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[February 10, 1966] Within and without (Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage and Samuel R. Delany's Empire Star)

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[This month's first Galactoscope features an esteemed pair of science fiction novels.  The first is by one of the genre's most accomplished veterans, the other by one of its newest and brightest lights…]


by Gideon Marcus

Fantastic Voyage, by Isaac Asimov

A defector from beyond the Iron Curtain lies dying on the operating table, a terrible secret in his brain.  Only an operation from the inside has any chance of success.  Thus begins a fantastic voyage in which five souls in a midget submarine are miniaturized and injected into the patient.  Their destination: the blood clot that threatens the defecting scientist's mind.

A myriad of biological wonders and horrors awaits the team, from antibodies to circulatory typhoons.  But even more dangerous to the mission is the possibility of a saboteur on board.  Is it Owens, pilot and designer of the Proteus?  Duval, the brilliant but antisocial surgeon?  His expert laser technician assistant, Peterson? The cartographer of the circulatory system, Michaels?  Or could it be Grant, the agent dispatched to watch the other four?

And can the saboteur be stopped before the miniaturization wears off, killing the patient and potentially the crew?

Voyage marks the author's return to novel-length fiction after a nearly a decade.  The circumstances are unusual; I understand the book is actually a novelization of a movie script, though unusually, the movie is not due out for many months.  Dr. A is, of course, a great choice for the job.  With his chemistry and general scientific background, he renders just plausible what will likely be enjoyable folderol on the screen.  He combines a vivid depiction of the inside of the human body with his usual competent pacing and plotting.  And as an old hand at mysteries (he essentially invented the still meager science fiction/mystery hybrid genre), he does a good job turning a science fiction adventure into a whodunnit.

I suspect what I don't like about the book mostly derives from the original script.  I found a lot of the action sequences a bit tedious.  Frankly, I might have been happier with a book that was just a guided tour of the human body from within, so deft is the Good Doctor with his nonfiction writing.  I also found Grant's incessant pursuit of Ms. Peterson (first name, Cora, like our esteemed fellow traveler) annoying — just let her do her job, man!  Also, only two thirds of the book are devoted to the actual voyage, insertion not taking place until page 70.  The build-up to the action feels a bit drawn out.

Nevertheless, it's a fine book and it's great to see Asimov flexing his fictional muscles again.

Three and a half stars.

Empire Star, by Samuel R. Delany


by John Boston

Samuel R. Delany has been quietly pumping out Ace paperbacks for a while, building a reputation from the bottom up.  He’s up to six now with the newest, Empire Star, and I thought I’d better pay some attention. 


by Jack Gaughan

Empire Star is your basic unprepossessing—actually, pretty ugly—half of an Ace Double, just under 100 pages, with generically goofy blurb: "He warped time and space to deliver a message to eternity."  But open it up and it features epigraphs from Proust and W.H. Auden (a first for Ace, I'm sure), and then introduces us to Comet Jo.  What?  Is this the new Captain Future?

Fortunately not.  Comet Jo is a yokel, galactically speaking, living on a satellite (of what, it’s not clear) in the Tau Ceti system.  He’s physically graceful, with claws on one hand, and his hair is long and either wheat-colored or yellow depending on which paragraph you’re reading.  He carries an ocarina wherever he goes.  He works tending the underground fields of plyasil, more crudely known as jhup, “an organic plastic that grows in the flower of a mutant strain of grain that only blooms with the radiation that comes from the heart of Rhys in the darkness of the caves.” He got his nickname wandering away from home to look at the stars.

One day Comet Jo hears a menacing noise, sees a devil-kitten (eight legs, three horns, hisses when upset) which leads him to where “green slop frothed and flamed,” with writhing, dying figures visible in it.  One of them breaks out—Comet Jo’s double—and tells him he needs to take a message to Empire Star, but dies before he can say what the message is.  The kitten rescues a small object from the now-cooled and evaporating puddle.  This is Jewel—“multicolored, multifaceted, multiplexed, and me”—i.e., the narrator, who we later learn is a “crystallized Tritovian.” Say what?  High-powered miniature computer with a personality—at least that will do.

So Comet Jo (hereinafter denominated “CJ”) goes to the spaceport the next morning to head for Empire Star, which he knows nothing about, to deliver a message he doesn’t have.  This farmhand gets hired on the spot to work on a spaceship, no questions asked.  On the way he encounters the strikingly dressed San Severina, who tells him he’s a beautiful boy but he needs to comb his hair, gives him a comb, and offers him diction lessons.  She proves to be the owner of the ship he’s working on, and of the seven Lll aboard—sentient slaves who are great builders and project their emotions of great sadness to anyone who gets close to them.  Owning these slaves is not a lot of fun.

Why not free them?  “Economics.” San Severina explains that after a war she has “eight worlds, fifty-two civilizations, and thirty-two thousand three hundred and fifty-seven complete and distinct ethical systems to rebuild,” and can’t do it without the enslaved Lll.  She also tells CJ he has a long journey ahead and has a message to deliver quite precisely.  How she knows this is not explained, and CJ still doesn’t know what the message is.  This is one of many incidents in which the people CJ encounters seem to know more about his mission than he does.

During these events, and later, CJ is told that he and his culture are simplex, as opposed to complex and multiplex, terms which are tossed around throughout the book without being defined very precisely.  (Where is A.E. van Vogt when you need him?  Never mind, forget I said it.) We are told that multiplex means being able to see things from different points of view, and also it seems to have something to do with pattern recognition.  Also the multiplex ask questions when they need to.  It certainly means becoming more mentally capable.  A big part of the story is CJ’s getting more plexy with experience. 

San Severina leaves him on Earth on his own, but advises him to “find the Lump.” Say what?  Only clue is it’s “not a people.” The Lump—which turns out to be a linguistic ubiquitous multi-plex, also part Lll, in the guise of a portly man named Oscar—finds him.  They set out in separate spaceships, but CJ quickly bumps into something—the Geodetic Survey Station, whose occupants are up to volume 167, Bba to Bbaab—and narrowly escapes the wrath of a comical and homicidal pedant.  At their destination, in orbit around the inhospitable planet Tantamount, CJ and Oscar encounter the poet Ni Ty Lee, who discloses that he worked on Rhys in the jhup fields before, and also played the ocarina once, which mightily disturbs CJ, and leads into a disquisition by the Lump on the works of Theodore Sturgeon, four thousand years gone by the time of the story.  Ni Ty Lee discloses more things he has done before CJ, including hanging out with San Severina, and CJ gets even more upset.  Ni isn’t happy either; he exclaims, “Always returning, always coming back, always the same things over and over and over!” Hint, in neon!

Enough synopsis.  The book continues in similar style.  It should be clear by now that large parts of this story make very little sense, starting with CJ’s determination to leave his farm job and head for the galactic capital with a yet-nonexistent message, because he was told to do so under the most bizarre and alarming circumstances.  But that’s OK because it’s not really a story in the usual sense.  Rather, it’s a story about a story, or about Story, or about the author moving game pieces about a board, each piece decorated with a piece of the stock imagery of pulp SF.  (Towards the end there’s even a Prince leading a spaceborne army to take over Empire Star, and the heiress to the throne struggling to thwart him.) Maybe it’s better described as a confection.  There is of course a revelation at the end that purports to rationalize everything, and does to some extent, but it’s almost beside the point.

My patience for this sort of construct is generally limited, but Empire Star is extremely well done.  It’s enormously clever, with many pleasing and colorful displays along the way; there’s much more detail and incident than the foregoing half-synopsis hints, even if much remains unexplained or implausible.  Enormous cleverness colorfully rendered is never to be sneezed at.  Four stars.

[Note: We will have to read Tom Purdom's The Tree Lord of Imeton to finish this Ace Double, and also because, well, it's Tom Purdom! Stay tuned…(ed.)]

The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well!  If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article!  Thank you for your continued support.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 26, 1966] Changes Afoot! Science Fantasy and New Worlds, February 1966

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

After the usual chaos and madness of a year’s end, it is usual for me to say at this point that I/we are now settling into the routines of 1966 nicely. Or are we? There’s change afoot!

Last month I made a half-joking remark that Science Fantasy was filled with old-fashioned and dated material that suggested that it was a placeholder issue. This month’s Science Fantasy seems to show that the Editor has taken this to heart. From next month Science Fantasy is no more – it will now be called Impulse, and this is shown on the cover in the same way that Astounding became Analog.

What difference such a title change will make, I don’t know. But it is clearly something Editor Kyril Bongfiglioli has wanted for a while. In his Editorial he explains the change, but what it mainly seems to be is that Kyril can now go to his newsagent and pick up a copy without fear of embarrassment, and he hopes others will be able to do the same. He also points out that there will also be a rise in price but that the magazine will be about thirty pages longer – “the equivalent of a full length novel.” Every cloud has a silver lining, I guess. But it is noted that both magazines are increasing their price next month.

To this month’s actual stories.

Ballad From A Bottle, by Hugh Simmonds

We’ve not come across Hugh’s writing before. As the title (and cover) suggests, this is a story of what happens when a bottle is found washed ashore on a beach. Simon takes it home and begins to have rather vivid dreams, which leads to him hearing voices and a song coming from the empty bottle. It’s a new version of the genie in the bottle story, isn’t it? Well, in this version the mysterious sounds lead to Simon travelling from Buenos Aires to Durban, South Africa (It’s not quite clear how he can afford it) and has some kind of religious experience (I think) in meeting an Arcturan who has been living in secret for millennia.

This one reads fine, but I can’t help feeling that it is spiritual allegory dressed up as a fictional story. I don’t know enough about such matters to know which religious view it is, but it feels like the purpose is the message, not the plot. 3 out of 5.

The Warp and the Woof-Woof, by John Brunner

Last month John appeared with a non-fiction article in New Worlds, this month a piece of fiction. It’s a nice story of an astronaut training to be the first man to Mars but as seen through the perspective of Jeff, his dog – the “woof woof” of the title. It involves Martians preparing for an invasion of Earth and a case of mistaken identity which doesn’t end well for the Martians. Brunner doesn’t write really bad stories, though this light-of-tone story feels like a minor tale. 3 out of 5.

Marina, by M. John Harrison

A new voice to me. This is a lyrical narrative telling of Marina, who dreams of a life at sea. Although she is separated from her beloved ocean, she knows that in the attic of the house where she lives there are mementos of a life spent there. Her rummaging leads to an unfortunate if predictable end. Despite the story being obvious, this is an interesting debut from an author clearly trying very hard to write imaginatively. 3 out of 5.

Our Man in 1900, by Paul Jents

Last time we had a story from Paul was in the June 1965 issue of Science Fantasy with Peace on Earth, and this month he has a story in both magazines! This story is one of time-travel and espionage, which although I haven’t seen it over here in Britain, makes me think of your Wild, Wild West television series, or something from our Doctor Who. Justini goes to see an act by fellow magician Marvo, only to find that it is not an act, but instead part of a time-travelling holiday company’s itinerary from the Thirtieth Century. The story starts well, and there’s a nicely done if rather obvious twist in the tale at the end. 3 out of 5.

Sing Me No Sorrows, by E. C. Tubb

Is there no end to the stockpile of material from the prodigious Mr. Tubb? This one is one of those “Where am I now?” type stories where the person in the story initially finds themselves somewhere new and unknown until eventually they discover where they are and what they are doing there. Minor-league stuff. 3 out of 5.

Plague in Space (part 3 of 3) , by Harry Harrison

At the end of last month’s serial, Doctors Sam Bertolli and Nita Mendel found themselves at an United Nations World Health meeting where a decision was made to quarantine and then cleanse New York City of a space plague by dosing it with radioactive material.

To finish the story, a decision is made to search the Pericles for any research completed by the hapless astronauts. Nita becomes ill and Sam is detained for protesting about Operation Cleansweep, so the story has an additional element of peril. Like last month, Sam escapes from his detention and enters the zone due for detonation to get to the Pericles.

There with Stanley Yasumura, Gen. Burke, Lieut. Haber and Sgt. Bennet, Sam battles through various challenges to get inside the spaceship. There they meet a Jovian, whose initial contact with the Pericles we are told of through flashback, and who has a cure. Nita is miraculously cured by the serum and in a horrendously clumsy ending everything is sorted and solved, with preparations made for the humans to return to Jupiter and take on the Jovians.

As the last part of the last serial for Science Fantasy, it’s pretty predictable. Issues are resolved satisfactorily, and there’s a reasonable ending. But the fact that I can’t think of much to say about the last part of a serial that takes up half of the issue may ultimately sum up the story’s impact. Overall it feels like a bit of a pot-boiler that is more likely to be liked by non-sf readers than those who have read this sort of thing so many times before. It is better than the pulps of the 1940s and 50s, but there’s little else to recommend it by me, sadly. 3 out of 5.

Summing up Science Fantasy

The last issue of Science Fantasy continues in the manner of the last couple of issues. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but it seems to have lost its energy. Knowing what we now do, I am hoping that this is just a case of holding the good material over until the next issue, which will hopefully show us how good the magazine can be again. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either.

Farewell Science Fantasy. It has been fun, but your time is past. All hail Impulse (fingers crossed).


Advert for the new magazine. A bold statement!

Onto this month’s New Worlds.

The Second Issue At Hand

A few months ago, I became aware of a group who were not in favour of Moorcock’s changes to New Worlds. They were mainly making their opinions known through groups such as the British Science Fiction Association, who were quite vocal about the reduction in the magazines of “good old-fashioned sf”, replacing it with loftier, more literary material and losing a key core group of readers in the process.

Well, clearly Mike Moorcock has been listening. The editorial this month is his response, a tirade that suffers no fools gladly and is perhaps the boldest statement yet of his intent as Editor. Can this be just coincidental as it happens at the same time as Science Fantasy changing its name? (I doubt it.)

There are some impassioned generalisations here. Moorcock makes some good points and gives some good examples to back his view up about what he is trying to do and why, but mistakenly begins by turning one generalisation (there have been some complaints…) into another (he claims that the views of this vocal minority equate with “All Change is Bad”).

Personally, I hope that my monthly comments here show that I like the old stuff as nostalgic entertainment but I also appreciate what Moorcock is trying to do, even if I don’t always “get it”. Last month I said that New Worlds was “pushing the genre whilst at the same time maintaining some connections to the past,” which I like.

In short, Moorcock’s Editorial is an interesting read that is one from a clearly heart-felt conviction on his part and summarises how far the genre has come in a few years. Might even be worth buying the magazine for that statement of intent alone.

To the stories!


Illustration by James Cawthorn

A Two-Timer, by David I Masson

No serial this month but another different sort of story from Masson, who has been a major supernova as a writer in his brief time here. Moorcock talks about this in his Editorial in glowing terms, and I can only agree. It is written in the form of “ye-olde-English-language” with archaic vocabulary and Lots of Capital Letters in the Middle of Sentences, and as such can be a little difficult to get on with at first – it reminds me of the recent reaction to Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Masson’s first story (Traveller’s Rest, in the September issue of New Worlds) showed us that Masson clearly enjoys playing with language. I understand that David is not only an author but also the Curator of Special Collections at Liverpool University with an interest in language, and this is reflected in his stories here.

However, once the reader becomes accustomed to the prose, it is a great story about time travel that uses the dislocation of language to describe present day lifestyle. Separated by three hundred years, the story is written as if someone from history was recording the events of the present. Our unnamed hero from 1683 finds himself by accident in a time machine that travels to 1964. It’s an entertaining satire as we decipher what our traveller is seeing such as cars, buses, aeroplanes, electricity, television and so on. It is also a deliberate reversal of the historical novel, where events of the past are told with modern prose. It is a great idea, and much of the amusement comes from trying to deduce what our protagonist is describing, but it is really the same idea repeated through one story. I did like the point that as the story progresses and our narrator becomes more fluent with the modern world, the language becomes more modern, which rather reminded me of the linguistics in Daniel Keyes’ recent story Flowers for Algernon. The title’s clever as well – a person who is in two places at once at different times and – there’s another reason as well, but I won’t spoil it for you.

Though it is similar to Paul Jents’ story in this month’s Science Fantasy, this is a comedy of manners that is a magnitude greater in its ambition and its plotting. It’s a little too long – you can only carry this one idea so far – and has a weak ending, yet I found it enjoyable enough. 4 out of 5.

The Orbs, by John Watney

Another new author to me. This is story told through a diary entry by Julia, a sixteen-year-old in the Time of the Orbs. What we discover through the excited Julia is that there is a rite-of-passage that she is about to experience known as the Great Adventure. Guess what? The Orbs are some sort of Alien harvesting machine who suck up humans and butcher them in what is called The Great Descent. Over time humans have adapted this to allowing self-sacrificers, known as Orb-Volunteers to be harvested, which ultimately becomes narrowed down to teenagers, who are prepared for this sacrifice with great pomp and ceremony. It’s an invasion story where the matter-of-fact tone belies horrors on a global scale. Whilst the theme of the story isn’t new, it is chillingly told. 3 out of 5.

Entry from Earth, by Daphne Castell

Another from an author who is almost becoming a regular in the magazines, after her appearance with For One of These in Science Fantasy last month. This time Daphne tells us of the Nine Systems Festival of Sound on the planet Pigauron. This involves lots of dignitaries from strange planets, but this year the excitement is over a competition entry from a relatively unknown planet called Earth. The irony is that the song is a slavery song, sung by slaves. I liked the somewhat florid and baroque nature of the decadent aliens, though the twist in the end is a little weak. 3 out of 5.

Hi, Sancho!, by Paul Jents

And so to Paul’s second published story this month. This is the story of Tip Peters, an escapee who we first meet escaping over an electrified fence for an initially undisclosed reason. Over the course of the story Tip goes to his girlfriend for refuge, but is persuaded to seek further help in escaping. This leads to him informing the authorities of a potential terrorist attack. The twist in the story at the end shows us that Tip is clinically insane and actually returns to an asylum. A story that hints at a dark world outside Tip’s safe haven, with extermination camps in “Africa” possibly being the cause of Tip’s illness, but as with most similar stories unfortunately feels rather ham-fisted. I much preferred the other story this month. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by A Thomson

Temporary Resident, by Philip E. High

Philip’s a regular to the magazines, and one of the old school of writers, but one who is trying to write in a New Wave style. However, with that in mind, this is a fairly inconsequential piece this month. A near-miss with a car on the planet Speriol leads the protagonist (who works in Intelligence) to wonder if the accident was deliberate. This leads to a paranoic spiral, for as he continues his day he increasingly feels that he is carrying on the same as normal but everyone around him is not. The ‘accident’ seems to have led to a “Transition”, moving our hero to a different plane of existence where physical laws are altered. Another one of those “altered perception” type stories which basically takes that idea of inner space and runs with it under the guise of sf, which ends on an unconvincing twist. 3 out of 5.

The Sword Against the Stars, by A. F. Hall

Do you remember me writing of that story a couple of issues back that seemed to throw everything in, from unicorns to spaceships? My first thought on reading this title was that this was going to be another story covering similar ideas, but really it is not. On a planet that is possibly Earth, we are told of what has happened in our future. Man has attempted to go beyond the planet and has sent spaceships travelling into space but they have never returned.

Instead aliens arrived and destroyed the world, leaving the people there unable to leave the planet. There’s lots of descriptions of the harsh lifestyle the people live. There are dust storms and we have people fighting over caches of food. The story tries to end on a positive note, hopeful that a sword the writer owns will become a sign that Mankind will one day return to the stars, but most of the story is about the challenges of eking out a living in a post-apocalyptic environment. Grim and depressing, despite the ending. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews, Articles and Letters

Assistant Editor Langdon reviews Of Worlds Beyond, a non-fiction book on the craft of sf writing. Jones claims that it’s worth spending your money on if you can’t find anything else – talk about faint praise! – but I must admit that I Iiked some of the quotes given from editors and authors, perhaps enough to buy the book. There’s also reviews of a number of novels in a series by Samuel Delany and The Wizard of Lemuria by Lin Carter from someone we know more for his drawings here – James Cawthorn. R. M. Bennett gives a detailed review of The Best of New Worlds, now in paperback. It’s fairly thorough, though I must admit that I’m always a bit uneasy when a magazine reviews itself. It does gain extra credit from me though for saying that Langdon Jones' story I Remember Anita was "overrated."

In the letters pages there is lots of discussion of Pohl and Kornbluth’s recent novel The Space Merchants reviewed back in the November 1965 issue. First there is a letter suggesting that James Colvin’s review of the book was unfair, which is then followed by a letter agreeing with the review and claiming that the novel is “probably the most over-estimated sf novel ever.” Colvin gives an appropriate reply in response.

There’s also a letter from a new reader complaining about too much sex and religion in the latest magazines, ending with the pithy sentence “As far as I am concerned, true sf writing ceased in 1939.” Clearly not a fan of the new direction the magazine is going in, then! I wonder what this reader will make of Moorcock’s impassioned Editorial this month? The letter is given without editorial comment.

The last letter praises the magazine for trying to maintain a difficult balance between the old and the new, which shows that at least some are getting what Mike is trying to achieve.

Summing up New Worlds

We seem to be on a run of good New Worlds issues at the moment. Moorcock rants aside, it is true that he has a lot to be proud about in this one and although this issue is not the best we’ve seen lately it holds up as readable. Masson’s writing continues to impress, with another very different story from him.

Summing up overall

Whilst I am sad at the passing of Science Fantasy, the difference between the actively energetic if not to say fighting tone of New Worlds and the tired yet staid Science Fantasy is once again quite noticeable. Perhaps it is time for a change. I look forward to seeing if Impulse makes a difference next month. It should not be a surprise though that the ‘winner’ this month for me is New Worlds – even if it is not the best issue we've seen lately.

Until the next…



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 28, 1965] God-Birds and Dreams Science Fantasy and New Worlds, January 1966

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

It’s that strange time of the year. I’m currently typing this a few days just after Christmas 1965 (hope it was a good one for you!), although the magazines are all dated January 1966, of course, and I suspect many of you will be reading this and the magazines in 1966!! So, whilst I’m still celebrating Christmas, and thinking back over the year gone by, we are also looking forward to new things in 1966.

It’s almost as if it was science fiction, isn’t it?

Anyway, the postman has managed to deliver me two magazines in the Christmas mail. Perhaps unsurprisingly by now, the issue that arrived first in the post this month was Science Fantasy, so I’ll start there first.

Regular readers will know that I have been moaning about these covers for a while now. As you can see, this one is cheap-looking and not reversed the trend – what is that? A tree slice? A sliver of onion? I’m almost beginning to miss those Keith Roberts covers – but wait! This is a Roberts cover, clearly one from the bottom of his artist’s paintbox.

This month’s Editorial is a little unusual. It is in the form of an open letter, with responses from Kyril, to Mr. Chris Priest, a reader who has graced the letters pages of both magazines in recent years. It immediately covers one of the issues given thought here since it was put under new management – namely, that a letter column is, to quote, “an absolute necessity.”

Using references to recent letters, Chris makes three points. Firstly, Brian Stableford’s examination of what is sf (reviewed here back in the November 1965 issue) boiled down to “it is what it is, and when it is, we know.” Secondly, Ken Slater’s letter (in the same issue of Science Fantasy ) about the literary standard of sf suggests that Kyril’s policies on this being “uncertain”. Thirdly, Science Fantasy seems to combine both modern, cutting-edge stories and yet persists in publishing ” stories that went out of vogue many many years ago.” Coincidentally, this was something I accused the magazine of last month with its publication of Harry Harrison’s Plague from Space.

Whilst I’m not sure dissecting one letter in this way is always advisable, it is interesting. The editorial is short, but Kyril replies with thought and humour.

To the actual stories.

The God-Birds of Glentallach, by John Rackham

It feels like it has been a while since we’ve seen John in either Science Fantasy or New Worlds, although he was last seen in the August 1965 issue of with A Way With Animals. I believe that he has been a regular contributor to John Carnell’s New Writings in SF in the meantime.

Here he tells us the story of Andrew Malcolm, recently-made Laird of Glentallach, who allows an archaeological dig on what is now his land and with the discovery of a mysterious box discovers that an ancient myth may have more in it than he imagined.

It is a good solid tale, which reminded me of Fritz Lieber stories in a style not that different from old issues of Weird Tales. This seems to be exactly what Chris Priest was writing about in his letter about old-style storytelling. And yet, I quite liked it. 3 out of 5.

Sealed Capsule, by Edward Mackin

And this is also the return of a veteran regular, though not seen since April 1965’s New Worlds. Sealed Capsule (a rather appropriate title considering what happens in the previous story!) is the story of what could happen if you coop up men in a sealed spaceship together for six months on the way to Alpha Centauri. Clue: it doesn’t end well, especially when you add homemade poteen and prescription medicines to the plot. Another “OK” story, which reads well but doesn’t tell the reader anything new. 3 out of 5.

“In Vino Veritas”, by E. C. Tubb

Another old hand, clearly on a roll, as he was in both magazines last month – and here he is again. We will read another from E. C. in New Worlds later, as well.

Just to clarify for the non-Latin readers, “In Vino Veritas” means “In wine, truth”, which seems appropriate for many a writer, inspired by the drinking of the stuff! Claus Heston is a writer who, in an attempt to pay his bills and clear his writers block, sets forth to use alcohol and a magic potion to help him regain his mojo. It doesn’t quite work, but there is a revelation that forms the end of the story. 3 out of 5.

The Satyrian Games, by D. J. Gibbs

A writer new to me. Johnny Collins is a reporter sent to commentate on the mysterious Annual Games on Satyrus. With the offer of a bonus, Johnny and photographer Randy Hill are prepared to spend two weeks on Satyrus, despite the rumours of danger that have been reported on before. Meeting King Kopulus, the two Terrans are treated as VIPs, which is a little unusual for reporters, until the true reason is revealed – the next day they are to be put to combat against athletic Satyrian females as a test of manhood. We find out that it is a tough life being a Breeder, and in the end the King is beaten in a competition between himself and the appropriately named Randy to copulate with as many women as possible.

In case you didn’t guess, this one reads like a satire of a substandard story from the pulps of the 1930s. If the attempt at humour is the point, it is a weak point, and clumsily done. Overall, The Satyrian Games feels like it is here as a result of the Editor’s desperation. 2 out of 5.

For One of These, by Daphne Castell

Another story by Daphne after her debut in New Worlds in October. It is noticeable how both magazines have embraced the issue of there being a lack of women writers this year.

This is a story about a baby that Anna and her mother take in after the parents are killed in a road accident near their home. In the time it takes for help to arrive, Anna becomes bonded with the infant, even though it bites her and draws blood. The revelation is then that the baby, and the parents who were killed, are aliens in disguise. The Military Intelligence team who then arrive take Anna and her family into protective custody. Anna is told that the baby alien seems to derive its food from the mother’s blood – a space vampire, if you like. (The baby is even referred to at one point as “Poor little Dracula.”)

The story ends with Anna and two other ‘nurses’ taking on the responsibility of helping feed the child, until the authorities can work out what to do, waiting for others of the same race to arrive. Solidly told, but again, nothing exceptional. 3 out of 5.

The Plague from Space (part 2 of 3) , by Harry Harrison

The second part of this serial carries on pretty much as we left off, with Doctors Sam Bertolli and Nita Mendel trying to slow down the spread of the disease in New York brought back from Space by the spaceship Pericles. At the start of this second part, Sam is rushed to Stonebridge where it is rumoured that there might be a possible cure. The rumour is sadly mistaken, but Sam finds himself in a gun battle between his team and a group of armed militia who think that their helicopter is a means of escaping the plague.

Eventually returning back to the city, Sam is contacted by Nita, who tells him that the disease is mutating and that the samples they have previously taken do not survive in Jupiter-like conditions. The point is that the disease seems to be human-based and is mutating to infect other animals, such as dogs.

Sam and Nita find themselves side-lined for political reasons, so in protest they sneak themselves into an United Nations World Health meeting. There a decision is made to quarantine and then cleanse the worst part of the city by dosing it with radioactive material, leaving nothing alive.

Lots of running about and, as is typical for a middle part of a story, lots of exposition. Like last month, a tale told well but with little to elevate it to best-seller material. 3 out of 5.

Summing up Science Fantasy

Science Fantasy continues to play safe this month, continuing to rely on regular seasoned writers. Looking at the names returning, it is almost as if editor Kyril has fallen back on old ways and simply lifted work in the slush pile from writers from the old-school Carnell-era New Worlds. This may be intentional, but the overall impression I get is that of a magazine in a holding pattern, seemingly determined not to move forward. Surprisingly mundane.

Onto this month’s New Worlds.

The Second Issue At Hand

The editorial this month takes as its contentious starting point the idea, from James Colvin’s serial, that Science is the New Religion, before going further to say that in this wonderful world of the New Wave writing we are currently in, Science is the only prism through which Man can focus upon his future hopes and fears. It is a bold and deliberately argumentative point, but one which seems rather old-fashioned. I’m sure it was a point being made back in the early years of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Nevertheless, it is a discussion made with passion and enthusiasm.

To the stories!

The Wrecks of Time (Part 3 of 3)), by James Colvin

Last month’s part of this serial was clearly a middle part, all rushing about with no resolution. In this third and final part, Professor Faustaff and his faithful friends have appeared on the newly-created Earth Zero, with his enemies Steifflomeis and Cardinal Orelli.

Here the story becomes even more fractured and diluted. On arriving at Earth-Zero, Steifflomeis attempts to rally Faustaff to his cause but is turned down. There is a standoff between Faustaff’s team and Orelli’s men before Faustaff, with Nancy Hunt and Gordon Ogg, escapes in a car. They reach what appears at first to be a garbage dump but is actually made up of new-looking but random objects from different times – an arquebus, a Chinese kite, a Fokker triplane, for example. Presumably these are the "Wrecks of Time" of the title?

Faustaff realises that Maggy White may be the answer to his problems. Like Steifflomeis she appears to be working for the Principals, a set of immortals who created the multiple Earths and now seem to be involved in some sort of multidimensional game across Space and Time.

This also explains the increasingly bizarre nature of the story. Faustaff returns to Orelli’s cathedral to find Orelli crucified, symbolising the death of Religion that Moorcock talked of in his Editorial. Steifflomeis explains that this is part of an Activation Ritual that all of the newly-formed planets must go through. These appear to Faustaff in a dream-like state.

Faustaff sees a ritual sacrifice, a symbolism of the primitive people’s fears and wishes. He chases after Steifflomeis to find Maggy Smith in some kind of medieval-esque Queen of Darkness ritual. Nancy and Ogg are elsewhere in another ritual, in Hollywood, which causes Faustaff to laugh at the ludicrousness of the situation, to which I could only agree. Steifflomeis reappears and challenges Ogg to a duel.

The story at this point seems to make little sense, although there is an attempt to point out that the rituals seem to be repeated dream-like events needed as simulations for the principals to activate the planet. Maggy kills Steifflomeis, as he is blamed for the failure of this activation. Leaving the team at a hospital to tend Orelli, Maggy then takes Faustaff to meet the principals. We finish with a huge exposition as the principals explain the reasons for the simulations, although at this point I was beginning to lose interest. It seems that all of this is some cosmic joke. However, there is a happy ending.

After a great start and a lot of potential, this series appears to end with a confusing jumble of increasingly erratic sequences and an all-too convenient solution. A lot of noise but despite the author clearly thinking that it has, not a lot of sense. 3 out of 5.

The Case, by Peter Redgrove

Oh, God – poetry. Perhaps one of the most underwritten and over-appreciated forms of the English language, the first page made my heart sink. But I need to put my personal prejudices aside, and I do think that it is good to see the magazine push the boundaries a little and include something a bit different this month. Even if it is not to my own tastes. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by David Kearn

The Failures, by Charles Platt

Another regular author this month. It is very brave to title a story The Failures, isn’t it? It is almost as if it is taunting me to say something like how much of a failure this story is. Well, it’s not quite as bad as all of that. But it didn’t entirely work for me.

It seems to cover similar ground to Platt’s recent story The Lone Zone, , in that it deals with disaffected young adults. Last time it was some kind of future apocalypse, this time it is about the near future, although it is full of things from the present as well. Greg meets Cathy Grant at a Press party for his band, the Ephemerals. At first glance it all seems good – fast car, music being played on the radio, nice clothes. However, as the story crawls through a simulacrum of 1960s culture with its litany of dodgy characters, drugs, bad sex and a never-ending search for thrills, the point seems to be that such a seemingly luxurious life can end up being monotonous and unfulfilling, Really, life is awful and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. All rather depressing, which I suspect is the point. 3 out of 5.

Love Is an Imaginary Number, by Roger Zelazny

This is perhaps the story I was looking forward to reading most this month. American Roger has been blazing a trail over with you in the States and seems to be seen as an American writer firmly coming to grips with what we are calling ‘the New Wave’. His writing, what I have read of it so far, is usually imaginative, intelligent and deals with those themes of the softer sciences and inner space so beloved of the new breed of writers.

Like Charles Platt’s story, this is another one that begins in a seemingly positive manner. It is a fast-paced story of an unnamed character, told in the first person, who escapes from a prison and his jailor Stella. A renegade who runs across different landscapes, chased by villains who want to do him harm. In the end, he is bolted down and tortured.

In precis this story sounds like a lot of others. What such a summary doesn’t show is the way the prose is written – a dazzlingly precise yet grandly lyrical piece of writing that pulls you in and doesn’t let you leave until the end. This, when compared with the Colvin story, showed me what a dazzlingly prosed chase story could be like when combined with a plot that feels like a Greek myth combined with a Fantasy plot. As good as I hoped it would be. 4 out of 5.

Mouth of Hell, by David I Masson

And this is the other story I was looking forward to reading this month. David made quite an impression on me with his startlingly clever story Traveller’s Rest in the New Worlds issue of September 1965. This is quite different, yet just as brilliant. It is a story of an expedition to a place initially unknown but seems like somewhere we know. It reminded me a little of Lovecraft’s In the Mountains of Madness, but as the story progresses it becomes more science fictional. The expedition continues to traverse a continuous down-slope, first with vehicles and then on foot. The three expeditioners who continue – with the great names Mehhtumm, ’Ossnaal and Ghuddup – experience many challenges with increased heat and pressure. ‘Ossnaal has a fit and upon a rescue attempt one of the group is killed and another goes missing.

The next day, another trio, led by the team leader Kettass but with oxygen, manages to get further, but the death of another of the team leads to the search being abandoned.

There is then a couple of postscripts. Five years later Kettass returns with two VTOL craft and descend into the abyss, filming for a documentary. Their first attempt is deeper, yet defeated. On the second attempt one of the vehicles is crushed by the pressure 25 kilometres down and the second expedition is halted.

Thirty years after that. Kettass, now a septuagenarian, is taken down via pressured cable railway. The story ends by explaining that despite further deaths the area will eventually become a tourist resort with a game reserve and a sanatorium. Technology and Man’s endeavours have eventually tamed the challenges of the mysterious hole.

I love the fact that this is so different to Traveller’s Rest and yet so good. It may not be quite as unique as Traveller’s Rest was, but it is literate and memorable, with an unusual setting. This is a Boys Own adventure story rewritten for intelligent adults. 4 out of 5.


Illustration by James Cawthorn

Anne, by E. C. Tubb

What’s this? Another story by the prolific E. C. Tubb? This is a brief yet memorable story, written in a different style to his usual about a dying Warrior in his also dying spaceship who in his pain dreams of a different place, with Anne. It made me think that it was a science fictional version of the Brian Aldiss story The Day of the Doomed King, back in the November 1965 issue of Science Fantasy. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews, Articles and Letters

Them As Can, Does, by John Brunner

Oh, look – an article from Mr. Brunner, after his allegedly impressive sparring with John W. Campbell at the recent Worldcon.

Fellow traveller Gideon has suggested before that there are two or three types of Brunner writing that we see. So, which Brunner do we have here? It is perhaps a little unfair to use such comments on a non-fiction article about how to get published. But the article is faintly amusing, makes its point well with some dignity and some sardonic wit that feels like it is based on experience. It can be summed us as “It’s not easy.” 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

And so after the serial, we now get the Book Review. James Colvin reviews Bill, the Galactic Hero with the sort of praise expected from the editor of the magazine himself. Colvin also weirdly reviews himself when he reviews Mike Moorcock’s The Fireclown. This can be a little confusing, especially when Colvin takes Moorcock to task for some of his writing, as he does here.

I can’t help feeling that Moorcock is laughing at us as he does this, although I guess that those of us in the know about such things may find it rather irreverent and amusing.

In the letters pages there is a point made about the price going up being a good thing but that there should also be more short stories and less serials, which can be bought as novels at anytime. The second letter suggests that as Analog is “the engineer’s magazine”, then New Worlds is “the undertakers’ magazine”, such is the magazine’s preoccupation with gloom and death. Must admit that I don’t entirely disagree with that one – it is something I’ve noticed myself recently.

Summing up New Worlds

Having said that the last issue of New Worlds was unmemorable, this one is a considerable improvement. The Zelazny story is great, as is the very different Masson story, which is perhaps my favourite story of the month.

I should give credit for the poetry, even when I didn’t like it. There are still a few of the regular contributors as well, but I am pleased that this is a step in the right direction, pushing the genre whilst at the same time maintaining some connections to the past.

 

Summing up overall

And with that, it should not be a surprise that the ‘winner’ this month for me is New Worlds.

With Christmas just gone, it means that I must wish you all the best for what is left of the Festive season and indeed for the New Year. 1965 has been shown to be an interesting one for the Brit magazines and despite my grumbles I can’t see 1966 being any different. (If you haven't seen it yet, Judith Merril makes some astute comments about it in this month's Magazine of Fantasy & SF that are worth a read.) Here’s hoping!

Until the next…



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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 24, 1965] Gallimaufry du Saison(The Year's best Science Fiction and Paingod and Other Delusions)

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by John Boston

Adventures in Miscellany

If it’s 1965, then it must be time for Judith Merril’s annual anthology from 1964.  Admittedly, it’s pretty late in the year, which likely has to do with Merril’s change of publishers.  After five years with Simon and Schuster, the new volume is from Delacorte Press, an imprint of Dell Publishing, which has published these anthologies in paperback since their inception in the mid-1950s.  But here it is, styled 10th Annual Edition THE YEAR’S BEST SF, in time for the Christmas trade.


by G. Ziel

Over the years these anthologies have become larger.  The growth is mostly in density; the page count has gone up a bit (400 pages this year), but the amount of text per page has grown remarkably from the early Gnome Press volumes. 

The books have also grown much more miscellaneous.  Their contents were initially drawn mostly from the familiar SF magazines, with a few other items from the well-known slick magazines.  No more.  This volume includes a gallimaufry of stories, quasi-stories, satirical essays, and what have you from sources as various as The Socialist Call, motive (sic—official magazine of the Methodist Student Movement), New Directions, and Cosmopolitan.  (No cartoons this year, unlike last year’s book.)

This is all in service of Merril’s editorial philosophy of science fiction, which is that it doesn’t exist—or, at least, that there’s no difference between it and everything else, or at least something else.  (See her soliloquy in the previous volume on what “S” and “F” really stand for, quoted in my previous comment on this series.  The theme is continued here in her between-stories commentary, like a background noise you stop noticing after a while). You may find this view intellectually incoherent, but, like the feller (or Feller) said, by their fruits ye shall know them, and Merril makes a pretty interesting fruit salad.  (Even if I have a bone to pick with parts of it.)

Unfortunately it’s hard to review a salad this big without sorting out its ingredients, which Merril might say defeats her purpose.  Nonetheless, onwards.  The book can only be discussed in layers.

Usual Suspects

The top layer, analytically speaking, is the first-class, or at least pretty good, SF and F from genre sources.  The outstanding items here are J.G. Ballard’s The Terminal Beach from New Worlds and Roger Zelazny’s A Rose for Ecclesiastes from F&SF—and stop right there: Merril’s benign eclecticism is nowhere better illustrated than in the contrast between Ballard, driving avant-garde style and imagery and his preoccupation with psychological “inner space” into the genre’s brain like an ice pick, and Zelazny, rehabilitating the old-fashioned pseudo-other-wordly costume drama of the pulps with high style and intellectual decoration.  Runners-up include Thomas Disch’s chilly Descending from Fantastic, John Brunner’s well-turned gimmick story The Last Lonely Man from New Worlds (the only story also to have appeared in the Wollheim/Carr best of the year volume), Norman Kagan’s audaciously zany The Mathenauts from If, and Kit Reed’s sprightly self-help/morality tale Automatic Tiger from F&SF. 

Barely making the cut is Mack Reynolds’s Pacifist, also from F&SF, a sharp piece of political didacticism about a pacifist underground that uses decidedly non-pacifist means to fight against warmongering politicians, unfortunately too contrived to have much impact.  Surprisingly, Arthur Porges, perpetrator of the dreadful Ensign Ruyter stories in Amazing, rises briefly from the muck with the affecting Problem Child, from Analog, about a professor of mathematics whose wife died bearing a mentally retarded child; the child proves to be anything but retarded in one significant way.  This one gets “better than expected” credit.  So does Training Talk, by the militantly eccentric David R. Bunch (Fantastic), in which he outdoes himself in grotesque lyricism (“It was one of those days when cheer came out of a rubbery sky in great splotches and globs of half-snow and eased down the windowpanes like breakups of little glaciers.”), complementing his even more grotesque plot.  Edging into this category is The Search, a poem by (Merril says) high school student Bruce Simonds, from F&SF, which is minor but clever, pointed, and readable. 

All right, downhill to the next layer, the less distinguished selections from the SF magazines, ranging from the merely competent or inconsequential to the actively dreary. There are several supposedly humorous trifles.  Fritz Leiber’s Be of Good Cheer, from Galaxy, is an epistolary satire, a letter from a robot at the Bureau of Public Morale to a Senior Citizen (as they are known these days) reassuring her unconvincingly that the absence of humans and prevalence of robots that she observes is nothing to worry about.  Larry Eisenberg’s The Pirokin Effect, from Amazing, is a more slapsticky satire about extraterrestrial signals received in a restaurant kitchen which may or may not be from the Lost Tribes of Israel, now resident on Mars; this one is distinguished from the Leiber story by actually being mildly amusing.  The same is true of Family Portrait by new author Morgan Kent, from Fantastic, a vignette about the mundane domestic life of a family that proves to have unusual talents. 

The same is unfortunately not true of The New Encyclopaedist, from F&SF, by Stephen Becker, a novelist (see last year’s A Covenant with Death) and translator of some repute, with no prior SF credits.  This comprises several satirical encyclopedia entries about events in the near future, but their main purpose seems to be to prove the author’s superior sensibilities, and they’re more tedious than funny.  I’m guessing the New Yorker rejected them.  Czech author Josef Nesvadba’s The Last Secret Weapon of the Third Reich belongs here as much as anywhere—it’s from his collection Vampires Ltd., which is apparently devoted to SF stories.  It’s a frenetic black comedy about a last-ditch Nazi effort to generate a new fighting force with a process for developing embryos to adulthood within seven days of conception; the story is less effective than it should be since . . . gosh . . . Nazis are kind of hard to satirize.

There are also a couple of yokel epics here, which is almost always bad news.  Sonny, by Rick Raphael, from Analog (where else?) is a dreary attempt at humor about a kid from West Virginia whose psionic talents come to light after he is drafted into the Army.  The Man Who Found Proteus, by the always promising but never quite delivering Robert H. Rohrer, Jr., from Fantastic, features a caricatured semi-literate miner encountering a hungry shape-changing monster and coming off no better than you’d expect.

Several other more conventional SF stories are just not very lively.  Richard Wilson’s The Carson Effect, from Worlds of Tomorrow, like much of his work to my taste, is a rather limp account of strange human behavior in what everybody thinks are the last days, but prove not to be, a denouement explained by a gimmick reminiscent of Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter.  The Carson of the title is Rachel.  Jack Sharkey’s The Twerlik, from Worlds of Tomorrow, is an alien contact story in which the alien, a planet-encompassing plant, tries to make sense of explorers from Earth landing in a spaceship; it’s an earnest effort (unusually for this author) that doesn’t quite revive a hackneyed theme.  A Miracle Too Many, by Philip H. Smith and Alan E. Nourse, from F&SF, concerns a doctor who wishes he could save all his patients, and suddenly he can, with grim consequences that are all too obvious.  Its problem is not ennui but predictability. 

That’s an awful lot of lackluster for a book with “Best” in the title.  More on that problem later.

Neighboring Provinces

The next stratum consists of fairly straightforward SF/F that Merril has trawled or excavated from the established mainstream magazines in the way of SF/F.  A couple of these are by well-established (or –remembered) genre names.  One of the best in the book is Arthur C. Clarke’s The Shining Ones, from Playboy, about an encounter with the fauna of the sea, rendered with the same dignified enthusiasm as Clarke’s portrayals of human encounters with the Moon and the other planets.  This is a writer who will never lose his sense of wonder, or his discipline in writing about it.  Interestingly, the plot takes off from the notion of powering a city with energy derived from temperature differentials between oceanic depths and the surface.  Maybe somebody should try that sometime.  The other big name is John D. MacDonald, who wrote a lot of quite good SF from 1948 to 1953 but gave it up for crime fiction.  Unfortunately his The Legend of Joe Lee from Cosmopolitan is unimpressive, a lame sort of ghost story about a teen-age hot-rodder whom the cops can’t catch, for reasons revealed at the end. 

The others in this category are all satirical extrapolations of things the authors have seen around them, a standard maneuver in standard SF and a game that anyone can play—though not always well.  The best of the lot is A Living Doll by Robert Wallace, from Harper’s; Wallace is said to be a photographer for Life, and the story to have been inspired by an encounter in a toy store with a doll that spoke to him and nibbled his finger.  The narrator’s sullen and sadistic daughter wants a doll for Christmas, along with some needles and pins and a book on Voodoo.  He discovers that dolls have become more sophisticated than he realized, and purchases one who proves to mix a mean Martini and to discourse knowledgeably about Mexican art—a considerable improvement over his daughter.  The rest follows logically.  Almost as good is Frank Roberts’s It Could Be You, from the Australian Coast to Coast (which seem to be an annual anthology of stories from the previous year, just like this one).  In the future, it posits, the populace will be kept entertained by a televised game: one person in the city is selected to be killed, with a hundred thousand-pound prize to the winner; and clues narrowing down the victim’s identity are given through the day to build suspense (a man; never wears a hat; black hair; blue eyes; etc.).  This is not exactly a new idea to readers of the SF magazines, but it’s sharply written and no longer than it needs to be.  James D. Houston’s Gas Mask, from Nugget, one of many cheap Playboy imitations, is a reasonably well done “if this goes on” piece about future traffic problems and people’s adaptation to them. 

And there are selections from places you wouldn’t think to look, but Merril always casts a wide net.  The satirical motif continues, unfortunately in combinations of facile, arch and ponderous.  Russell Baker’s A Sinister Metamorphosis is apparently one of his regular columns from The New York Times, taking off from the theme that sociologists “thought the machines would gradually become more like people.  Nobody expected people to become more like machines.” James T. Farrell’s A Benefactor of Humanity—the one from the Socialist Call—is about a man who can’t read but loves books; however, he dislikes authors, and devises a machine to replace them.  It’s overlong and not funny.  Hap Cawood’s one-page Synchromocracy, from motive, is a rather undeveloped sketch of government by computer and constant public opinion polling.

Farther Out

From here, things just get weird, for better or worse.  Donald Hall, a well-known poet and former poetry editor of the Paris Review, is present with The Wonderful Dog Suit, from the Carleton Miscellany (literary magazine of Carleton College), about a precocious child who is given a dog suit, and takes to it; the dog becomes rather shaggy by the end.  I suppose this is brilliance taking a day off.  The Red Egg, by Jose Maria Gironella, apparently a well-established Spanish writer, is a jolly tale about a cancer which flees its home on the skin of a laboratory mouse and takes to the air, feeding on industrial smoke and other toxic delicacies, terrorizing the populace while contemplating which human victim to descend upon.  It’s quite entertaining, but the point is elusive; too profound for me, I guess.  This first appeared in a collection titled Journeys to the Improbable, collecting the author’s “psychic experience” over a period of two years. 

Probably the weirdest item here—since I can detect no element of anything resembling S or F even by Merril’s ecumenical standard—is Romain Gary’s Decadence, from Saga (the men’s magazine?  Really?) by way of Gary’s collection Hissing Tales.  A group of mobsters goes to Italy to meet their charismatic leader, who after taking over a union was prosecuted and deported; now he’s eligible to return, but they find he has meanwhile become an acclaimed modernist sculptor with a rather different outlook than they had expected.  M.E. White’s The Power of Positive Thinking, from New Directions, is a first-person story told by a smart, fanatically religious schoolgirl which amounts to a horror story with no trace of fantasy, the horror only suggested, but heightened by the relentless mundanity of the account. 

The book closes with Yachid and Yechida by Isaac Bashevis Singer, from his collection Short Friday.  Singer is among other things the book reviewer for the Jewish Daily Forward, and the story was translated from Yiddish.  It is a theological fantasy about dead souls condemned to Sheol, a/k/a Earth, and their posthumous lives there, and it is absolutely captivating, one of the best things in the book.  This Singer really has something going; if he works at it, he might crack F&SF.

Summing Up

So, what to make of this “best SF” anthology, in which much of the SF/F is just not very interesting and is outshone by some of the loose marbles Merril has found in other yards?  At least part of the problem is her seeming unwillingness to include longer stories, which of course would displace multiple shorter ones and yield a less crowded contents page.  But much of the best SF writing these days is at novella length or close to it; consider Jack Vance’s The Kragen and Roger Zelazny’s The Graveyard Heart, from Fantastic, and Gordon R. Dickson’s Soldier, Ask Not and Wyman Guin’s A Man of the Renaissance, from Galaxy.  Merril would probably be better advised to devote a little more space to substance and less to short trifles.

But still, there’s a lot here—much of it quite good, much of it unexpected, and some of it both.  This anthology series is still in a class by itself.


by Gideon Marcus

Paingod and Other Delusions

Three years ago, Harlan Ellison released his first collection of science fiction stories.  It was a fine collection, representing the era of his writing career before he struck out for Hollywood to become a big-time screenwriter (some of his work not surviving to the small screen unscathed…)

Now he's back with a new collection.  A mix of stories recently written and others excavated from the vault, it offers up a strange combination of mature and callow Ellison, though none of it is unworthy.  Dig it:


by Jack Gaughan

Introduction

After seven stabs at it, Harlan reportedly threw up his hands and decided he wasn't going to write an introduction.  Instead, we get a several page nontroduction that is probably worth the price of the book in and of itself.  I read it aloud to my family while we were waiting to get into a new sushi place in town.  It's excellent, funny, self deprecatory, and illuminating.

Paingod

If God is Love, why does He allow pain to exist?  This moving, brilliant story tries to answer this question.  Nominated for the Galactic Star last year and covered previously by Victoria Silverwolf, there's a reason it leads this book.

Five stars.

"Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman

In an increasingly time-ordered world, the wildest rebel is he who would gum up the works of society.

I didn't much care for this story when I first reviewed it, finding it a bit overwrought and consciously artistic.  Ellison's introduction, in which he explains his congenital inability to mark time accurately, makes the piece much more understandable.  I'd had trouble relating in part because my time sense is preternaturally perfect (I can tell you what time it is even after being asleep for hours).  So, with the story now in context, I can understand the enthusiasm with which it's been received.

Four stars.

The Crackpots

An exploration of a planet of misfits, who it turns out are the real movers and shakers of the galactic federation.

Based on the odd characters Ellison observed when manning an adult book stand on 42nd Street, this is an older piece, and it shows.  About ten pages too long and a little obtuse, but even young, imperfect Ellison is usually worth reading.

Three stars.

Bright Eyes

The former masters of the Earth have been diminished by war to just one representative and his oversized rodent sidekick.  Like a salmon swimming upstream, he returns to the blasted surface to witness the destruction one last time.

Inspired by a piece of art (that later accompanied the story—you can see it at Victoria's original review—it's a vivid piece.

Four stars.

The Discarded

A plague turns a number of humans into "monsters", who are exiled to an orbiting colony.  When a new outbreak occurs, suddenly the discarded find themselves valued as the potential source of a cure.  But will normal humans ever really tolerate the deviant?

I will go out on a limb here — this is my favorite story of the collection, one I enjoyed when I first read it in the 1959 issue of Fantastic.  It's a much more effective "misfit" piece than the previous story.

Five stars.

Wanted in Surgery

Automated surgeons displace their human counterparts.  Are they truly infallible?  And is it ethical to find fault in them?

This piece doesn't work on a lot of levels, plausibility-wise and narratively, as even Ellison concedes.  I suppose it's here to fill space and to make sure it got in some collection.

Two stars.

Deeper than the Darkness

Another misfit, this time about a pyrokinetic recruited to destroy the star of an enemy race.  Fools be they who expect a hated rebel to suddenly be overcome with patriotism…

This is another flawed, early piece that shows Ellison's potential without realizing it.

Three stars.

Summing Up

Two fives, two fours, two threes, and a two, not to mention a great Intro.  If that's not worth four bits, I'm not sure what is.  Get it!




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[December 4, 1965] A Sign of the Times (Michael Moorcock’s Books of 1965)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Across Britain, there has been a recent explosion of road signage. These are designed to establish safer traffic rules and to give people direction on how to use the area who would otherwise be unfamiliar. The one flaw with this is most people are confused as to what they mean.

No Overtaking
No overtaking…or dual carriageway?

In a recent survey only 60 percent of road users knew a black and red car in red circle meant no overtaking, with others believing it meant things like dual carriageway or overtake on the inside.

No Entry
No entry…or cross here?

Pedestrians do not fare much better. Only a small fraction knew that a white bar on a red circle means no entry, with many believing it meant something different, such as a pedestrian crossing.

This responses to the signage is similar to the relationship between science fiction readers and the new wave. For some they are stories full of meaningless symbols that go nowhere, for others it is an essential step in moving science fiction forward. And right at the centre of the new wave is Michael Moorcock.

Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock at LonCon this year

In spite of being only 25 years old, Moorcock is one of the core figures in British science fiction. He previously edited both Tarzan Adventures and The Sexton Blake Library before taking over New Worlds magazine last year. For the last 5 years he has been a regular contributor to Carnell’s trio of magazines and has published books before such as The Stealer of Souls.

With Roberts & Vinter Ltd. taking over the magazine and wanting to launch their own paperback publishing arm, the way had been paved for an explosion of Moorcock books on to the market.

However, his output has been of variable quality, so I have decided to rank them from worst to best.

Starting at the bottom of the pile:

5. Warriors of Mars\Blades of Mars\Barbarians of Mars, by Edward P. Bradbury

Michael Kane of Mars

Moorcock is on record as a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, stating one of the first books for adults he read was The Master Mind of Mars. So, it should be no surprise he would write his own version of the Barsoom stories. In these Michael Kane is an American physicist who is transported to Mars in the past and then goes through a series of swashbuckling adventures on the Red Planet.

From what I have heard, Moorcock sat down and wrote the entire trilogy over the course of the week and, unfortunately, it shows. They are horrendously overwritten. Just a sample passage:

His skin was dark, mottled blue. Like the folk of Varnal, he did not wear what we should think of as clothing. His body was a mass of padded leather armour and on his seemingly hairless head with a tough cap, also of padded leather but reinforced with steel.

His face was broad yet tapering, with slitted eyes and a great gash of a mouth that was open now in laughing anticipation of my rapid demise. A mouth full of black teeth, uneven and jagged. The ears were pointed and large sweeping back from the skull. The arms were bare save for wrist-guards, and strongly muscled on a fantastic scale. The fingers were covered – encrusted would be a better description – with crudely cut precious stones.

This level of description just goes on and on. There is also no real depth to these stories, just jumping from one encounter to another.

I suppose this may appeal to the Barsoom fans. But given how regularly Burroughs books are reprinted, why wouldn’t you just pick up the originals?

One star across the whole trilogy

4. The Best of New Worlds, Ed. by Michael Moorcock

The Best of New Worlds

Rather than a novel, this is an anthology he edited (although it does indeed include two of his own stories as should surprise no one). Unlike its title might suggest, this is not so much the best across all of New Worlds' history; rather, it acts as a comparative collection, with 6 from the end of the 50s and 9 from around the recent handover between Carnell and Moorcock’s editorship (3 from the former, 6 from the latter).

As such, what it really provides for an interesting look at how New Worlds has changed over time and the significant difference between James White’s Sector General tales and Hilary Bailey’s The Fall of Frenchy Steiner. Whilst not the best stories themselves it is an interesting concept, nonetheless.

A high three stars

3. Stormbringer, by Michael Moorcock

This collects the remaining four Elric stories from Science Fantasy, meaning between this and The Stealer of Souls you can now own almost the entire Elric saga (the final story published in Fantastic is available in the Carnell anthology Weird Shadows from Beyond, published by Corgi). In these final tales we get the albino Elric's battles against the forces of chaos, as order and chaos battle for domination of the world.

The ideas in Stormbringer are not new and there are solid shades of Howard, Tolkien, and Anderson throughout. A couple of things raise the stories up. Firstly, here Moorcock manages to make his descriptive style evocative without becoming stodgy, really elevating the mood. Secondly, there is the cosmic level these stories go to. More than any other fantasy story we get a sense of scale I have yet to see achieved, reminding me more of Star Maker than Conan.

Four Stars

2. The Fireclown, by Michael Moorcock

In the underground city of Switzerland, elections for the solar government are taking place. Yet, in the lower levels a prophet known as The Fireclown is preaching a return to nature. Is he mad, a danger to mankind, or its saviour?

There is definitely something in the air right now with political distrust and the desire for a strange outsider to save us. Maybe it is the political scandals that have been emerging with increasing frequency. Maybe it is the emergence of demagogues like Barry Goldwater. Whatever the reason, this is reminiscent of Reynolds’ Of Godlike Power and Ellison’s Repent Harlequin…

However, Moorcock goes in his own direction with this idea, adding political intrigue, weird philosophy, and a general distrust of everyone in authority. Graham Hall dismissed this as hack writing. If so, then I am happy to see Moorcock continue to hack away.

A high Four Stars

1. The Sundered Worlds, by Michael Moorcock

This is fixed up from two tales from the end of Science Fiction Adventures, Carnell’s magazine for longer fiction. In fact, the second half appeared in the final ever issue of that great publication. In this story the whole of reality is at threat of collapse and is up to the psychic Renark to seek out the problem. He travels to the Sundered Worlds, a system outside the normal rule of time and space, and must fight to save humanity.

When I think of Moorcock I think of the weird and conceptual, and this is certainly that. This story is frenetically paced, throwing you through multiple ideas, challenges, and worlds, not allowing you to catch your breath. But I never felt myself being let down or confused by any of it. Instead I loved the intense journey I was on. It is not even one I can easily summarise; it has to be experienced.

This is going to be a controversial choice for my favourite of his works as I have heard it loathed by some as obscure and incoherent, but I consider it to instead be astounding and challenging. An amazing trip to go on.

Five Stars

More Moorcock Please!

Whilst his work is not always to be my tastes, when he is willing to try to be ambitious, this young talent is able to create some truly astounding works that may well be considered future classics. With these writings, along with his editorship of New Worlds, Moorcock seems to be pushing science fiction in an interesting direction. And I look forward to what he puts out in the future.

But, if you wouldn’t mind, Michael, no more Kane of Mars stories…

The holidays are coming! Looking for the perfect gift for a niece, nephew, or other young relative? Kitra is the hopeful, found family novel that they've been waiting for. Buy a copy for them today…and perhaps one for yourself!




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[November 24, 1965] Books from Old Blighty (November Galactoscope)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Things are getting a bit depressing in Blighty at the moment. This can be easily seen in the musical charts. The top 4 right now are the cheery combo of Get Off of My Cloud by The Rolling Stones, The Carnival is Over by The Seekers, Yesterday Man by Chris Andrews and Tears by Ken Dodd. A little further down the hit parade are the satirical songs It’s Good News Week and Eve of Destruction.

It is possible these musicians have been looking at the news recently. Conflicts seem to be emerging all over the world. The Rhodesian crisis is continuing to roll on without any solution. In Java there has been a massacre in the continuing Civil War. Israel and its Arab neighbours are continuing to increase each other's death tolls of late. Kashmir continues to be a source of conflict between India and Pakistan, and that is not even touching on Vietnam.

Peter Griffiths
Peter Griffiths, MP for Smethwick

Closer to home a bomb has been sent to the home of Smethwick MP Peter Griffiths (famed for running an anti-immigration campaign to oust a safe Labour MP) with a note apparently claiming responsibility on behalf of an anti-white “Gregory X”. However, the suspicions of the police is that the package is actually from a group of white extremists trying to make trouble. We have also seen two people charged in the so called “moors murders”, where five children were found in shallow graves in Northern England.

This air of gloom has clearly been permeating Carnell’s editorship as well. In the sixth edition, he has produced a much darker and more depressing New Writings anthology than any he has previously put out.

The Inner Wheel by Keith Roberts

Continuing his omnipresence in British SF publications, about a third of this volume is made up by Keith Roberts’ new novella.

Jimmy Strong travels on a train the town of Warwell-on-Starr after his father’s death. However, he cannot work out why he desired to come here and why he has a sense of homecoming to a place he has never been.

Whilst there he becomes unnerved by the apparent “niceness of the town”, the dreamlike logic by which events are occurring, and his recurring dreams of a giant wheel centred on Warwell.
At the same time, we hear a conversation between a person apparently watching Jimmy and unnamed voices in the void.

This an ominous tale that starts as disconcertingly as it means to go on:

The voices are in a void. The void has no colour. Neither is it dark
There are formless shapes in the void. There are soundless Noises. There are swirlings and pressures, twistings and squeezings. The voices fill the gaps between nothingness. The voices are impatient, “Where? they ask “Where…?”

This kind of narrative style helps give it a darker edge, rising it above standard small town terror stories. It was however, for me, too long. It was only exploring one conceit and doesn’t really have much new to say.

I think this is going turn out to be a divisive piece. Personally, I am a fan of weird Roberts over whimsical Roberts, so it appealed to me more than some of his other writings.

A low four stars

Horizontal Man by William Spencer

One of Carnell’s old regulars returning for the first time in a year with a distinctly New Wave tale.

Here we join Timon as he experiences Earth via a time-sphere, a device which creates illusions as real as if he was personally interacting with them. Whilst Timon is a very different creature to us, with claws, a weak spine and only possessing artificial eyes, he is able to experience the world as if he was a human being. However, Timon has been forced to do this for centuries and now finds these same illusions tedious. He simply wants to be able to sleep.

This is a strange and horrifying vision of an immortal life that feels quite unlike anything I can recall reading before. The ending is a little weak, but I will give it strong marks for originality.

Four Stars

The Day Before Never by Robert Presslie

Presslie is another of the British SF magazine writers who seemed to vanish after the end of Carnell’s editorship of New Worlds. It is nice to see him back, although The Day Before Never does not resemble what I used to associate him with.

At first this does not appear to be a speculative piece, but rather a narrative of the thoughts of a killer as he travels across Europe. As it goes on our narrator meets Elke, a Finder, who can help him with his mission.

I am honestly unsure what to make of this. It starts as a dark psychological piece, moves into a travelogue, then on to an apocalyptic thriller. But all veiled with the kind of uncanny sense I have noted in the prior two stories in this anthology.

Three stars with a big question mark attached

The Hands by John Baxter

Baxter is another New Writings regular whose stories I generally look forward to, however this tale is outside of his usual style.

On the planet Huxley a space crew are transformed in various ways. They return to headquarters in a largely abandoned city on another world (possibly New York) and ruminate on how they feel.

I have read this through four times and I am still not sure I understand what has happened or even the point of it. It is certainly a disturbing tale but if there is anything beyond that I have missed it.

Three stars for the atmosphere.

The Seekers by E. C. Tubb

E. C. Tubb has seemed to me to be one of the more reliably traditional British SF writers, with even his recent pieces in New Worlds and Science Fantasy being solid tales without being outstanding (almost every piece reviewed by the Journey has been awarded three stars). This is, however, a more experimental work from the old hand.

We jump between following multiple crew members on a journey to claim a new planet in the name of the Pentarch. Each of them have their own individual grumbles about each other and we get their own expressions of discomfort at the situation.

The prose in this vignette is so florid I wonder if he is trying to satirize the New Wave writers. It is as good a guess as any as to what this is meant to be, as the whole thing is near unreadable.

Maybe best stick to what you are good at, Edwin?

One star

Atrophy by Ernest Hill

Most work is now done by machines and people can experience stimulation through artificial means. In order to avoid atrophy, people are made to use IT, a computer system which they connect to and construct logical thought streams. We follow Elvin, a worker who seems depressed at the world around him.

The most traditional tale in this anthology, reminding me somewhat of The Machine Stops. Solid but nothing surprising comes of it.

A low three stars.

Advantage by John Rackham

Colonel Jack Barclay is head of a unit terraforming planets for colonization, currently working to do so for the planet Oloron. His secretary, Lieutenant Rikki Caddas, has the unusual ability to feel someone else’s pain before they experience it, keeping the accident rate on all projects incredibly low.

Coming to the planet are observers Honey and Wake to inspect the project. Whilst Barclay is determined to keep both his star rating and Caddas’ abilities a secret, Caddas begins to fall for Honey.

Rackham displays his usual degree of solid storytelling ability, taking typical themes of SF and putting his own spin on them. However, there is a significant flaw that cannot be overlooked. Barclay is very anti-woman throughout the novelette and the story seems to agree with him. If there is a moral to this tale it seems to be that getting involved with women will lead to nothing but trouble.

Two stars

Endarkenment

After the very high quality of New Writings 5, number 6 is a bit of a let-down. It is still a pretty reasonable anthology, but Carnell is continuing to rely on his usual Rolodex of writers, where many of them do not seem to be up to the task of producing the kind of experimental tale he wants to feature.

New Writings 7 is not due until January, hopefully the new year will bring in some newer writers, helping these anthologies live up to their name.

Continuing on the theme of British authors…


by Gideon Marcus

The Long Result

There are two John Brunners (or maybe three).  One is the brilliant New Wave writer who gave us classics like last year's Hugo Finalist, The Whole Man, and a standout from a few years ago, Listen…The Stars!.  Then there's the rather conventional, American-style Brunner whose work is competent but not amazing.  (The third Brunner produces work of such embarrassingly low quality that it's hard to believe he's related to Brunner #1 — thankfully, this Brunner rarely makes an appearance.)

The Long Result is definitely a work by Brunner #2.  In brief:

Several hundred years from now, Earth is a stagnating paradise, its torch in the process of being passed on to its more vigorous colonies, particularly that on Epsilon Indi: Starhome.  Roald Savage Vincent is a placid Assistant Chief at the Bureau of Culture, happy to catalog the poetry and sculpture of the Terran colony Viridian, when the xenophobic "The Stars are for Man League" launches a terrorist attack on a clutch of Tau Cetian visitors.  Now, racing against time, Vincent must pursue an attempted murder investigation before the Starhomers capitalize on the incident to declare their independence from Earth.

Brunner builds some decent worlds: the senescent Earth; vigorous, kibbutz-like Starhome; Amish-esque Viridian; the chlorine-breathing Tau Cetians; the nigh-indestructible, clearly superior, yet starflight-less Regulans; these are all nicely fleshed out.  I also liked the concept, which I had not seen before, that star drives are only good for one use.  Thus, spaceships must be big enough to carry spares, greatly limiting their range.

Result is also a decent who/whydunnit story, though elements of it are painfully obvious and it's difficult to watch the otherwise brilliant Vincent struggle with them. 

What keeps Result out of four-star territory is its shallowness.  It all seems rather pat and glib and comes together too easily.  Plus, everyone's emotions and deliveries are dialed up a notch, with exclamation points used with almost as much abandon as is found in comic books.

But as a read, it's extremely brisk and enjoyable, which puts it on the good side of three stars.

Call it three and a half.

The holidays are coming!  Looking for the perfect gift for a niece, nephew, or other young relative?  Kitra is the hopeful, found family novel that they've been waiting for.  Buy a copy for them today…and perhaps one for yourself!




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[October 24, 1965] "What time is it?" (October Galactoscope)

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By Jason Sacks

Well, so far this has been a great month. Last week saw the end of a dynamite World Series, in which Sandy Koufax, the greatest pitcher of his generation, showed himself to be one of the greatest Jews of his generation as well. It was tremendously meaningful to my family that Sandy refused to start Game 1 for the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins since the day coincided with our holy day of Yom Kippur.

As Sandy said, "I've taken Yom Kippur off every year for the last 10 years. It was just something I've always done out of respect."

As if that wasn't good enough, Koufax dominated games 5 and 7 of the series, with his electric fastball mowing down batters in a pair of crucial shutout victories. The Twins played well, and  were outstanding American League champs – Tony Oliva is a monster – but it seems the Koufax gave the Dodgers the edge, and turned the '65 Series into a classic.

At the movie theatre, my wife and I caught The Bedford Incident last week at our favorite theatre here in north Seattle. If you haven't had a chance to see it yet, the film is well worth a night out — if, that is, you can handle an intense and sometimes bleak drama.


Richard Widmark turns in a powerful performance as a zealous battleship captain on the search for an elusive Soviet nuclear submarine. Also featuring Sidney Poitier and Martin Balsam, this black and white drama treads similar ground to last year's thrilling Fail Safe and ends in a similarly dramatic way.

The Hunter Out of Time, by Gardner F. Fox

If it seems like I'm dragging my feet a bit before talking about my entry for this month's Galactoscope, well, you're right. Gardner Fox's new novel is the epitome of mediocrity, a book that will give you 40¢ worth of excitement but not a whole lot more. The fantastic Mr. Fox is a prolific author who churns out more books and comic book stories than nearly anyone else living. Sometimes that causes him to create some delightful work. Other times it seems like he is just delivering words just to deliver him a paycheck. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that – I'm sure the man has a mortgage to pay – but it also represents a lost opportunity.

See, this book starts out with one of the most striking first lines I can remember.

I saw myself dying on the other side of the street.

The first page builds on that momentum, with the protagonist describing his body as "blood oozed over my fingers where I held that awesome wound."

I mean, seriously, how can you read a first page like that without feeling like you have to read more? Mr. Fox is an old pro and he clearly knows some classic tricks. As I read that book, I leaned back, took a deep breath, and readied myself for a page-turning thrill ride.


Cover by Gray Morrow

But, dear reader, I'm sorry to inform you that all the best writing in The Hunter Out of Time happens on the first couple of pages. It soon turns out that the man who falls to Earth is a time traveler from the far, far future who traveled back through a supposedly impregnable barrier to steal the man's identity. The time traveler is named Chan Dahl and soon other time-displaced men come to our time, confuse our guy, Kevin Cord for Dahl, and that unleashes the most obvious and cliched adventure you can imagine.

There's little in The Hunter Out of Time you haven't seen before. Fox gives us fantastic devices, headspinning time travel with seemingly arbitrary rules, and the obligatory beautiful, weak babe from the future.  Of course Cord uses his native 20th century skills to overcome his opposition, of course Cord and the woman fall in love, and of course Fox leaves room for a sequel if somehow people want to read more of this frightfully ordinary pap.

I could go on and on about this book, but hey, it costs 40¢, it'll take you a couple hours to read, and it's got a pretty nice cover by artist Gray Morrow. I'd rather spend my time watching young Warren Beatty in Mickey One in the theatres, but you won't hate this book and it's pleasing enough entertainment for a rainy Seattle Sunday.

2 stars.

Solid Fuel


by John Boston

The rising star John Brunner has produced ambitious work such as The Whole Man and the upcoming The Squares of the City, both from Ballantine in the US, and a raft (or flotilla) of unpretentious upscale-pulp adventures for Ace Books. Some of the best of the latter were mined from the UK magazines edited by John Carnell.


by Jacks

But there’s a lot more. Brunner has been one of the mainstays of the UK magazines for a decade, but much of his best magazine work has not been reprinted because it’s too short for separate book publication and too long to fit in the usual anthologies or collections. The UK publisher Mayflower-Dell, previously distinguished by its unsuccessful attempt to bring Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure to the British public, remedies a bit of this omission with Now Then, a collection of three novellas, two from the Carnell magazines and the other, his first professional sale, from Astounding in 1953.

Some Lapse of Time

The book opens with the energetically clever and creepy Some Lapse of Time, from Science Fantasy #57 (February 1963). Dr. Max Harrow is having a bad dream of a group of starving people living in ruins, one of whom is holding a human finger bone in his hand. He wakes and there is someone at his door: the police, because a tramp has collapsed in his garage. The tramp proves to be suffering a rare disease (heterochylia, an inability to metabolize fats, which become lethal) that Harrow is uniquely qualified to recognize, his infant son having died of it only recently, and which should have made it impossible for the tramp to survive to adulthood. The tramp also has clamped in his hand a human finger bone—the same bone, the end of the left middle finger, as in Harrow’s dream.

Unintelligible to the hospital staff, the tramp proves when examined by a philologist to speak a badly distorted version of English, like one might expect a primitive and isolated group to use. Meanwhile, Harrow’s marriage is blowing up under the emotional stress caused by his son’s death and his own preoccupation. When his wife slams the car door in his face, she catches his hand in the door and severs the end of his left middle finger, which falls down a gutter. Meanwhile, the tramp is sent for a head x-ray, but he turns out to be so radioactive that not only do the films turn out unusable but he has to be put in strict isolation.

Brunner brings all these elements to a thoroughly grotesque resolution—it doesn’t entirely work, but is a grimly ingenious nice try. Others apparently think so too; it is rumored that a dramatization will be broadcast later this year in the BBC’s Out of the Unknown TV series. Four stars.

Imprint of Chaos

Next up is Imprint of Chaos, also from Science Fantasy (#42, August 1960), one of a number of outright fantasies Brunner contributed to that underrated magazine. This one introduces us to a character mainly called “the traveler,” who we are repeatedly told has “many names but one nature,” unlike the rest of us who I suppose contain multitudes.

The traveler has been appointed (by whom, or Whom, or What is not explained) as a sort of metaphysical supervisor over part of the universe, charged with ensuring the primacy of order over chaos. He is on his way to Ryovora, a formerly sensible town where they have now decided they need a god.

So the traveler nips out to our Earth and snatches the unsuspecting Bernard Brown from a hike in the wood, tells him he’s unlikely to find his way home, but gives him directions to Ryovora. There, to his discomfiture, Brown is welcomed as a god, and when the next city over hears about it and sends over their god, Brown sends it packing in terror. Then the Ryovorans say they could have done it themselves (though they didn’t), and excuse Mr. Brown, after a final scene where he and the traveler bruit the futility and undesirability of magic.

A fantasy writer bad-mouthing magic may seem incongruous, but this rationalist in spite of himself really hates it, and comes not to praise magic but to bury it, though only after enough colorful magical episodes to entertain the rubes. Here the tension is more extreme than usual. His earlier fantasies mostly featured incursions of magic into the world of ordinary salt-of-the-earth types. Here, the entire setting is exotically magical, and the story is told in the fey and pompous cadences of high fantasy.

For example, from a conclave of the necromantic elite of Ryovora: “The Margrave nodded and made a comforting gesture in the air. He said, ‘But this cannot be the whole story. I move that we—here, now, in full council—ask Him Who Must Know.’” Brunner walks the edge of parody at times (“Tyllwin [a particularly powerful magician] chuckled, a scratching noise, and the flowers on the whole of one tree turned to fruit and rotted where they hung.”). But the story is clever and entertaining and merits its three stars, towards the high end.

Thou Good and Faithful

Thou Good and Faithful is older; as mentioned, it is the first story Brunner sold to an SF magazine—and it was featured on the cover of the top-of-the-market Astounding (March 1953 issue). Moreover, the readers voted it best in the issue, and it was quickly picked up by Andre Norton for her pretty respectable YA anthology Space Pioneers. Not a bad start for an 18-year-old! Though Brunner has had some second thoughts about showing us his juvenilia; the acknowledgements note it appeared in the magazine “in a somewhat different form.” I haven’t compared the two texts, though there’s clearly some updating; in this version Brunner refers to something as “maser-tight,” and masers were barely invented when this story was first published.

The story is for most of its length a bog-standard though well-turned rendition of a basic plot: find a planet, there’s a mystery, what’s going on, are we scared? The mystery is an idyllic Earth-type planet inhabited only by robots, who presumably didn’t make themselves; what happened to the makers? The final revelation is partly in the direction of, say, Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and partly in the one suggested by the story’s title, so in the end it’s much more high-minded than the puzzle story it starts out as. This is all older news nowadays than it was in 1953, but it too merits a high three stars.

Summing Up

Now Then is a solid representation of the mid-length work of this very readable and thoughtful writer, and there’s enough in the Carnell back files for several more worthwhile volumes of Brunner novellas.

Two by Two


by Gideon Marcus

The Journey has made a commitment to review every piece of science fiction released in a year (or die trying). In pursuit of this goal, I've generally tried to finish every book I've started, and if unable to, I simply don't write about it.

It occurs to me, however, that the inability to finish a book is worth reporting on, too. And so, here are reports on two of this summer's lesser lights:

Arm of the Starfish, by Madeleine L'Engle

The latest from Madeline L'Engle, author of the sublime A Wrinkle in Time, starts promisingly. Adam Eddington is a freshman biology minor tapped to work with a Dr. O'Keefe on the Atlantic island of Gaia off the coast of Portugal. O'Keefe (a grown up Calvin, from Wrinkle) is working with starfish, zeroing in on an immortality treatment. Just prior to Adam's departure from Kennedy Airport, he runs across the beautiful young daughter of an industrialist, Kali, who warns Adam to stay away from the sinister-looking Canon Tallis, who is chaperoning the O'Keefes' precocious daughter, Poly.

Adam finds himself embroiled in international intrigue, not knowing who to trust. This is exciting at first, but a drag as things go on. Gone is the quietly lyrical prose of Wrinkle, replaced by a deliberately juvenile style leached of color. Events happen, one after another, but they are both difficult to keep track of and largely uninteresting. By the time Adam made it to Gaia, about halfway through the book, I found myself struggling to complete a page.

Life's too short. I gave up.

Quest Crosstime, by Andre Norton


Cover by Yukio Tashiro

Andre Norton has come out with the long-awaited sequel to her parallel universe adventure, The Crossroads of Time, starring Blake Walker. The universe Walker lives in is a bit like that of Laumer's Imperium series and Piper's Paratime stories: there's one Earth that has mastered the art of crossing timelines, and it has built an empire across these alternate Earths.

On Vroom, the imperial timetrack, there had been a devastating war that killed most of the female population, making them particularly precious. Also, mutation has made psionic ability the rule rather than the exception. The timeline is ruled by an oligarchy of 100 meritocrats.

At the start of Crosstime, Walker is dispatched to assist Marfy, whose twin sister, Marva, has been lost amongst the timeless — and all signs point to a kidnapping. Of course, the allure of all parallel universe books is the exploration of what-if, and so Walker and Marfy's trek spans a dead Earth where life never arose, a strange saurian Earth where sentient turtles and lizardmen rule, and ultimately, an interesting timeline in which Richard III won the battle of Bosworth Field while Cortez lost the battle of Tenochtitlan. By the Mid-20th Century, there is a Cold War between Britain and the Aztec Empire along a militarized Mississippi river. It is to this world that Marfy and her abductors are tracked, and it turns out that the kidnapping is part of a plot to topple Vroom's Ancien Regime.

True to form as of late, Norton sets up some genuinely interesting background, but the characters are as flat as the pages they appear on. This time, I made it through two thirds of the book, partly on momentum from the first book in the series, which I rather enjoyed. In the end, however, disinterest won out.

Call it two stars for both books.

Don't miss the next exciting musical guest episode of The Journey Show, October 24 at 1PM Pacific!




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Book, Magazine, Serial

[September 6, 1965] War and Peace (October 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

War is something of a constant in human history, with nearly every generation facing at least one. Fifty years ago, the great powers of Europe – with a late assist from the United States – fought the “war to end war” (a phrase probably coined by H. G. Wells). Twenty years later, we got to do it all again. And ever since, brushfire wars have flared up around the globe almost continually. War permeates our language and culture even in times of peace. In his State of the Union address last year, President Johnson referred to his Great Society program as a “war on poverty”. It even shows up in our entertainment: war movies are popular; there must be half a dozen TV shows in the new fall line-up set during the War or with military themes (more if you count spy shows); and one of the current best selling novels is a barely fictional account of the U. S. Army’s special forces, The Green Berets. Sometimes it’s enough to make you believe we really are on the Eve of Destruction.


The rawness of the recording makes it that much more powerful

The War in Viet Nam

On August 5th, America got a rather shocking look at the war in Viet Nam. CBS reporter Morley Safer accompanied a Marine unit to the village of Cam Ne, where they came under sporadic fire from the Viet Cong. Communist forces soon withdrew as the Marines advanced. As they entered the village, the Americans found a number of entrenchments and a few booby traps. Their orders were to destroy any village from which they received fire, so the villagers were herded into the nearby fields, and the Marines set fire to the homes with flamethrowers and cigarette lighters. Despite the villagers’ pleas to be allowed to remove their personal belongings, everything, including all the rice stores, was destroyed. Four old men who couldn’t understand the soldiers’ English were arrested. The public is understandably outraged. Alas, most of the ire seems to be directed at CBS and Mr. Safer. President Johnson is also said to be livid.


A Marine uses his lighter to set fire to a peasant hut

War at the foot of the Roof of the World

On August 5th, several thousand Pakistani soldiers crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir disguised as civilian locals. The belief was that the local Muslim population would rise up and welcome their coreligionists. Instead they reported the intruders to the Indian authorities. Ten days later, the Indian army crossed the ceasefire line. Thus far, both sides have made progress. As this is written, India has captured the Haji Pir pass, roughly 5 miles inside Pakistani territory, though there are also reports of a massive push by Pakistani forces. Hopefully, another ceasefire can be brought into effect and a long-term peaceful solution can be found.


Indian forces in the Haji Pir pass

War across time and space

War is also a prominent feature of this month’s IF. As one war ends, another begins, along with a couple more and a very uneasy peace negotiation.


There are three living being depicted here. Art by Gaughan

Retief’s War (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

The natives of the planet Quopp are part insect, part machine and come in a variety of forms, each making up their own tribe. There has also been a sizable human presence for a century or so, to the point that there are human farmers and traders who have lived their whole lives on the planet. Now the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne has decided it is time for a native government to be established and, in the person of Ambassador Longspoon, has chosen the Voions to form the government and the Federal police force. Unfortunately, all the other tribes on the planet see the Voions as bandits and thugs.

As usual, Second Secretary and Consul Jame Retief has learned several of the local dialects and made friends with many of the common folk. There follow a number of adventures. He discovers crates of weapons labeled as educational material, which he manages to divert. Despite severe restrictions on tourism, a shipload of young women is requesting emergency permission to land. Their captain, by the name of Fifi, seems to know Retief, but he has no idea who she is. Defying orders, Retief grants them permission to land, but the ship crashes out in the jungle. Then there’s an attack on the embassy using smoke bombs which appear to be of Groaci manufacture.

Prime Minister Ikk has Retief arrested, hoping to find out where his guns are. He declares he is executing a coup, after which Retief makes his escape. Retief manages to disguise himself as a native with some help, and steals a barely flight worthy spaceship. He crashes in the jungle and is captured by some Ween, who call him Meat-fall-from-sky. As the situation goes from bad to worse, some more Ween drag in a Voion, loudly pointing out that he is a member of the Planetary Police. To be continued.


Meet the bad guys. While other Quoppians like colors, the Voions prefer basic black. Art by Gaughan

I’ve noted over the last few months that Retief is getting stale, as if Laumer is just going through the motions. This time around, he’s writing with more verve. It feels like Laumer is enjoying himself again. Maybe it’s because there’s more room. Retief pulls off at least three escapades here that would normally have had to resolve the whole situation in a shorter piece. So even though we’re getting all the usual story beats, there’s more flavor to it all.

That said, I’m hoping for a bit more depth as the story progresses. Laumer has set things up for some solid satire on colonialism as well as the sort of Cold War proxy conflicts that are really just colonialism in different clothing. The colonial powers frequently set one tribe over all the others, and it was often the least liked tribe, even before they wound up in charge, just as the CDT has done here with the Voions. We’ll have to wait and see if Laumer makes use of the situation he’s created. Three stars for now.

A Leader for Yesteryear, by Mack Reynolds

When his time capsule materializes above deep water, Lucius Rostock is barely able to escape it before it sinks. He is rescued by some very surprised fishermen and brought to shore. The local people take him in, and Lucius discovers that he is neither where nor when he expected to be. Rather than the future, he is in the distant past. Gradually, he learns the language and finds out where fate has brought him, though he is rather taken aback at how unwarlike the people are.

To say more would give the whole story away. I figured out where and when Lucius found himself quite a while before he did, though I suspect Reynolds expected the reader to do that. I also figured out who the text implies Lucius will become, although that is never spelled out. What I didn’t see coming was who Lucius is. The end really caught me by surprise. I do have a couple of quibbles with this otherwise very good story. There’s an odd gap in the languages that Lucius knows, which would have allowed him to communicate much sooner (but not without some difficulty, nevertheless). Also, the final paragraphs – even though the reveal did catch me by surprise – are a bit stilted and clumsy. Still, a solid three stars.

The Smiling Future, by Miriam Allen deFord

In an overpopulated world where nearly everyone works at producing enough food to keep the human race alive, an intelligent dolphin appears on the California coast and summons the world government to a summit meeting. Five hundred years of dumping radioactive waste into the oceans has resulted in highly intelligent, technologically advanced dolphins. In need of more room, they are planning to flood the world, but one faction has an offer to help preserve the human race.

What bleak, bleak story. It’s made worse by the plodding narrative style, too. Mrs. deFord has been in the writing business for well over 40 years, and up until recently her work has been generally very good. She does spend most of her time writing mysteries, even winning an Edgar a few years ago, and I admit I don’t read all that much in the genre, so perhaps her level of quality there has held steady. But her work in science fiction and fantasy has really fallen off in quality. Two stars.

Origin of Species, by Robert F. Young

Alan Farrell has traveled to the Upper Paleolithic in search of an anthropology professor and his secretary, who have gone missing. Exiting his own mammothmobile (regular readers may remember a similar concept with dinosaurs in Young’s “When Time Was New”), he finds first the professor’s “paleethnologivehicle” and then the professor’s body, apparently killed by Neanderthals. Farrell presses on, searching for the secretary, Miss Larkin, on whom he is developing a crush based solely on her picture and very wholesome résumé.

Eventually, he discovers a cave guarded by a force field, some Neanderthals who shoot blue sparks out of their mouths, and Miss Larkin. As the two make their escape, Farrell is shocked to learn first that the Neanderthals are bringing in what appear to be Cro-Magnon people as prisoners through some sort of portal, and second that Miss Larkin is not the wholesome girl she seemed to be, but rather an ecdysiast attempting to better her lot in life. Will the pair be able to stop aliens from using Earth as a prison? Will Farrell learn that exotic dancers can be nice girls, too? It’s Young. What do you think?


Honestly, this picture tells you everything you need to know about this story. Those gorillas are supposed to be Neanderthals. Art by Morrow

The good news is that Young hasn’t written another modern take on a myth or fairy tale, nor has he written one of his overly sentimental romances. The bad news is that he attempted to write a sex farce (I think). Without the sex. Farrell is a dope, who took forever to figure out the mystery of the spark-shooting Neanderthals, and a hypocrite. He developed his low opinion of strippers by… visiting strip clubs. Two stars.

Purpose, by Edward V. Dong

All life on Earth has been destroyed by an interstellar nucleonic storm. All that is left is the Machine. It was created to save the human race, but failed. In the last moments, technician John Michelson reprogrammed the Machine to be a monument to Man and to wait for new life to appear in the solar system. Eventually, the Machine is freed of its programming and seeks fulfillment.

Dong is this month’s first time author, and I suspect this story was written for F&SF’s Univac/unicorn contest. I’m not terribly impressed. It really felt like I’d read this before. Indeed for most of its three pages I was expecting something along the lines of Asimov’s “The Last Question”. That’s not quite where the author went with his story, but he didn’t get where he was trying to go either. Two stars.

An Ounce of Emotion, by Gordon R. Dickson

Tyrone Ross and Arthur Mial are the Earth delegation on their way to attempt to broker a peace between the Laburti and Chedal using a computer known as a statistical analysis instrument, or Annie. Earth is in Laburti space and, if war breaks out, could be devastated. Unfortunately, the two men hate each other with an inexplicable passion and have from the moment they met. Ross, the viewpoint character, is the technician who can run Annie, while Mial is a diplomat and ostensibly in charge.

Tempers flare between the two as Mial grows ever more high-handed and seems to be making a corrupt deal with the Chedal. Ross goes so far as to attempt to kill Mial, though he fails. Can Ross keep Mial from wrecking the negotiations? And why would Earth send two people who are so incapable of getting along?


I’m not sure why Annie is blowing up here. That didn’t happen. Art by Giunta

The situation Dickson has created feels rather implausible, even given the explanation at the end. Nevertheless, it’s a decent story, if you can get past the tense atmosphere between the two human characters. Gordy has really settled in as a solid writer who rarely wastes his readers’ time. Three stars.

Short Trip to Nowhere, by Robert Moore Williams

Jim Eiler comes home late. His wife Marta is already asleep, as is his three-year-old daughter Nelda. As he slides into his anti-gravity bed and plugs in the cords of the sleep machine, a voice in his head cheerily greets him. There’s a nasty fight with his wife, and eventually he agrees to call in their friend Harold, a psychiatrist. Eventually, it turns out the voice is coming from Nelda’s imaginary friend, who isn’t so imaginary after all. Then Nelda disappears.

This is another one I felt I had already read in better form. Williams is clearly using Peter Pan as his basis, but there were other resonances. Though different, I was strongly reminded of both Henry Kuttner’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and Mark Clifton’s “Star, Bright”. The bitter relationship between the Eilers makes for an unpleasant read and serves no real purpose, when it could have prompted Nelda’s search for something happier. Instead it’s just bickering. Two stars.

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 5 of 5), by E. E. Smith

Sigh. This story does not deserve a detailed summary. In a nutshell, using Ray-See-Nee magic the Skylarkers and friends come up with a new way to combine mind power. They devise a whole bunch of new science and use it to solve the Chloran problem for good. A final solution, you might say. They take the stars from one galaxy and smash them into the stars of planets the Chlorans live on, while taking all the planets with humans living on them and moving them to a third galaxy. And they called Edmond Hamilton the planet killer.

Midway through this attack, the Chlorans counterattack, leaving Seaton and Crane unconscious. DuQuesne leaps into the breach and finishes the job. Afterwards, he proposes to Hunkie de Marigny and the two go off to conquer a galaxy on the rim of the universe. The end. At last.


Dick Seaton gets what’s coming to him. Art by Morrow

Let’s start with the slightly less egregious denouement. From the title of this novel, one would expect that we would witness the redemption of Blackie DuQuesne. He does decide that there is room enough in the universe for both him and Dick Seaton and he does open up his shell just a little bit to let someone else in. But that’s as far as it goes. He still plans to make himself the emperor of a galaxy. Worse, he openly states that he’s planning a program of eugenics, one based not just on sterilization, but extermination. Marc C. “Blackie” DuQuesne remains an evil man to the end.

And then there’s Dick Seaton. In my review of Part 1, I declared Seaton to be a war criminal, based on his destruction of the Fenachrone homeworld in an earlier novel. Here, after general discussion of what to do about the Chlorans – including a proposal to convert them – he compares the Chlorans to a cancer that must be rooted out (a disgustingly familiar argument) and comes up with a plan to kill every single Chloran before they spread to other galaxies. There are nearly 150 million Chloran planets. We’re talking about the deaths of trillions at the very least. War criminal doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Zero stars for genocide and an ending that completely poisons an otherwise mediocre novel whose only redeeming feature is excessive nostalgia.

Summing up

Well, a bleak issue for a bleak month. It got off to a decent start, though the Reynolds story does have a dark tone to it. The Dickson was unpleasant, but in a good way. It was intended to be so and to make readers think. Other than that, poor efforts topped off by a steaming pile of genocide and eugenics. But at long last, it’s over. Do we have anything to look forward to? Let’s hope so.


A wraparound cover this month, so here it is in all its glory. Art, as before, by Gaughan




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 24, 1965] 13 French Science Fiction Stories

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

A French Experiment

At Galactic Journey, we've devoted a great deal of space to, well, space — documenting each of the launches and satellite missions beyond Earth's atmosphere. But an equally exciting and unexplored frontier is the world's oceans. There is even some cross-over; this month, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter left NASA to become an aquanaut and undertake missions beneath the waves.

This pioneering of the water frontier is an international effort. Famed French Ocean explorer Cmdr. Jacques Cousteau has been conducting a series of underwater experiments to see if humans can live in under sea habitations.

Conshelf 1
Conshelf I Design

In 1962 Conshelf I was setup ten metres down off the coast of Marseilles, where a selection of "Oceanauts" lived underwater for a week. The experiment was successful enough to warrant moving on to the next stage.

Conshelf 2
Conshelf II Design

In 1963 Conshelf II was a more ambitious project supporting a crew living at the bottom of the Red Sea for an entire month. This was also successful enough to move on to the next phase.

Conshelf III
Conshelf III Design

Starting in September a crew will live at an unprecedented depth of 100 metres, working on a submerged oil platform for three weeks. If this test proves successful it may well change the way we live in the years to come.

Looking to this French inspired future, it is a fortuitous time for Damon Knight to release his anthology of translated French science fiction, to see where we may be going.

13 French Science Fiction Stories ed. by Damon Knight

13 French SF Stories Knight

I am a bit of a Francophile but recent French science fiction, I must admit, has been a bit of blind spot. Whilst the more literary fiction and experimental cinema make their way over the channel, the work of science fiction writers does not. As such I was delighted to see Damon Knight, who has translated a lot of French stories for F&SF), put out this collection so I could help rectify this gap in my knowledge. I also liaised with my friend and French science fiction fan, C of The Middle Shelf fanzine, for some more background information on some of these.

So, without further ado, let us get on to the stories:

Juliette by Claude F. Cheinisse

Chienisse has been publishing Science Fiction for a while, but he is primarily known as a satirist due to his work on the controversial Hari-Kiri magazine. Juliette, a story of love between a Doctor and Juliette, his sentient car, has actually passed through the Journey before: in his previous review the Traveler gave it four stars. I would not be quite so generous with my rating. Whilst sensuous I found the style a little stiff, and I would have liked the author to state more clearly that he disagrees with the concept of women as disposable objects.

A low three stars

The Blind Pilot by Charles Henneberg

All three stories in this anthology by Charles Henneberg were written by Natalie Henneberg, using her husband’s name. She has published widely and is known as the “most read” science fiction writer in France. However, she is not without controversy: some of her work has been criticized for tending towards pseudo fascist themes. Whilst this criticism can also be levelled at a number of pieces of Campbellian fiction, I think it is still important to note going in.

In the first of these stories, Jacky, an adventurer who has fallen on hard times, has to pawn his robot porter to the owner of the titular shop. In the shop there are also several mutants, and strange events begin to unfold, as we hear via Jacky’s testimony.

Henneberg is well known for her mixes of science fiction and fantasy, and this definitely fits into this category, with a futuristic take on the Siren myth. This, however, is not a fun adventure but a much darker tale.

Another story that had appeared in a previously reviewed issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the magazine review declared this “well-nigh unreadable”. Whilst once again finding the style odd, I didn’t find it quite as bad. The bigger problem I have is that I don’t quite get the point of it. It is neither enjoyable nor particularly meaningful. And though it has a lot of interesting elements they don’t really seem to gel well.

Two Stars

Olivia by Henri Damonti

Henri Damonti is apparently a pseudonym for a writer of children’s radio plays. He has not been anywhere near as prolific as many of the other writers in this collection and so I could find little more than what Damon Knight put in his about the authors section.

In this story, we see a married man’s last days he falls in love with his neighbor Olivia and the lengths he goes to try to be with her.

This feels like it could be the kind of critically acclaimed movie you would see at artistic film festivals. Others may love it, but I find this trite and creepy in a bad way. But I guess it's competently written if you like that sort of thing.

Two Stars for my own subjective views.

The Notary and the Conspiracy by Henri Damonti

The second by Damonti, and one that has appeared before in F and SF. Here Mr. Duplessis receives an invite to a mysterious club, where it is claimed you can live a second life in the past. He selects the life of a notary in fifteenth century Florence. However, he finds himself drifting further away from his present-day life and becoming more concerned with the events in the past.

In a recent New Worlds issue George Collyn discussed how the treatment of fractured time by American authors was one of the most interesting developments of current science fiction. I think this story fits under this umbrella with the backwards and forwards in time being used to comment on the dangers of escapism to the past without considering the importance of being present, and how deadly the past could really be.

Unlike the Traveler, I did not find Knight's translation opaque at all. I actually found it one of the more readable pieces in this collection (or maybe I am just getting used to Knight’s way of writing?)

Four stars

The Vana by Alain Dorémieux

Alain Dorémieux has been the driving force of French science fiction over the last decade, publishing both the premiere French Science Fiction magazine Fiction and a series of original anthologies, as well as being a writer in his own right.

In Vana, to control the population men and women are not allowed to live together until they are thirty and are encouraged to get out their urges in “The House of Women”. Slovic, a twenty-five year old suburban jazz fan, is lonely and nostalgic for the twentieth century. So he decides to buy a Vana, an idle and vegetative extra-terrestrial lifeform who looks like a human woman but cannot get pregnant.

Whilst I have had to try to have a strong stomach for some of this anthology, this story is particularly disturbing and one I wish I hadn’t read.

One star.

The Devil's Goddaughter by Suzanne Malaval

Author, Suzanne Malaval is a young housewife in North Eastern France who started writing for Fiction at the start of the decade and has continued being published since.

The plot: When little Fanche is born the devil comes to claim her as his goddaughter. When she is fifteen she is taken to hell and must devise a way to escape.

When this story first appeared in F&SF the Traveller gave it three stars and complimented the riddles, but it did not work at all for me. This vignette seems to be related to some old folktales from the region but I am afraid I am unfamiliar with them, if so. Even accounting for that, I still found the treatment of rape and domestic abuse poor.

One Star

Moon Fishers by Charles Henneberg

Back to another previously published Henneberg: this time a test pilot is given a part in an experiment where his mind can travel through time. He ends up in Ancient Egypt where he meets an Atlantean called Nester. The whole thing sets off a kind of fantasy yarn.

Overly long rambling fluff that just gets wearisome. For once I am in total agreement with the earlier review.

One Star

The Non-Humans by Charles Henneberg

The final Henneberg piece (also previously published) and a slight improvement on the other two. This time she brings her style of science fantasy to renaissance Italy with a tale of a painter called Nardo and the strange woman he uses as model.

As pointed out in the prior review the twist at the end is kind of obvious (and has indeed been used in other works of science fiction) but this has a much better style and atmosphere than the other stories in this collection.

What also raised it up for me is that it correctly depicts 15th Century Florence as a cosmopolitan community of people of many different races living together. Compared with how often adventure serials will have the whole of Italy as lily-white, it was quite refreshing.

Three Stars

After Three Hundred Years by Pierre Mille

Pierre Mille is well known as a writer, but C of The Middle Shelf was surprised to discover he had written any fantastic fiction. This is the oldest story in the collection, from 1922, first published in Literary Magazine Les Ouvres Libres. Perhaps unsurprisingly it feels very Victorian.

In a future after an unnamed disaster, people are living in a society like the dark ages, most of our modern knowledge is lost and anything beautiful has been given up to survival.

The concept itself has been done better before and since, with much of this story seeming to be about how much women have a desire to wear pretty things.

One star

The Monster by Gérard Klein

Klein is another core figure of the Parisian science fiction scene. So far he has released 10 novels and collections along with being a regular contributor to Fiction and Galaxie.

In The Monster, Marion is waiting for her husband Bernard to return home when an alert is put out for an alien in the park.

This is an old-fashioned story but with a very deft writing style to make it more interesting. A prior review gave it four stars.  I am not quite there but very happy to give a strong three stars.

A Little More Caviar? by Claude Veillot

Veillot has recently come to public attention due to the adaptation of his novel Nous n'irons pas en Nigéria, filmed as 100 000 dollars au solei which was a box office hit and nominated for the Palme d’Or.

In this story, Mademoiselle Moreau is trying to teach a class on the planet Bisupek about Earth. The children are decidedly uninterested. In the course of the class we learn about why these people left Earth and what will happen in their future.

Unfortunately, the method of delivery made it tedious to me. One Star

The Chain of Love by Catherine Cliff

Probably the least famous writer in the collection, mostly known for being married to Jacques Sternberg, a major Belgian writer, she here produces a vignette where our unnamed narrator who is down on her luck gets into a relationship with an alien. The whole thing is disturbing but, at least in this case, I feel like it is supposed to be.

Two Stars

The Dead Fish by Boris Vian

Vian was (he passed away in 1959) a famous writer and is widely known in France, although not so much for his science fiction as for his poetry and detective novels.

In the final story of the collection, we get a very surreal satire that is hard to summarize, but I am going to try my best just so you can understand just how bizarre it is:

It opens with an assistant travelling on a train with a ticket from his boss; the ticket however is a forged one sold by the ticket inspectors, in order to catch people who would buy forged tickets. After paying the fine the assistant's boss' face appears between his toes, which the assistant dissolves by spitting on it.

He then attempts to go to his boss’ house but is attacked by a series of anti-burglary devices. Managing to get inside his boss bemoans the catch he is given. For the assistant is a fisherman of stamps (as in the sticky things you attach to envelopes to send mail); however the net he uses is old so the perforations are sometimes ruined. His boss does not accept these excuses and is also annoyed at him for not noticing the forged tickets or the anti-burglary devices so the assistant must sleep outside. Whilst sleeping in the doghouse, after fending off an attack from rogue stamps, an unnamed living thing cuddles with him and they console together.

The next day, a young woman selling pepper comes to the house, the Boss wants to look at her thighs but she insists he try the pepper first. It turns out she has poisoned him, forcing him to run around the house several times until he falls over, resulting in his feet being detached (but still running).

Coming back from another fishing trip, the assistant has plans to kill his boss, only to discover him already dead from the poison of the pepper seller. Angry that he cannot kill his boss, when the unnamed living thing comes over to console him, the assistant kills the living thing instead. Upset by this, the assistant then makes himself trip into a pool full of stamps whereby he is promptly eaten.

This all takes place over the course of 12 pages, and I have skipped over other bizarre incidents as well.

I have read this piece three times and I am still totally at a loss to what it is meant to be about. I like weird, but it needs to have something underneath it, otherwise it is just describing a bad dream you once had. This feels totally insubstantial and pointless.

One Star

So overall, there are a couple of good stories in here but mostly I was not a fan. In spite of this it is still good to be able to read science and fantasy from other countries and to get at least some understanding of what is happening with SFF on a more international scale.

One other thing to note: this collection is advertised as tales of love. This is most certainly not the case. The only one I would say really qualifies is The Moon Fishers; the rest that involve relationships are about abuse, control and rape. I am fan of love stories but I am not sure why the publishers decided to promote this as such. I think it would have been more true, and likely garnered more interest, if it had been labelled as “disturbing tales that challenge the boundaries of science fiction”.

Perhaps then I might at least have been prepared for what was inside…as you are now.




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 16, 1965] New Writings in S-F 5

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

A Holiday From Politics

With Parliament in recess, most of the politics today involces sniping backwards and forwards between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath from their holiday destination. So I am going to take a break from Parliament for a while to celebrate some of the great culture coming out from Britain right now.

The Hill
The Hill

British cinema continues to produce a variety of different pieces whether they be period comedies like Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, serious dramas like The Hill, science fiction like Dr Who and the Daleks, or the controversial The Knack …and How to Get It.

Irene Shrubik
Irene Shrubik, producer of Out of this World

Launched just last year, BBC2 is already proving its worth as a channel, where we currently have a rerun of last year's fabulous version of The Count of Monte Cristo and a modernisation of Theseus and the Minotaur, The Legend of Death. The best looks to come however with Irene Shrubik producing a new followup series to Out of this World for the channel, Out of The Unknown.

The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds – Start of a new British Invasion?

A lot of new bands now seem to be more willing to experiment with complex sounds. The Yardbirds are the most visible example of this, but there are others coming on the scene such as Rey Anton and the Peppermint Men and The Pretty Things.

Aldwych Theatre
Aldwych Theatre

The Royal Shakespeare company continue to produce innovative plays, with two young radio playwrights, Clive Barker and David Wright, creating Strike!. A play that will explore the years between the end of the First World War and the General Strike using film, music and dance of the time.

 

Self Portrait With Nude by Dame Laura Knight
One of Dame Laura Knight's most famous pieces, Self-Portrait With Nude, 1913

This year will mark the first time a female artist is to get a large scale retrospective at the Royal Academy with around 260 pieces by the trailblazing Dame Laura Knight to be on display.

Two Boys in a Pool by David Hockney
Two Boys in a Pool by David Hockney

Whilst contemporaneously Pop Art is all the rage. With David Hockney as a leading figure, but other such as Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake, still being much buzzed about.

Best of British

And, at last, the book review at the heart of this article.

British science fiction and fantasy is going through something of a renaissance right now.  With New Worlds and Science Fantasy going monthly, New Writings remaining quarterly and other anthologies like The Fourth Ghost Book and Weird Shadows from Beyond coming out, I believe we may have more SFF short fiction coming out than ever before.

Thankfully this does not seem to have resulted in poor quality publications, with the most recent New Writings being one of the best anthologies I have read.

New Writings in SF5 ed. by John Carnell

New Writings in SF5 Carnell

We are now on to the second year of these quarterly anthologies and this marks a slight uptick in quality. Whilst the authors are still a combination of Carnell’s old favourites and some new hands to the British magazine, there are no reprints this time around and it feels like there is a willingness to push the boundaries a little more and publish fewer old fashioned problem stories.

Potential by Donald Malcolm

In the opening story, John Edward Maxwell, director of D.R.E.A.M. (Dream Research Establishment) in London, is conducting research to discover whether increasing the quantity of dreaming did indeed increase the volunteers’ mental ability to work better. However, the dreams of one of the volunteers, MacLean, seem to contain strange mathematical formula and Maxwell wants to find out why.

This is a good mix of solid science fiction and the more experimental touches of the new wave. Whilst it does meander a little in the middle the story is engaging and the ending is a very interesting choice.

Four Stars

The Liberators by Lee Harding

Long ago a machine called The City was determined to do everything it could to ensure the survival of the race that once inhabited it, and those dreamers inside had come to believe that their only purpose was to serve the machine. Then, one day, from outside came a being called The Poet, who convinced them there could be another way…

This is a truly staggering story told in a fractured non-linear style. Lee Harding manages to evoke an amazing atmosphere through his use of lyrical prose. Right from the first sentence:

“They tumbled blindly through the endless twilight of the tunnel under The World, pallid little creatures with faces like a polished pebbles washed smooth by time, and pursued by a growing sense of guilt.”

I was absolutely enraptured. The first classic to come out of the New Writings collections.

Five Stars

Takeover Bid by John Baxter

Bill Fraser is brought in to investigate what has gone wrong with a new force field test that has apparently destroyed the mind of the test subject. Throughout this story we get an interesting investigation that sets up a really fascinating problem and asks a lot of philosophical question. What could be a really pedestrian idea, Baxter manages to make something new.

On particularly notable feature that raises this up is the presence of Col. Talura. He is a member of the Arunta people, and marks the first instance I can recall reading of an Aboriginal Australian who is not shown as a stereotype.

Four Stars

Acclimatization by David Stringer

It wouldn’t be a British science fiction publication without a story from Keith Roberts! Thankfully this one is better than the last under this pseudonym. In this piece we largely follow the thoughts of one man, Gerry, a spacer who is suffering from melancholy as he returns to Earth.

This is a really powerful piece about what the future of space exploration could look like to the people who take part in it. Simple idea beautifully done.

A strong four stars

The Expanding Man by R. W. Mackleworth

Algie Ryan encounters a man in park, who calls himself Smith, and they discuss Ryan’s encounter with another mysterious stranger.

I have read this a few times and I am not entirely sure what the point is meant to be. Mackleworth does it well but it feels a bit hollow, particularly compared to the strong stories that came before it.

Two stars.

Treasure Hunt by Joseph Green

Dr. Soames finds himself catapulted into a strange fairyland style environment, but a voice tells him he is merely a mental pattern implanted on another mind. Whoever has brought him there is told he is needed to find the fresh laid egg of a firebird, the most beautiful object in the galaxy.

This is a thoroughly readable blend of fantasy and science fiction which has interesting things to say about life and death.

Three Stars

Sunout by Eric C. Williams

Having appeared in the July New Worlds and the August Science Fantasy, Williams manages to complete the hat trick of the British SF field in a very short period of time.

In his longest piece to date, he produces a tale with a very literal title. A group of scientists discover the sun is going to go out very shortly. However, trying to get anyone in power to be willing to talk to them proves to be an immense challenge.

Combines two of the most recent trends in science fiction, the dark absurdist satire and apocalyptic fiction, rather well. This is no Doctor Strangelove but still likely to give you a grim chuckle nonetheless.

Three Stars

Outro

On the whole, the latest New Writings is an excellent anthology this time around. The first half is stronger than the second but, even then, there is only one vignette that did not work for me. Hopefully this upswing will continue and it can become the norm, not the exception.

And I'll see you later this month with another exciting anthology!

[Want to visit London of 1965? Don't miss this lovely tour prepared by Fellow Traveler, Fiona!]




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