happens to be the title of an earlier Norton novel. Coincidentally, I had to look up what sort of animal a wolverine is. I had assumed a wolf-like creature, but it turns out a wolverine is what we call "Vielfraß" (eats a lot) in German.
Summing up
Overall, I enjoyed Ordeal in Otherwhere, though there are some issues with the novel. The plot moves at a brisk pace, so brisk that I occasionally had to flip back to check if I hadn't accidentally skipped a page or two. There is easily material for two or three novels here and so Ordeal in Otherwhere feels rushed. Nonetheless, I will seek out other books by Andre Norton.
An enjoyable adventure in the grand old planetary romance tradition. Four stars.
Happy new year, from all of us at the Journey! Here's to a bright 1964…
Andre Norton (a common name for me now) released her new book into the wild of the science-fiction section of local book stores earlier this month! Being October and therefore the prime time to read anything horror or fantasy related, I didn't spend much time dithering about adding Witch World to my pile of literature by the bookstore register.
For this adventure, veteran story teller Andre Norton starts by introducing her audience to disgraced U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tregarth as he flees on his last leg from some unsavory business associates. After a chance meeting with a renowned people smuggler, he bargains for passage from our reality to one which he is promised to be “attuned" with. Skeptical, but figuring that his only other option is death at the hands of thugs, he agrees to what is supposedly a one way passage off of Earth. After successfully traveling through the supposed Siege Perilous, he jumps to the aid of a ragged woman pursued by hounds and soldiers. He quickly learns that the person he has saved is a witch (also referred to as one of the Women of Power) of the besieged land of Estcarp. Jump forward a time and Simon has almost seamlessly integrated himself into this strange new world of sword, guns and fickle sorcery.
Over the course of the story he travels over the known world, coming face to face with oddly advanced machinery within what is otherwise a medieval society. Ultimately he learns of forces and enemies which he and the native people within the realms barely grasp. The book wraps up with Simon and his allies winning the day against their mutual enemy, the Koltar. However, in doing so the extent of his adopted world's vulnerability from other realities begins to become clear, and with that realization the story ends with an uneasy sense of dread.
The plot of of Witch World is passable, but unfortunately the enjoyment of the novel is not to be found in any thrilling exploits of its characters. Overall their personalities do not come with anything particularly remarkable, and unfortunately that translates into character arcs that are alright, but not unexpected. The real reason to read Witch World is the vivid plethora of mythos and the fantastical history which shapes Norton's world. It's absolutely brimming with potential that I hope Norton will take advantage of in future stories.
Despite the bizarre whimsy of the cover by Jack Gaughan which prominently features a gun wielding man in a blue leotard with a comical bird beak sticking far out from his forehead, the cultures and environments of Witch World are filled with intense, gritty peoples who have distinct traditions and garb best suited to their rough lives. Spandex is pretty much the opposite of what anyone in Witch World wears. This is a high fantasy world with magic and chain mail, medieval feudalism and tribalism, and primitive, cruel ideas about a man and woman's roles. At the same time, however, there is deliberately juxtaposed science-fiction technology thrown in. Robotic birds, surgically and chemically induced mind control, and guns spring up with little preamble.
The way in which Norton merges a handful of advanced technology with a deeply structured fantasy culture struck me as distinct from other genre bridging stories. Previous sci-fi/fantasy stories I have pored through seem to favor the merger of the two genres almost equally. Some novels seem to use magic merely as another word of misunderstood science. Consider, in John Brunner's Secret Agent of Terra, the isolated people of Planet 14 who are not privy to exactly how an ancient food processor works and consider the domestication of animals to have mystical origins. The visitors from Earth do know how to work the old technology and are well aware of the planet's history of animal husbandry, yet they feed this misconception so as to not disturb the planet's natural evolution from magic believers to scientific pioneers. And therein lies the rub – for every “spell" there is a hidden keep of exposition.
When the subject of magic is approached in any of Norton’s writing there is never any easy solution lying right below the surface. Her flaire for piecing out information and not revealing more than what the characters themselves know keeps the reader on edge, as well as humble. This sense that there are always bigger forces at play, yet are never fully explained, teases the rational mind of the reader and allows for there to be doubt that anything “magical" can be easily quantified by rational, scientific method. It's very disquieting when Norton's established and venerated forces, like the witchcraft of the Women of Power and the Axe of Volt, are threatened by something indefinable that is even older and more powerful – travel across dimensions.
To belabor the point, Norton's book is in desperate need of a new front cover in future editions to better advertise this unease, since it is by far one of the biggest things the reader takes away from the novel. That and, of course, the potential for more stories of branching off of Witch World. The expansiveness of Norton's world is, frankly, astounding. The potential for twists and turns in future stories is greatly aided by the dimension travel that Norton subtly echoes back to again and again.
Andre Norton's Witch World has a spark of something much bigger, and while this first foray into its world was rather standard in terms of the main plot, the visible layers and grandiosity of Witch World just begs to be explored. It's hard to give a book like this a rating. Was it fun to follow the exploits of Simon Tregarth, Koris, Briant, and Jaelithe? A little, but they were not really the most interesting aspect of the novel. Did the story achieve what it set out to do in terms of world building? Absolutely. Did it make me want to read more? If any further Witch World books can make me as riveted to the history of this world as much as this book did, then absolutely. Ultimately I would say this was a three and a half star book. Well worth reading for the intricacy and intrigue of the universe Norton has created, but with characters who were outshined by their surroundings.
![[April 6, 1969] The Weight of History (May 1969 <i>IF</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IF-1969-04-Cover.jpg?resize=500%2C372)
A map showing the location of Chenpao/Damansky Island
Chinese soldiers pose with their captured Russian tank
The cover illustrates Groovyland and is credited as courtesy of Three Lions, Inc., but see below
Here’s the original art by Johnny Bruck.
The entrance to one of Groovyland’s main attractions. Art by Gaughan
Pry makes a mad dash past a pairbot under the mad captain’s control. Art by Fedak
Spork and one of the Ayor have lost their ship. Art by Reese
Starrex fights to keep Tamisan safe while she tries to break the dream. Art by Adkins
Portrait by Gaughan
A new Reynolds novel could go either way, but that title invites comparisons to Heinlein.
![[March 2, 1969] Dreams and reality (April 1969 <i>IF</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IF-1969-04-Cover.jpg?resize=491%2C372)
Ayub Khan greets LBJ in Karachi in 1967.
Sheikh Mujib (center) emerges from prison.
Like I said, swords and spaceships. Art by Adkins
A spaceship approaches to meet a different welcome than it actually did. Art by Adkins
Spork learns to use direct action against the Tepen. Art by Reese
Jack Williamson. Art by Gaughan
Retief and Magnan meet the locals. Art by Gaughan
Bloch could be good or bad. His humor is hit or miss.![[January 20, 1968] Alyx and Company (January 1968 Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/680120covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[May 2, 1967] The Call of Duty (June 1967 <i>IF</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IF-Cover-1967-06.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
Muhammad Ali is escorted from the induction center in Houston, Texas. 
Uncle Martin and Tim (from My Favorite Martian) seem to have had a falling out. Actually, this is supposedly from Spaceman!
Takya and Craike set a trap for the Black Hoods. Art by Gray Morrow
A strand-gleaner makes an important discovery. Art by Virgil Finlay
Billy meets Srat for the first time. Poor Srat. Art by Castellon
Cal is injured. Art by Gaughan
An example of some sea glass
This is presumably the Riverworld story promised for Worlds of Tomorrow. The lack of other information suggests that Fred is scrambling to deal with the loss of a magazine.![[December 10, 1966] Hot and Cold (December Galactoscope #1)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/661210covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[October 24, 1965] "What time is it?" (October Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/651024covers-1.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[May 24, 1965] Two faded stars (May Galactoscope #2)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/650524cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[April 16, 1964] Of Houses and World Building (Jack Vance's The Houses of Iszm/ Son of the Tree and Andre Norton's Web of the Witch World)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/640416double.jpg?resize=640%2C372)
![[December 31, 1963] A not unpleasant ordeal (<i>Ordeal in Otherwhere</i> by Andre Norton)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/631231Cover_Ordeal_in_Otherwhere.jpg?resize=419%2C372)
![[October 22, 1963] A Whole New Fantasy (Andre Norton's <i>Witch World</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/631022cover.jpg?resize=400%2C372)
