Tag Archives: Brian W. Aldiss

[March 24, 1969] Apocalypse Impending? New Worlds, April 1969


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again.

As I mentioned last month, this issue begins yet another new era for New Worlds. With the retirement of Mike Moorcock and Charles Platt from full-time editorialship in the last issue, it is Langdon Jones that steps up to the mark as editor this time.

For that reason alone, it should be an interesting one, but last month’s issue also pointed out that the April issue was going to have an apocalyptic theme:

The named list from last month.

With Mike Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius saving the world from destruction, the advert proudly declared, “Is The Apocalypse Already Upon us??” Gone is the optimistic, forward-looking shiny and new future as suggested by the SF of the 1950’s, and in its place we have post-apocalyptic gloom, doom, decay and squalor. It has been an ongoing theme in the magazine for the last few years.

Is it a more realistic view of the future or just depressing? I guess reading this issue will help me decide!

A figure in yellow against a white background of a boy with a dog next to him. Cover by Mervyn Peake.

To be fair, the white cover with a minimalist approach to titling and imagery, this month by the recently deceased Mervyn Peake, does not give an impression of 'gloom and doom'. Far from it. I found it more interesting than the recent generic covers. A good start.

Lead In by The Publishers

Much is made of the fact that this issue has the UK debut of the US’s enfant terrible Harlan Ellison.

A Boy and his Dog by Harlan Ellison

A photo of two faces. The lower one is an inverted mirror image of the one above. In a post-apocalyptic US we are told of teenager Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood. Vic is a teenage boy who spends his time scavenging the world for basic needs—food, companionship, and sex—as well as generally avoiding other groups, known as roverpaks, doing the same thing. They meet Quilla June – unusual because most women live where it is safer, underground. Vic rapes Quilla June before they are attacked by another roverpak. Blood is hurt in the scuffle. Quilla June escapes and returns to her underground home of Topeka.

Determined to get food and find Quilla June, Vic leaves Blood on the surface and follows Quilla June underground, to discover that bringing Vic underground was the original plan by the subterranean city elders. New blood (see what Ellison did there?) is needed to replenish the depleted stock of men! Vic sees this as a great opportunity for sex with lots of different women, but soon tires of being basically a sex slave. He escapes back to the surface with Quilla June, only to find Blood hurt and in need of food to survive. The open ending leaves Vic with a quandary – does he leave Blood or feed Blood?

This one should activate all the seismic shockmeters: there’s sex, masturbation, rape, gore, violence, cannibalism, radioactive mutations and a distinct lack of morals and ethics as Vic and Blood try to survive. (It's a little concerning when I'm told that Ellison used his own dealings with gang culture in the US as inspiration for this story.)

As good as it is, that’s not to say that there aren't worrying elements – Quilla June’s change from rape victim to willing participant is a little jarring to me, but to some extent this reflects the brutal society Vic and Blood live in and the amoral stance that Vic has towards life. Unsurprisingly, when presented with a version of what pre-War domesticity is like, he rebels and runs away back to his previous life.

We’ve had lots of post-apocalyptic stories before—Charles Platt’s Lone Zone, for example, back in July 1965—but this novella has greater depth and more complexity and style than any of those I have read before.

Undoubtedly memorable and a million miles away from the classic hero template of older SF work, A Boy and his Dog reinvents the apocalyptic adventure story and generally holds up. I found it bold, interesting, lively and yes, controversial. As good as Delany’s Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones back in the December issue. 5 out of 5.

The Ash Circus by M. John Harrison

And here’s M. John Harrison’s take on Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius (more of which later.) They do say that imitation is the best form of flattery, and here Harrison copies the beginning of Ian Fleming’s James Bond movie You Only Live Twice before having Jerry return to a decaying London, then travel to Scotland and Manchester to become inspired by Byron and then get involved in a putsch in London, before meeting the authoritarian Miss Brunner again.

It’s actually not bad as a mixture of James Bond and The Avengers television series, with the dark humour of Cornelius coming to the fore, but it is less out-there than Moorcock’s own Cornelius material (again – more of which later.) This may, of course, make the story more readable than some of Jerry’s other esoteric stories. 4 out of 5.

How the Sponsors Helped Out by Anthony Haden-Guest

Poetry – or rather a list of different things sent by companies to ‘The Front’ – Hamleys sent toys, IBM sent a brain, and so on. This being New Worlds the poem doesn’t miss throwing out a few choice expletives in the mixture – guess what Playboy sent? I dare not repeat the word here. Mildly amusing. 3 out of 5.

Labyrinth by D. M. Thomas

Four text boxes of increasingly undecypherable text.More poetry. Described as ‘a poem for light and movement’, Thomas manages to produce strange typewritten boxes that are at times undecipherable. A typical ‘form over content’ type piece. 2 out of 5.

The Beach Murders by J. G. Ballard

Another one of Ballard’s stories where novels are compressed into paragraphs. The clever part is that each paragraph begins with the letters of the alphabet. Described as ‘An Entertainment for George MacBeth’, this one reads like the description of an exotic holiday beach party and also feels, rather oddly at times, like a James Bond plot – not the first time I’ve thought that for this issue. One of the more enjoyable of Ballard’s recent stories for me, perhaps because it feels a little more like the material Ballard was writing when I first noticed him. 4 out of 5.

Inside by J. J. Mundis

A naked lady's top torso with bare breasts.The inevitable 'naked lady of the month' picture.

Another strange story from J J Mundis after the rather odd ‘Luger’ story last month. This time, a depressing stream of consciousness story that’s all sex, drugs and allegory about being empty inside. Nothing really worth remembering. 2 out of 5.

For Czechoslovakia by George MacBeth

Yet more poetry, this time from the poet J. G. Ballard wrote for earlier. As expected, it is dark, gloomy and depressing, combining prose passages from The Diary of a German Soldier, written in 1939 interspersed with verses written by MacBeth using the process of automatic writing. I’m intrigued by the process, if less impressed by the poetry. 3 out of 5.

A Cure for Cancer (Part 2 of 4) by Michael Moorcock
A black and white picture of Jerry Cornelius in messianic pose. Artwork by Mal Dean.

After Harrison’s version, we now return to the originator of the Jerry Cornelius stories.

A black and white picture of a corpulent bishop, the villain of the story. More artwork by Mal Dean.

This month Jerry continues his meandering travels across time with Karen von Krupp to try and find Bishop Beezley. Lots of prose in small sections (with even an homage of J. G. Ballard in Ballard style lists of text), whose connections are rather obtuse, lots of sex and Miss Brunner – again! (see also M. John Harrison’s story.)

The plot’s undecipherable, but I feel that this is one you appreciate for the enthusiastic energy rather than the plot. Who knows what’s going on, but the writer clearly had fun writing it. 4 out of 5.

Book Reviews

A Turning World by Brian W. Aldiss

Where Aldiss muses on how perspectives change through time, throwing in a couple of reviews along the way – basically, a discussion on how others might see us in the future.

The Cannon Kings by Joyce Churchill

Referring to recent publications, Joyce Churchill (also known as M. John Harrison) writes about the importance of Germany’s armaments manufacturers in the first half of the 20th century.

A Slight Case of Tolkien by James Cawthorn

It is left to James Cawthorn to review the genre books. This month he looks at Jack Vance’s Catch A Falling Star, Robert Burnet (sic) Swann’s Moondust, Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial,  Clifford Simak’s So Bright the Vision coupled with Jeff Sutton’s The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, James Blish and Norman L. Knight’s A Torrent of Faces, Ron Goulart’s ‘light-hearted’ The Sword Swallower and a well-deserved reprint of William Hope Hodgson’s horror classic, The House on the Borderland.

A picture of the text telling us of the forthcoming attractions in next month's issue.

Summing Up

This one’s heavy on the espionage Bond-type vibes this month, what with not one but two Jerry Cornelius stories and a Ballard that reads like a Bond story in a Ballard style. As a first issue of the new regime with Langdon Jones as editor, it is not bad – although it may have been better had the Cornelius stories been spread out across different issues. Personally I like the stories, but they're not for everyone, and there's a lot of it here.

But then there’s the Harlan Ellison story that surpassed even my high expectations of his work. If the 'impending apocalypse' is represented by this story, then it's a memorable one to be sure, if decidedly downbeat. According to Ellison, the future is dark and tough.

I can’t see this one being published in the US in the usual science fiction magazines, but even allowing for its deliberate shock tactics, it really impressed – much more than say Bug Jack Barron, which tried to shock readers in a similar way, I think.

If I needed anything to show how much the British genre scene has changed in the last few years, this would be my example, albeit written by an American. Shocking and controversial, yes – but perhaps the best story I’ve read in New Worlds to date. A real coup for the new editorship.

Until next time!



[February 12, 1969] Slick stuff (March 1969 Galaxy science fiction)


by Gideon Marcus

The Bad Kind

For 12 days, 21,000 gallons a day of crude oil spilled into the Pacific ocean off the coast of Santa Barbara.  Only on February 8 was the leaking undersea well finally capped. This debacle, courtesy of the Union Oil Co., has blackened the harbors and beaches of the San Gabriel Valley coastline, killing hundreds of sea birds.  Even Governor Reagan is declaring this mess a disaster, making federal funds available for cleanup.

Newspaper picture of Coast Guard Admiral Chester Bender and Senators Muskie and Cranston inspect the oil slick at Santa Barbara Harbor

Nevertheless, the Governor did not relieve the oil company of its obligation to the government agencies and private citizens harmed by this catastrophe.  It will likely take more than 1000 men three weeks to clean up the mess.

The silver lining is that only about 1% of the local seabird population has been affected, and virtually none of the seals.  Indeed, the damage is only about a quarter of that caused two years ago when the super tanker Torrey Canyon broke up off the coast of Southwest England.

Still, if the best we can say is that this crisis is not as bad as the worst, I think we can do better.

The Good Kind

In refreshing contrast to the environmental incident described above, the latest issue of Galaxy is anything but a tragedy:

cover featuring a bird-like aircraft floating on an ocean, with a man on top. Similar aircraft are flying in the distance.
by Douglas Chaffee illustrating The Weather on Welladay

And Now They Wake (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

In 1981, just as broadcast power switches on for the first time, an inmate by the name of Grayle makes a daring escape from a New York prison.  He is an enigmatic man, an inmate who looks 35, but who has been incarcerated since before World War 2.  He also possesses an uncanny ability to heal from wounds.

At the same time, another fellow with similar powers stumbles drunk out of a bar, making his way to a steam room where he miraculously heals a profound set of scars and ejects an antique Minie ball from a wound in his back.

These events are coincident with the appearance of a tremendous water spout in the middle of the Atlantic, and interwoven with tales from a thousand years ago of a renegade from the Galactic Fleet named Thor, and his comrade-turned-betrayer, Loki.

Viking era scene where a slave is beset by a haughty noble while others watch. Backdrop is a long ship which has just made shore.
by Jack Gaughan

Who are these two immortals, and why has their story suddenly come to a head?  I don't know…but I'm hooked!

Four stars, so far.

The City That Loves You, by Raymond E. Banks

The Alpha Centauri city of Relax offers everything to its twenty million inhabitants—comfort, company, computerized guidance.  But what happens when a citizen wants to leave?  What if every inducement, soft and hard, is made to keep him there?  Does the fellow really have a choice in the matter?

I read the whole story waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I was not displeased with the result.  In the end, for a place to truly be paradise, there must be a way out.  The socialiast utopias of the world, from Bulgaria to Beit Ha Shita, might take note.

Four stars.

Leviathan, by Lise Braun

An advanced submarine, akin to the Seaview from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea rescues a primitive fisherman lost at sea in the Atlantic Ocean.  This inadvertently gives rise to a number of familiar legends.

This is an old-fashioned story; it would have been right at home in Imagination in 1954.  I do like the clever, organic way Braun conveys that the action takes place thousands of years in the past, and the reading is pleasant, if not extraordinary.

Three stars.

The Weather on Welladay, by Anne McCaffrey

illustration of a woman in a skin-tight, belted suit, gripping her shoulder. She stands in what looks like a big rock formation. A man in a black, skin-tight suit is behind her, arm oustretched.
by Reese

The sodden, storm-lashed world of Welladay seems too bleak a world for settlement.  However, schools of whales that inhabit it produce a valuable radioactive substance prized for medical applications.  A team of hardy fishermen taps these whales for their lymphic treasure, braving the waves and weather.

But some pirate has been draining the whales dry, decimating the population and threatening the economy and health of the Federation.  Is it one of the four fishers?  The mysterious woman space pilot shot down at the beginning of the tale, who crashes on a lonely archipelago?  Or someone else?

This is definitely one of McCaffrey's better stories, with far more atmosphere (no pun intended) and far less barely suppressed violence and hokey romance.  It goes on a little long, and I find it improbable that this vast planet seems to have exactly six people on it, but I enjoyed it.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Collision Course, by Willy Ley

Mr. Ley's piece this month is on asteroids that cross Earth orbit, particularly Icarus, which precipitated the 49th end-of-the-world scare since the birth of Christ.

Interesting and useful, though rather brief.

Three stars.

four-panel image depicting the stages of crater formation, from meteorite impact, to explosion, to resulting crater.

The Last Flight of Dr. Ain, by James Tiptree, Jr.

A sick scientist and his dying love make a multi-stop air flight around the world.  At each landing, he makes sure to expose as many people as possible to what appears to be an aerosol for cold symptoms, and he feeds bread crumbs to migratory birds.  As the story unfolds, told mostly in third-party reports, we learn the scientist was working on a deadly disease, and that he thinks of humanity as a blight on the Earth.

There's no subtext to the story—it's all on the surface—but it's beautifully told and very eerie.  I liked it; my favorite from Mr. Tiptree so far.  Four stars.

The Theory and Practice of Teleportation , by Larry Niven

drawing of various teleport booth configurations: E and F face each other, a man shooting a gun into E and getting hit in the back of the head from F; C is on top of a cliff, A and B are on the ground, and D is on a railroad track

Adapted from a lecture Niven gave at Boskone in front of the MIT Science Fiction Society, this is an interesting look at the effects of teleportation, in all its potential developmental paths, on society.

Four stars.

Greeks Bringing Knee-High Gifts, by Brian W. Aldiss

A darkly humorous story set in the near future, satirizing the world of executives. They all hate each other but are not allowed to express it or complain, so they do things that they can claim are generous as an act of passive aggression.

For instance, one gifts another with a genetically tailored midget Tyrannosaurus…which promptly eats the recipient's leg.  Said giftee then names the dinosaur after the giftor's coquettish wife and turns up at the giftor's funeral with the creature to terrorise people, but in doing so claims it is a lovely tribute.

Rather obtuse and pointless.  I didn't like it.

One star.

(with thanks to Kris for co-writing this review-let).

Godel Numbers, by J. W. Swanson

three men in suits look at an enigmatic black flat cuboid that looks like a bar of dark soap
by Jack Gaughan

200 miles west of Cairo, archaeologists have dug up what they're calling the "Cairo Stone".  It is a black tablet, obviously artificial, clearly advanced, and meticulously carved with a series of scratch marks.  Dated to 3000 B.C., it could not have been made by a contemporary terrestrial civilization.  It's up to three scientists, a melange of linguists and computer engineers, both to crack the code of the tablets and to fend off Soviet agents.

In the end, the tablet serves much the same purpose as the monolith(s) in 2001, jump-starting humanity's progress.  It's an amiable, old-fashioned sort of tale, and so esoteric that it probably would have done well, if not better, in Analog.

Three stars.

Cleaning up

All in all, the latest Galaxy makes for pleasant, if not outstanding, reading.  I would certainly much rather read about Godel numbers, teleportation, immortals, and isotopic pirates than oil slicks any day!






[December 26, 1968] Comfort OK? Looking Forward, Not Backwards New Worlds, January 1969


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again.

A recent comment from our leader here at Galactic Journey caused me to pause for thought. As he summed up the year in science fiction, it struck me that we are about to end one year (not that un-obvious, admittedly) and about to begin the last year of the decade, in what must be one of the most significant decades in recent human history.

Personally, the near-end of the decade seems to have crept up on me, but I can’t deny that it has certainly been eventful. Who knows, judging by all the recent activity (e.g. the Apollo missions!) we could be seeing people on the Moon in the next couple of years. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Anyway, I digress. My point is that I was suddenly made aware of how much things have changed in the last decade.

Which in a roundabout way brings me to the many changes involving New Worlds in the last few years. The New Worlds of 1968-69 is a very different beast from that of ten years ago. Some will say ‘better’ – more intelligent, more literary, more complex, more adult in nature – whilst others will say ‘worse’ – perhaps summarised as “Where’s my Science Fiction?”

After reading Gideon’s final article of November, I wrote him a letter, noting:

“More seriously, despite my personal grumblings, New Worlds is miles ahead of what the magazine used to be, even if its science-fictional content varies enormously. Much more inner space than outer space these days.

And there’s a whole debate over whether we can count it as an SF magazine any more – many of its older readers think not! – but it is noticeably different to pretty much anything else out there at the moment. I do hope that New Worlds can keep going next year, although it's not entirely certain.

That applies not just to the US but to Britain as well, of course – there is no other magazine to compare it to, as all the others have been cancelled!"

This year exemplified that range of content. In the last issue alone we had, on one hand, the stunning Samuel R. Delany story, Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones, which I am still thinking about, and on the other a story about a man repeatedly raping a paralysed patient and making her pregnant. Talk about eclectic….

Cover by Gabi Nasemann

Anyway, this month’s issue feels like the return of the old guard. Although the cover is in the new format started last month – a strangely coloured but generic photo of two heads, text from one of the main stories within – the roster of authors is mainly the usual. Even these stories are mostly connected to previously published stories… more later.

Lead In by The Publishers

More about the contributors this month: Ballard, Disch, Langdon Jones. They also sneak in an apology for the contents of this issue being different to what was expected due to the Post Office delivering the manuscripts too late for publication. Hmm.

The Tank Trapeze by Michael Moorcock

Last month the magazine declared that Mike Moorcock’s character Jerry Cornelius would continue in future issues by stories written by others, starting with James Sallis’s Jeremiad.

For whatever reason this hasn’t happened, and so we get a story from Jerry’s originator instead, the sixth by my reckoning. And we’re straight into contemporary issues, with assassin-for-hire Jerry being in Czechoslovakia whilst the Russians take over the country. Jerry plays cricket whilst Dubrovnik burns, seduces (or is seduced) by a woman and executes a young boy-monk, who may or may not be important. Memorable, shocking, surreal – a typical Jerry Cornelius story. 4 out of 5.

Anxietal Register B by John T. Sladek

Back in the April 1968 issue Sladek wrote New Forms, an increasingly surreal fictious form. It was amusing and quite popular (I liked it.) As befits the current mood of this issue, if it works once, why not do it again?

This time it is about testing how anxious you are. Mundane responses are encouraged amongst shockingly provocative ones – “Have you ever suffered from: arthritis… rheumatism…homosexual tendencies” etc. It is still amusing, but its impact is diminished as the shock novelty value of the first time is less of a surprise second time. 3 out of 5.

Epilogue for an Office Picnic by Harvey Jacobs

A story in the form of a unrequited love letter between "Bald Mr. X from Data Processing" to "Sherill" – or  Sheril, or Sherrill – the writer isn't sure. An odd tale that's meant to be amusing. I just found it sad. 2 out of 5.

The Summer Cannibals by J. G. Ballard

Ah, J. G. “Chuckles” Ballard. Lots of imitators of late, none really of his ability. After the last few stories by him have underwhelmed me (see The Generations of America in the November 1968 issue), we’re back into a better story of Ballard’s usual observational descriptions of societal bleakness – sex, cars, money, belongings, the American lifestyle. (Anybody else notice how often Ballard’s characters are just walking?)

With its sections of different prose styles, photos and sheer oddness, this is a better piece of work than his last one, although I’m not quite sure about the strange juxtaposition of sex and car parts. (Really. Try reading the section entitled “Elements of an Orgasm”.)

As perplexing yet as iconic as ever, The Summer Cannibals is typical Ballard and therefore welcome, if only to be brought down by the point that this is like Ballard-things we’ve read before and – of course! – another extract of something that will soon be a novel. Does it matter? Echoing the tone of Ballard – not really. Appreciate the style, consider the content. 4 out of 5.

Spiderweb by John Clute

An author we’ve read before, back in the November 1966 issue, but has been very quiet since. This seems to fit the current New Worlds template – a surreal story of love, sex, race and graphic hallucinations, although mainly sex. Vivid imagery. Bug Jack Barron has a lot to answer for by setting a standard for this sort of thing. 3 out of 5.

Article: Sim One by Christopher Evans


The welcome return of Dr. Christopher Evans brings us an interesting article about how close we are to creating a life-like human robot. I think Asimov would be pleased at the progress, but I keep thinking about Philip K. Dick’s stories about simulacra and personally am a little horrified. 4 out of 5.

Hospital of Transplanted Hearts by D. M. Thomas

Erm.. poetry warning. If you’re a regular reader of my reviews, you know my general view on poetry. But perhaps you know more about it than I do, New Worlds reader.

Just to be clear – New Worlds editors really like D. M. Thomas. As in, REALLY like. Declaring the poet to be “without question, one of England’s very best poets” in the Lead In, they like this particular poem so much it is available as a poster, courtesy of Charles Platt.


Here, I’m less enthused. This was the ‘poet’ who wrote that awful Mind Rape poem back in the March issue, after all, but I try not to let that affect me.

Here the poem is like a pick and mix jumble of statements and phrases so you can make up your own as you skip through the Battleships-type grid. It is amusing, but less important than it would like to be. It is certainly not an event on the scale of the Second Coming of the Messiah that New Worlds seem to want to create. (How’s that for a Christmas reference?)

The thing about creative work such as poetry is that people often passionately agree or disagree about such things. This may be a case in point. Others may love it – me, less so. 3 out of 5.

Juan Fortune by Opal Nations

A story in deep homage to Ballard here – broken into sections, with lists of characters WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS like a play…and (of course!) all about sex. Seems pointless to me. (the prose, not sex!) 2 out of 5.

Ouspenski’s Astrabahn by Brian W, Aldiss

It hurts to write about this one. “The longest part of the Charteris series”, it says in the Lead In, about to be published as a book. As a series I have grown to actively dislike, I have little to say on this one. Yes, it’s clever, and as ever with Aldiss, well written. But at the same time, it’s an incomplete extract of a story that may make little sense if you haven’t read the previous parts and secondly, it degenerates (like some of the previous parts) into a variety of prose styles that I can only politely describe as stylistic gobbledygook.

Does the story, such as it is, make sense? Is it worth my time? In the end I didn’t care about the characters, the setting or the story.

Others will disagree, I’m sure – I’m just pleased that this, whatever it is, is finished, and I can move on (see also Bug Jack Barron earlier this year too.) 2 out of 5.

Book Reviews

J.G. Ballard reviews The Voices of Time by J. T. Frazer in a very Ballardian way, Langdon Jones reviews Silence by John Cage as if it was a questionnaire, John Brunner reviews four psychology books published by Allen Lane, whilst at the same time trying to persuade me that as a reader of science fiction I should read such books (I’m personally not too convinced), and William Barclay reviews Jack Trevor Story’s books, an author I only know because of Hitchcock’s film of his novel, The Trouble With Harry.

It is left to James Cawthorn to review some British science fiction books, although Thomas M. Disch reviews Quicksand by John Brunner. Joyce Churchill (who I believe is a pseudonym for M. John Harrison) briefly reviews a bunch of anthologies and John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar. Langdon Jones also gives us the sad news of Mervyn Peake’s recent death, illustrating it with some of Peake’s drawings.

Summing Up

I think Moorcock and his team have been pushed to get an issue out this month. (Perhaps they’ve been Christmas shopping instead?) Whilst Langdon Jones has been away, his absence, not to mention the effect of Post Office delays, as mentioned in the Lead In appears to have led to what feels like an issue cobbled together from remainders from old established authors with nothing really new to say, just finishing off what has already been started.

I realise that some readers may see the issue as a comfort, as in the return of old friends, but to me, it is like a shop clearing the shelves of tired, old stock ready for the new year. The Ballard is entertaining, but even then just a variation on a previous theme. I’ve said on many previous occasions (even last month!) how much I’ve come to dislike Aldiss’s Charteris stories, and it doesn’t help that this conclusion fills up much of the issue. At least the Jerry Cornelius was good.

I know that there are readers that will love both the Ballard and the Aldiss and even D. M. Thomas’s ‘poem’, but not me, sadly. The standard has been raised so much in recent years that it is almost a given now that each issue of New Worlds will surprise, amuse, antagonise and annoy. For the first time in a long time, this issue for me has really let me down.

Really the only good thing I can say about the issue is that at least these series are finished, and as the new year begins, we can look at new material in the future – looking forward, not backward. Rather appropriate for the end of one year and the beginning of the next, I think.
On a more positive note, have a great Christmas, and I look forward to returning next year when (hopefully) I will be less grumpy. “Bah, Humbug!” and so forth.

I'm off to look at the Christmas Radio Times to cheer myself up and see what's worth watching and listening to (Morecambe and Wise?)

Until next time!



[November 26, 1968] Warhol, Delany, Cornelius and Perversity New Worlds, December 1968


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again.

Some degree of normality this month. Yes, I actually got a copy of the new New Worlds (and if you’ve been following the drama of the last few issues, you’ll know that the regular arrival of an issue is no longer a given.)

But is it any good? 

I thought that the last issue in November was a bit of an improvement, but as we’ve said before, that is no guarantee of the next issue being good – or even there being a next issue at all.

Nevertheless, I was hoping that this issue would at least match the previous.

Cover by Gabi Nasemann

Well, we can’t accuse editor Mike Moorcock and his team of resting on their laurels. The cover shows a new development straight away. We have what is rather expected – the generically meaningless picture of a young woman in strangely coloured tones – but then along the right-hand side we have the start of Brian Aldiss’ story …And the Stagnation of the Heart. I guess that this is an attempt to make you read more within.

Lead In by The Publishers

More about the contributors this month. Perhaps the most interesting thing here is that Bill Butler, poet and proprietor of The Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, has recently been arrested on obscenity laws.

Other than that, the usual descriptions of the authors and their work to date.

…And the Stagnation of the Heart by Brian W, Aldiss

Ah, the return of Brian Aldiss, with a story that (thank goodness) isn’t a Charteris story, that ongoing series of stories set in the Acid House Wars, but instead a continuation of an idea that Aldiss first began back in the March 1966 issue of Impulse (Remember that?) with The Circulation of the Blood. There Aldiss told of Clement Yale, a scientist who was involved in developing an immortality drug, which, unless there were accidents or murder, could extend human life to the point of near-immortality – for a price. The main consequences then as a result were that those who could afford the drug (mainly in Europe and North America) were developing a new social order. In "…And the Stagnation of the Heart" Yale and his wife go to India, where they see the other side of the coin.

In India and Pakistan, the immortality drug is banned, with appalling consequences. Yale discovers that Calcutta is a city overrun with people and has famine as a result. Yale basically sees the other side of the coin – what could happen in the world with uncontrolled population growth?

Brian does well to describe both the beauty and the squalor of a Third World country and examines what can happen if places are denied immortality. It also poses the question of whether it would be right for these people to have access to a drug which would make them near-immortal.

I’m not sure what the importance of shooting goats in the story means, other than to perhaps emphasise the difference in lifestyles between India and more developed countries.

Nevertheless, a thought-provoking story, tempered only by the fact that it feels incomplete.  4 out of 5.

The Apocalypse Machine by Leo Zorin

Zorin’s story is a satirical monologue, a speech detailing a new apocalypse machine to its prospective customers. In an understated way, this involves setting off a nuclear device in London’s Hyde Park and initiating earthquakes in various parts of the city. All die in the end. Interesting idea that is firmly anti-nuclear/anti-war, written in a satirical manner. 3 out of 5.

Article: Warhol Portraits, Still Lifes, Events by Andrew Lugg

A summary of the work to date of film-maker and artist, Andy Warhol. Fascinating – an article that had me applauding one minute and shaking my head in disbelief the next. Can’t say that Warhol’s a dull character, though. 4 out of 5.

The Delhi Division by Michael Moorcock

The welcome return of Mike Moorcock’s Avengers-like super-agent Jerry Cornelius! Jerry goes to India (see also Aldiss’s story set in India – coincidence?) to assassinate someone with the help of Mata-Hari-like Sabitha. The attempt fails and so different time streams dominate.

This is one where different time streams seem to be tangled—somewhere (or rather somewhen, perhaps) Cornelius has a child, others not. As a result, this one is less fun than previous stories as Jerry shows a much more melancholic side to his persona here.

Generally though, The Delhi Division is still deliberately provocative and occasionally scurrilous. I’m interested by the point that, as this month’s Lead In says, there will be more Jerry Cornelius but written by other people next month. I wonder where they will go. 4 out of 5.

The Colours by Thomas M. Disch

Or as you Americans will say, “The Colors”. This is a piece about the effect on Raymond and the people around him by a machine that shows colours to create moods. Really, it’s about the effect of drugs on a listless society, although this may be a metaphor for TV. It may feel relevant to the drug-taking young people of society today, but to me it seems filled with meaning and yet meaning little. I’m not really sure what it is trying to say, although that may be the point. 3 out of 5.

The New Agent by Joel Zoss

We have mentioned in the past of New Worlds' determination to shock, and this is one of those stories.

It is about Nickolas Dugonie, a nurse who has a relationship with a paralysed patient, Phyllis Wexler. Nickolas’s obsession with the immobile patient leads to them having sex and Phyllis becoming pregnant, although this also seems to lead to a reawakening of Phyllis, something she keeps secret from all except Dugonie. Deeply unpleasant, and yet memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. You want a shockingly nasty story? You got one. This one is more deserving of the outrage Bug Jack Barron got, in my opinion. 2 out of 5.

Peace Talking by Bill Butler

Ah, poetry, this time of an anti-war nature. Move along, please. As with most of these attempts to raise my cultural experience, I try but find them short and unmemorable. 2 out of 5.

Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones by Samuel R. Delany

This may be the big seller of the issue, as Samuel is one of the big internationally recognised Science Fiction writers of the New Wave. It doesn’t disappoint. A real highlight in its complexity, style and sheer energy.

It is a story told in the first person by a individual with various aliases but generally with the initials HCE, a criminal who is attempting to sell some stolen goods in a New York bar. Before the delivery takes place, his buyer is found dead. HCE discovers that he is being followed by Special Services, who then disappears. HCE meets up with Hawk, a Singer (who to me sounded a little like a new version of Heinlein’s Rhysling from The Green Hills of Earth.) Hawk manages to get HCE into a grand mobster’s party in order for HCE to sell his stuff. There HCE sells his stuff to Arty the Hawk (whose similarity in name is a little confusing), a big-time gangster, but just afterwards the party is raided and there is a fire.

Picture by James Cawthorn

Using his new-found money, HCE makes a name for himself. He sets up an ice cream parlour on Triton, a moon of Neptune, to cover his other activities and becomes a rival to Arty the Hawk. The story ends with the Hawk and HCE meeting and agreeing to work together rather than kill each other. Afterwards HCE is left contemplating this new situation.

This story shows how much of a breath of fresh air Delany is to the science fiction genre, being both classic in content and “cutting-edge” at the same time. At its most basic level, it is a crime story set across different planets, but it is more than that.  It made me think of it as something Heinlein would write if he was a New Wave writer and not the writer of Stranger in a Strange Land, taking old science-fictional elements and making them seem new. Lyrical but not baroque, Delany creates visual imagery without lengthy verbiage. I read the story more than once and found more details I had missed the first time around. Potentially Award-nomination stuff. 5 out of 5.

Book Review – Two Kinds of Opium

It may not be too much of a surprise to see the new New Worlds focus on non-genre books in its reviews of late. With that in mind, this month has a mixture of genre and non-genre publications. First off, “W.E.B.” (possibly ‘William Ewart Barclay’, a pseudonym for Mike Moorcock) reviews books that are about China (China Observed by Colin Mackeras and Neale Hunter, The Oriental World by Jeannine Auboyer and Roger Goepper and Peter Swann’s The Art of China, Korea and Japan ) as well as John Selby’s The Paper Dragon about the Opium Wars of the 19th century.

M. John Harrison in his new role as book reviewer deals with what we would see as more traditional science fictional fare , under his own name and as the pseudonym Joyce Churchill- The Final Programme by a certain Mike Moorcock, Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, Jesus Christs by A. J. Langguth, Black Easter by James Blish, Nova by Samuel R. Delany (heard of him?) Picnic on Paradise by fellow New Wave writer Joanna Russ, The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle and The Reproductive System by John Sladek. With new hands to the wheel, it is good to see more science fiction reviewed, even if you may disagree with the reviews, as I often did.

There are then some Biology books reviewed by Caroline Smith and a very brief mention of some books reviewed by W.E.B. again, which range from a book on The Death of Hitler to The Making of Star Trek. Eclectic, eh?

Summing Up

With a new front cover style, this issue of New Worlds seems to have a new energy this month. As ever, the stories are eclectic and wide-ranging, from those I liked (Delany, Aldiss, Moorcock) to the pointless (Disch, Zorin) to the one I hated (Zoss) which seemed to just want to shock.

A better-than-typical New Worlds issue then, although recently they have not been bad, in my opinion. The Delany is really a potential award-winner, I think, and alone makes the issue worth buying.

(And where would New Worlds be without a provocative photo or a mention of J. G. Ballard? This is an advertisement on the back cover.)

Until next time!




[October 22, 1968] Hello Again!  New Worlds, October & November 1968


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello. Testing, testing.. Anyone there?

This feels a little like one of those lonely messages out on the ether, post-apocalypse. I was last here for the July 1968 issue, whose publication, if you remember, was at a time of turmoil…. And then nothing for nearly four months.

Until now, when, like the proverbial British buses, two turn up (nearly) at once.

So – let’s start with the October issue.

I can only assume that the late arrival of the October issue was in part because of the recent kerfuffle. Editor Mike Moorcock explains the situation in this issue (and which you can read about in more detail in my last review), that with the effective banning of sales in English newsagents New Worlds is to survive mainly on subscriptions in the future, with a dollop of cash from the Arts Council, admittedly.

To Moorcock’s credit, he doesn’t dwell on the matter. But this whole issue feels like a statement of intent and a possible return to what I would regard as ‘normal’ – for New Worlds, anyway. It’s now being published from a new address, for one thing.

Cover by Malcolm Dean

And that ‘return’ seems to be echoed in the cover, too. Thank God – a ‘proper’ cover illustration. You know, with a picture, and something that looks like it’s taken more than ten minutes to produce. Whilst I could argue that it’s not the most complex piece of artwork ever shown – and a tad on the gory side – at least it is what I would regard as art.

Lead In by The Publishers

Some changes here too. Editor Mike Moorcock has brought readers (those of us who are left, anyway) up to date with what has been happening in the Lead In, even if some kind of strange time warp has happened as the Editor claims that his comments were made “last month” and not actually in the April issue. Readers with a good memory and less impacted by this may remember when Moorcock promised more pages and pictures in colour – clearly now that isn’t going to happen.

Other than that, the usual descriptions of the authors and their explanations of their stories, for those of us too unintelligent to work it out for ourselves.

Disturbance of the Peace by Harvey Jacobs

Do you remember The Shout? in the last issue? (I know, but it’s been a while.) Disturbance of the Peace reminded me a little of that, as it is an observational piece about I’m not sure what.

The story is focused on Floyd Copman, set in a fairly contemporary Manhattan. Floyd has a pretty mundane job in a bank, where in amongst the dull details of a day we find that Floyd is being watched by a dishevelled customer, who spends all of his day staring at Floyd. It becomes a bit of an obsession, and despite multiple attempts to remove him the situation inevitably ends up with the man’s return. It is quite unnerving for Floyd, and eventually results in both the old man having a fit and Floyd fainting.

What’s the point of the story? There’s lots of description of the city Floyd travels in and the things he sees, not to mention things happening around Floyd – the descriptions of his co-workers are supremely awful – and yet it all seems to be of little purpose. It’s more of a mood piece to me, but at its best it reminded me a little of John Brunner’s work. 3 out of 5.

The Generations of America by J. G. Ballard

"Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert F. Kennedy. And Ethel M. Kennedy shot Judith Birnbaum."

In which Ballard lists, in huge blocks of continuous text, people shot by other people.

I don’t know if all the names mentioned are real, although I have no evidence to suggest that they are not – there are some such as Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but the rest could easily be made up – but if the point is that lots of people have been shot in America, the point is made. Whilst the very, very long list makes the point that far too many people are shot, the purpose of the prose may also be to highlight the fact that many of the shootings that happen in the US are to people of whom we know nothing. They should be remembered, and it is perhaps an indictment of society that most of them are not.

The issue for me is that not only do I find reading long lists difficult, the block of text as presented is difficult to focus on – which I accept may be the purpose of the prose. It shows that Ballardian thing of repetition, after all – something he – repeats – often in his work.

But this feels like a Ballard clutching at straws, even if this is Ballard again riffing off American culture, and not in a good way. Is it fiction? I don’t know. It makes a good point, admittedly, but I think it is less exciting, less meaningful than his work from before, and weaker as a result. 3 out of 5.

Bubbles by James Sallis

If you’ve read my previous reviews, you may know that newly-appointed Associate Editor Sallis has been foisting much poetry upon us readers lately – something I’ve not appreciated. Happily then, this is a prose piece, and rather like Disturbance of the Peace it’s good on observational description, but this time about London. As we get all these lyrical sentences, the plot, such as it is, is about remembering someone – Kilroy – who is about to die. A story thus of a life lived and the places they frequented before showing us that life moves on. 3 out of 5.

Article: Into the Media Web by Michael Moorcock

An interesting article about how all media – audio, visual and print is interconnected like a spider’s web. Mike explains that future media will show an improvement in quality but at the same time have a lowering of standards in order to ensure mass appeal and remain commercial. How we manage a balance between all of this will be an important point in the future.

I can’t say I disagree.

Moorcock then manages to make his point using the analogy of Westerns and how they were important as printed stories, became less popular but have now been resurrected by returning to their core values through the medium of television. It shows the relative complexity of the interrelationships between media. Is this article inspired by the recent troubles here at New Worlds? Well, possibly, except that it is an extract from a longer article, and therefore possibly written before the furore. It can be said though that it is a reflection on the current state of play in the media, and it may not be coincidence that much of New Worlds' latest difficulties are in part due to Moorcock’s insistence on doing what this article says the media must do – setting new boundaries, of being different and not touting formulaic stuff. This article, like all good articles, was informative and also made me think. 4 out of 5.

Casablanca by Thomas M. Disch

No, nothing to do with the Humphrey Bogart movie. Disch’s story seems to be a satire on Americans abroad, showing us their insularity and pettiness. (We really are having a go at the US this month, aren’t we?) It all begins relatively normally before Mr. and Mrs. Richmond, our hapless Americans, find themselves in Casablanca in the middle of an anti-American demonstration and the unleashing of nuclear weapons, the once powerful now rendered impotent. It’s a compelling example of what happens when insular arrogance created by self-importance suddenly becomes redundant.
With its depiction of Americans lost in another country and befuddled by local customs, Disch's story reminded me of less of the movie Casablanca than the beginning of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Talking of Hitchcock, others must think highly of this one too, because I understand the story has recently appeared in one of those Alfred Hitchcock anthologies and is reprinted here. 4 out of 5.

Drawings by Malcolm Dean

by Malcolm Dean

I expected this section a little, as for the last few issues we’ve had graphic stories in various forms. This feels to me like it is the New Worlds version of Gahan Wilson’s efforts in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction – but as you might expect in a British magazine, darker, and perhaps odder. 2 out of 5.

Biographical Note on Ludwig van Beethoven II by Langdon Jones

The return of ex-Associate Editor Langdon Jones. Fresh from his publication of the Mervyn Peake Gormenghast material, this story begins like a typical biography (the clues in the title!) of a musician before the reader realises that it is satirical. It has many of the hallmarks expected in Langdon Jones’s usual material – florid language, poetry, musical scores, lyrics and so on. An inventive flight of fantasy, clearly meant to be a satirical musing on the music business and culture at large. I know some readers will like it more than me. For me, a middling 3 out of 5.

Photographs by Roy Cornwall

And again, something that’s been missing from recent issues, those pictures of strange artwork. This new version has buildings with patterns of light and shadow – and of course, a naked lady. No explanation – I guess we are just meant to be inspired – or aroused. 2 out of 5.

We’ll All Be Spacemen Before We Die by Mike Evans

Ah, poetry. 3 out of 5.

Bug Jack Barron (Part 6 of 6) by Norman Spinrad

At last – the final part of this story. It has only taken ten months to get here. (sarcasm inserted – feel free to vent your own frustration here.) Despite taking five parts to get to this point, some of the story is condensed here in the summary, even though it has never been seen before!

Quick recap – In the last part, Henry George Franklin makes a drunken claim on Jack’s TV show that he had sold his daughter to a white man for $50 000. After the show, Benedict Howards, the owner of the Foundation for Human Immortality, demands that Franklin is kept off the air and threatens to kill Barron if he doesn’t. Barron’s response? He goes to visit Franklin in the Mississippi.

After being told the story by Franklin, the two are fired upon. Franklin is killed. Barron is convinced that Howards is behind the buying of the little girl – and more so other mysterious disappearances in the area. He becomes determined to test Howards in his next TV show.

He agrees to meet Howards in Colorado and records the meeting. When Howards admits to killing Franklin, he discovers Barron’s recording. The result is that Barron wakes up in hospital having being made immortal. The secret is out – it is the glands of these young children that create immortality, but they are killed in the process. And Sara has also been treated.

Barron is now part of the process – can he now incriminate Howards on air? On his return to New York, he tells Sara what has happened. They now have a decision to make – does Jack live forever or tell the world and die now?

Before the show goes live, Sara contacts Barron, and after taking LSD tells Jack that she thinks he is not making the decision to attack Howards because of the need to protect her. To solve this, she jumps off Barron’s apartment balcony.

The story then takes up the narrative from here.

With the suicide of media star Jack Barron’s ex-wife, things are now set for a final showdown between Jack and Howards. The death of Sara was in part caused by Howards in an attempt to free Jack from being tied down to Howards.

I don’t think I need to say too much here. Suffice it to say that things are tied up as justice is done and Sara is avenged. If you’ve read all that has gone before, you’ll understand what’s happening. Everyone else? Less so – and perhaps be less inclined to bother.

Perhaps the more important point is: was it all worth it? After all, a story stretching across six issues has to merit some value, surely? I started reading it myself way, way back in November 1967 with some degree of optimism at a new and exciting means of telling a story and by the end am exhausted, willing the story to have departed long before it did. I suspect that reading it as a novel may reduce this feeling a little, but for me after its initial signs of promise it was too much for too long. Let’s also not forget that its publication nearly brought down the magazine as well. It outstayed its welcome, for me. Time will tell if other readers look on it as wearily as I do. Hard to think that at the start I was thinking 4 and 5 out of 5, now it feels more like 3 out of 5.

Time for something new.

Book Review and Comment – Boris Vian and Friends by James Sallis, and the conclusion of Dr. Moreau and the Utopians by C. C. Shackleton

Firstly, James Sallis (remember him?) reviews Boris Vian’s novel Heartsnatcher, translated from the original French by Stanley Chapman. This allows Sallis to quote great chunks of Vian’s text. Unsurprisingly for such an obscure work, Sallis can’t recommend it highly enough. He relates it to work by authors such as Ballard and Thomas Pynchon but also more recent writers here such as Aldiss, Disch, Sladek and Langdon Jones, describing Vian’s book as a new logic of the imagination.

It might gain some interest as a result.

The only other book of note briefly mentioned here is the paperback publication of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which “has all of Clarke’s virtues well-displayed.” For what it’s worth, I agreed when I reviewed the hardback novel here back in July. There'll be more on this later.

Lastly, we have the conclusion of an article by C. C. Shackleton (aka Brian Aldiss) begun last issue about H. G. Wells’ ideas of utopia. It may be difficult to read without referring back to the earlier, and longer, part, but I followed it easily enough. Unsurprisingly, as Aldiss/Shackleton is a huge admirer of Wells, the article is positive, saying at the end that Wells pretty much started the idea in science fiction that the genre (and therefore much of Wells’ work) is “a study of man and his machines and society’s changing relationship to science and technology.” To which I would add, “Well, yes – him and Jules Verne.” I’m sure there’s others that could be mentioned too.

Summing up the October New Worlds

A big sigh of relief this month. Although the issue is somewhat of a mixed bag and with nothing too controversial, it does feels more like a normal issue of New Worlds, with the usual mixture of allegory and confusion usually engendered by its presence.

Interestingly, although it has always been there in the last few years, this was the first time that I did notice how American (Americentric?) the issue felt. Perhaps it was because it’s been a while since I read a copy, but I really noticed it this time. Is this a consequence of New Worlds now being sold where most of you are? Perhaps. However, with American writers throughout and the prose filled with American characters and places, the quaint old idea of New Worlds being a “British” magazine seems to have gone – even when most of the stories seem to be attacking America satirically or ideologically.

The return of stalwarts like Ballard, even if he has passed his prime, will be a reason to buy this one, although being mainly subscription-based, the magazine may only be preaching to the already-converted.

For me the most memorable item, unusually, was Moorcock’s article. It’s not common for me to be impressed by the non-fiction, but this one really made an impression. The fiction, by comparison, was rather pallid. Nice prose, nothing especially extraordinary. If I was pushed to make a choice, I would suggest that Disch’s Casablanca was the fiction piece I appreciated most.

Most importantly, this issue means the end of Jack Barron, which took a long, long time to get there but finally ended. It is due out in book form fairly soon, I gather – if they can find any bookshop willing to stock it, of course!

The November New Worlds

So just as I was writing up my thoughts on the October issue, the November issue arrived. Looks like Mike and the gang are trying to make up for lost time! The issue is here.

Cover by Gabi Nasemann

One of those images that I suspect only a recreational drug user will understand. A step back from the October issue, I think.

Lead In by The Publishers

The key point here is that Moorcock points out that all of the fiction in this issue is from new writers. I see this raising of potential talent as a good thing, but my more cynical self suspects lower rates were paid. I also suspect greater variability in quality. We will see!

Area Complex by Brian Vickers

To the first – the cover story. I liked this one. It’s an account compiled from writings by a number of teenage gang members living in a gang in a future Clockwork Orange kind of dystopia. As you might expect, it is a tough existence, living in decaying cities with lives filled with sex and violence. The group often kills others from rival groups, whilst trying to survive.

The big twist at the end is that the group are a religious sect living in a post-disaster world. This also gives the writer chance to have a pop at religion as is rather expected in New Worlds these days. It doesn’t end happily, but then that’s what we’ve come to expect in these British anti-utopian stories.

What impressed me most was how this story epitomised the New Wave stuff at the moment. If anyone remembers Charles Platt’s Lone Zone back in July 1965 it reminded me of that, but with lots of elements that could be from Aldiss, Ballard, Anthony Burgess (Clockwork Orange) and Langdon Jones in style and content, for example, but are instead from a new writer. Old ideas in new ways, perhaps. A good start to the issue, if typically depressing. 4 out of 5.

Pauper’s Plot by Robert Holdstock

A story of a future life in a factory where the protagonist spends his life as a factory slave pauper, wanting to kill his Overseer, Mister Joseph. Effective description of an awful life that is devoted to work – they have no free time, no chance to go outside. There’s an obvious analogy to the factory and the machine our protagonist is slaved to being life’s dreadful grind. Think of it as a Dickensian novel set in the future – rather like the musical film Oliver! I saw the other week, but without the music, which I kept thinking of whilst reading this. Again, not a bad effort, even if the ending is a bit of a let-down. 3 out of 5.

The Pieces of the Game by Gretchen Haapanen

Another story in poetic prose, that style so beloved by Associate Editor James Sallis. The plot, such as it is, tells us of Sarah, living in a smoggy Los Angeles from which she manages to escape the daily drudgery – in other words, similar to Holdstock’s story! The tale is OK but doesn’t really say a lot, other than creating pictures in your head.

But never mind a plot: be in awe of the pretty prose (though occasionally set out in that way of type in various directions across the page that I am starting to really dislike). 4 out of 5.

Black is the Colour by Barry Bowes

Another story determined to be controversial dealing with the issue of colour. A white man suddenly wakes up one morning to find that he is now black. Deliberately provocative prose – the ghost of Bug Jack Barron hasn’t quite gone away, has it? – but the story makes the point that people of different coloured skin are treated differently in society, and it’s not long before the storyteller’s life suffers as a result. Not a particularly original idea, but it makes its point pretty well. 3 out of 5.

How May I Serve You? by Stephen Dobyns

A story of consumer capitalist culture, it describes a future world where a man who loves the physicality of coinage goes on a spending spree at Schartz’s, using his own manufactured money. He is arrested and we discover that it is an unfortunate consequence of being reconditioned. A nice take on the influence of money and consumable goods in our lives. I’m surprised that “Coca-Cola” hasn’t had something to say on the story though – or do they see it as subliminal advertising? 3 out of 5.

Crim by Graham Charnock

A story that feels a bit Bug Barron in nature. CRIM is a story of future warfare combined with media saturation. Lots of violent imagery, separate characterisations and made up language. This feels similar to some of the other fiction in this issue and gets across the idea that war is bad in a Brian Aldiss Barefoot in the Head kind of way. The difference here is that CRIM feels like it is trying too hard. 3 out of 5.

Article: Graphics for Nova Express by Richard Wittern

Images for what is presumably a new edition of William Burroughs’s Nova Express that seem a bit pointless without context. 2 out of 5.

Sub-Synchronization by Chris Lockesley

Ah, the inevitable New Worlds sex story! Actually, after that initial attempt of using a discussion of sex to grab your attention, it soon becomes something about time, in that disjointed poetic manner that James Sallis seems to like. I didn’t understand it myself. 2 out of 5.

Baa Baa Blocksheep by M. John Harrison

Another disjointed story about grotesque characters doing something incomprehensible. Like most of the allegorical stories here, it is about impressions and poetic description rather than anything else.

It seems to be about this Arm, who with another person named Block go to work for Holloway Pauce, who for some bizarre reason is experimenting on sheep. Whilst this is going on, we get Ballard-ian extracts of stories that Arm is trying to get published, of characters named Gynt and Morven. Deliberately odd and unsettling, obtuse and simultaneously designed to provoke, it becomes memorable for vivid but fractured sections of prose. For example, the first line is: ”Arm scuttled the streets like a bubonic rat–furtive by nature, flaunting in the exigencies of pain."

Typical New Worlds material. I’m sure it all means something… somewhere, but after two readings, I’m still not sure what that is myself. Appreciate the lyrical imagery; don’t look for meaning. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews: The Impotence of being Stagg by R. G. Meadley and M. John Harrison

Harrison reviews as well as writes in this issue – I suspect that this will become a regular thing.

Unsurprisingly, the reviewers do not like old-style SF, such as that published by Doubleday, and so give a thumbs-down to Joe Poyser’s Operation Malacca, Lloyd Biggle Jr.’s The Still Small Voice of Trumpets and Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer, although they grudgingly admit that Farmer’s more-sexual tales are more entertaining than the rest. I have tended to think of Farmer as a New Wave writer in the US – Harlan Ellison certainly did in Dangerous Visions, so my surprise is that they have anything bad to say about it at all.

Of the other reviews, R. A. Lafferty’s The Reefs of Earth is regarded as a “slight work… well worth a glance if you have nothing else to read”. The publication of Philip K. Dick’s first novel Solar Lottery shows “how far Dick has progressed in the thirteen years since its first publication, and little else.” Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is “a book for all the family” and will “hardly offend anyone” being seen as “An inoffensive and mundane little piece of Establishment SF.” Lastly, Charles Harness’s third novel, The Ring of Ritornel is seen as “brash, fascinating, eclectic,fast and glossy” but is a less satisfying work when compared with his earlier novels.

Article: Phantom Limbs by Frances Johnston

A medical article that is a little reminiscent of those written by Dr. Christopher Evans back in the early Moorcock issues of New Worlds. It begins with the recent film The Charge of the Light Brigade before going on to discuss the need for artificial replacement limbs and the future of such devices. I guess that it is close to being a robot, but not quite. It’s interesting but feels oddly out of place in this magazine. 3 out of 5.

Summing up the November New Worlds

An issue pleasing in its variety, but rather expectedly more variable in its quality. What we have here is a number of new writers taking inspiration from previously published authors, but as a result we have a lot of techniques we’ve seen before repeated. I recognise Ballard, Aldiss and Langdon Jones in those. The content is more of the usual – strange, disjointed, atmospheric.

I enjoyed most Area Complex, but wasn’t too excited about the Lockesley and the Charnock. The Harrison may be the most bewildering, but Barry Bowes’s story is the one that might cause most outrage, although it isn’t really saying anything new, sadly.

Out of the two issues, I think that the November issue is stronger, simply by having more stories with more of a range, even when a number of them resort to techniques that seem a little familiar. The idea of having an issue with all new writers to this magazine is a good one and shows that there is new talent out there to encourage. The downside of this is that the magazine doesn’t have any big names like Aldiss, Ballard or Disch to encourage the faithful, which might be what the magazine needs to get those reader numbers up, even when some of these new writers seem to be similar in prose, tone and style. Nevertheless, a good issue with good intentions, and one that feels fairly strong, if not entirely successful. It’s a fresh start of sorts, and I look forward to the next issue – hopefully next month!

Until next time – I wish everyone a Happy Halloween.



[October 8, 1968] Probing the future (November 1968 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

Professional opinion

Fred Pohl opens up this month's issue of Galaxy with a summary of the letters he's received from readers on how they would, in 100 words or fewer, successfully resolve the war in Vietnam.  He has great faith in the power of harnessing a bunch of smart folks to spit out solutions to problems.  I honestly don't know how useful someone's cursory stab at peace in Southeast Asia can be, even if it's from the pen of a clearly clever person like Judith Merril or Larry Niven.

He did, however, talk about a different kind of brain-tapping, one that has me very excited.  There's something called Sigma, which is a scientific way of presenting scenarios to people and assessing their likelihood, feasability, and desirability.  A consensus can then be reached and a mass-mind prediction derived. 

And as it turns out, I recently was sent a copy of Probe a 14-volume compilation of technological predictions made by the folks at TRW's Space Technology Laboratories—the folks who gave us Pioneers 0, 1 and 2, Explorer 6, Atlas Able, Pioneer 5, the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, and parts of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module.  I've only just started perusing it, but it makes for fascinating reading.  Of course, only time will tell if their predictions are accurate, or if they're even asking the right questions.

Of course, science fictioneers have been predicting the future in their own way for half a century.  And while the stories in this issue may not depict situations that ever come to pass, I have to say that are, at least, quite entertaining!


by Sol Dember, illustrating Building on the Line

Perris Way, by Robert Silverberg


by Jack Gaughan

I had not expected a continuation of the story, "Nightwing," but "Perris Way" is a direct sequel.  The tale picks up with our nameless Watcher, whose profession of scanning the skies for alien invasion, is no longer relevant as the invasion has come and succeeded, heading toward Perris (Paris) with his companion, the former Prince of Roum.  That latter, a member of the Dominator caste, was blinded during the invasion by the alien-in-disguise Gormon for forcing himself upon the Flier, Avluela, whom Gormon loved.  The two arrived at France's former capital to become members of the guild of Rememberers.

The erstwhile Watcher becomes an apprentice, and during his training discovers the true history of Earth and the hubristic crime that warranted the alien invasion.  His halcyon half-year with the Rememberers is abruptly terminated when the Prince shames the guild with a tactless act.  The Watcher, caught on the horns of a dilemma comprising the remedy to a Rememberer's anger versus (perhaps misplaced) loyalty to the Prince, comes up with a solution that ultimately pleases no one.  It also leaves room for a Part 3, which, if a novelization be forthcoming, is probably necessary to reach the appropriate length.

Silverbob's language is exquisite.  His poetic SFnal prose is probably even better than Zelazny's, and more approachable than Delany's.  His history of Earth is as fascinating as any that has been drawn.  On the other hand, he never treats his women well, and they are always sex objects, one way or another.  Contrast that with James Schmitz's Dr. Nile Etland, showcased just last month in Analog, lest someone want to lecture me on how "this is just the way things are."  Women do not exist just to be scenery, as much as those who hum "I'm a Girl Watcher" and hound the bosomy New Yorker Francine Gottfried on the way to work might like to think so.

It's still terrific stuff, but I can't give it more than four stars.

Keep Moving, by Miriam Allen deFord

Science fiction stories often play with the premise, "If this goes on…"  DeFord, one of the genre's most venerable authors, offers up a 22nd Century in which freeways pave virtually every square inch of the planet, and commuter culture has become the norm.  People don't even have homes anymore—they simply live in their cars, driving constantly to obtain food, entertainment, and presumably working while moving.

One man decides he's had enough and founds the "Live-In" movement, boldly staying put in one place over night.  This crazy idea wins the casual endorsement of dozens and the fervent support of one particular woman, a rather famous poet.  The ensuing partnership proves unstoppable.

Absolutely silly, but also quite charming.  Three stars.

Building on the Line, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Gray Morrow

Clancy and Plotchin are mismatched, feuding workers on the Line, a galaxy-spanning set of teleporter stations.  The two are building a set of Starlinks on the hostile world of XN-4010 when its incorporeal, gibbering race of "hobgoblins" unleashes a meteorite storm upon them.  Plotchin is incapacitated, maybe dead, but there is hope that an experimental cryogenic unit in the man's suit might be sustaining him.

Clancy decides that staying put and waiting for rescue is less desirable than making the 36-mile trek back to the main exploration ship.  And so, with Plotchin in his arms, he begins the brutal trek through the ice and near-vacuum of XN-4010, the hobgoblins nibbling at his psyche the entire way.  This bit is truly thrilling, reminiscent of the middle section of Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel when our heroes are making a similar journey across the frozen wastes of Pluto.

The denouement, however, is a rather windy extolling of the virtues of heroic men expanding the horizons of mankind.  It all felt a little hollow, especially as it is intimated that the hobgoblins may not be malicious but simply trying to defend their world from an onslaught of human tourists.  That, to me, was the more important point, and it was tossed aside.  Framed differently, Line's premise could have made an excellent novel, with themes similar to those explored brilliantly in Silverberg's The Man in the Maze.  Alas.

Still, it's beautifully written, and the first two thirds are a wild ride.

Four stars.

For Your Information: My Friend, the Nautilus, by Willy Ley

This is quite a neat piece, definitely a throwback to Willy's better days.  It's really the evolutionary history of mollusks, with an eventual focus on nautiloids and their relatives, the ammonites.  No, this is not a Pennsylvania religious sect but a prolific family of shelled mollusks that thrived during the Age of Dinosaurs.

Given that octopuses (Ley calls the plural 'octopi', tsk tsk) are shockingly intelligent, and ammonites were advanced nautiloids, I think stories about sapient Mesozoic shellfish would be fascinating.  Be sure to credit me with the idea if you use it.

Four stars.

The Market in Aliens, by K. M. O'Donnell

An unscrupulous fellow runs a brisk trade in sapient aliens.  He has occasional twinges of guilt, but he perseveres, nevertheless.

This is a dark, ugly story.  Looking back on it, I think I have to give it four stars.  It says a lot with a little.

Locust Years, by Douglas R. Mason


by Brock

In the not too far future, universities literally recreate the past, casting lines through time to reel in prehistorical happenings for student viewing.  But when a construction accident summons a wounded mastodon and opens up a time vortex, no one is safe—up to and including humans from other time frames!

This is an interesting story, if initially difficult to apprehend.  Probably the best thing the author has written to date.  Three stars.

The Tell-Tale Heart-Machine, by Brian W. Aldiss

This one's about bitter, middle-aged man, reeling from the recent loss of his wife and his ejection from the board of the company that made his fortune.  Said company has discovered the secret of synthetic life, starting with the recreation of dinosaurs, and with the aim of creating complete humans.  Ostensibly, the man hates his father-in-law, erstwhile partner in the endeavor, for his lack of morality, and for the coldness he has hitherto shown his family.  In fact, there is something deeper going on, and a rift that may not be mendable, even as the father-in-law attempts to attone.

I found myself moved by this one.  Definitely one of Aldiss' better efforts of late.

Four stars.

Eeeetz Ch, by H. H. Hollis


by Dan Adkins

I had gone into this one expecting from the title some sort of joke story.  It's not.

Dolphins are hot news this decade.  From Flipper to People of the Sea to World of Ptavvs, the idea of porpoises being partner sapients is catching on in a big way.  Hollis' story details the visit of the junior Senator from Hawaii, Ramon Coatl (presumably of Filipino ancestry), to a Caribbean research center.  There, the dolphin called Andy but really named Eeeetz Ch is being fitted with artificial hands and tested on advanced machinery.  But the tests go both ways—the two scientists working with him (a man and a woman, the woman being the senior engineer; Silverbob, take notes) are fitted with artificial gills that plug into a plate surgically embedded in their sternums.

There's doesn't exactly seem to be a plot to the whole thing, until it's done, and you understand the stakes of Coatl's visit.  Hollis says a lot about intelligence and handicaps, about technology and ethics, without spelling it out too heavy-handedly.  Most impressively, all of the characters are extremely well realized.  Andy the dolphin, in particular, is an alien.  A likeable, sympathetic one, but not human.

This is my favorite story of the issue.  It's both conventional and new, prosaic and profound.  It made me laugh a couple of times.  It kept me riveted.

Five stars.

Like, wow!

What a contrast, huh?  Last month, Galaxy finished at a dismal 2.4.  This month, we're at 3.9, probaby the best mag of the year.  It reminds me of the old Gold days of the early '50s.  Of course with a spread like that, it's hard to make any solid predictions, but at least there's always a chance every month that Galaxy will knock it out of the park like it did this month.

That's something to look forward to!

(oh, and dig the cool offer on the back of the mag—Trek is everywhere!)






[September 24, 1968] Reconstructing The Past (The Farthest Reaches & Worlds of Fantasy #1)


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Yesterday, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, a huge celebration took place. International dignitaries attended, US Marines fired cannons, Local Choirs sang specially composed songs.

What was all this in aid of? The beginning of one of the strangest architectural projects of our time. The reconstruction of London Bridge.

An Abridged History

A painting of Old London Bridge, in the 18th Century. A stone bridge of many arches with georgian houses built on it as boatman sail underneath it.
Old London Bridge, in the 18th Century

Whilst there has been a bridge across the Thames for at least as long ago as The Romans, the longest lasting and one that has been immortalized in song is the medieval “Old London Bridge”, which was completed in 1205. As you are probably aware it was constantly beset with problems. After endless changes, removal of properties and attempts to shore it up, a committee in 1821 was formed to build the New London Bridge.

The ”New” London Bridge,early in the morning a granite bridge with arches, with a road, pedestrian walkways and a small number of cars
The ”New” London Bridge, at a less busy time

This new version was opened to the public in 1831 and has fared reasonably well for over a century. However, the increased volume of traffic has caused it to slowly sink. This was not as much of an issue in the era of the horse and cart, but with hundreds of tonnes of steel sitting on it every rush hour, and not prepared for the passage of millions of Londoners, a change had to be made.

New London Bridge with high volumes of traffic
Not made for this kind of weight

In order to recoup some of the costs for the destruction of the old bridge and construction of a new one, Ivan Luckin of the Common Council of the City of London, put it up for auction. After a promotional campaign, two dozen serious bids came in. In April, the winner was announced to be Robert P. McCullough of McCullough Motors, planning to rebuild it in Arizona.

“In The Modern House They Throw In A Few Antiques”

What does a motor company want with 100,000 tons of granite? To understand that you have to know a little more about where it is going.

Lake Havasu City as pictured from the air in the late 1950s
Not your typical holiday destination

In 1938, the Parker Dam was built on the Colorado River, providing water and power to Southern California. Behind it sits the reservoir of Lake Havasu. In 1942 the US government built an auxiliary airfield and support base there. What they were apparently unaware of was the land was not theirs to take but was actually owned by Victor and Corinne Spratt. After the war, the couple were able to get the land back and turn it into a holiday resort.

In 1958 McCullough enters our story. He was looking for a site to test onboard motors and convinced the Spratts to sell most of their land to him. He turned it from a resort into a city and set up a chainsaw factory there in 1964.

However, this is not exactly prime real estate. Lake Havasu City sits in the middle of the Mojave desert, around 40 miles from the Colorado River Reservation, a hundred miles from the Hoover Dam and almost equidistant between Las Vegas, Palm Springs and Phoenix. There is little else of interest, unless you like a lot of rocks. What could attract people? Maybe a piece of history…

Anglophilia

McCullough standing in front of the New London Bridge, arms spread wide
McCullough, now the proud owner of the world’s largest antique

Whilst this may be the strangest and, at over $2.4m, possibly the most expensive purchase of a piece of British design, it is not unique. The Queen Mary currently sits at Long Beach, California and the Church of St. Mary Aldermanbury was recently relocated to Missouri.

Will this grand venture pay off? It will take at least three years to complete the project, so we will see if in the mid-'70s people are coming from all over to see London Bridge, or if Lake Havasu City becomes another ghost town.

Ghosts of the Past

Talking of this kind of reconstruction project, this month, across two publications, I read 21 short stories, all of which are attempting to revive something of the past.

The Farthest Reaches
The Farthest Reaches hardback book cover
Joseph Elder is not a name I was familiar with before. He appears to be a fan of the old school, endorsing the “sense of wonder” over literary pretensions. As such he has asked his contributors to only include stories set in distant galaxies containing Clarke’s ideals of “wonder, beauty, romance, novelty”. Let’s see how they have done:

The Worm That Flies by Brian W. Aldiss
As these are sorted alphabetically, we of course start with Mr. Aldiss (at least until Alan Aardvark gets more prolific). And, just as obviously, it is one of the strangest in this volume.

Argustal crosses the world of Yzazys collecting stones to build his parapattener. When he is then able to communicate with Nothing, he hopes to answer the strange questions emerging about phantoms called “childs” and the dimension of time.

The ideas of this story are not particularly new and the mystery is reasonably obvious. However, what Aldiss manages to do well is create such a strange unnerving atmosphere, such that it carries the reader along and raises it up above standard fare of this type.

A low four stars

Kyrie by Poul Anderson
The spaceship Raven is sent to investigate a supernova, a crew consisting of fifty humans and one Auregian, a being of pure energy. This being, Lucifer, has its orders communicated telepathically by technician Eloise Waggoner.

I am not usually as much a fan of Anderson’s science fiction compared to his fantasy, but this one impressed me. It has an interesting mix of hard-science with psi-powers but a strong character focus. A compelling read.

Four Stars

Tomorrow Is a Million Years by J. G. Ballard
I am not quite sure why the cover claims these tales are never before published, as this one has been printed a number of times, including in New Worlds two years ago.

I don’t have much to add to Mark’s review, I will just say it is a strange, but wonderful piece.

Four Stars

Pond Water by John Brunner
Men attempt to create their ultimate defender, Alexander. The creation, indestructible and with all the knowledge of humanity, proceeds to invade and take control of more and more worlds. But what is Alexander to do when there are no more worlds to conquer?

This progresses well and Brunner shows us the scale of conquest vividly in such a short space. Unfortunately, the ending is so pat it wouldn’t even appear in the worst Twilight Zone episode.

Three Stars

The Dance of the Changer and the Three by Terry Carr
Forty-two men died on a mining expedition on the gas giant Loarra. According to a PR man who was there, the answer to what happened lies in an ancient myth of the native energy forms, The Dance of the Changer and the Three.

This is a very challenging story and you may need to read through a couple of times to fully understand it. However, it is definitely worth your patience. Carr really makes an effort to show the Loarra as truly alien, but not in an unknowably menacing way as Lovecraft does. Rather they have a completely different understanding of what life and reality is.

Five Stars

Crusade by Arthur C. Clarke
On an extra-galactic planet, a crystalline computerized creature sets out to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

What Clarke gives us here is a kind of fable about the dangers of biases and science for its own sake. A more cynical take than is usual for him; perhaps Kubrick's influence is rubbing off?

Four Stars

Ranging by John Jakes
Jakes’ tale is set centuries in the future, where generations range the universe, in order to map it and send back data. Whilst Delors wants to carefully explore as instructed, Jaim wishes to rebel and jump trillions of light years at a time.

This could have been an interesting take on exploration but it mostly descends into the two leads yelling at each other “you cannot understand because you’re just a man\girl”.

Two Stars

Mind Out of Time by Keith Laumer
Performing an experimental jump to Andromeda, the crew of the Extrasolar Exploratory Module find themselves at the end of space, where they start to experience reality outside of time.

I feel like Laumer was going for something analogous to the final section of 2001. However, he lacks the skill of Kubrick and Clarke, making what could be mysterious and profound merely serviceable.

A low Three Stars

The Inspector by James McKimmey
Steve Terry, hero of the planet of Tnp, went into orbit, walked out of his spaceship and suffocated. Forest and his team are sent to investigate why this happened, and why no one has attempted to retrieve the body.

This is the one story that does not conform to the brief—there is no particular reason this could not be set on Earth. In fact, there isn’t much need for it to be SFnal at all. With half a dozen small changes you could have it contemporaneously on a newly independent Caribbean Island.

Putting that aside, it is not a bad story, just rather pedestrian, where I had deduced the themes and mystery by the second page.

A low Three Stars

To the Dark Star by Robert Silverberg
Three scientists, a human man, a human woman altered to suit alien environments and a microcephalon, are sent to observe a star. One problem: they all hate each other.

Your feelings for this story will likely depend on how you feel about unpleasant protagonists. The narrator in this piece is incredibly so and the whole thing left me cold.

Two Stars

A Night in Elf Hill by Norman Spinrad
After 18 years of service, Spence is depressed that his travels in space will be over and he must choose a single planet to settle on. He writes to his psychologist brother Frank begging him to talk him out of going back to the mysterious city of The Race With No Name.

This is quite an impressive short story. Spinrad manages to seamlessly move from science fiction to fantasy to horror, creating a real emotional thrill. He also does it through a letter that has a unique tone of voice and gives a whole new sense to Spence’s descriptions.

It does sound like it might resemble what I have read of the Star Trek episode The Menagerie but I think Spinrad spins this yarn well enough that it doesn’t bother me.

Four Stars

Sulwen's Planet by Jack Vance
On Sulwen’s Planet, sit the wreckage of millennia old ships of two different species. Tall blue creatures, nicknamed The Wasps, and small white creatures, nicknamed the Sea Cows. A team of ambitious scientists departs from Earth, all determined to be the first to unravel these aliens' secrets.

Like Silverberg’s piece, this is also a tale of squabbling scientists, here primarily focused on the two linguists. Competent, enjoyable but forgettable.

Three Stars

Worlds of Fantasy #1

Worlds of Fantasy #1 Cover by Jack Gaughan depicting a human baby being bottle fed by a green amphibious creature
Cover and all illustrations by Jack Gaughan

After a 15-year hiatus Lester Del Rey returns to editing. He opens the magazine with a rambling editorial taking us from ancient firesides, through folktales, modern uptick in astrology, Tolkien, and theories of displacement, before concluding it doesn’t really matter as long as the stories are fun.

Well, are they? Let’s find out:

The Mirror of Wizardry by John Jakes
Brak the Barbarian shown on the floor after fighting the wizard
This marks the return of Brak the Barbarian, late of Cele Lalli’s Fantastic issues.

As Brak is fleeing from Lord Magnus he rescues a woman from rock demons. She reveals herself to be Nari, also fleeing but from Lord Garr of Gilgamarch and his wizard Valonicus, who can send forth shadow creatures after them with his magic mirror. Nari’s back is tattooed with a map to a treasure, one that could win or destroy a kingdom. Together the two attempt to flee across the Mountains of Smoke, but can they outrun such power?

This is a pretty standard story, full of the usual cliches of these kinds of tales. It probably would have managed a low three stars, except that it treats a rape victim very poorly. Brak does not seem to understand why a woman running scared would be wary of getting naked in front of a stranger who angrily badgers her for information about torture and sexual assault. And the ending is just disturbing in the wrong way.

A low two stars

Death is a Lonely Place by Bill Warren
Miklos Sokolos is a 68-year-old vampire who leaves his crypt in Parkline Cemetery to feed. But when he meets his latest potential victim, he is not sure if he can kill her.

I was originally surprised to see this here as it seemed like it would be more suited to Lowdnes’ Magazine of Horror, but, as it went on, I realized it was less a Lord Ruthven style tale, and more a meditation on how much of a curse the situation might be.

More thoughtful than expected.

Four Stars

As Is by Robert Silverberg
A turbaned man, descending on a rope from the sky with an oil can to aid another man standing by his car
Sam Norton is transferred from New York to Los Angeles, but his company will not pay moving costs. To save money he rents a U-Haul and buys an unusual secondhand car that was left for repairs a year ago but never returned to. Not long after Sam sets out, the prior owner returns and wants his vehicle back. How will he catch up with Sam before he reaches LA? By renting a flying horse, of course!

Eminently silly short.

Two stars for me, although car owners might give it three.

What the Vintners Buy by Mack Reynolds
Matt Williams is a hedonist who has tried everything twice but has grown bored. As such he approaches Old Nick to make a deal for the ultimate pleasure.

Yes, another “deal with the devil” story, a dull and talky example. I can’t help but wonder if this was a reject from The Devil His Due.

One Star

Conan and the Cenotaph by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp
Conan, arms up against a wall as he is attacked by a gelatinous creature
A young Conan “untampered by the dark deceits of the East” is working for the King of Turan, transporting back a treaty from the King of Kusan. Enroute their guide, Duke Feng, tells Conan of an ancient treasure hidden in a haunted valley and suggests together they can retrieve it.

This is another new tale of Conan from his biggest fans, however Carter and de Camp lack even a quarter of Howard’s skill. Over described, dull and the plot feels stretched even over these 10 pages. This would be bad enough but it, as you can probably tell from the quoted phrase above, invokes some horrible racism.

This can be seen most prominently in the villain of the piece. Duke Feng encapsulates every negative Asian stereotype, managing to somehow be both Fu Manchu and a sniveling traitorous coward. Whilst there are problems in Howard’s original work (the finer points of which my colleague Cora and I have expended much paper debating) this takes it many steps further.

One star

After Armageddon by Paris Flammonde
At the start of the “Final War”, Tom accidentally stumbles on the fountain of youth. Centuries later, after everyone else has died, Tom continues to wander the Earth.

This is another last man tale, the melancholic philosophical kind that used to fill the pages of New Worlds a few years back. This is not a great example and doesn’t add anything new to the already overused subgenre.

Two Stars

A Report on J. R. R. Tolkien by Lester Del Rey
The editor gives a look at the publishing history of The Lord of the Rings, the status of its planned sequels and the effect it is having on the industry.

Fine for what it is but, at only two pages, it does not delve into the why or give any information not already reported in multiple places.

Three Stars

The Man Who Liked by Robert Hoskins
A small man appears in the city dispensing joy to the residents. Who is he? And why is he being so generous?

A pleasant vignette, but one where you are continually waiting for the penny to drop. When it does, it is not where I would have predicted it going, but it works well.

Three Stars

Delenda Est by Robert E. Howard
The first printing of one of the many unpublished manuscripts that were left by the late author. This one is primarily a historical tale, set in the Vandal Kingdom of the Fifth Century. As King Genseric ponders his position, a mysterious stranger comes to convince him to sack Rome.

Howard clearly did his research and manages to explain the history of this much neglected period in an entertaining fashion. It also only contains a mild piece of speculative content (the rather obvious identity of the stranger), which is probably why it remained unsold.

Three Stars

However by Robert Lory
A large sea serpent peering over two men in a row boat
After having accidentally caused his boatman to be eaten, Hamper finds himself stuck in Grath. There, people are committed to only doing their profession, no matter how useless or obsolete it is. As such, getting across the water is to prove incredibly tricky.

Robert Lory has been writing for the main magazines for over 5 years, with some modern feeling pieces under his belt. This, however, feels like a reprint from the 19th century, one that might have been intended as a satire of mechanization but now reads as a tall tale.

Serviceable but silly and rambling.

Two Stars

A Delicate Balance

Artist's impression of What the New-New London Bridge may look like, a long steel structure only supported on either end
What the New-New London Bridge may look like

As can be seen, trying to do stories in an old style can be difficult work. Some, like Anderson and Warren, are able to use the ideas in a new way to make something profound. Others, such as de Camp and Carter, create an object of significantly less value. Whether constructing prose or pontoons it takes both skill and imagination few possess. However, those that do make the journey rewarding.





[August 12, 1968] Galaxy's the One?  (the September 1968 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

Live from Miami Beach!

If you, like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (and me), soldiered through the four days and nights of GOP convention coverage, you saw the drama unfold in Miami Beach as it happened.  Dick Nixon came into the event a "half-inch" shy of having the nomination sewed up, his chief competition coming from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller.  California governor Ronald Reagan, best known for his Chesterfield cigarette ads, coyly denied that he was a candidate…until he suddenly was, in a desperate bid to court "the New South".

The suspense was all a bit forced.  By Day Two, it was understood that the New Jersey delegation, which had been putatively firm in supporting native son Senator Clifford Case through the first ballot so as to be able to play kingmaker later on, was now breaking for Nixon.  On Day Three, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had expressed that his first and second choices were Ronald Reagan, suddenly declared his support for Nixon.

And so, after endless seconding speeches for candidates who had no intention of being President, like Governor Hatfield of Oregon and "dead duck" Governor Romney of Michigan, Nixon won on the first ballot.

After that, the only unknown was who would be his running mate.  The South made loud objections to any GOP liberals being tapped, like New York mayor John Lindsay and Illinois Senator Charles Percy.  The smart money was on a Southerner like John Tower of Texas or Howard Baker of Tennessee.  So everyone was surprised when Maryland governor Spiro Agnew got the nod at a press conference the morning of Day 4, overwhelmingly winning the ballot that night (though not without loud protest from Romney's Michigan contingent).

Why Agnew?  Here were a couple of comments from the NBC reporter pool after the convention:

"It's not that Agnew adds anything to the ticket; it's that he doesn't take anything away."

"Everybody loves Agnew–no one's ever heard of him!"

Agnew, who is kind of a Southerner, and kind of a liberal, but who has recently come out in favor of strong "law and order" (which means urging cops to shoot Baltimoreans if they steal shoes), will enable Nixon to retain his chameleon qualities while Agnew acts as attack dog.  And since being the actual Vice Presidency is worth exactly one half-full bucket of warm piss, it doesn't really matter that Agnew is brand new to large scale politics.

Long story short, Nixon is the One, which we've known since February.  God help us all.

Live from New York!

When Galaxy first appeared in 1950, it was also "the One", breathing fresh new air into the science fiction genre.  18 years later, it is still a regular on the ballot for the Hugo Award.  Last month's was a superlative issue; does this month's mag maintain that level of quality?


cover by Jack Gaughan

Nightwings, by Robert Silverberg

Silverbob presents a richly drawn future world, one in which humanity has soared to great heights only to stumble back to savagery twice.  Now, thousands of years later, Earth is in its Third Cycle.  The planet is an intergalactic backwater, and its people are rigidly divided into castes.

Our heroes are a Watcher, a Flier, and a Changeling.  The first, whose viewpoint we share, is an aged itinerant, hauling in a wagon his arcane tools with which he clairvoys the heavens three times a day (or is it four?  The author says both.) for any signs of an alien invasion.  The Flier Avluela, the only woman in the story, is a spare youth who is able to soar on dragonfly wings when the cosmic wind is not too strong.  And finally, there is Gorman, who has no caste, yet has such a broad knowledge of history that he could pose as a Rememberer.


art by Jack Gaughan

All roads lead to Rome, so it is said, and indeed the three end up in history-drenched Roum, where the Watcher finds the city overcrowded with his caste.  The cruel Prince of Roum, a Dominator, takes a shine to Avluela, compelling her to share his bed.  This incenses Gormon, the crudely handsome mutant, who vows his revenge.

Gormon has the advantage of knowing that justice will not be long delayed–the alien invasion is coming, and he is an advance scout…

There's something hollow about this tale, rather in the vein of lesser Zelazny.  Oh, it's prettily and deliberately constructed, but the story's characters are merely observers rather than actors.  The stage is set and the inevitable happens.  When the alien conquest occurs, it is our Watcher who sounds the alarm, but it is implied others were about to do so (why they did not cry out the night before when the invasion first became apparent is left an inadequately explained mystery).  It's a story that doesn't really say or do anything.

Beyond that, I object to the lone female existing to be loved and/or raped, depending on the man involved.  She is there to be a pretty companion, a object of pity, a tormented vessel.  I suppose the small mercy is she is not also a harpy, as Silverberg is occasionally wont to present his women.

Anyway, I give it just three stars, but I imagine it'll be a Hugo contender next year…

When I Was Very Jung, by Brian W. Aldiss


art by Brock

A weird mix of sex, cannibalism, and archetypes.  I found it distasteful and out of place.

One star.

Find the Face, by Ross Rocklynne

One of science fiction's eldest veterans offers up this romantic piece.  It has the old-fashioned narrative framework, with an aged tramp freighter captain describing the day he was contracted by a wealthy widow, and what ensued afterwards.  The widow's husband and family had been lost in a space accident, but somehow, his face remained, etched across the sky in cosmic clouds and star clusters.  The widow saw this phenomenon once, and she was determined to find from what vantage in the universe it could be reliably observed again.

The captain, meanwhile, was looking for Cuspid, the planet whence the green horses that sired his favorite racer came.  Together, they went off on their separate quests, and in the process, found the one thing neither had been looking for: new love.

It's something of a mawkish story and nothing particularly memorable.  That said, it is sweet, almost like a romantic A. B. Chandler piece, and I appreciated the two characters being oldsters rather than spring chickens.  Moreover, these were not ageless immortals, but silver-haired and wrinkle-faced septuagenarians.

More of that, please.  Three stars.

The Listeners, by James E. Gunn


art by Dan Adkins

In the early 21st Century, Project Ozma continues, despite fifty years of drawing a blank; even with the efforts of dozens of astronomers, hundreds of staff, and the entire survey calendar of the great Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, not a single extraterrestrial signal has been encountered.  Low morale and lack of purpose are the rule amongst these dispirited sentinels.

This is an odd story, with much discussion and development, but no resolution.  At times, the author hints that a message is forthcoming, or maybe even already being received, if only the listeners could crack the code to understand it.  But the climax to the tale has little to do with the story's backbone, and, as with Nightwings, the characters drift rather than do.

It feels like the beginning of a novel, not a complete story.  Larry Niven could probably have done a lot more with the piece in about half the space.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Mission to a Comet, by Willy Ley

Now this piece, I dug.  Willy Ley talks about why comets are important to understanding the early history of the solar system, and which ones could feasibly be approached with our current rocket and probe technology.  The little chart with all the astronomical details of the Earth-approaching comets was worth the piece all by itself.  I particularly liked the idea of Saturn for a "swing-around" mission to catch up with Halley's Coment from behind!

We truly live in an SFnal reality.  Five stars.

The Wonders We Owe DeGaulle, by Lise Braun


art by Brock

Newcomer Lise Braun offers up a droll travel guide to a mauled Earth.  It seems a French bomb that exploded in Algeria sundered our planet's crust, sinking half the Americas and turning the Sahara into a stained glass plain.

It's mildly diverting but Braun's clumsy writing shows her clearly a novice.  I think the setting would have served better as background than a nonfact piece.

Two stars.

A Specter is Haunting Texas (Part 3 of 3), by Fritz Leiber


art by Jack Gaughan

Lastly, the conclusion to Leiber's latest serial, a sort of fairytale version of a hard science epic.  The "Specter" is really a spaceman named de la Cruz, a gaunt, eight-foot figure kept erect by an electric exoskeleton, denizen of a circumlunar colony.  He has been the centerpiece of a Mexican revolution, which is trying to throw off the literal yokes (cybernetic and hypnotic) forced upon the Mesoamerican race by post-Apocalyptic Texans.  The spaceman's comrades include two quite capable and comely freedom fighters, Raquel Vaquel, daughter of the governor of Texas province, and Rosa ("La Cucaracha"), a high-spirited Chicana; then there's Guchu, a Black Buddhist, reluctantly working with the ofays; Dr. Fanninowicz, a Teutonic technician with fascist sympathies; Father Francisco; and El Toro, a charismatic leader in the revolution.

In this installment, de la Cruz finally makes it to Yellow Knife, where he wishes to lay claim to a valuable pitchblende (uranium) deposit.  Unfortunately, the Texans have gotten there first–and what they have established on the site finally reveals just what all those purple-illumined towers they've been planting across the North American continent are for.  'T'ain't nothin' good, I can assure you!

Last month, I read a fanzine where someone complained that this was a perfectly good story ruined by being turned into a tongue-in-cheek fable.  Certainly, I felt the same way for a while.  By Part II, however, I was fully onboard.  While this last bit didn't thrill me quite as much as the middle installment, it's still a worthy novel overall.  When it comes out in paperback, pick it up.

Four stars for this section and for the serial as a whole.


art by Jack Gaughan

Roll Call

Like the Republican convention, the outcome seemed certain, but a few twists and turns along the way did create a bit of doubt.  But in the end, if this month's Galaxy is perhaps not all the magazine we hoped it would be, nevertheless, it's one we can live with.

For the time being, Galaxy remains The One.  May it continue to be so for four more years.






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[June 16, 1968] More Scandal! New Worlds, July 1968


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

It’s been a while, but it’s good to be back.

Something I suspect Editor Mike Moorcock has been saying too, because since I last wrote THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.

Quick recap, then. You might remember that last issue I said that newsagents W. H. Smith and Sons, Britain’s biggest newspaper and magazine vendor, in collaboration with John Menzies, refused to distribute the March issue of the magazine on the grounds of ‘obscenity and libel’, and that the national newspapers here once they got hold of the story brought it to national attention?

Well, it got further. In May, questions about the magazine, as a consequence of being partly paid for by the national Arts Council, were raised in the House of Commons, no less.

With national coverage in the House of Commons a Tory asked a question of Jennie Lee, the Minister for the Arts, asking why public money was being used in this manner (since the Arts Council is funded by taxes).

So New Worlds is now part of the records of British government, forever!

From what I understand Miss Lee gave a spirited riposte to the criticism, but what impact this will have on the magazine, I must admit that I don’t know. I’m lucky in that I get my copy through a subscription, but as most copies are purchased by casual buyers off the shelves in the newsagents this can only be bad – especially as I’ve said in the past that sales have recently declined, and Moorcock is desperate to increase revenue. It also means that readers are unlikely to see a copy at their local library.

On to this month’s issue.

Cover by Stephen Dwoskin

These covers seem to have regressed, haven’t they? This is the latest that to me echoes the bad old days at the end of the Carnell era, when there was just no money for artwork. Sound familiar? If you’re looking to grab attention, this isn’t it.

Lead in by The Publishers

Some changes here too. Editor Mike Moorcock has brought readers (those of us who are left, anyway) up to date with what has been happening in the Lead In, even if some kind of strange time warp has happened as the Editor claims that his comments were made “last month” and not actually in the April issue. Readers with a good memory and less impacted by this may remember what Moorcock said back in April, when more pages and pictures in colour were promised – clearly now that isn’t going to happen.

The rest is just the usual descriptions of the authors and their explanations of their stories, for those of us too unintelligent to work it out for ourselves.

Scream by Giles Gordon

Giles’s second published effort, after his story Line-Up on the Shore in the December 1967 issue of New Worlds .

Scream is another of those Ballardian-like stories divided into sections and often filled with stream of consciousness adjectives so beloved of New Worlds of late. It describes the effects of a single scream – in a city, on the people who hear it. Some panic and run whilst others are just confused. Result – a tale that feels like it wants to be seen as new, but really isn’t. There are lots of pseudo-meaningful phrases clumped together in a manner it would be wrong of me to describe as a story, emphasised by the point that the text has printed prose running at different angles around the page, which does little to endear the story to me as a reader.


Scream can be summed up as being full of allegorical symbolism, combined with language determined to grab your attention but to increasingly meaningless effect. It is memorable, but not always for good reasons. I hope I never have to come across the words “love juice” in New Worlds again. 2 out of 5.

Drake-Man Route by Brian W. Aldiss

And now on to the return of another regular and much-loved writer. Bad news, though – Drake-Man Route is another Charteris story. These have had diminishing returns for me since the first, Just Passing Through in the February 1967 issue of SF Impulse. And this one soon degenerates into the gobbledegook last seen in Auto-Ancestral Fracture in the December 1967 issue. Charteris has returned to England from Europe and travels north from London to try and communicate what he has seen. Lots of strange events occur as a result, with Charteris travelling with people who lapse into gibberish as a consequence of PCA Bombs in the Acid War, and meeting Brasher, the leader of the People of the new Proceed, the religious group created after the war. There are details on how Brasher got to this point, before they all drive off into an inconclusive ending marked by poetry, song lyrics and, guess what – more text running in unusual directions around the page.

Some may like these stories for their use of imaginative language, strange poetry, and drug-related symbolism. Others (like me) may be less impressed. Almost makes me rather read Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land instead, of which I’m really not a fan. I really hope there’s not many more of these. 2 out of 5.

Bug Jack Barron (Part 5 of 6) by Norman Spinrad


This one seems to have gone on forever. I now realise that with next issue being the final part I have been reading this story for over six months. Such an extended space of time does not help keeping up with this, although the summary of what has gone before helps, even if it now extends over a whole page in small print.

Things take a turn this issue, finally! After what feels like months of incessant ranty dialogue, Jack is contacted by the wife of Teddy Hennering, the Senator who co-founded the Freezer Bill with Howards and who Jack took to task live on air back in the first part of this story. He has been killed because he was about to reveal something about the Foundation – murdered by Howards, according to the wife. Jack dismisses the call as one borne of hysteria, but then the next day she is killed by a hit-and-run driver.

On Jack’s TV show that night negro Henry George Franklin makes a drunken claim that he had sold his daughter to a white man for $50 000. After the show Howards demands that Franklin is kept off the air and threatens to kill Barron if he doesn’t. Barron’s response? Feeling that Howards is somehow involved, he goes to visit Franklin in the Mississippi.

After four parts of lengthy dialogue and debate we finally get something happening. Spinrad moves the plot along and clears the decks for presumably what will be a final showdown between Barron and Howards in the final part. For that reason, it is better, but still feels weary. 3 out of 5.

Instructions for Visiting Earth by Christopher Logue

Poetry time. This one is about how aliens should blend into the background by being predictable and conformist, but at the same time tells us of the things that make humans human. Despite it being rather unmemorable poetry, this one gains points for being both pleasingly short and – gasp! – understandable. 3 out of 5.

Plastitutes by John Sladek


Remember last month’s New Forms, Sladek’s story of a form that wasn’t a form? Here, Sladek’s at it again, producing a comic strip-style story that reminded me of the Charles Platt cut-up diatribes we’ve seen in recent issues. I quite liked the Platt versions, this one less so, a tale of satirical nonsense involving IBM, pictures of car parts and fake conversations between idealised figures of manhood and womanhood. Difficult to describe – this has to be seen rather than understood. The McLuhan is strong in this one. 3 out of 5.

Methapyrilene Hydrochloride Sometimes Helps by Carol Emshwiller

The latest in a number of recent stories by Carol in New Worlds, who seems to be blazing a trail for telling odd stories from a female perspective. This time it is a dialogue given by a woman/robot/alien (who knows?) about the strange relationship she has with a male Doctor and his daughter. Lots of biological comments and various body parts are involved. As predicted, it is odd, and I’m not sure I get it. 2 out of 5.

Two Voices by D. M. Thomas

I approached this one with caution after the awful “Head Rape” poem of the March issue. Thankfully this one is not quite as traumatic, although much longer than what we normally get – more of a poetic essay than a poem, involving two different perspectives. Unsurprisingly the story involves sex, birth and death (I think.) The accompanying artwork feels like something out of a psychedelic-Beatles creation. So – marks for style, ambition and intelligence, if not for literary quality. 3 out of 5.

The Definition by Bob Marsden

Another story obsessed with sex, though using deliberately florid and shocking language in an attempt to shock. It tells of the night (and the morning) after a rock concert party, with the associated sex, drugs and rock and roll. I suspect it is meant to be satirical, but rather than being innovative and interesting, this was just silly – the point where a drunken character is hit on the head with “an autopenis” was the limit for me.  2 out of 5.

A Landscape of Shallows by Christopher Finch

Art  by Francois Vasseur

A tale that in its dry observations and depiction of its settings, not to mention in its detailed descriptions of vehicles, feels like a Ballard-style tale. Set in an Arabian country, Drover works for Delta Studios, who create advertising campaigns created by computer that use all senses – sight, hearing, taste and smell. There he meets Amaryllis, who tests the machine used to create Drover’s experiences, and this leads to a one-night stand, although the focus of the story seems to be on Drover’s occupation.

I must admit that for much of this story I couldn’t work out what was real and what was imagined by Drover as he relates his dream-like descriptions back. I suspect that this uncertainty may be the point of the plot. Some interesting ideas though – as well as the idea of fully immersive art, I quite liked the idea of the car radio that adapts to the user and their moods. Despite its relatively linear structure, I found I was enjoying this more than I thought I would, probably because it followed the needlessly poetic and pseudo-intellectual style of the previous stories. Still Ballard-light, though. It actually reminded me a little of the last Langdon Jones story published here, in its determination to change form between sections. 4 out of 5.

The Circular Railway by John Calder


As the Lead-In tells us, John’s last work here was Signals in the September 1966 issue. The Circular Railway is a story that on the surface does little more than describe a dreamlike journey taken on a railway, in poetic tones. But of course, being allegorical, it probably means more than it suggests. Overall, it makes me think of a typical train journey for me – one that is putting me to sleep. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews – Dr. Moreau and the Utopians by C. C. Shackleton

No poetry reviews this month – instead, C. C. Shackleton (also known as Brian Aldiss) points out that the writings of H. G. Wells seem to be back in favour once more, and then addresses the idea that H. G. Wells has often been considered as an optimist. This may be surprising when you consider Wells’ works such as The Island of Dr, Moreau, which told of the horrors created by genetic manipulation.

Nevertheless, Shackleton eventually gets to the point of the review – that a book by Mark R. Hillegas entitled The Future As Nightmare looks at Wells’s ideas of utopia and how such ideas are regarded by his contemporaries and successors. Annoyingly, just as it seems to be getting to a point, the review is then truncated, to be continued next issue (optimistically).

An interesting article – but then as Aldiss/Shackleton is also a huge admirer of H. G. Wells, I would expect nothing less.

Summing up New Worlds

Clearly the long lay-off has given the New Worlds team chance to catch up on some poetry. As we had none in the last issue, this month we have two. I suspect that this may be new Associate Editor James Sallis’s fault.

We also seem to have had a new typewriter installed in the printing works, as we have not just one but two stories that mess around with
T
H
E
TEXT a BiT.

Aldiss has been guilty of such experimental prose before, whilst I think back to Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination back in the 1950’s.

I always feel that such textual acrobatics are more about style than substance, sadly. It’s not really new, nor really clever. And whilst I can appreciate the idea of writers playing with form, is it really necessary to have two doing the same thing in the same issue? It feels a little like desperation to me. The fact that, as much as Brian has done to retrieve New Worlds from the brink of bankruptcy, his Charteris stories do little or nothing for me doesn’t help.

But then I could say that about some of the other stories in this issue as well. The issue generally is filled with material that is odd, unpleasant, or both!

Most of all, this issue feels again like New Worlds is in a holding pattern. There are lots of middling or low scores, suggesting that this issue feels a bit like it is treading water. At its worst this feels like an issue that actually seems desperate, where there’s a need to publish but it is an issue made up of what’s available, rather than the best that New Worlds can be. There’s nothing here that I found particularly memorable, and the emphasis on trying to shock the readers seems to have diminishing returns – for me, at least.

This is a little worrying. I expect to find at least one story or article or review each issue to keep my interest and my subscription paid. This issue didn’t really have anything, although it could be argued that that in itself is a point of discussion.

As frustrating as this issue was, I know that I should be grateful to see anything this month – it is good to have New Worlds back again, even if who knows for how long.

I did not notice an advertisment for the next issue, worryingly.

Nevertheless, until next time – whenever that is!



 

[June 10, 1968] Froth and Frippery (July 1968 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

A little goes a long way

Science fiction has a reputation for being a serious genre.  In tone, that is–it's still mostly dismissed by "serious" literary aficionados. Whether it's gloomy doomsday predictions or thrilling stellar adventure, laughs are usually scarce.

There is, however, a distinct thread of whimsy within the field.  Satire and farce can be found galore.  For instance, Robert Sheckley was a master of light, comedic sf short stories in the '50s (he's less good at it these days).  In moderation, fun/funny stories break up a turgid clutch of dour tales.

On the other hand, when you put a bunch together, particularly when only one of them is above average…

You get this month's issue of Galaxy.

You're too much, man


by Jack Gaughan

Before we get to the stories, in his editorial column Fred Pohl reminds Galaxy readers to submit proposals for the ending of the Vietnam War…in 100 words or fewer.

It makes me want to send something like this (with apologies to Laugh-In:

How I would end the War in Vietnam, by Henry Gibson.

"I would end the War in Vietnam by bombing the Vietnamese.  I would bomb them a lot.  When there are no more Vietnamese, we would win."

Thank you.

A Specter is Haunting Texas (Part 1 of 3), by Fritz Leiber


by Jack Gaughan

The lead piece is the beginning of a new serial by one of the old titans of science fiction.  It tells of one Christopher Crockett de la Cruz, an actor from a space colony orbiting the moon.  He has come down to Earth to ply his trade, a very risky endeavor as even lunar gravity is uncomfortable for him.  De la Cruz requires an integrated exoskeleton to get around.  That plus his emaciated, 8-foot frame makes him look like nothing so much as Death himself.  A handsome, well-featured Death, but Death just the same.  (Hmmm… a handsome, gaunt actor–I wonder on whom this character could be based!)

As strange as De la Cruz is, the situation on Earth is even stranger.  He makes touchdown in Texas, now an independent nation again in the aftermath of an atomic catastrophe in the late '60s.  Its inhabitants have all been modified to top eight feet as well (everything is bigger in Texas, by God's or human design), and they claim sovereignty of all North America, from the Guatemalan canal to the Northwest Territory.  And over the Mexicans in particular, who not only are excluded from the height-enhancing hormone, but many of whom are forced to live as thralls, harnessed with electric cloaks that make them mindless slaves.

Quickly, De la Cruz is embroiled in local politics, unwittingly used to spearhead a coup against the current President of Texas.  Along the way, the descriptions, the events, the setting are absurd to the extreme–from the reverence paid to "Lyndon the First", father of the nation, to the ridiculous courtships between De la Cruz and the two female characters.

It shouldn't work, and it almost doesn't, but underneath all the silliness, there is the skeleton of a plot and a fascinating world.  It doesn't hurt that Leiber is such a veteran; I've read froth for froth's sake, and this isn't it.  I'm willing to see where he goes with it.

Three stars.

McGruder's Marvels, by R. A. Lafferty


by Joe Wehrle, Jr.

The military needs a miniaturized component for its uber-weapon in two weeks, but the regular contractors can't guarantee delivery for two years.  The colonels in charge of procuring reject out of hand a bid that will provide parts for virtually nothing and almost instantly.  It is only when they start losing a global war that they grasp at the seemingly ludicrous straw.

Turns out the fellow who made the bid used to run a flea circus.  Naturally, now he's into miniaturization.  His parts really do work, and they really are cheap, but as can be expected, there's a catch.

If I hadn't known this story was written by Lafferty, I'd still have guessed it was written by Lafferty.  After all, he and whimsy are old companions.  It's more of an F&SF fantasy than SF, but it at least has the virtue of being memorable.  Three stars.

There Is a Tide, by Larry Niven


by Jeff Jones

The best piece of the issue is this one, featuring a new Niven character (the 180-year-old space prospector Louis Wu) in a familiar setting (Known Space).  This is set later than the rest of the stories, past the Bey Schaeffer tales, contemporaneous with Safe at Any Speed somewhere close to the year 3000.

Wu has gotten tired of people, and so he has gone off in his one-man ship to explore the stars.  His motive is fame–he wants to find himself a relic of the Slavers, the telepathic race of beings who ruled the galaxy and died in an interstellar war more than a billion years ago.  In a far off system, his deep radar pings off an infinitely reflective object in orbit around an Earthlike world.  Assuming it's a Slaver treasure box, kept in stasis these countless eons, he moves in for the salvage.  But a new kind of alien has gotten there first…

Once again, Niven does a fine job of establishing a great deal with thumbnail, throwaway lines.  In the end, Tide is a scientific gimmick story, the kind of which I'd expect to find in Analog (why doesn't Niven show up in Analog?), but the personal details elevate the story beyond its foundation.

It's funny; I read in a 'zine (fan or pro, I can't remember) that Niven writes hard SF that eschews characterization.  I think Niven writes quite unique and memorable characters and hard SF.  It's a welcome combination.

Four stars.

Bailey's Ark , by Burt K. Filer

by Brock

Now back to silliness.  Atomic tests have caused the oceans to flood the land.  After a few decades, only a few mountaintop communities are left, and soon they will be inundated.  Fourteen humans have been chosen to be put into cold storage for 1500 years, to emerge when the waters have receded.

All the animals have died, except for a few caged specimens, and no effort has been made to preserve them through the impending apocalypse.  It's up to one wily vet to save at least one species by sneaking it into the stasis Ark without anyone noticing.

Everything about this story is dumb, from the set up to the execution.  Its only virtues are that it's vaguely readable and that it's short.

Two stars.

For Your Information: Interplanetary Communications, by Willy Ley

This is a strange article which never quite makes a point.  The subject is sending messages from points around the solar system, but ultimately, Ley presents just two notable things:

1) A table of interplanetary distances (available in any decent astronomy book, and without even a convenient translation of kilometers to light-seconds/minutes/hours).

2) The assertion that satellites, artificial or natural, will be necessary as communications relays as direct sending of messages from planetary surface to planetary surface is prohibitively power-intensive.  It is left to the reader's imagination as to why that would be.

Sloppy, rushed stuff.  Two stars.

Dreamer, Schemer, by Brian W. Aldiss

Two captains of industry vie for control of a city.  One offers a collaboration; the other takes advantage of the offer, double crosses the offerer, and leaves him penniless.  When the double-crosser gets second thoughts, he subjects himself to a "play-out", a sort of mind trip where he gets to recreate and re-examine his decision in a fantasy world scenario.  The double-crossed, coincidentally, engages in a "play-out" at the same time, for the same reason.

This concept was done much more effectively more than a decade ago in Ellison's The Silver Corridor.  Two stars.

Factsheet Six, by John Brunner


by Jack Gaughan

A callous capitalist comes across "Factsheet Five", a rudely typed circular that details all the horrible injuries caused by the defects in various companies' products.  This and the prior Factsheets have had harmful impacts on the companies listed, from financial loss to outright bankruptcy.  The capitalist, who has his own industrial empire (and attendant quality-control issues), wants to find the author of the Factsheets so he can get inside knowledge to make a killing in the investor market.

Of course, we know who will be featured in Factsheet Six…

This is the kind of corny, Twilight Zone-y piece that shows up in the odd issue of F&SF.  I was sad to find it here.

Two stars.

Seconds' Chance, by Robin Scott Wilson


by Brand

Ever wonder who cleans up after the James Bonds and Kelly Robinsons of the world, settling insurance claims, smoothing diplomatic feathers, etc.?  This is their story.

Their rather pointless, one-joke-spread-over-too-many-pages, story.

Two stars.

When I Was in the Zoo, by A. Bertram Chandler


by Vaughn Bodé

Here's a shaggy dog story, told White Hart style, about an Aussie fisherman who gets abducted by jellyfish aliens, exhibited in a zoo with a collection of terrestrial animals, and then seduced for professional reasons by one of the lady jellyfish.

Frankly, I'm not quite sure what else to say about it other than it's the sort of tale you'd expect from A. Bertram Chandler writing a White Hart story–competent, maritime, Australian, and forgettable.

Three stars.

2001: A Space Odyssey, by Lester del Rey

The issue ends with a review panning 2001 as New Wave nihilism, meaningless save for the vague suggestion that intelligence is always evil.  This is a facile take.  It's possible 2001 is what I call a "Rorschach film", like, say, Blow Up, where the director throws a bunch of crap on the screen and leaves it to the viewer to invent a coherent story.  However, there are enough clues throughout the film to make the film reasonably comprehensible.  Moreover, there is a book that explains everything in greater detail.

I'm not saying 2001 is perfect, and I imagine those who had to sit through the longer, uncut version enjoyed it less (save for Chip Delany, who apparently preferred it.  I'll never know which I would have liked best, since the director not only trimmed down the film after release, but burned the cut footage!) But it is a brilliant film, extremely innovative, and it's worth a watch.

Starving for a bite

After eating all that cotton candy, with only the smallest morsel of meat to go with it, I am absolutely famished for something substantial.  Thankfully, I'm about to hop a Boeing 707 for a trip to Japan, where not only the food will be exquisite, but I can catch up on all the 4 and 5 star stories recommended by my fellow Travelers in earlier months.

Stay tuned for reports from the Orient!






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