The French economy has been rocky ever since the wave of strikes and protests in May. As a result, France has been getting more and more goods from its industrial neighbor, West Germany. The problem is France has to buy German goods in francs, which means that, more and more, francs are ending up in West German hands. Franc reserves, at $6.9 billion in April 1968, are now down to $4 billion and plummeting.
To forestall a devaluation of the franc (reducing its value, thus making imports more expensive and exports more affordable to other nations, but playing hell with international economic relations in the process), DeGaulle's government is evaluating all sorts of Hail Mary options to stabilize the economy. One that was rejected was the West German offer to invest directly in the French economy, which would leave them too in control of French assets (including the dwindling franc supply!) A proposal that was adopted was an increase in vehicle fuel costs; I gather fuel production is nationalized, and the government can't afford to sell it so cheaply.
But a sadder development involves the French post office-letters written to Santa Claus will no longer be answered. Previously, kids who wrote to St. Nick got a colorful postcard with a message of Christmas cheer. A West German offer to donate Elven postal braceros has been rejected.
Merry Christmas, indeed. Maybe DeGaulle should convert to Judaism. Then he can pray a great miracle will happen in Paris for Hannukah, and the franc reserve will last eight years instead of one…
Flickering candles
Here in the good old U.S. of A., we don't have such economic woes (though inflation is kicking in). All I have to worry about is whether the first Galaxy of the year is any good. In other words, has the value of the magazine been devalued? Let's find out!
On Titan, the alien machines (first seen six years ago in "The Towers of Titan") rumble on, their purpose unknown, as they have for millennia. Humanity, terrified of their implications, begins searching the stars for their creator. And so, one ship, the Carl Sagan, makes the 15 year trip to Sirius A-2, a barren but Earthlike world orbiting the blazing blue sun.
Sid Lee, an anthropologist onboard, is convinced that Earth once warred with the aliens who build the machines of Titan, and that humans lost, reverting to savagery. The crew of the Sagan are surprised not only to find a group of intelligent beings on the alien world, but that they are indistinguishable from Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Lee volunteers to live among them, hiding his extraterrestrial origin, to learn the truth of the Sirians, and how they fit into the ancient, hypothetical war.
by Reese
There's a lot to like about this piece, especially the methodical, painfully slow, expedition protocols. The crew wear suits when they go outside. Extreme caution is taken in scouting. It takes months before Lee is even allowed to infilitrate the aliens.
Bova reminds me a bit of Niven in his weaving together hard science fiction and a compelling story. However, the author does not have Niven's mastery of the craft, and the story feels a bit clunky. Moreover, the "revelations" of the tale are telegraphed, and the red herrings Bova throws in to keep the mystery going are not convincing.
I enjoyed the story, but it's difficult to decide if it's a high 3 or a low 4. I think I will go with the latter because it's clear this novella is only part of a bigger story, one that looks like it will be fascinating to read.
The Thing-of-the-Month Clubs, by John Brunner
In what looks like the final entry in the Galactic Consumer Report series, the editor of the fictional magazine reviews various [THING]-of-the-Month Clubs. Specifically, the editor is looking for high cost and ephemeral items for worlds with >100% income tax.
A fellow named Christmas runs the premier racing planet in the galaxy: Raceworld! He deals with a number of headaches including various attempts to fix the games by a number of different species. The thing reads breezily, shallowly, in a style I was sure I'd read before…and sure enough, looking through back reviews, I found the story I was thinking of ("Birth of a Salesman") was, indeed, written by one James Tiptree Jr.
I found this story even less compelling. One star.
Dunderbird, by Harlan Ellison and Keith Laumer
by Jack Gaughan
I'm not sure how Harlan Ellison ends up bylining with so many different authors these days: Sheckley, Delany, and now Laumer.
The premise: a giant pteranodon falls out of the sky onto the streets of New York, crushing 83 people under its unnaturally heavy corpse. The rest of the story is a detailing of the many odd characters who come across the flying lizard and their reactions to it.
Pointless and unfunny, I have to wonder if Ellison attaches his name to things just to get them published for friends. It's not doing the brand any favors.
One star.
For Your Information: The Written Word, by Willy Ley
This is a nice piece on the history of writing materials (which is, by definition, the history of history) from Greek times to modern day.
Ley wraps up with a primer on how to send and decode interstellar messages, which I quite enjoyed.
Interestingly, though he talks about microfiche and microfilm, he does not mention the possibility of more-or-less permanent documents within the memory banks of computers. I know it may seem frivolous to store the written word on such expensive media as the Direct Access Storage Devices (DASD) used by IBM 360 computers, but in fact, such is being done as we speak. I have used time share systems to send frivolous messages to others on home-grown "mail" systems, and also created data sets that were text files, both as memos and as "documents" for other users to read. And, of course, there are data sets that are programs that, once loaded into permanent memory via punch card or teletype, are there to stay. At least until an electrical pulse fries the whole thing.
Of course, that's a pretty rarefied use, but it's still interesting and relevant for those in the biz.
Gil Hamilton, an agent of the the United Nations police force —Amalgamated Regional Militias (ARM)—is called regarding a death. Not because he's a cop, but because he's next of kin of the deceased, a Belter named Owen Jennison. The spaceman's demise looks like a particularly elaborate suicide: he is in a chair hooked up to a device that uses electric current to stimulate the pleasure center of one's brain, and he apparently starved, quite happily, to death.
But as Gil puts the pieces together, he comes to the conclusion that Jennison must have been murdered. Which means there's a murderer. Which means there are clues. And since it's Niven's Earth in the 22nd Century, organleggers are probably involved.
Did I mention that Gil also has psychic powers? He has a third, telekinetic arm, which comes in very handy. It's also the first time that I've seen this particular idea. It breathes new life into a hoary subject.
As does all of the story, honestly. Niven is simply a master of organically conveying information, letting you live in his universe, absorbing details as they become pertinent. There's nothing of the New Wave to his work save that his writing is qualitatively different from what we saw in prior eras.
He's also written a gripping fusion of the science fiction and detective genres, perhaps the best yet.
Five stars.
Welcome Centaurians, by Ted Thomas
Aliens arrive from Proxima Centauri. Though they make contact with many of Earth's nations while cautiously assaying us from orbit, their captain forms a bond with Colonel Lee Nessing of NORAD. After a long conversation, the aliens agree to land in New York, whereupon friendly relations are established.
This is a cute, nothing story whose charm comes mostly from the chummy relationship between Lee and "Mat", the Proximan that looks like a floor rug. My biggest issue is the gimmick ending, in which it is revealed that ancient Proximans caused the death of the dinosaurs by seeding the Earth with food animals—which turned out to be early mammals.
The problem: mammals evolved from reptiles 200 million years ago. That event is well documented in the fossil record and is referenced in my copy of The Meaning of Evolution (1949) by George Gaylord Simpson. This sort of basic evolutionary mistake seems pretty common in science fiction, where writers try to ascribe extraterrestrial origin to obviously terrestrial creatures (humans are the most frequent example).
Three stars.
Value for money
If there's anything the January 1969 issue of Galaxy proves, it's that even good money can't guarantee a return. Editor Fred Pohl paid 4 cents a word for all of the pieces in this issue, and to his credit, more than half the words are in four/five star pieces. On the other hand, two of the stories are mediocre, and two are absolutely awful. It's like Pohl got his tales from a mystery bag and had to take what he got, good or bad.
Well, the superior stuff would fill an ordinary sized magazine, so I shan't complain. Read the Bova, the Ley, and the Niven. Then put the issue under your tree for others to discover Christmas morning…
The beat goes on at Amazing, after the brief syncopation that pushed its schedule back a month. This September issue, as usual these days, boasts on the cover of all the new (non-reprint) stories inside—four short stories, 35 pages in all, less than a fourth of the magazine. The rest of the fiction, three novelets, is reprints. So is the cover—Frank R. Paul’s Great Nebula in Andromeda (“Andromida,” as this barely-proofread magazine has it). It’s from the back cover of the October 1945 Fantastic Adventures, significantly cropped, and generally pretty cheesy-looking. By then, Paul’s future was behind him, in more senses than one.
by Frank R. Paul
There is the usual collection of features, ranging from a startlingly inane editorial by editor Harrison, through another “Science of Man” article by Leon E. Stover (see below) and a Sao Paulo Letter by Walter Martins about SFnal doings around Brazil, to what has become the usual lively book review column. Though this month it’s a little incestuous. William Atheling, Jr., who is James Blish, reviews Brian Aldiss’s new novel, while Blish’s own byline appears on a review of Harrison and Aldiss’s Best SF 1967. Alexei Panshin reviews John Wyndham’s new novel, while Leroy Tanner, who is Harrison, reviews Panshin’s book on Heinlein, and Harrison under his own name reviews William Tenn’s new novel Of Men and Monsters. What is this? The New York Review of Books?
And—speaking of “What is this?”—there’s a telltale development in the fine print at the bottom of the contents page. Right under “Sol Cohen, Publisher” and “Harry Harrison, Editor,” is a new line: “Barry N. Malzberg, Associate Editor.” Based on past history (Harrison first sneaked into Amazing as a book reviewer before being named as editor), maybe there’s another change in the works. That might account for the rather detached and phoned-in quality of Harrison’s editorial this month. Mr. Malzberg is a recent arrival on the SF scene, having published several stories under the name “K.M. O’Donnell,” which might be said to be notable for their vehemence. That could be just what this frequently uninspired magazine needs.
Where's Horatius?, by Mack Reynolds
by Jeff Jones
The issue begins with Mack Reynolds’s Where’s Horatius?, on the now-familiar premise of making movies of the past. Our time-traveling rogues’ gallery of heroes is trying to film the action in 509 B.C., when the Etruscan king Lars Posena marched with his army on Rome. Reynolds makes the most of his research into the events and the military technology and technique of the age, and generally seems to be having a better time than usual, in a slightly cartoonish way, without the often leaden style and dense didactics of some of his Analog work. The ending is gimmicky and reads like a chunk of text got dropped somewhere in the last few paragraphs, but it’s readable and amusing nonetheless. Three stars.
Manhattan Dome, by Ben Bova
Ben Bova’s Manhattan Dome is a perplexing story, sort of an idiot plot writ large. (For those unfamiliar with the jargon, an idiot plot is one in which there is a story only because the characters act like idiots.) A dome has been constructed over Manhattan to keep out the air pollution wafting over from New Jersey. However, the part of the proposal that would ban cars and cigarettes from Manhattan was blocked by the City Council after the auto, oil, tobacco, and advertising lobbyists got to work, so the air under the dome is worse than the outside air.
To top it off, when Ed, the Chief Dome Engineer, encounters his girlfriend’s cranky old father, he is ranting about how the lack of rain under the Dome has ruined his garden. It’s a disaster, and “Washington” (specified only as the “Public Health people”) has just announced that it’s tearing the Dome down. All is lost! But suddenly the light bulb goes on over Ed’s head, and back in the office, he starts turning on the fire sprinklers that are part of the Dome’s construction. “Rains scrub the air, wash away the aerosols and float them down the sewers. Air always feels clean after a rain, doesn’t it?” All is saved!
by Dan Adkins
What's wrong with this picture? Let us count the ways. Even an entity like the New York City Council (which has been described publicly as having the I.Q. of a cucumber) would probably not be so stupid as to allow the Dome while blocking the measures to keep the air clean under it. And it’s equally hard to imagine that nobody would have thought about making rain with the sprinklers until long after the Dome was in operation, and about to be torn down. (Ed says there’s plenty of water available. I’d like to see the calculations.) And it’s also hard to credit that artificial rain alone would cure the air pollution problem in a giant city, since there are a lot of cities around the world that have terrible air pollution despite being exposed to the rain—notably New York.
Maybe there will be a sequel in which Bova will sell us the Brooklyn Bridge. But there is one more thing in this story which bears mention. In the lobby of Dome HQ, the chairman of the Greater New York Evolutionary Society and someone from the American Longevity Society get into it, the former supporting the Dome, the latter opposing it. The Evolutionary guy is described as “a massive specimen, with an insistent voice and a craggy face topped by a bristling shock of straight white hair. He had a Roosevelt-type cigaret [sic] holder clamped in his teeth. . . .” They argue, and Mr. Evolutionary declares at his peak:
“I know it’s rough on some individuals. But evolution isn’t worried about the individual. This Dome will foster the development of a superior race, able to breathe pure carbon monoxide, impervious to germs! Magnificent!”
This is an obvious lampoon of Analog editor John W. Campbell and of his views in general, and in particular his opinion that smoking cigarettes is not a serious health hazard, but a boon. (See his editorial in the September 1964 Analog.) This is interesting, since Bova has made a number of appearances in Analog in recent years. We’ll see if that continues. But back to the story: mildly amusing, depending on how high you can suspend your disbelief. Two stars.
Idiot’s Mate, by Robert Taylor
Bova is followed by Robert Taylor (who, you ask? He had a story in last month’s F&SF), with Idiot’s Mate, on the familiar theme of staged violence as mass entertainment. This one features the Chess Tournament, held on the Moon, in which people in spacesuits are assigned to teams and given the names of chess pieces, and apparently given powers to match, though that idea is not well developed. Mostly everyone just plays hide-and-seek and shoots explosive bullets. Protagonist Rodgers, imprisoned on trumped-up treason charges, volunteers for the Tournament and is made king of a team. Needless to say, matters end badly, though the story is not bad; it is a bit overwritten, but capably so, and moves fast. Three stars.
Time Bomb, by Ray Russell
Ray Russell’s Time Bomb is a time-travel joke, deftly rendered, worth about the two pages it takes up. Three stars, allowing for its limited ambition.
The Patty-Cake Mutiny, by Winston Marks
The reprints begin with The Patty-Cake Mutiny (Fantastic, February 1955), by Winston Marks, that monstrously prolific contributor to the mid-‘50s SF magazines, to remind us that they sure published a lot of crap in between the undying classics we all remember.
The Patty-Cake Mutiny is a story of space exploration featuring crew members Slappy Kansas, Conkie Morton, Butch Bagley, Pokey Gannet, Sniffer Smith, and Balls Murphy. Slappy is unofficial foreman because of his skill in slapping people around. Sniffer is greatly talented olfactorily. Conkie conks out under anything more than a gee and a half of acceleration. Balls—calm down now—is so named because of the “pendulous little knobs of flesh” on his face, each of which contains “a submicroscopic parasite that had baffled Earth doctors” (but it’s OK, they’re not contagious). Et cetera. Their mission is to find and mine the incredibly valuable radioactive kegnite. There is tension among the crew because Balls has won at craps their shares of any profit from the voyage.
by Tom Beecham
This motley crew lands on a planet with a resilient surface and tall grass-like stalks as far as they can see. Balls goes out exploring and gets into trouble, and is retrieved in a state of “infantile regression”—literally—so they have to put him in a diaper and take turns keeping the baby occupied (hence patty-cake; the mutiny is separate despite the title). But back to work: they cut into the surface and a red fluid—guess what?—gushes out. Before the end, they are hacking steaks out of the giant organism they have landed on—Hairy Joe, as they call it. And it goes on, ending with a fist fight (Slapper lives up to his name) and the explanation of Balls’s regression, which is as silly as the rest of the story. It’s all too ridiculous and tiresome to be borne. I’m demanding a raise. One star.
Neil R. Jones’s Labyrinth (from Amazing, April 1936) is another in his seemingly endless series (22 of them!) about Professor Jameson, revived from his orbiting tomb by the Zoromes (from Zor, of course), and installed like them in a metal body. Now they all go roaming around the universe looking for entertainment, though of course the author doesn’t put it that way. The few of these I’ve read were mostly benignly tedious, but this one is a little more dynamic.
The Prof and the Z’s land on a planet and investigate a city, which at first seems abandoned, but proves to be inhabited by strange beings with four legs and a dozen arms, who flee when our heroes approach.
“ ‘We must seize one of them!’ Professor Jameson exclaimed. ‘They seem intelligent enough for questioning.’ ” Of course! (So much for the respectful fellowship of sentient beings.) Once they’ve got a couple in hand, they conclude that their intelligence is “somewhat below the level of an Australian bushboy, an earthly type which lay in the professor’s memory, yet well above the mentality of the beasts he had known.” (So much for . . . oh, never mind.)
The Queegs, as they call themselves, are quite affable once reassured that they won’t be harmed. They didn’t build the city but say they’ve “always” lived there. They survive by hunting creatures called ohbs, using wooden weapons, even though they can work metal. Why? Metal doesn’t last very long, they say—which seems odd.
So the metal folks tag along on a hunting expedition to a seemingly barren area. The ohbs prove to be giant gray slug-like creatures who apparently subsist on something in the ground. A Zorome comes into contact with an ohb, which starts to radiate light and grabs the Zorome. Another ohb joins in. What’s going on?
“ ‘It is eating me!’ cried 47B-97. ‘It is eating my metal body!’”
by Leo Morey
And now—“coming from every direction a vast legion of hurrying ohbs, their antennae quivering, slight radiations of anticipation suffusing their leaping-crawling bodies. They were being called to the feast, a feast of virgin metal which the gluttonous appetites of their two companions had involuntarily revealed.” The author continues, waxing rhapsodic:
“With as much disregard for self-preservation as they had shown when hunted by the Queegs, the ohbs, fully half as large as the cubed body of a Zorome, seemed possessed of but one unquenchable desire, and that was to glut themselves on pure, refined metal, free of all impurities and unmixed with rock and other foreign material, such as they found regularly in their daily diet. Nothing less than death stopped their mad charge.”
And a little later, a Zorome cries: “22MM392! 744U-21! We are helpless! They are all around us! Wet, clammy juices they exude from their bodies are turning our metal parts to a fluid which they absorb! If our metal heads are eaten through, we are doomed!’”
Electrifying! But the rest of the story is a little anticlimactic, with the Zoromes fleeing into a tunnel mouth, which leads to the labyrinth of the title. Soon enough they are lost, wandering aimlessly between dangerous encounters with ohbs, until they follow an underground river and are rescued, to resume their peregrinations around the galaxy. Three corroded stars.
Paradox, by Charles Cloukey
The precocious Charles Cloukey (1912-1931) is back, or re-resurrected (see Sub-Satellite), with Paradox (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Summer 1929), another assuredly executed story, published when he was 17. It’s a frame story in which the author is a guest at a club where a couple of members are arguing about the possibility of time travel, and the mysterious Raymond Cannes introduces himself as a time traveler and tells his tale.
by Wally Wallit
Hawkinson, a scientist and old college chum, has received plans for a strange machine, done in Cannes’s handwriting, but Cannes didn’t write them and wouldn’t have been capable of it. Later, Hawkinson builds the machine—a time machine—and invites Cannes over, and of course (in the usual manner of ‘20s and ‘30s SF), Cannes goes for it and travels a thousand years into the future. After various adventures he flees home at a cliff-hanging moment to find that Hawkinson is dead and his laboratory burned. Cannes throws his time-traveling gear into the river, destroying all corroborating evidence (also as usual for this period’s SF).
The story runs facilely through several now-familiar time paradox themes that were new to the genre when this was written. Unfortunately some of the plot developments I have passed over are fairly hackneyed, and Cloukey’s stilted style, though well turned, gets a bit wearing over the length of the story, keeping it to three stars.
Science of Man: Naked Ape or Hairless Monkey, by Leon E. Stover
Leon E. Stover’s article, Naked Ape or Hairless Monkey, invoking at least the title of Desmond Morris’s best-selling book, takes on the question whether, evolutionarily speaking, humans are naked apes or hairless monkeys. Stover follows human ancestry backwards to conclude . . . nobody knows. A key sentence: “The game seems to be, how much can we learn from the least evidence.” But he thinks he’s got a good guess: an apparently hypothetical animal that he calls Propriopithecus. Conclusion: “So man is neither a naked ape nor a hairless monkey. His line of ancestry evolved apart from the monkeys and apes. He is not simply a depilitated version of either one of them. Man is what he is—a nudist who made it on his own.”
I am reminded of the form letter that H.L. Mencken reputedly kept handy to respond to some of his more imaginative correspondents: “Dear sir or madam: You may be right!” And so may Stover. In any case, it’s reasonably interesting and informative if inconclusive, but also pretty dense reading. Three stars.
Summing Up
Amazing continues to tread water, capably enough this month. Almost everything here is perfectly readable, with one shameful exception. The new stories are pretty lively within their limitations. But we wait in vain for something outstanding, and we’re not likely to get it when only 25% of the magazine is open to new fiction.
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
The universe is based on a host of magic numbers. Without them, the cosmos would be entirely different and probably uninhabitable. Some of these "constants" are familiar to the layman, Pi perhaps being the most so. Engineers are familiar with electron-Volts and atomic masses. Chemists know Avogadro's number, the relationship between atomic mass and metric mass. Mathematicians know e.
e is a truly fascinating number. Roughly equal to 2.71828, it is the fundament of exponential growth. For example, if you have a $1 compounded annually at 100% interest, at the end of a year you'll have $2. If you have $1 compounded monthly at 100% interest, at the end of the year you'll have $2.62. If you have $1 compounded continuously (i.e. over an infinite number of instants), you will have $2.71828 at the end of the year.
In calculus, if you integrate the function e to the x power, you get… e to the x power! Conversely, of course, the derivative of e to the x is e to the x. That means that e to the x is the one function whose rate of change is the same as its position is the same as its acceleration.
What does this have to do with Analog Science Fiction, particularly this latest issue?
by Kelly Freas
Well, when you have the same editor for 30 years, and he hires the same writers every issue, and he has a rigid editorial policy that eschews innovation and prioritizes certain pseudo-scientific fetishes, you end up with a certain kind of consistency. Not necessarily a desirable consistency, but consistency nevertheless. Read on, and you'll see what I mean.
You know you're in trouble when Chris Anvil gets the cover. Actually, this continuan of the saga of Captain Roberts and his crew of two isn't so bad. Previous installments had the trio serendipitously developing a mind-control ray and using it to wrest a planet from a despotic computer. Then the three posed as nobility to sway said planet further. It was all very glib and distasteful, and I didn't like it.
This story spends two thirds of its length rehashing the events of those stories for new readers and then bringing the trio back, making it a quartet (with Bergen from a story in the December 1967 issue), and unleashing them on a new problem. A somewhat primitive planet is fractured into more than a dozen petty kingdoms, and the Interstellar Patrol needs a majority of them to agree in order to establish a base. In the last third of Royal Road, we get the solution to this conundrum. It mostly involves creating an economic catastrophe that only kingdoms favorable to the Imperial Patrol are equipped to address, thus putting these kingdoms on top. Anvil does note that the gambit could have killed millions, so at least things aren't quite so glib as before.
At least now the quartet of Captain Roberts has been transformed into a sort of Retief series. Anything's an improvement. Anyway, I didn't hate it. A low three stars, I guess.
After the vastly superior alien federation shows up on Earth, a sociologist is brought back to see what he assumes will be their advanced technology. Instead, it turns out that humans have been quite a bit more successful than the ee-tees, at least in one vital field.
A Twilight Zone episode writ small, but inoffensive. Three stars.
Kent is a person with a literal split personality. His left half is under the control of a silent partner, dubbed "Pard", while Kent, nominally the "dominant" personality, runs the right half. Together, they lead a pleasant life as an extremely successful concert pianist. That is until Pard gets them both tangled up in a spy conspiracy that threatens not just the world…but themselves!
I liked the story's handling of mental handicaps, and it's a pleasant piece overall. Three stars, but the highest three stars in the issue.
It's RIGHT Over Your Nose!, by Ben Bova
by Kelly Freas
In this science-ish article, Bova suggests that quasars, highly red-shifted quasi-stellar radio sources, may in fact be Bussard ramjets run by aliens. Thus, rather than being natural phenomena of tremendous power far outside the galaxy, they are artificial phenomena of middlin' power within.
I tend to prefer natural over artificial solutions to problems. Plus, why is every star-drive in the galaxy going away from us?
Still, it's readable, if breathless. Three stars.
The Mind Reader, by Rob Chilson
by Leo Summers
Robot mini-planes prove to be decisive in the next Southeast Asian war. This story is told mostly in dialogue between two people in a sort of "As you know, Bob…" fashion.
The concept is interesting and unique. The story is not compellingly told. Two stars.
Finally, we have the next installment in Satan's World, which started last month. The crew of Muddlin' Through was split up when David Falkayn was abducted by Serendpity Inc., a galactic information clearing house. This provoked Polesotechnic League magnate Nicholas Van Rijn to take a personal hand in things, sending Adzel the saurian centaur to retrieve the poor lad.
Turns out Falkayn (predictably) had been brainwashed. It also turns out that Serendipity is working with, perhaps in the thrall of, a race of mysterious aliens known as the Elders. The ulterior motive of this ostensibly neutral organization suggests some new power may be planning some kind of galactic conquest.
Meanwhile, Chee Lan the foul-mouthed Cynthian and Falkayn head to the world Serendipity told him about in part one–the frozen world in a cometary orbit that is closing in on its star, Beta Crucis. This will cause its cryosphere to melt, revealing a mother-lode of precious metals. But Van Rijn's team isn't the only one interested in the world, aptly dubbed "Satan". Twenty UFOs have just dropped out of hyperspace in the vicinity, and they don't look friendly…
Anderson has a lot of tics I don't like, particularly his drawing of characters as…well, assemblages of tics. Adzel is a placid Buddhist, Falkayn is a cipher, Chee Lan is a salty Little Old Lady from Pasadena, and Van Rijn is a lustier, more Dutch version of Raymond Burr's Ironside.
The author also devotes lots of ink to the physical descriptions of his astronomical creations, which I'm sure are fascinating to some, but perhaps are most gratifying for the three cents a word they earn him.
That said, just as I start to get bored, I find myself turning the page and reading on. So, another three star segment.
Less than Three
So, just like the constant "e", Analog clocks in at just under three. Indeed, that's how I feel about the magazine as a whole lately. Sure, there are better issues than others, and sure, there are some standout pieces, but for the most part, I find myself doing anything–cleaning the bathroom ceilings, cataloging my 45s, sorting stamps–rather than read Analog. Not that I hate the experience when I get to it. It simply doesn't give the thrill of anticipation that Galaxy still gives me after all of these years. Even F&SF, which hasn't been terrific since 1962, retains residual goodwill.
Of course, this month's Analog clocks in at 2.9 (rounding up 2.85), which is better than Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6). But it's worse than Galaxy (3.1) and IF (3.3).
It was a really thin month for magazines, and out of the four that were published, the better-than-three-star stories would barely fill one of them. At least women wrote 11% of new fiction pieces, which is on the higher end lately.
Well, here's hoping that next month's Analog picks a different constant to ape, if it can. And let's hope it's not Planck's Constant!
Student protests have been erupting all over Europe and even the otherwise nigh impenetrable iron curtain cannot stop them.
Protesting students run from the police in Warsaw, Poland.
The latest country to be rocked by student protests is Poland. The protests were triggered when a production of the play Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's most celebrated poet, was pulled from the Warsaw National Theatre because of alleged anti-Soviet tendencies. In response, students protested against the cancellation of the play and censorship in general. More than thirty students were arrested during the initial protests in Warsaw and two of them were expelled from the University of Warsaw. The fact that both expelled students happened to be Jewish suggests that Anti-Semitism, which has been rearing its ugly head in Poland again in recent years under the guise of Anti-Zionism, may have played a role.
The Polish students, however, were not willing to give up and announced another protest for March 8. The authorities responded with violence and pre-emptively arrested several student leaders. Nonetheless, the protests spread to other Polish cities.
Buddha is a Spaceman: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny, of Polish origin himself, is one of the most exciting young authors in our genre and has already won two Nebulas and one Hugo Award, which is remarkable, considering he has only been writing professionally for not quite six years.
My own response to Zelazny's works has been mixed. I enjoyed some of them very much (the Dilvish the Damned stories from Fantastic or last year's novella "Damnation Alley" from Galaxy) and could not connect to others at all (the highly lauded "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"). So I opened Zelazny's latest novel Lord of Light with trepidation, for what would I find within, the Zelazny who wrote the Dilvish the Damned stories or the one who wrote "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"?
The answer is "a little bit of both" and "neither". Lord of Light is not so much a novel, but a series of interconnected stories, two of which, "Dawn" and "Death and the Executioner", appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction last year. To make things even more disjointed, the stories are not arranged in chronological order either.
The novel starts with the resurrection of Mahasamatman, Sam to his friends, who may or may not be a god. Sam is not happy about his resurrection, because he was pulled back into bodily existence from a blissful, Nirvana-like bodyless existence that was supposed to be a punishment, the only way of executing one who is functionally immortal. We gradually learn what brought Sam to this place, namely his rebellion against the gods of his world who keep the population downtrodden and oppressed .
Initially, Lord of Light appears to be a fantasy novel, but we eventually realise that the novel is set on a distant planet in the far future and that the gods and demigods we meet are the crew of the Earth spaceship Star of India, which landed here eons ago, while the demons are the original inhabitants of the planet. The human crew mutated themselves to better survive and reincarnate themselves in new bodies via mind transfer to become immortal. They rule over their descendants with an iron hand as self-styled gods. Sam, however, will have none of this and launches a rebellion.
Fantasy and science fiction have been drawing from European religion, mythology and history for decades. In Lord of Light, however, Zelazny draws on Hindu and Buddhist religion and mythology. The spaceship crew turned gods are based on Hindu deities, while Sam is based on Siddhartha Gautama a.k.a. Buddha.
Indian culture is popular right now and Indian influences can be seen in fashion, interior design, music (the Beatles have just embarked on a meditation sojourn in India) as well as in the yoga studios springing up in the big cities. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before Indian influences would appear in science fiction. Especially since it would be silly to assume that only white Christian westerners get to travel to the stars. There is a Christian character in Lord of Light, by the way; the ship's former chaplain Renfrew embarks on a crusade against the self-styled Hindu gods and their worshippers.
The Beatles arrived in India for a meditation retreat last month.
It is a refreshing change to read a science fiction novel where eastern rather than western culture and religion dominate the far future. Nonetheless, something about Lord of Light bothered me. As a child, I spent time in South East Asia, mainly in Singapore, but also in Bangkok, because my Dad was stationed there as an agent for the Norddeutscher Lloyd and DDG Hansa shipping companies. And while I cannot claim to know a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism (though two war-battered Buddha statues guard my home), I know enough to realise that Zelazny gets a lot of things wrong.
Singapore as it looked when I lived there: The General Post Office a.k.a. the Fullerton Building, which was brand-new at the time. I understand Singapore has been modernising rapidly since gaining independence.The C.K. Tang Ltd. department store in Singapore, where my mother and I enjoyed shopping back in the day.
Of course, Zelazny isn't the only person to rather liberally adapt mythology into fiction. For example, The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, Marvel's The Mighty Thor comics or The Ring of the Nibelungs by Richard Wagner are all liberal adaptions of Norse mythology and yet I am not bothered by them. However, hardly anybody worships the Norse or the Greek gods anymore, whereas Hinduism and Buddhism are living religions with some 255 and 150 million worshipers respectively. And borrowing from a living religion as someone who is not an adherent feels disrespectful in a way that turning Norse gods into superheroes does not.
I for one would love to see more science fiction and fantasy that draws on non-western culture and mythology. However, I would prefer to read works written by authors who actually come from the culture in question rather than by a Polish-Irish Catholic from Ohio. India is a country of 533 million people. Surely, some of them write science fiction and I hope to eventually see their take on Indian mythology and history rather than Zelazny's.
Interesting and well written but disjointed and somewhat disrespectful to half a billion Hindus and Buddhists.
I don't just read science fiction and fantasy, but am also fond of mysteries and thrillers. This is how I came across John Lange, who burst onto the scene two years ago with the heist novel Odds On and followed up with the spy thriller Scratch One last year. Both novels are notable for their tight writing and clever plots, as well as their evocative – and as far as I can tell accurate – description of locations deemed exotic by the average American reader. There even is the occasional science fiction element, e.g. the heist in Odds On is planned using a computer program.
Lange's latest novel Easy Go contains all the elements that made his previous works so enjoyable. This time, Lange takes us to Egypt, where an American archaeologist named Harold Barnaby has made an exciting discovery, a seemingly innocuous papyrus which contains an coded message revealing the location of a heretofore undiscovered royal tomb. This discovery could gain Barnaby academic accolades – or a whole lot of money. Barnaby chooses the latter and decides to rob the tomb. However, the timid academic needs help and finds it in Richard Pierce, a journalist and old war buddy of Barnaby's who has the connections and the plan to pull off the heist of the century.
These days, Cairo is a bustling modern city, which does not remotely look like the set of a Hollywood sword and sandal epic, contrary to popular belief.
The novel follows the usual beats of a heist story. A team of specialists is assembled and a carefully plotted plan is executed, while fate keeps throwing wrenches at our protagonists, especially since the Egyptian authorities turn out to be not nearly as stupid as Pierce and Barnaby assumed. We have seen this sort of story before in movies like Ocean's Eleven, Topkapi or the TV-show Mission Impossible and yet Lange brings a unique flair to the well-worn plot via his knowledge of Egyptology and his vivid descriptions of bustling modern day Egypt (which contrary to popular belief does not look like the set of a Hollywood sword and sandal epic). The building of the Aswan Dam and the moving of the Temple of Abu Simbel play a notable role.
The marvelous of moving the Abu Simbel temple to save it from sinking into the rising waters of the Aswan Dam.
But who is John Lange? Rumour has it that he is a medical student at Harvard who is writing under a pseudonym in order to finance his tuition. Rumour also has it that Lange is working on a bona fide science fiction novel about a deadly plague from outer space, which is expected to come out next year. I can't wait.
An fun caper thriller which will make you want to book a trip to Egypt.
Four and a half stars
by Victoria Silverwolf
Tuning Up the Orchestra
I recently read a quartet of new works of speculative fiction. They range from so-called Hard SF, dealing with science and technology, to New Wave experimentation. Like the movements of a symphony, they offer varying contents, moods, and tempos. Let's grab copies of the program notes and find some good seats before the music begins.
First Movement: Andante
Anonymous cover art.
Out of the Sun, by Ben Bova
An American fighter plane traveling at three times the speed of sound over the Arctic Ocean suddenly breaks apart. The same thing happens to two other aircraft of the same kind. The military calls in the fellow who designed the special metal alloy from which the planes were constructed. He has to figure out what's wrong before more lives are lost.
This is a very short book with plenty of white space. I suspect it was intended for younger readers. (Unlike most so-called juveniles, however, all the characters are adults.) There are some violent deaths, but never described in any detail. The closest thing to sex in its pages is the hero taking a woman out to dinner.
This problem-solving story wouldn't be out of place in the pages of Analog. (Fortunately, it lacks John W. Campbell's quirky obsessions.) It moves at a moderate pace, but is never very exciting. You might be able to predict the main plot gimmick before it's revealed, if you've been keeping up with recent developments in technology.
The writing is very plain and simple. You could easily finish the book in an hour. A longer version, with more fully developed characters, would be welcome.
Two stars.
Second Movement: Adagio
Cover art by Robert Korn.
The God Machine, by Martin Caidin
This one starts with a bang. The narrator, having survived multiple attempts on his life, allows a woman with whom he's been having an affair to enter his room. She immediately offers her body to him, thrusting herself at him wantonly. Instead of reacting the way you'd expect, he knocks her unconscious with the butt of his pistol.
No juvenile novel here!
A long flashback tells us how he got into this situation. The narrator is a mathematical genius. The government contacts him while he's in high school, offering to pay for the best possible college education. In return, they want him to work on a hush-hush project.
It seems that millions of dollars of taxpayer money have been spent constructing a facility deep inside a mountain in Colorado. In terms of secrecy and security, it's the equivalent of the Manhattan Project. The goal? To build a super-powerful computer, one that can come up with its own ideas of how best to prevent a nuclear war.
The computer can also directly communicate with human beings through the use of alpha waves in their brains. Add in the fact that, along with the rest of its vast knowledge, it understands a lot about hypnosis, and you can see where this is going.
When the machine decides that the narrator has to be eliminated, things seem hopeless. He can't trust anybody. The computer itself is protected by lasers, electricity, and radiation. It's got its own secure atomic power generators, so you can't just turn it off. What's a fellow to do?
Other than the opening and closing scenes, most of the book moves at a leisurely pace. In sharp contrast to Bova's slim volume, this tome is well over three hundred pages. It could benefit from some judicious editing; I learned more than I really needed to know about the narrator's life before he becomes the computer's target.
As soon as you take a look at the table of contents for the author's first novel, you know you're in for something different.
Not only are the chapter titles weird, they form a poem. There are lots of other little bits of verse throughout the book as well. Usually, these are poems that the six children (or seven, if you count Bad John) use to work magic, particularly to kill people.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, and I'm confusing you. Let me start over.
Some time ago, two married couples came to Earth from another planet. They're doomed to succumb to Earth sickness. They had a total of six children (or seven, if you count Bad John) among them. Because these offspring were born on Earth, they won't get the sickness.
What's this Bad John nonsense? I hear you cry.
Well, he died at birth, but he's still around. Only certain Earth folks, such as an American Indian and a drunken Frenchman, can perceive him. He's insubstantial and can pass through walls and such, but the other children are emphatic that he is not a ghost.
I have no idea why he's called Bad John. Another of the kids is just named John.
This gives you a tiny hint of how eccentric this book is. I would be hard pressed to provide a coherent plot summary. It has something to do with the children plotting to kill everybody on the planet. Meanwhile, one of the adults is blamed for a murder he didn't commit.
The narrative style is that of a tall tale or a shaggy dog story. The mood might be described as serious whimsy. There's a lot of violence — the basic plot, if there is one, involves an ax murder — but only the Earth people seem to care very much about it. It's not exactly a black comedy, but it treats death in an offhand fashion.
Although they're from another planet, the characters are more supernatural than alien. (They're called the Puka, and the allusion to the Pooka from Celtic myth seems intentional.)
It may be labeled as science fiction, but this is a fantasy novel, and a very strange one at that. How much you get out of it will depend on whether or not you're willing to let the author take you on a dizzying journey with no particular destination in kind.
As editor of a remarkably transformed version of the venerable science fiction magazine New Worlds, the author proves himself to be the guiding light of the British New Wave. This book shows he can write the stuff, too.
It first appeared as threeseparatestories in New Worlds. I'm not sure how much has been added to it, if anything, or how substantially it's been revised, if at all. It's more coherent as a whole rather than in bits and pieces, but it's still somewhat episodic.
Jerry Cornelius is a rock star, a brilliant scientist/philosopher, and as quick with a gun as James Bond. He's also a snappy dresser. We'll get a lot of detailed descriptions of his mod outfits throughout the book.
Jerry gets involved with some folks who want to get their hands on microfilm kept secure in the fortress home of his late father. Complicating matters is the presence inside the house of Jerry's sinister brother Frank and his beloved sister Catherine.
(The relationship between Jerry and Catherine may remind you of a certain controversial story that recently appeared in a groundbreaking anthology.)
Things get pretty wild at this point, from a bloody assault on the fortress to a secret underground base built by the Nazis to the novel's truly apocalyptic climax.
I should mention another character who plays a vital part in the story. Miss Brunner (no first name ever given) is an enigma. At first, she seems to be nothing more than one of the conspirators who work with Jerry. She soon turns out to be a most peculiar sort of person indeed.
I'd say Miss Brunner is actually the heart of the novel, more so than Jerry himself. She's always several steps ahead of everyone else, and has an agenda of her own that doesn't become clear until the end of the book.
The author's style is usually surprisingly traditional, no matter how bizarre the plot. The mood combines frenzy with the feeling that things are falling apart all over, and that maybe this is a good thing. At times, I felt that Moorcock was amusing himself at the expense of the reader. It's worth a look, but you may wonder what it's all supposed to mean.
Rod Dorashi is a vagabond, a member of the wretched working class of Metropolis, staying out of trouble so as not to be squashed by the draconian dictator Korm. Yet he risks all to take in an old man, hit by a car, in his last hours of life. The dying man presses a packet of seeds upon Rod, promising that they are the secret to eternal life.
Enter Bey Ormand, a slick powerful man who is the founder and ruler of Trysis–a paradisical resort and the sole purveyor of the distilled essence of the forever seeds. For a lordly sum, they turn back the clock for their customers by five years. Seemingly without motive, Ormand picks up Rod and adds him to his select coterie of multi-centenarians. The troupe then acts as little dictators, forcing all invitees, whether petty princes of a Balkanized America, or faded stars and starlets, to grovel at their feet.
Despite an instinct for rebellion, Dorashi never quite revolts. Instead, he sticks with the sadistic Ormand and his band for centuries. When they leave (almost without notice), the wrap-up is many pages of explanation: turns out Ormand et. al. were not very old humans but actually very old aliens, and the goal of the project was to siphon off the wealth of the Earth–something they've done time and again.
The whole thing reads like a long, unpleasant cocktail party, and the framing of the ending is not at all condemnatory. It merely is.
I applaud new author Wobig for their first publication, but I found The Youth Monopoly a difficult, and ultimately unrewarding, read.
On the dead planet of Pavanne, light years from Earth, reside 'The Pictures'. This tremendous tapestry, carved from native rock by unknown aliens countless eons ago, are the most beautiful sight in the galaxy. And, of course, capitalism being what it is, the Harkrider corporation has secured the license to the their viewing. Now, Pavanne is a pleasure planet that specializes in relieving every wealthy guest of their money, pouring it into the coffers of the half-robotic, entirely wizened Jason Harkrider.
Enter Max Farway, one of humanity's leading artists. Driven by the need to prove himself, exacerbated by the twisted, diminutive and sterile body he was born with, Farway resolves to tackle the hardest subject of art: The Pictures themselves. And so, he travels to Pavanne with his beautiful, recently widowed step-mother, and his much put-upon agent, in time for the conjunction of the alien planet and the brighter of its two suns–when the artifact achieves its highest, and most ineffable level of beauty. But once he steps foot on Pavanne, Farway finds himself in a power struggle with the planet's venal warlord, with Harkrider's assistant, Rudolph Heininger, a wild card in the conflict. At the heart of it all are the unknown predictions of the murdered mathematician Damon Wisehart, whose calculations suggest something terrible is soon to occur involving Pavanne and its extraterrestrial art.
For a good portion of the reading, I admired author Wright's juxtaposition of the petty and irritable Farway, along with the thoroughly disgusting Wisehart (and his twisted twin daughters), with the unearthly beauty of The Pictures. As Farway slowly grows up under the ministrations of his gentle step-mother, I looked forward to a piece that was largely philosophical, eschewing the fetters of the typical Ace Double. This is largely discarded at the end, as things wrap up suddenly and with much action, but without much heart.
Perhaps a more satisfying book remains to be published by a different press. As is, I give it three stars.
Need more science fiction? The next episode of Star Trek is on TONIGHT! You won't want to miss it:
There are some things you can count on in life: death, taxes, the North Vietnamese violating their own Christmas truce more than a hundred times.
But sometimes, life deals you surprises. For instance, who knew that Hubert Humphrey was still alive? Yet he must be kicking for he is currently in Africa on a goodwill tour of the continent.
And, as a fellow exclaimed when I gave him a preview of my thoughts on this month's issue of Analog, "A five star story in Analog? Really?"
Well, it's true. Read on and find out how it happened!
Expect the unexpected
The Bugs That Live at -423°, by Joseph Green and Fuller C. Jones
First off, a very long article on the teething troubles faced by the developers of the Centaur rocket. This powerful second stage is used atop Atlas and Titan missiles to send big payloads to Earth's orbit and beyond. To do so, it uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which entails a whole host of problems.
There is a lot of good information in here, but as is often the case in Analog science articles, its presentation is confusing. There are no section breaks, so the whole thing runs together such that even I, a professional space historian, found my eyes glazing over.
I've no idea if "Joseph Green" is the same one who writes science fiction for UK magazines. Probably not.
Anyway, three stars.
There is a Tide, by R. C. FitzPatrick and Leigh Richmond
by Kelly Freas
A couple of years ago, R. C. FitzPatrick started a series of stories about a surgeon who has perfected the technique of human brain transplants. The first story was mildly interesting but prolonged, and the second veered heavily into the uncomfortable zone of eugenics. After all, the transplant of a healthy brain requires a donor body…and it's hard to find ones that aren't inhabited, and don't even the feeble minded have the right to their own corpus?
Tide is the third story in the series, and by far the best. There are two parallel, intersecting plots. One involves a brilliant young physicist with inoperable cancer, who comes to the surgeon's sanatorium to wait for a suitable "transplant" candidate. The second pertains to a self-styled "Duke" of organized crime. Intelligent, ruthless, and aging, the mob boss wants a healthy body to get a new lease on life. Surprisingly, the surgeon is willing to take the Duke's case, even before the mafioso breaks out the threats.
There are some important distinguishing characteristics between Tide and its predecessors. For one, it is now stressed that only the truly brain-dead are eligible "donors". It's not a matter of finding more value in a smart brain and a moronic one; only a virtually untenanted body is acceptable. The writing is far more compelling in this piece, too, with lots of interesting asides that flesh out the characters and the world they inhabit.
But most importantly, the ethical issue is confronted head on. It doesn't matter if the AMA or politicians or ethicists oppose the technology of brain transplants. Once that genie is out of the bottle, someone will take advantage of it–if not the scrupulous, then the unscrupulous. As the first (somewhat) successful human heart transplants of this month have shown, this technology is no longer a pipe dream. We will someday have to face this issue. I felt this story did a better job of addressing this problem than Niven's (still pretty good) The Jigsaw Man, which came out a couple of months ago.
So how did FitzPatrick manage to write such a good story when his others were middling or worse? You'll notice the second name in the byline. I have a strong suspicion that Leigh Richmond is responsible for most of this piece. Certainly, she's the new variable.
Five stars.
… And Cauldron Bubble, by Bruce Daniels
by Kelly Freas
Of course, what goes up…
Bubble is a piece in epistolary form about a near future in which the United States has scientifically developed dowsing and other hocus pocus into a full cabinet department. This would be a frivolous but diverting piece in F&SF, but knowing as I do that Analog's editor, John Campbell, actually believes in the efficacy of dowsing, well, it reads like propaganda.
Bova offers up this two-page cautionary tale about the dangers of overdirection of scientific development. It kind of steps on its own toes to make its message, though.
Two stars.
Such Stuff As Dreams …, by Sterling E. Lanier
by Kelly Freas
A dashing young space navy commander signs up to join a top secret spy organization that has the real power in the galaxy. He is subjected to a number of tests, mostly to try his patience, before being given the final exam: a test of survival on an alien world. The dangers are of monstrous, almost unbelievable proportion, and the candidate wonders why.
Lastly, the conclusion to what will likely be a three-part fixup novel. The planet of Pern is faced with deadly peril: the Red Star approacheth, and with it, onslaughts of deadly rhysome "threads" that despoil all living things that they touch. The only defense is fire-breathing, telepathic dragons flown by specially selected riders. The problem is only one of the six dragonrider weyrs is still in operation, and that one is woefully understaffed.
F'lar, the head rider, thought he had a solution to this problem when he learned that Lessa, the rider of the dragon queen Ramoth, discovered the ability to ride her mount through time. Last installment, the weyrleader sent his brother and a team back in time ten years to raise a new crop of dragons. Unfortunately, living more than once in the same time is detrimental to one's health, and the endeavor was largely a failure. Now, the only hope lies in the past, and an historical ballad about the wholesale departure of five weyrs some four hundred years ago–to destinations unknown…
There are the bones of an interesting novel here, although the gratuitous use of time travel as a plot point usually creates more problems than it solves. Also, By His Bootstraps stories tend to be dull since you already know what's going to happen.
But the biggest problem here is that McCaffrey just isn't quite up to the story she's trying to tell. A fine teller of short stories (The Woman in the Tower and The Ship Who Sang being standout examples), she struggles with the longer format. Her characters are shallow and unpleasant. The "romantic" relationship between Lessa and F'lar is disturbing when it isn't annoying. Lessa's theme song might well be, "He Shook Me, and It Felt Like a Kiss", and the only ones privy to F'lar's love for Lessa are the readers since the weyrleader is determined never to show affection for his lady. Ugh.
The doggerel that prefaces each chapter completes the mask of mediocrity on this promising tale. Perhaps a combo of Jack Vance and Rosel George Brown (R.I.P.) could have done Dragonrider justice. And maybe, as my colleague David suggests, a story between the first and second parts could have smoothed the transition (something to be fixed pending novelization?)
It really is a shame since it's rare to get a sweeping epic from the perspective of a woman, and the first part made me hopeful. As is, this last segment, and the three-part story as a whole get three stars.
Doing the math
When you put it all together, the January 1968 issue of Analog ends up at 3.1 stars, just on the positive end of the ledger. That actually puts it at the #2 spot for the month, just edging out IF (3.1), and losing to Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.3). The rest of this month's mags finished below the middling mark, with Fantastic at 2.9, New Writings at 2.8, and the abysmal new Beyond Infinity garnering just 1.5. As a result, though six magazines were released, you could fill just two of them with four and five star stories.
The big surprise, though, is the resurgence in feminine participation. Women contributed 13% of the new short fiction produced this month. While still a low number, it is comparatively enormous. And more surprisingly, the bulk of the woman-penned work (at least by pages) was published in Analog.
If even fuddy duddy Campbell can produce a progressive mag, I think we've got good times in store as the calendar turns to 1968! Happy New Year indeed…
With so much news about social reforms or issues in Rhodesia and Aden, it is easy to forget that the economy was one of the main issues that led to Wilson’s election as Prime Minister, in particular dealing with the trade deficit.
For almost a decade now Britain has been importing more than it has been exporting. With this many British consumers are choosing foreign made goods over domestic ones causing problems for local industry, not a good look for a country that was once dubbed “The Workshop of the World.”
The reasons for this date back a long way. From early adoption of manufacturing and overreliance on imperial exploitation, to the spending of Post-War American aid on military ventures (instead of the intended economic strengthening). However, one of the biggest is the value of the pound.
Whilst other countries trying to recover after the Second World War, such as Japan, had their currency set low, Britain strived to keep its value high. It has even become a point of national pride to have the Sterling as a major player in international trade, and devaluing had been something that had to be avoided at all costs.
Wilson and Callaghan, probably not as happy any more
However, world events have continued to put trade and the currency under strain. With the Arab-Israeli war, the fighting in Aden and failure to join the EEC, it was seen by Wilson as a necessary act. Whilst the economic impact will likely come later, the political impact has already been major. The chancellor, Jim Callaghan, has resigned and there have been attacks from all ends of the political spectrum that this is a breach of trust.
As I read this month’s stories in the anthology "New Writings in SF 11" and magazine "Beyond Infinity", I could not help but wonder if there was some devaluation going on here as well. The quality I was getting for my money seemed to decline as I read on:
Dobson’s hardback release was delayed, meaning we get the Corgi paperback (and their much prettier cover) first this time.
In another change the theme here is much broader, with imaginative looks at humanity’s future.
The Wall to End the World by Vincent King
Following his brilliant Defence Mechanism, Vincent King gives us another spectacular tale. Five thousand years earlier, the ancients built the Wall, a thousand-mile circle to protect the ordinary people in the City and the Teachers in their Citadel. Our narrator is an officer of the Wall, determined to protect it from all invaders. When he discovers the return of the ancient ones and the appearance of a new star in the sky, he knows the prophecy of the end is coming true.
In a beautiful and cleverly written 25 pages, King gives a deeper more complex world brimming with science fictional concepts than most writers manage in an entire novel series. There is fascinating mix of old & new technologies, with looking screens and robots mentioned in the same breath as horses and crossbows. But it is never ponderous or boring. Throughout it races along like the best adventure stories.
Five stars, only because I can’t give it a sixth!
Catharsis by John Rackham
Professor Caine is on the verge of a major breakthrough in particle physics, when he starts getting terrible headaches. After he checks into Dr. Halleweg’s clinic he discovers he only has 48 hours left to live.
A more experimental story than I would expect from Rackham with limited SFnal content. It is solid but feels like it is aiming for the current New Worlds style without really getting there.
Three Stars
Shock Treatment by Lee Harding
Pietro struggles to keep his memories and personality intact as he searches for The Great Engine of the world.
This is the kind of slow atmospheric apocalypse that seemed to fill the British magazines after Aldiss’ Greybeard was published. Not bad but nothing new.
Three Stars
Bright Are the Stars That Shine, Dark Is the Sky by Dennis Etchison
Space travel has failed to provide a suitable home for humanity and has been abandoned. With Los Angeles’ population reaching twenty million the old city is being torn down to provide enough housing for everyone. This vignette follows a young boy and an ex-spacer night watchman as they visit The Museum of Space Science and Technology before it is destroyed.
This is a lovely melancholy tale of the loss of innocence and the danger of losing hope in the future. Simple but memorable.
Four Stars
There Was This Fella… by Douglas R. Mason
Alf Pearson has a problem: he keeps jumping between planes of reality. His doctors think he is just highly suggestible, but what is real?
I felt this concept was already used to better effect in de Camp’s Wheels of If. I am not sure if I missed something important or if it was all just a bit hollow.
Two Stars
For What Purpose? by W. T. Webb
After an explosion at the Grenville Power Station, Tom Berkley finds himself in Marginburg: town like Grenville but tinged with bizarre touches, such as the sky being patched up with newspaper, an enormous house with no windows, and regular raids from pirates. How did he get here? And can he get back home?
This one is tough to know what to make of, because much of it has the surrealism of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and then it ends in a manner that could either be read as genius or nonsense. I will be generous and choose the former.
Four Stars (or Suit-of-Armour Newsprint in Marginburg).
Flight of a Plastic Bee by John Rankine
Paul Karadoc is sent to investigate Station K, repository of secure knowledge in orbit around planet Earth, populated by artificially prolonged humans known as Biomechs. Information has been leaking out of the station and it is up to Karadoc to discover how and why.
This is the second tale from Mr. Mason and an even weaker one, I found it dull and often incomprehensible. Even Doctor Who’s Cyberman adventures do a better job of exploring some of these themes.
I have been reliably informed this is the same Hargreaves who wrote Tee Vee Man 4 years ago, just with a different first initial, possibly a typographical error. Talking of mistakes, this is the story of Joe Schultz, a man accidentally declared dead in a future where administration is primarily run by computers.
This starts out as an interesting Kafkaesque tale, but soon descends into pure silliness.
Two Stars
The Helmet of Hades by Jack Wodhams
On the planet Albermarle, the inhabitants have been turned blind by the farmer Galig as part of a plot to rule over it as the only sighted adult. Marshal and Cresswell work to resist him.
Wodhams is not an author who has appeared in New Writings before but seems to have done quite well for himself writing mediocre tales for Campbell. Unfortunately, this is even more disappointing. It doesn’t seem to make a real attempt to understand blind people or communities, is overlong and the concept had a better treatment from Wells decades ago.
With the continued disappearance of SF magazines from the market and others turning to reprints, any time a new publication appears, I am keen to give this new magazine a try.
It opens with a strong editorial from Doug Stapleton, saying you will not see a “wild, Bondian adventure on the outer rim of the universe” within. Instead, he says, this is more devoted to “What-if-ness”, tales of the strange and uncanny.
Perhaps that is why they chose to print the contents in a randomised order?
Anyway, let’s explore these “other dimensions”:
Of Human Heritage by Wade Hampton
Years ago, a ship full of pioneers crashed onto an unknown planet and no Earth ships have found them. As the last of the original colonists, Old Pendennis, lies dying, he worries whether or not the future generations will be able to maintain their humanity.
This is not a bad tale. It is well written, with a nice narrative style and strong ending, but it also feels like a missed opportunity to me, as it could easily have explored some much deeper themes.
Three Stars
Communication Problem by John Christopher
In 2049 instantaneous warp travel between nearby stars has become safe and routine, that is unless you are travelling after Burns Night with a Scottish duty officer. When the Wayfarer lands inside a sub-electronic storm the ship is forced to crash on to a planet, the last survivor of the crew is rescued by The Mori, but why can the two species not communicate?
This feels like a story intended for Analog that was rejected. We have lots of dull explanations of engineering, aliens being baffled by humans, even mentions of ESP. I do get the sense from some of Christopher’s writing he isn’t all too keen on the other nations of The United Kingdom, and this tale is obviously no exception. Maybe the anti-Scottishness was too much for a Campbell?
One Star (and a big apology to my friends north of the border)
This gives us one side of a conversation, as Caxton tries to convince his record label to include Gumshoe Stumble as their next single.
Unfortunately, this is no Traveller in Black. Instead it is a series of run on sentences with barely any SFnal content (at least that I could understand). I know I am in no position to critique another’s grammar but I found it near unreadable. But it is also true that I don’t get jazz.
One Star
Talk to Me, Sweetheart by Ben Bova
Finishing the trilogy of big names, we get Bova giving us another space-flavoured tale. Here an astronaut in orbit is losing control and only the woman’s voice on the other end of the communicator can help him.
Christopher Raamsgaard has been hit hard by the death of his business partner and has been working incredibly hard. Is this why he has started doing everything backwards? Or is something stranger going on?
Mr. McKimmey seems to be returning to SF, with two sales to Pohl’s magazines recently. However, just like those, this is not a good piece. Hoary, dull, silly, it would have been a space filler a decade ago.
One Star
The Deadly Image by McHugh Ferris
Emile Varner creates a robotic recreation of Lincoln and puts on a hugely successful show where people can experience his last night at Ford’s Theatre. But is history doomed to repeat itself?
Pointless piece of filler barely moving on from the current Mr. Lincoln Speaks attraction.
One Star
Revenge at the TV Corral! by J. de Jarnette Wilkes
Ken Dexter was the star of the major TV western, Western Marshal. Now he has been killed off and replaced by Bill Todd. When his wife also left him for Todd that was the last straw and he goes to murder them.
This is an odd story, that seems to be attempting some sort of metafiction, but never really works for me.
Two stars for effort.
The 13th Chair by Michael Quentin Lanz
Wes Pepper’s syndicated column is extremely popular but, with a huge libel suit against him and twelve deaths resulting from his distortion, his publisher want rid of him. But Mr. Pepper is not so easily got rid of.
A nasty story without much depth and the feel of Weird Tales.
Two Stars
Upon Reflection by Gilmore Barrington
Wilbur Trimble hates his wife and wants to kill her. Perhaps the Christian carnival that has come to town will provide an opportunity.
A bad horror story about a terrible man.
One star
Mommy, Mommy, You're a Robot by Dexter Carnes
Stevie Bellamy is an ordinary kid during the day, but at night he dreams of travelling from Omicron and that his mother is actually a robot. Do I even need to say where this is going? Unoriginal, poorly put together and speckled with random racist language.
One Star
Greetings, Friend! by Dorothy Stapleton and Douglas Stapleton
The Ecknode crashes on an unknown planet without any hope of escape. Suddenly he sees another craft come across the sky, is it his chance of escape?
It is ironic, given his introduction, that the editor gives us the most traditional science fiction story. Whilst not a “Bondian adventure” it is a dull old-fashioned first contact story that wouldn’t be out of place in '40s Astounding.
Burr Macon is Chief of Crime Documents, here helping deal with a prisoner who has confessed to murder. He gets to experience a new form of punishment and rehabilitation instead of the death penalty, reliving his victim’s experience.
If the last story felt like '40s Astounding, this was pure '50s Galaxy. Unfortunately, Anvil is not William Tenn or Robert Sheckley, and the whole thing feels rote. At least it is competent, which is more than I can say for most of this magazine.
Two Stars
The DNE?
Odd ending image used throughout Beyond Infinity
Whilst there were some good stories at the start of New Writings and a reasonable one at the start of Beyond Infinity, there was a decline throughout. Hopefully this devaluation can stop and not continue into subsequent issues.
Last weekend, the world's greatest stars and movie-makers assembled in Santa Monica for the annual celebration of the best the silver screen has to offer. It was a cavalcade of prominent names, from Sidney Poitier to Lee Remick to Julie Christie to Omar Sharif. Some of the contestants were unfamiliar (Herb Alpert has a short animated film?) Some were surprising but welcome in their inclusion (like The Wargame for best documentary). Some were inevitable (If Grand Prix hadn't won Best Sound and Best Editing, I'd have written letters…) Two titans towered all the rest (Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and A Man for All Seasons–both of which I still haven't seen yet).
And throughout it all, Bob Hope was host, narrator, and satirist. Lorelei observed that this time, the jokes about recognition still eluding the aging comedian seemed more pointed and bitter than usual. Maybe it's time he got some kind of lifetime achievement award, as did Isaac Asimov at a recent Worldcon…
Print City
The latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction features a similar assemblage of luminaries–and it's not even an "All-Star Issue"! Presented in a format that has been standard and familiar since 1949, this month's read was as comforting and entertaining as two primetime hours at the Oscars.
With the added benefit that one can reread favorite stories!
by Ronald Walotsky
Planetoid Idiot, by Phyllis Gotlieb
Our first star is Phyllis Gotlieb, a woman writer who joined the SF ranks one year after Mses. Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, and Pauline Ashwell. Her latest is a fine novella in the Analog tradition–indeed, it reads like something Katherine MacLean might have penned.
A mutli-species spaceship has landed on the ocean planed of Xirifor. Their goal is to save the indigenous race from a pandemic of gill rot such that they can better represent themselves when representatives of the Galactic Federation come to negotiate for the pearls the aliens harvest.
The crew of the contact ship are a beautifully heterogenous group: Hrufa, an eight foot telepathic amphibian is their leader, keeping the rest of the team in order, if not harmony. Thlyrrh is a protoplasmic being with a shape-shifting carapace; it can do almost anything…except compose an original thought. And then there are the two humans, or "solthrees" (I really like that phrase): Olivia the exobiologists, and Berringer, the generalist.
Despite their vast collective knowledge, they are hindered in their task by politics, internal and external. But in the end, working together, they deduce a solution that is completely scientific and plausible.
It's all very satisfactory, and if I have any complaint, it is only the title, which I found misleading (I thought "planetoid idiot" would be a play on "village idiot"). Definitely a candidate for the next volume of Rediscovery.
Four stars.
Sleeping Beauty, by Terry Carr
It's nice to see Ace Books publisher, Terry Carr, slinging the pen again. His latest story is a beautifully written if rather inconsequential tale of a landless prince, galloping across Europe looking for that most endangered of modern creatures: the single (and wealthy) princess. There is, of course, a sting in the story's tale.
You'll forget it soon after you read it, but you'll enjoy the journey. Three stars.
If Ralph Nader has his way, all cars of the future will be like the one presented in this, the latest tale to take place in Niven's "Known Space". It's his most humorous piece, almost Sheckleyesque, and it accomplishes a lot in a brief space.
Two years ago, Air Force astronaut Chet Kinsman was tested in orbit when he had to go mano-a-mano with a Communist spacewoman. Now Kinsman is on the moon, haunted by the memory of the lady he had to slay. Will his guilt get in the way of his rescuing a fellow astronaut trapped in a lunar crevice?
This is another grounded SF tale I'm surprised (but pleased) to find in F&SF. I've not yet found Bova brilliant (though Victoria Silverwolf has), but I always enjoy him.
Three stars.
The Red Shift, by Theodore L. Thomas
Thomas explains in his nonfiction vignette how quasars, which must be extragalactic yet near objects, give lie to the Doppler shift, and thus rewrite physics. Specifically, he says that the redshift of quasars indicates that they are far away, but that radio astronomy locates them much closer to Earth.
I do not know how he makes this assertion, as it is radio astronomy that detects these quasars at all–including their red shift. According to the article I read in Britannica's 1966 year book of knowledge, quasars are very interesting in that they point up an asymmetry between the young universe (quasar-rich) and the curent universe (quaser-poor). But there's nothing that suggests quasars exist close by, or that there's anything wrong with Doppler.
There does seem to be something wrong, however, with Thomas.
One star.
Cyprian's Room, by Frances Oliver
Onward to the second woman-penned story, by an author about whom our editor knows virtually nothing. A pity, because her first story is a good one. Romantic Hilda Wendel takes a room in the big city hoping to meet someone interesting in her boarding house. She finds a tubercular artist whose views on art are maddeningly contradictory, yet irresistably compelling.
Is he just an avante-garde…or something otherworldly?
A high three.
Interview with a Lemming, by James Thurber
This putative dialogue between man and lemming, to indulge in adjectives solely beginning with "i" is inconsequential, irritating, and inspid–particularly the thinks-itself-clever ending.
Two stars.
Where is Thy Sting, by Emil Petaja
One of the last fertile men in a post-atomized Earth, racked with suicidal desires, must be kept alive at all costs, even if it means subverting his reality.
I'd have liked this story more had I not read one so similar to it (The Best is Yet to Be) in the pages of this same magazine not many months before.
Two stars.
Times of Our Lives, by Isaac Asimov
All about time zones. I actually found this atlas-derived article educational and interesting.
Four stars.
Fill in the Blank, by Ron Goulart
Finally, the return of a perennial star with a series with more installments than James Bond. Max Kearney is dragooned into investigating what appears to be an infestation of poltergeists. The culprits are all-too-temporal…but it doesn't mean magic's not involved!
It's funnier in the latter half. Three stars.
House Lights Return
By strict mathematical computation, the latest F&SF only scores an average three star rating. Nevertheless, the brilliance of the first piece, the general competence of most of the rest, and the edification provided by the Good Doctor leaves a most pleasant impression.
Let's keep our stars around for a while. They make good illumination.
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!
by Gideon Marcus
Bogged down
With more than half a million American troops in Vietnam now, the South Vietnamese are starting to feel like they're living under occupation. There's no doubt who's calling the shots these days. The question is, is this surge of military force going to be enough to drag Ho Chi Minh to the bargaining table?
Despite the flow of optimistic figures from the Pentagon, it doesn't look like peace or even peace overtures will happen any time soon. The closest we've gotten is securing a pair of holiday ceasefires. So, expect a long slog and nightly death counts on the evening news for the forseeable future. Better dead than Red, right?
American soldiers enjoy a Thanksgiving respite before heading off to combat again. They may end up taking as long getting to Hanoi as it's taking Saunders and Kelly to get to Berlin.
In the trenches
Meanwhile, the December 1966 Analog constitutes a landmark of sorts — it's the last magazine of the year! And, like Vietnam, it's often been a tedious, dragging affair. This month is no different, though the magazine starts better than it ends. Let's get our report from the front, shall we?
A quick note on the inside cover this month. Yes, the one editor whose editorials I skip every month has bundled his loony screeds together and is offering them in book form. Or as Tom Lehrer put it:
Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free…
He even got Harry Harrison to shill for him. I have to disagree with Harrison, though: while Campbell indeed may be "idiosyncratic, prejudiced, and annoying", he also is usually quite boring.
Mack Reynolds once again sets a tale in his loosely knit United Planets. Humanity has sprawled across hundreds of stars, and one of the primary tenets of this community is that each colony expresses itself as it likes so long as it harms no other world.
As might be deduced from the title, this latest novel features a matriarchy planet, one where the "traditional" (read mid-20th Century) gender roles are reversed. Well, not so much features, as this first third of the novel takes place not on "Amazonia", but on a freighter headed toward it. There are only two passengers: Terran Guy Thomas, a deceptively mild trader with plans to open Amazonia up to the niobium trade, and Patricia O' Gara, refugee from the exceedingly puritanical colony of Victoria.
There's not a lot of action in this section. Mostly crew mates talking about how terribly men are treated on Amazonia, Pat (and later a troop of Amazons) explaining how they're wrong, and Guy acting as something of a catalyst for discussion. It's all rendered rather broadly, but simply the fact that this subject is even being discussed, and a matriarchy is not being played for laughs, is interesting.
I'm waiting to see where it goes; this could be an awful, sexist piece or it could be an enlightened one. Only time will tell (though Reynolds has a good track record on this front).
Hurricane season is hotting up, and it's up to Ted, Jerry, Tuli, and Barney (the last a woman) of Project THUNDER to ensure none of these storms hits the Atlantic seaboard. To accomplish this, they'll use cloud seeding planes and orbital lasers to increase the equilibrium of the systems, smoothing them out before they become rotating furies.
But when these methods prove insufficient, only true weather control on a national scale can save Washington D.C. from a devastating cyclone.
The Weathermakers is actually an excerpt from an upcoming novel, presumably the climax. It's exciting enough, and the technology is interesting, although I have to wonder if pumping extra heat energy into the Earth's atmosphere isn't ultimately a dangerous thing.
It's all a bit gung ho and simplistic, more what I'd expect from a juvenile. This is not a bad thing, of course. We can use more juvenile authors of merit.
Four stars.
Cytoplasmic Inheritance , by Carl A. Larson
The nonfiction article this issue is an extremely abstruse, but not unreadable, piece on the role the cytoplasm plays in genetics. Apparently, it's not all governed by DNA in the nucleus.
Biology's not my bag, and a lot of it went over my head, but I did read it and found interest in it.
Three stars.
The Blue-Penciled Throop, by L. Edey
It's all downhill from here. First, we've got another in the epistolary Throop series, basically an excuse for Campbell to tell us how hard his job is as editor having to deal with a bunch of nincompoops.
Two stars.
The Price of Simeryl, by Kris Neville
by Leo Summers
The colony of Elanth has got itself in a bind. The local government bought too much of the addictive Simeryl drug to pacify the indigenous Elanthians, who both are having trouble meeting their farm quotas and are spending too much time fighting the Coelanths, a vicious species that has enjoyed a recent resurgence. Third Foreign Secretary Raleigh is sent to the planet to fact-find pending a solution.
Wow, that didn't take me long to write at all. The story, on the other hand, is presented as a set of interminable interviews with various government officials, none of them pleasant or particularly distinctive from each other. And in the end, there is no revelation. The story is perhaps five times longer than it needs to be. Even at its best, it's pointless.
Also, I'm getting a little tired of putative future governments with nary a woman to be found in them. From Ann Rosenberg Hoffman to Margaret Chase Smith to Indira Gandhi, we've had many prominent female lawmakers and cabinet leaders. It's time to feature women in our science fiction at least to the degree they are represented on 1966 Earth, and not just in extreme cases as depicted in the Reynolds this month.
One star.
Under the Dragon's Tail, by Philip Latham
by Leo Summers
Finally, "Philip Latham" (Dr. Robert S. Richardson, who writes great nonfiction), turns in a piece that's basically the day-to-day dreariness of an assistant planetarium manager. That an asteroid is going to smack down in Griffith Park at the end is a mostly extraneous detail.
Two stars.
Looking Back
Well, that wasn't very good, was it? Indeed, Analog sets a record of sorts: at 2.5 stars, it is the worst magazine of the month. Slightly better, though still dismal, was Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.6). Amazingly enough, Amazing beat out both of them with 2.9 stars.
Above the mediocrity line lie siblings Galaxy (3.1) and IF (3.2) The British mags top out the list with Impulse at 3.3 and New Worlds at a whopping 3.6!
There was exactly one story by a woman this month. I had thought '66 would be better than '65 in this regard, but no dice. To paraphrase Mrs. Rosenberg Hoffman, Assistant Defense Secretary under Truman, science fiction without women is an industry half-idle. I hope things get better soon.
An incident in the United Kingdom earlier this month caught my attention and made me think about the limitations on artistic expression. The play Saved by Edward Bond had its premiere on November 3rd at the Royal Court Theatre in London. What does this have to do with violations of the law? Well, that requires a bit of explanation, particularly for those of us on this side of the Atlantic.
You see, ever since 1843, all plays produced for the public in England have to be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. (Please don't ask me to explain what a Lord Chamberlain might be. That's far beyond my feeble American mind.)
The current Lord Chamberlain refused to grant a license to Saved unless it were severely censored. The folks at the Royal Court Theatre put it on anyway, trying to get around the letter of the law by calling it a private performance. From what I hear, they're going to get in trouble with the authorities anyway.
A scene from the play, in which a baby is stoned to death. You can see why this might be considered controversial.
Justice Between The Pages
Fittingly, many of the stories, and even a nonfiction article, in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow deal with criminals and crimefighters, in literal or in metaphorical ways.
Cover art by Mclane. Once again, the only thing I can find out about this artist is a last name.
It takes a while for the crime aspect of this novel to show up. Meanwhile, let's recap a bit.
In the future, the Cold War has evolved into a purely symbolic struggle. Each side has a psychic who uses drugs to perceive visions of designs for weapons. The trick is that these things are really used to manufacture odd consumer items. The ruling government, capitalist or communist, fools the public into thinking it's winning the arms race. When threatening alien spacecraft show up, the two powers bring the psychics together, hoping that they will be able to come up with a real weapon.
The invaders, who never directly appear in the story.
Things get pretty darn complicated in the second half of the novel. We find out quickly that the weapon designs perceived by the psychics come from a trashy comic book, which doesn't offer much hope for victory against the aliens. They're a serious menace, as we learn when entire cities disappear behind obscuring mists. Meanwhile, romance blooms between the two psychics, leading to a classic example of the Eternal Triangle.
Jealousy rears its green-eyed head.
Add in androids and time travel, and you've got a convoluted plot that leaves the reader dizzy. Oh, and the criminal subplot I hinted at above? That comes in the form of a nasty fellow who, for his own petty reasons, plots to assassinate members of the government who rejected him. He even kills folks who were foolish enough to join his conspiracy.
A man and his gun.
The author tosses everything but the kitchen sink into this yarn. At times, I thought he was making fun of science fiction, given the large number of mixed-up SF elements. There's definitely a touch of satire here and there, but it's not a comic novel. Some parts, in fact, are tragic. It definitely held my interest throughout, even if the climax seems to be thrown together hastily.
Four stars.
The Sleuth in Science Fiction, by Sam Moskowitz
The indefatigable historian of fantastic fiction traces the development of detective stories in the field. Starting with a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, he delves into the dusty pages of very early pulp magazines. Much of the stuff he digs up has to do with lie detection technology. This article takes the reader up to about 1930, and a sequel is promised.
Moskowitz certainly has an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. I can admire his scholarship, but the resulting essay makes for very dry reading.
Two stars.
Sunk Without Trace, by Fritz Leiber
The weird creatures on the cover of the magazine appear in this story. One of them has a dream about an object that landed on their world, while his more practical wife insists that he get back to processing the seaweed that serves as their food. It's clear from the start that the thing is a spacecraft from Earth — the editor's blurb gives it away, too — but the rest of the plot may be a bit more surprising.
There's not much to this work other than the premise and the setting, but those are intriguing enough to make it worth a look. Of course, Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, so the style adds a lot. Overall, it's a decent effort from an author who often does much better.
Three stars.
At Journey's End, by J. T. McIntosh
Illustrations by Dan Adkins.
We jump right into a confrontation between criminals and law enforcement, in a particularly crude form, near the beginning of this story of a starship on its way to a new home for humanity.
After decades of travel, it seems that tensions among the crew have reached the boiling point. A couple of murders result, and the captain acts as judge, jury, and executioner, killing those guilty on the spot. Without giving too much away, let's just say that justice is truly blind here, playing no favorites at all.
After this grim opening, we watch the ship approach the planet. They have a big surprise waiting for them when they arrive. It all leads up to a darkly ironic ending.
Our three protagonists, awaiting their fate.
At first glance, I thought the first part didn't have much to do with the resolution. After musing over it for a while, however, I realize that the author intended the two scenes to provide a sort of thematic contrast. Some of what happens may be predictable. Taken as a whole, this is a serviceable, if undistinguished, story.
In this case, the criminal is the human race as a whole, and the punishment comes from aliens determined to wipe out the entire species. When the story begins, in fact, there is only one human being left alive, alone in his automated spaceship, wandering through the cosmos in an attempt to escape judgment.
During his eons-long journey, which leads him across gigantic distances in space, he learns of humanity's crime and discovers what became of Earth. The climax leads to a final scene of almost unimaginable immensity.
The most notable thing about this story is the vastness of the author's vision. I don't think I've read anything that covers such enormous amounts of time, except maybe the works of Olaf Stapledon. In addition to that, there's a great deal of emotional appeal. If you think Bova is just a decent science writer, you may be surprised.
Five stars.
How To Understand Aliens, by Robert M. W. Dixon
Let's get away from criminology for a while and talk about linguistics. The author imagines the difficulty of communicating with the inhabitants of other worlds. As examples, he creates beings who spend most of their time burrowing underground, as well as aliens who fly. The point seems to be that culture has an important effect on language, and it's not just a matter of translating things word-for-word.
Dixon seems to know his stuff, as evidenced by his discussion of human languages unfamiliar to most speakers of English. The fictional aliens make the article more readable than just a dry discussion of the topic.
Three stars.
Buggaratz, by John Jakes
The military has its own system of justice, dealing with such crimes as lack of discipline. That's a problem for the commander of a small outfit on another planet. The only function of the unit is to produce inflatable uniforms as toys. Given this dull and trivial chore, it's not a shock to find out that things have gotten awfully lax around the place.
A visit from an inspecting officer threatens to expose how badly the situation has gotten out of hand. The presence of the habit-forming substance named in the title doesn't help matters.
This is a pretty silly comedy, with maybe a trace of satire directed at military thinking. It's an inoffensive bit of fluff, unlikely to make much of an impression on you.
As you may recall, one year ago the magazine offered Farmer's novella Day of the Great Shout, wherein everybody who ever lived on Earth was resurrected on a planet dominated by one huge river. This new tale takes place in the same setting.
The hero is cowboy movie star Tom Mix. Along with a woman who lived during the time of Moses, and a man who died nearly two thousand years ago, he sails down the river, escaping a brutal religious dictatorship. The trio join forces with some friendly folks from the Renaissance, and war breaks out with the bad guys.
A battle along the river.
There's lots of violent action, to be sure, but that's not really the most important part of the story. The author deals with religion in ways that may seem blasphemous to many readers.
The identity of the fellow traveling with Tom Mix is clear from the start, but I won't reveal it here. Suffice to say that this is likely to be the most controversial part of the story. The fact that the two men look almost exactly alike raises a lot of questions in my mind, which seem likely to remain unanswered.
Farmer has his hands on a strong premise here, with lots of possibilities. (Another story in the series is promised for the next issue.) I'll definitely keep reading to find out who else I'll run into along the river.
Four stars.
The Verdict
In the case of The People v. FP et al., the court dismisses all charges against PKD and PJF, with special commendation for BB. The other defendants are released with a warning to avoid tedium in the future, an admonition particularly directed at SM and JJ. The court further directs FP, leader of the accused, to retain the services of a good lawyer, in case of further charges in the future.
A very curious phenomenon has taken place over the last several years. When I started writing the Journey, women were a rising force in professional science fiction. In 1959, three of the six "Best New Authors" were women (Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, and Pauline Ashwell – all Journey favorites). About 10% of the stories (and 25% of what was worth reading) was produced by women. Both Amazing and Fantastic, two of the main science fiction monthly digests, were helmed by Cele Goldsmith.
Then…something happened. Over the last few years, the appearances of women in magazines has dwindled to a trickle. There are fewer appearing in novels, too (and since women tended to produce short fiction more often than long form, this change was particularly noticeable). As of this month, no single title across all of the published magazines was done under a sole female byline. Five of the last 45 novels this year were written by four women – two were by Andre Norton, who writes under a masculine byline.
Cele Goldsmith became Cele Lalli and left her editor position. This was probably not a result of her getting married but rather due to a change in her two magazines to a reprints-mostly format.
Though the loss of women in SF has not always hurt the quality of fiction produced, (indeed, this was one of the better months in a long time), I've no doubt that this development is bad for the genre in the long run. The fewer perspectives, the less diversity of viewpoints, the more our stories are going to fall into ruts. A wider pool of authors also creates better work as more talented folks get a chance to rise to the top. I don't know why the genre has become bereft of one half of the population, but I hope the situation changes soon.
Still Plugging Along
As I said, this month was, despite the alarming paucity of women SF contributors, surprisingly and refreshingly good. This month's Analog, so often a turgid relic, was a pleasant read from back to front. Let's take a look inside:
A nameless fellow wangles passage on the s/s Titov, a future-day Mayflower carrying 2000 colonists to New Arizona. His goal is not exploring a new world, however – it's the assassination of the last of the Peshkopi clan. the would-be killer having gotten a tip that Peshkopi was slated to make the interstellar jaunt on the old freighter.
Inadvertently taking on the role of Roger Bock, holder of one of the mission's ten financial shares, the assassin quickly finds himself embroiled in a growing conflict between the mistreated passengers, little more than chattel in the holds, and the comparatively pampered crew and shareholders. By the end of Part One, the identity of the Peshkopi is yet unknown to "Bock", but it is strongly implicated that it is actually Cathy Bergman, the elected representative of the colonists. Of course, by the end of the serial's installment, Bock has much bigger things to worry about than his initial mission…
Pioneer is typically competent Reynolds stuff, even though the milieu is more Leinsterian. If I have any complaint, it's that the science fiction trappings are virtually nonexistent. This could be a story set in the 18th Century.
That said, I do enjoy the rather unflattering portrayal of colonist (and presumably planetary) exploitation, and the inclusion of developed female characters is nice. Reynolds is usually good about that.
On sublight but relativistic trip to Tau Ceti, the starship Emissary makes a shocking discovery: while time dilation affects the crew, slowing down the passage of time for their physical bodies and for the ship's systems, their minds remain at the speed of their original reference point – Earth. Thus, to them, their bodies increasingly become prisons as their minds experience minutes, ultimately hours, for every second their bodies sense. It's a story of tragedy, discovery, and triumph.
And a very unusual one for Analog. It reminds me a bit of Niven's Wrong Way Street, featuring a gender-balanced and ethnically mixed crew (though they are all explicitly and deliberately Americans). I don't know who Michael Karageorge is, but he definitely hit a triple on his first outing (and I dug the brand new concept of the hydrogen ramscoop ship).
Four stars.
LUT the Giant Mover, by Lyle R. Hamilton
The nonfiction article is both interesting and disappointing. You can't fault the subject matter, which is the new launch facilities at Cape Kennedy. But like most articles in Analog, it suffers for lack of subheadings and a coherent narrative.
Here is a dark cautionary tale about relying too heavily on computers, in which a fellow is sent a reader's club book by mistake, and is ultimately arrested and executed when he refuses to pay for it.
I get what they're trying to say, but the story takes place next year and while there is merit to avoiding overreliance on automated systems, there are just too many places where human involvement in the system would have broken the digital positive feedback loop. I hope. On the other hand, who knows?
Better is this story of a near-future conflict in space: Chet Kinsman, a USAF Captain with a week left to his hitch, is tasked to fly into space on an X-20 derivative and inspect an unknown satellite suspected of being an orbital bomb. A mortal combat ensues.
I enjoyed all of this piece except the ending, which was both a little maudlin and should have had some falling action after the reveal. Still, I think Ben Bova is a promising author, and I look forward to more of his stuff.
Three stars.
Psi for Sale, by Walter Bupp
by Kelly Freas
We've seen a lot of installments in the story of "Lefty" Walter Bupp, a telekinetic doctor with the grammar of a mook. This time, John Berryman (the author's real name) offers us a look at Bupp's prehistory as well as the early history of the organization created for the benefit of American psychics.
I like the series, and this one was probably my favorite installment. Perhaps a little superfluous, but still welcome (and it was neat to see a piece from the perspective of Maragon, the "Grand Master" of the "Lodge").
4 stars.
Say It with Flowers, by Winston P. Sanders
by Kelly Freas
Last up, we get another piece set in a future history in which the asteroid belt has won independence from the Earth. Written under Poul Anderson's throwaway pen name, these are usually dry, technical stories of lesser appeal.
This time, we get a fairly compelling tale about a Lieutenant in the "asterix" space service who is apprehended by North American forces on a courier mission. It turns out that the message he is transmitting is carried on his person in an unique (but utterly telegraphed and unsurprising) way.
I liked the piece fine enough, though this line irked:
"The revolutionaries were so short of manpower that quite a few women held high rank."
An omission of that line would have gone a long way. I don't need the suggestion that women are only able to succeed when there ain't enough men to do the work – especially when it's obvious that women can do the work.
Anyway, three stars.
Y marks the spot
Note, for the first time, the lack of women in the Journey round-up image – this one is of an IBM demonstration in Ethiopia.
Distressing lack of women authors aside, this was a good month for science fiction in magazines. Analog clocked in at a respectable 3.5 stars, ahead of Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2, largely thanks to its opening novella) and IF (2.9, dragged down by the Doc Smith serial).
Finishing roughly equivalent were Fantastic (3.5), New Worlds (3.5), and Science Fantasy (3.4). If we include New Writings in SF #5 (3.5), which is a quarterly in book form but feels like a magazine, that makes the numbers even better.
So a mixed pleasure this month. Let's hope this trend of female non-production reverses itself soon and results in even better times to come!
![[December 10, 1968] Back and forth (January 1969 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/681210cover.jpg?resize=671%2C372)
![[August 6, 1968] Treading Water (September 1968 <i>Amazing</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/amz-0968-cover.png?resize=490%2C372)
![[May 31, 1968] Euler's Issue (June 1968 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/680531cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[March 16, 1968] In Distant Lands (March Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/680316covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[December 31, 1967] Surprise, surprise! (January 1968 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/671231cover.jpg?resize=669%2C372)
![[December 4, 1967] Devaluation (<i>New Writings in SF-11</i> & <i>Beyond Infinity</i> December 1967)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Cover-Image.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[April 18, 1967] Bright Lights (May 1967 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/670418cover-scaled.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 30, 1966] Marking time (December 1966 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/661130cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[November 16, 1965] Crime and Punishment (January 1966 <i>Worlds of Tomorrow</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Worlds_of_Tomorrow_v03n05_1966-01_dtsg0318.Anon_0000-3.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[August 26, 1965] Stag Party (September 1965 <i>Analog</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/650828cover.jpg?resize=396%2C372)
