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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 8, 1969] Distractions (May 1969 Galaxy)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Instant Classic

There are few expressions as irritating to me as the oxymoronic "Modern Classic"…but I have to admit that the shoe sometimes fits.

Mario Puzo's third novel, The Godfather, came out last month, and I can't put it down.  It's not a small book—some 446 pages—but those pages turn like no one's business.  It's the story of Vito Corleone, a Sicilian who arrives in the country around the turn of the Century and slowly, but inexorably, becomes crime boss of Manhattan. 

The Mafia has had a particular allure of late.  LIFE just had a long bit on the recent death of Vito Genovese and the current scramble to replace him as head of the Genovese family.  For those who want a (seemingly accurate) introduction to the underworld of organized crime, The Godfather makes a terrific primer.

Bloody, pornographic, blunt, but also detailed and even, in its own way, scholarly, The Godfather is a book you can't put down. 

Which is a problem when you're supposed to get through a stack of science fiction magazines every month.  Indeed, how is a somewhat long-in-the-tooth, middle-of-the-road mag like Galaxy, especially this latest issue, supposed to compete?


by Vaughn Bodé

Little Blue Hawk, by Sydney J. Van Scyoc

Imagine an America generations from now, after eugenics has gone awry.  After some initial promising results, a significant number of humans became dramatically mutated, with profound physical and mental variations accompanied by even more pronounced neuroses.  Over time, these mutants have mingled with baseline humans, spreading their traits.

This is the story of Kert Tahn, a wingless hawk of a man, who bears a weighty set of obsessions and compulsions, as well as a dandy case of synesthesia: to him, words are crystalline, shattering into dust and leaving a pall over everything.  An urban "Special Person", plucked as an infant from one of the rural Special Person-only communities, he harbors a strong urge to fly, which is why he takes up a job as a hover-disc pilot, ferrying customers out into the hinterlands now reserved for the genetically modified.  "Little Blue Hawk" is a series of encounters with a variety of more-or-less insane individuals, and how each helps him on his road to self-discovery.


by Reese

There are elements I really liked in this story.  Though the causes of neuroses are genetic, it is clear Van Scyoc is making a statement—and an aspirational prediction—as to how mental illnesses might be accommodated rather than simply cured…or its sufferers tucked away.  All Special Persons have the constitutional right to have their compulsions respected, and they are listed on a prominent medallion each of them wears.  Of course, this leads to a mixture of both care by and disdain from the "normal" population.

I also thought that a set of neurotic compulsions actually makes for a dandy thumbnail sketch of an alien race—a set of traits that make no sense but are nevertheless consistent,

The problem with this story is simply that it's kind of dull and doesn't do much.  I found myself taking breaks every five pages or so.  With the Puzo constantly emanating its bullet-drenched sirensong, it was slow going, indeed.

Two stars.

The Open Secrets, by Larry Eisenberg

A fellow accidentally enters into his timeshare terminal the password for the FBI's internal files.  Now that he has access to all the country's secrets, he becomes both extremely powerful…and extremely marked.

Frivolous, but not terrible.  Two stars.

Star Dream, by Terry Carr and Alexei Panshin

On the eve of the flight of the first starship Gaea, its builder finds out why he was fired just before its completion.  The answer takes some of the sting from being ejected from the vessel's crew.

This old-fashioned tale is rather mawkish and probably would have served better as the backbone of a juvenile novel, but it's not poorly written.

Three stars.

Coloured Element, by William Carlson and Alice Laurance

A new measles vaccine is dumped willy-nilly into the water supply, not for its salutory benefits, but for a side effect—it turns everyone primary colors based on their blood type!  Ham-handed social commentary is delivered in this rather slight piece.

Two stars.

Killerbot!, by Dean R. Koontz

The mindless, cybernetic monsters from Euro are on the rampage in Nortamer, and it's up to the local law enforcement to dispatch the latest killer.  The new model has got a twist—human cunning.  But when the monster is taken down, the revelation is enough to rock society.

What seems like a rather pointless exercise in violent adventure turns out to be (I think) a commentary on the recent rash of gun violence—from the murder of JFK to the Austin tower shootings.  It's not a terrific piece, but I appreciate what it's trying to do.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Max Valier and the Rocket-Propelled Airplane, by Willy Ley

I was just giving a lecture on rocketry pioneers at the local university the other day, and Max Valier was one of the notables I mentioned.  Of course, I assumed from the name that he was French.  He was not.  That fact, and many others, can be found in this fascinating piece by Willy Ley on a man most associated with the rocket car that killed him.

Four stars.

A Man Spekith, by Richard Wilson


by Peñuñuri

The last man on Earth is Edwards James McHenry—better known by his DJ monicker, Jabber McAbber.  Well, he's not actually on Earth; right before the calamity that ripped the planet asunder, a Howard Hughes look-alike ensconced him in an orbital trailer with a broadcaster, a thousand gallons of bourbon, and a record collection.  Unbenownst to him, Ed also has a mechanical sidekick called Marty, a computer with colloquial intelligence.

Thus, while Ed more-or-less drunkenly transmits an unending, lonely monologue to the universe, Marty provides a broadcast counterpoint, explaining the subtext and background to Ed's plight and thoughts.

It all reads like something Harlan Ellison might have put together, a little less dirtily, perhaps.  Hip and readable.  Four stars.

The Man Inside, by Bruce McAllister

A henpecked father has gone catatonic with stress, but a new technique may be able to interpret his internal monologue.  The result is suitably tragic.

Pretty neat; perhaps the best thing Bruce has turned in so far, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  Three stars.

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


by Jack Gaughan

At last, we reach the action-packed conclusion of this three-part serial.  All the pieces are in motion: both Loki and 'Thor, immortal soldiers in an ages-long intergalactic war, who have been at each other's throats for 1200 years, are trudging through the rain for the runaway broadcast power facility on the Northeastern American seaboard.

As the Army tries and fails to bring the powerplant under control, the hurricane in the Atlantic intensifies.  Meanwhile, we learn what the other unauthorized power-tapper is: none other than Loki's autonomous spaceship, Xix, which is charging its own batteries pending the unhatching of a terrible scheme.  The climax of the novel is suitably climactic.

Laumer writes in two modes: satirical and deadly serious.  And Now They Wake is firmly in the second camp, grim to the extreme.  But it is also very human, very immediate, and, even with the graphic violence depicted, very engrossing.  This is the closest I've seen Laumer come to Ted White's style, really engaging the senses such that you inhabit the bodies of the characters, but without an offputting degree of detail (even the gory bits are imaginative and non-repetitive.)

It's not a novel for the ages, and the tie-in to Norse mythology is a bit pat, but this is probably the best Laumer I've ever read, and the one piece that actually made me forget about The Godfather…for a few minutes, anyway.

Four stars.

Back to (un)reality

The first half of this month's Galaxy was certainly a slog, but at least the latter half kept my interest—if only I hadn't started from the end first!  That's a bad habit I may have to overcome.  I just like seeing the number of pages I have to read dwindle, and that gets easier to mark if you read in reverse order!

Anyway, the bottom line is that Pohl's mag will win no awards on the strength of this month's ish, but Puzo's book may very well.  Pick up The Godfather right now…and maybe the Laumer when it's put into book form!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 22, 1969] Good and Bad Trips (March 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Davey Jones has company

This week, the regional news has been filled with the death of a local hero.  Aquanaut Berry L. Cannon, a resident of Sealab III off the coast of La Jolla, died while diving 610 feet to repair a helium leak in his undersea home.

picture of a crewcut man in a diving suit behind a ship's lantern

It wasn't a matter of foul play or (so far as is currently known) an accident.  The 33 year old Cannon, subject to the rigors of a deep dive and 19 times the pressure out of water, simply succumbed to a cardiac arrest.  He was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

The three other divers who had gone with him had no physical troubles.  The repair effort had come shortly after the habitat had been lowered to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean pending long-term habitation by eight aquanauts.  Cannon was a veteran of the second Sealab experiment, back in 1965.

newpaper illustration depicting the cylindrical Sealab III under the water while a supply tanker floats above

We talk a lot about the space program here on the Journey, but it's important to know that humanity is pushing at all the frontiers, from Antarctica to the sea bottom.  And in all such dangerous endeavors, there are tragedies as well as triumphs.  Sacrifice is part of the bargain we make for survival of the species, but it never goes down any easier.  Especially for his wife, Mary Lou, and their three children…

Davy Jones has company

In less tragic news, the latest issue of F&SF is filled with the kind of madcap, surreal adventures you might expect to find on the (sadly cancelled) The Monkees, particularly the first tale:

cover painting showing a lovely bust of a young black woman and a side profile of a young Jewish man
by Ronald Walotsky, illustrating the title story

Calliope and Gherkin and the Yankee Doodle Thing, by Evelyn E. Smith

Like, far out—two Greenwich Village type 17 year-olds, the Jewish "Gherkin" and his Black girlfriend "Calliope" are set up to take the biggest trip of their life.  Like, they don't trip out on acid or pot, but literally are snatched for a jaunt to the stars, where they hook up with some of the sexiest green-furred cats you ever did saw.

Was it all an illusion?  Or were they really summoned beyond the stars for stud duty?  The plot thickens when Calliope begins to show in a motherly way…

This is the first I've seen of Evelyn E. Smith since she was a frequent star of Galaxy in the early '50s.  Her chatty, droll style translates pretty well into the modern day, with her madcap, satirical melange of race relations, drug culture, and extraterrestrial high jinks.  It runs, perhaps, a bit overlong, and also overdense, but it's not unenjoyable.  Welcome back!

Three stars.

Party Night, by Reginald Bretnor

Carce is a scheming woman-user, all veneer and bitterness.  When his multi-year attempts to seduce the woman he wants from her husband fails, he goes on a driving jag that plunges him further and further into a night determined to karmically repay him.  The pay-off is horrific, though appropriate.

Typical Twilight Zone or Hitchcock stuff, but nicely presented.

Four stars.

cartoon of a man in a phone booth looking down in surprise at a discarded Superman costume
by Gahan Wilson

After Enfer, by Philip Latham

A milquetoast of a man, paralyzed by fear, decides (at the urging of his wife) to find a better job than the museum position he's been stuck in for 16 years.  He is recruited to explore the Nth Dimensions with an eye toward opening up tesseractal space for colonization, the world being intensely overcrowded. 

We never get no details of the trip; we just know that no one has ever managed to deal with the terror of 3D+ space before.  Frankly, without that, the story is just sort of frivolous and a let down.

Two stars.

The Leftovers, by Sterling E. Lanier

The latest Brigadier Ffellowes shaggy-dog-story-told-in-a-pub-setting is the least of the three Lanier has written thus far.  This time, it's about a Paleozoic race of sinister, intelligent bipeds that inhabit the southern coast of Arabia, and how the Brigadier and his Sudanese sidekick narrowly escape their pursuit.

Lovecraft was doing such stories better many decades ago.  A low three stars.

An Affair with Genius, by Joseph Green

Valence is a gifted biologist, plodding and methodical.  For twelve years, he has been estranged from Valerie, a volatile genius in the same field, with whom he had shared a brief but remarkable relationshop.  Success tore them apart, as she got the credit for their landmark discovery, and then seemingly abandoned him for a senior professor.

So, when she reappears in his life on the desiccating planet of Tau Ceti 2 where Valence had been researching the colony life forms that eke out a bleak existence, he is shattered, even to the point of contemplating her death.

Fate intervenes in the form of a sudden sand storm, and Valence must save Valerie's life.  In the ensuing moment he comes to the realization that without her, he was nothing–just a persistent technician, while Valerie had all the real talent.

But the truth is more complicated; sometimes, it takes yin and yang to make a complete unit…

This is a beautiful story.  Perhaps I'm just the intended audience, but I loved it.  Five stars.

Just Right, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor offers up, this month, a piece on the square-cube law—explaining why it's not possible to simply shrink or grow the scale of an object and think it will be subject to the same physical laws.  He lambasts the TV show Land of the Giants in the process, as is appropriate.

It's a good article, and the final sentence is hilarious.  Four stars.

The Day the Wind Died, by Peter Tate

An old man squats on his roof, in a senile dream reliving his days as an ace in World War I, planning to soar on artificial wings he has just purchased.  His son Charlie, a harried weatherman, drops a mirror while shaving.  His son notices that the wind around their house has abruptly stopped, and he believes his father caused it.  He tells his friends.

And the plainclothes agents for the Bureau for the Investigation of Weather Incidents takes notice, certain that Charlie has stilled the wind for nefarious purposes—to ensure his father falls to his death when he takes to the sky on his wings.

Is Charlie a wizard?  Who are these agents?  Is this our world at all?

A surreal, rather puzzling story.  I give it three stars.

Benji's Pencil, by Bruce McAllister

Maxwell, an English teacher, wakes from cold sleep two centuries hence only to find the world crammed with people and utterly lacking in color.  But beauty exists as long as poetry is possible, and Maxwell makes sure that his multi-great grandson has the power of simile before the teacher is sent to the euthanasia chamber at age 70.

The story is written in a hopeful tone, but the subtext is entirely cynical.  As usual, McAllister shows promise, but there is still a rawness that holds his work back from greatness.

Three stars.

Coming up for air

A good issue, this, and thankfully, no one had to risk perishing to explore these frontiers.  Then again, perhaps it is prose daydreams like the ones in F&SF that drive men to explore onward.  No coin is without two sides, I suppose.

Here's to future expeditions, both literary and actual, and safe travels to all who undertake them!

back painting showing a green-furred woman in the distance waving
by Ronald Walotsky



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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 20, 1968] Transitory and lasting pleasures (December 1968 F&SF)

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by Gideon Marcus

Beyond FM

Not too long ago, the FM band of the radio was mostly for classical music.  Why waste high fidelity on the raucous rock and pop the kids were listening to?  In the same vein, the big 33rpm LP records were for grown-ups.  That's where you found your jazz, your schmaltz, your classical.  The juvenile stuff was put on disposable 45 singles.

Well, it still is, but of late, really starting in earnest around 1965, a lot of Top 40 ended up on LPs, and since last year, the FM stations are playing psychedelia and fuzz more often than not.  Is classical down for the count?

Not if the Trans-Electronic Music Productions (T-EMP) company has anything to say about it…

From the back cover of Switched-on Bach, the new LP by the Carlos/Folkman combo who make up the T-EMP, one would think it's yet another fusty classical album.  The selections are common, the same kind of thing you've heard a million times before.

But not this way.  the T-EMP has rendered all of the pieces entirely electronically.  Using Moog synthesizers, many of these familiar songs take on an entirely different character.  In some cases, the instrumentation chosen resembles the original harpsichords and flutes and such, and the result is just competent (even a little dry) Bach.  On the other hand, you also have pieces like the Brandenburg Concerto #3, particularly the first movement, which are utterly transformed.  On those pieces in particular, Carlos and Folkman have departed the natural entirely.  With instruments reminiscent of the weird electronic sounds found in the British puppet show Space Patrol, or perhaps the theme of Dr. Who, Baroque becomes by turns cosmic, seductive, and menacing.

Normally, when I listen to classical music, I can imagine the orchestra.  With Switched-on Bach, I imagine I'm in the cool, dark halls of a computer, maybe something like the one in Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream…before it went murderous.  The artificial tones are beautiful, hard-edged, passionate, and perfectly suited to the mathematical rhythms of the King of Köthen.

I'm not the only one who thinks so.  Switched-on Bach is a runaway bestseller, and not with the classical set, but with the youth.  Heading toward the million mark, the Carlos/Folkman team have wrapped the vintage in a computerized cloak, and the kids are eating it up.

Including this one (I'm only 23, just like Carol Burnett).  Buy yourself a copy.  I promise it'll be worth it.

Beyond reality

Unlike Switched-on Bach, the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is unlikely to become an enduring classic, but there are a couple of entries well worth your time.


by Jack Gaughan

Prime-Time Teaser, Bruce McAllister

The last woman on Earth, the freak survivor of a worldwide artificial plague, splits herself into a thousand personas so as to shield herself from the enormity of her reality.  Upon discovering a screenplay her writer persona wrote, she sees, poetically rendered, the loneliness and desperation she's been repressing for three years.  Like the 5D home in Heinlein's And he built a crooked house…, all of her personas collapse into the original, leaving her bleak and alone.

Aside from plausibility issues (Edna survives in a bathysphere—presumably every submariner in the world is still alive, too), there are pacing issues.  The story moves along until we get to the screenplay, which is several pages of an increasingly sunburned turtle plodding up a beach while a building makes passes at her.

Basically, cut-rate Ballard, the type we've seen in New Worlds for the past five years.  We keep saying the same thing: Bruce has potential.  Bruce writes pretty well for someone so young.  Bruce has yet to write something we really like.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The House of Evil, Charles L. Grant

Written in quasi-archaic style, this is the would-be-droll story of a writer who is conned, by a lithe woman and her coffin-dwelling uncle, to have a brush with the unnatural that leaves him Undead.

These pastiche stories require a deft touch that Grant doesn't have.  Particularly when he has his character pour rather than pore over documents ("pour what?" I always wonder).

Two stars.

The Indelible Kind, Zenna Henderson

The stories of The People continue, this time detailing the encounter between a teacher at a tiny school in the Southwest and a precocious but illiterate young telepath.  When the fourth-grader begins picking up the distressed thoughts of a cosmonaut stranded in orbit, the teacher gets involved in a rescue operation that is out of this world.

This tale is a strange mix of the familiar and the unusual.  We've now had more than a dozen The People stories that involve the interactions of normal humans with the alien (but human) psioinic exiles, refugees from their own exploded planet.  In some ways, I feel that well has been mined out.  The telling is different, this time.  Instead of the pensive, dreamy mode that Henderson employs, the story has a breathless quality that reminds me of the fanfiction I read in the various trekzines coming out—that sort of, "Golly!  I'm on the Enterprise with Mr. Spock!"

It's not bad, just weird, and not up to the standards of Henderson's better work.  Plus, I find it strange how brazenly The People are displaying their powers these days.  Surely, that should have follow-on consequences.

Three stars.

Miss Van Winkle, Stephen Barr

A girl sleeps from birth until she is 19, then awakes—beautiful, articulate (though not literate), and devoid of superego.  She is unhappy until she meets Walkly, who loves her for the societal outcast she quickly becomes.

I am not sure if this story is supposed to be a satire on artificial social conventions or just cute.  Either way, it's a bit clunky and wholly insubstantial.  Morever, it twice tries to make clever use of the girl's surname(s), but because the author introduces them late, the reader is never let in on the joke.  It'd be as if, on the last page of the mystery, Poirot pulled the heretofore unknown murder weapon out of his pocket and used it to solve the case.

Two stars.

A Report on the Migrations of Educational Materials, John Sladek

Every book in the world, starting with the oldest, most neglected, and ending with even the most modest of volumes, begins to wing its way toward the Amazon.  That's pretty much the story.

Sladek writes well, and he writes this well, but there's not much there to this there.

Three stars, I suppose.

The Worm Shamir, Leonard Tushnet

The best science fiction incorporates real science, allies it with human interest, and makes clever predictions regarding the application of a new discovery.  This story does all of these things admirably.

Professor Zvi Ben-Ari of Israel's Rehovoth research center is hot on a Biblically inspired trail.  He is convinced that the legend of King Solomon's "Shamir", a worm used to shape rocks for use in an altar, has a kernel of truth.  But what truth could it be?  And if such truth exists, and it could be used for war, what then?

A thoughtful, atmospheric, humorous piece.  Perhaps, as an Israeli, I am biased (or, shall we say, the target audience), but I quite enjoyed it.

Five stars.

Lost, Dorothy Gilbert

Poetry: an alien pilot, scouring the Earth for some kind of Arcadia, finds instead the fleecy flocks of Scottish Skye.

It didn't move me.  Two stars.

View from Amalthea, Isaac Asimov

Inspired by a scene from the movie 2001, the Good Doctor's piece this month is about how the four big "Galilean" moons of Jupiter might look to an observer on the innermost satellite, Mimas.  He details their size and brightness.  As a bonus section, he talks about how the many moons of Saturn would look from the innermost satellite, Janus.

He never quite comes around to confirming that the shot of Jovian moons in the movie was plausible, nor does he explain that a moon one hundredth as bright as our Moon is still 100 times brighter than Venus (though that brightness is spread over a large disk, so it would look dim to our eyes).  I chalk up those omissions to space concerns.  As is, it's a handy article for those who don't want to have to do the math every time.

Five stars.

Gadget Man, Ron Goulart

Satirist/thriller-writer Ron Goulart offers up an "if this goes on" adventure set in The Republic of Southern California some time around the turn of the next century.  Hecker, an agent of the Social Work division of the police force is tasked to make contact with Jane Kendry, head of the left-wing insurgency, and find out if she's responsible for all the riots breaking out, even among the $100,000 houses and manicured lawns of affluent Orange County.

Along the way, he runs into hippie beach bums, an erstwhile Vice President and his Secretary of Defense, running a sort of revival (continuation?) of the arch-conservative John Birch Society, and finally, The Gadget Man himself, who runs the wheels within the wheels.

In tone, it's more grounded than Bob Sheckley's whimsy, more silly than Mack Reynolds' stuff.  It's eminently readable, occasionally smile-inducing, suitably riproaring, and utterly forgettable.

Three stars.

Compare and contrast

In the end, Carlos and Folkman provide a shorter-length but replayable and consistent pleasure.  F&SF this month is, for the most part, forgettable—but it takes longer to get through, and the nuggets of gold shine brightly.

Both have earned permanent places on my shelves, and I guess that's all one can ask for.  And here, what's this?  The back of F&SF has something most interesting.  We'll have to try that out, too, won't we?




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 20, 1968] Missed opportunities (April 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

A week is a long time in politics

The British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is fond of noting that a lot can change in just seven days.  In American politics, the last seven days have witnessed a lifetime of tumult.

It was just last year that President Johnson was polling in the 70s.  When Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, stand-offish, brainy, tepid in his commitment, took to the field last November, few took his insurgent, Anti-Vietnam-War campaign seriously.  Least of all, President Johnson, who did not even apply to be on the ballot in New Hampshire's primary, scheduled for March 12.

Then the Tet Offensive happened, giving lie to the idea of slow but steady progress in Southeast Asia.  The Credibility Gap between the populace and the President became a canyon, and when the dust had settled, Senator McCarthy had garnered just 230 votes less than LBJ in the year's first Democratic primary.

Just a few days latter, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had last year demurred from running, referring anti-war supplicants in McCarthy's direction, decided to throw his hat in the ring.  The Democratic insurgency has become a full-on party civil war.

Johnson's complacence reminds me of Georges Ernest Boulanger, who in January 1889 was elected deputy for Paris and seemed on the verge of leading a personal coup against the Third Republic.  But on the fateful day of January 27, when the crowds roamed the streets and chanted his name, the would-be despot was nowhere to be found.  Turned out he had missed his moment, lost in the arms of his mistress rather than under arms with his supporters.

Who knows where all this is headed?  It just goes to show that even the most promising candidate can fail for lack of sufficient focus on the goal.  And this leads me into discussion of this month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


by Bert Tanner

Burned batch

Have you ever been careless in the kitchen, not so much as to ruin dinner, but to render it far less palatable than it could have been?  All of the stories this month are missing something.  Their imperfection lies in missing some quality, or in some cases, an overcooking of sorts.  The result is a handful of ideas that could have been good in others' hands, or perhaps with more expert editing, or more time and care in production.

Flight of Fancy, by Daniel F. Galouye

After a long hiatus, the author of the brilliant Dark Universe returns to the pages of science fiction with this, probably the best piece of the issue.

Frank Proctor is an ad man, miserable in his career and his life, shackled to a beautiful woman who insists on tormenting him with affair after affair.  But he stubbornly refuses to divorce her, knowing it means financial ruin.  His only solace is his recurrent dreams in which he has the ability to fly.  He knows it is a stress reaction, but at least it is a moment's surcease.

A greater balm arises: at a company beach party, Frank falls asleep by the shore and immediately begins to soar in his dream.  While apparently still in slumber, he meets a lovely young lady, who also possesses the ability to fly.  Happily, she is still there when he wakes, and he assumes he must have been sleeping with his eyes open for her to infiltrate his sleep.

Of course, romance is inevitable.  But what of his Frank's scheming wife, and will the pictures she took of him and his new love put him over a barrel?  The ending is ultimately a happy one, if a bit pat.

This is a well-crafted and vivid story.  My only real issue is it feels a bit like wish-fulfillment, and I have to wonder if Galouye just went through a messy divorce.

Four stars.

Dead to Rights, by R. C. FitzPatrick

Crime boss Angelo Amadeo is rubbed out by his second.  When the instrument of Angelo's death turns stoolie, the second's devotees enlist a surgeon to recall Angelo to life, reasoning that if Angelo is not dead anymore, then he never could have been murdered.

The problem is, Angelo's body is brought back to life, but the soul inside is most definitely not his.  Instead, the reborn inhabitant preaches love of fellow man and everlasting life in the adoration of God.

You can see where this is going.

Too much effort is made to make this a "funny" piece, and the conclusion is obvious from the start.  Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Without a Doubt Dream, by Bruce McAllister

Antonio and his lovely wife, Alba, wake up one day to find their pine-ensconced villa suddenly surrounded by endless desert.  Worse, the insinuating sands are slowly creeping in, destroying all that they touch.  Antonio reasons that only his psychic ability is shielding them, but his doubt in the same talent is causing him to lose the battle.

McAllister describes this all in an earnest, somber tone, and he successfully captures the feeling of a pair of foreign protagonists.  However, the piece ends rather abruptly, and without a great deal of evolution of the story.  Moreover, the tone is a bit too one-dimensional.

Thus, for this third piece by this promising, 19-year old author, I give three stars.

Demon, by Larry Brody

Pinchok, a simple blue-collar worker who happens to be the denizen of another plane, is summoned to Earth in a pentagram by a would-be three-wisher.  When Pinchok turns out to be rather useless as a genie, the summoner decides maybe Pinchok should devote his talents to crime…for the benefit of the human, of course.

The concept of demons just being aliens in another dimension, and the art of demonology more a kind of kidnapping (with the implication that it might work the other direction, too, with humans becoming the demons) is an intriguing premise.

This tale, while pleasant enough, just doesn't do enough with it, however.  Three stars.

The Superior Sex, by Miriam Allen deFord

William, an astronaut, finds himself the newest member of an all-male harem, subject to an imperious and beautiful mistress.  He cannot recall how he got there, but he can recall being from a world dedicated to the principle (if not the assiduous practice) of equality between the sexes.  Thus, he rankles at his new role, and in an interview with his mistress, exclaims that he would rather die than live subjugated.

Of course, the truth of his situation is more complex than it first seems.

This is almost a great story.  DeFord, an ardent women's libber before the phrase was coined, has a promising message in this piece that is then muddled by its ending.  Too bad.

Three stars.

The Time of His Life, by Larry Eisenberg

One of science fiction's few writer/scientists offers up this tale of a middle-aged scientist resentful of forever being in the shadow of his Nobel-winning father, who covets his son's wastrel youth.  Said elder has now invented a kind of time travel, but it ages or youthens the traveler rather than sending him elsewhen.  In the end, both father and son get what they want.

A decent Twilight Zone-esque piece.  Three stars.

The Dance of the Sun, by Isaac Asimov

This month, the good Doctor discusses the phases of the inner planets with respect to the Earth.  He also notes that Dr. Richardson had done a similar piece for Analog a few months back.  Frankly, I was more impressed with Richardson's; I found Asimov's dry and difficult to follow.  And astronomy was my major!

Two stars.

Muscadine, by Ron Goulart

Mr. Muscadine is an android programmed to produce great books.  The secret to his success is the idiosyncrasies fundamentally coded into his electronic brain.  But as his eccentricities spin out of control, his agent finds himself conspiring with the android's programmer toward a drastic solution.

Goulart can write well, and he can also write funny.  He does neither here.  Two stars.

Final War, by K. M. O'Donnell

Finally, an anti-war piece in the vein of Heller's Catch 22.  It features a Private Hastings, a war-addled First Sergeant, and an indecisive Captain, whose unit spends three days a week capturing a forest, three days a week being driven from the forest, and Mondays resting.  What follows is the usual silliness of war, including friendly fire, endless red tape, and general insanity.

Harrison did it MUCH better in his Starsloggers.  This one meanders for way too long in a singular vein.  Two stars.

Expected results

With a limp offering like this, it's no surprise that this issue ends up on the wrong side of three stars.  It's a shame.  Joe/Ed Ferman's mag is often one of the frontrunners in the field.  But with a month like this, I suspect Mercury Publishing is going to have an upset when compared against its competitors for April 1968.

Luckily, science fiction is an endless primary, and a month is a very very long time.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 2, 1967] Different perspectives (February 1967 IF)

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by David Levinson

We all know the adage about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Trying to see the world through others’ eyes is a good way to understand them, and that can help ease tensions and make it easier to find compromises. Of course, it’s also possible to come up with some pretty ridiculous ideas about the way other people think.

Failures of diplomacy

At the end of 1965, I wrote about the troubles in the British colony of Rhodesia. The white minority government refuses to consider the idea of granting equal rights or a role in government to Black Rhodesians. Early in December, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Rhodesian Prime minister Ian Smith, and ousted Rhodesian Governor General Humphrey Gibbs met aboard the HMS Tiger to try to hash out a solution. Smith left with a proposal he seemed willing to accept, but rejected it out of hand as soon as he returned to Salisbury. In response on December 16th, the United Nations Security Council approved an oil embargo and economic sanctions against Rhodesia 11-0, with France, the Soviet Union, Mali and Bulgaria abstaining. Four days later, Wilson withdrew all offers and announced that the United Kingdom would only accept a Black majority government. On the 22nd, as the trade ban was about to go into effect, Smith declared that the U. N. had forced Rhodesia out of British control and out of the British Commonwealth, making the country an independent republic by default.

Bechuanaland to Rhodesia's south may have peacefully become Botswana last year, but it seems that most of southern Africa is ready to go up in flames. While dealing with the condemnation of the rest of the world, the Smith government is also fighting two Black nationalist movements. Meanwhile, armed resistance is developing against South Africa’s illegal control of South West Africa, and armed independence movements are appearing in the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique (formerly Portuguese West and East Africa respectively). If any of these embers becomes a conflagration, it’s hard to see how this won’t also spill over into South Africa as well.


Wilson returns with what looked like an acceptable deal, but Smith swiftly vetoed it.

Through alien eyes

John Campbell supposedly said he wanted someone to write an alien that “thinks as well as a man, but not like a man.” At least one author in this month’s IF makes a pretty good attempt at doing so. Others at least offer characters trying to understand how aliens (and in one case a door) think.


At least they aren’t even pretending this illustrates something in the magazine. Art by Wenzel

The Soft Weapon, by Larry Niven

A dozen years after the discovery that the galactic core is exploding, the mad (not because of his manic-depression, but because he’s courageous) puppeteer Nessus has hired Jason and Anne-Marie Papandreou, who operate the passenger ship Court Jester, to take him to see the Outsiders in deep space. While concluding his unspecified business, Nessus has also purchased a stasis box, an item potentially containing a piece of technology from the long-gone Slaver empire. On the way back, Jay decides to make a detour to Beta Lyrae, hoping the sight will snap Nessus out of his funk.

There, they fall into the clutches of the kzinti Chuft-Captain and the crew of the Traitor’s Claw. Among other things, the box proves to contain a strange device which can change its shape. Some of the settings include a rocket booster and a talking computer, but the device also seems capable of converting matter to usable energy with perfect efficiency. It’s up to Jay to use what he thinks the device is in order to escape with his wife and client and keep a dangerous technology from winding up in the hands of kzinti.


Jay discovers a hidden setting. Art by Gaughan

Niven has given us insight into the kzinti mind before and goes into greater detail here. We also get his speculation on what might be valued in a society of sentients descended from herbivores. The action is done fairly well, we have a female character who isn’t just motivation for the protagonist, and the story flows quite well. This might be the best thing Niven has written yet.

A high four stars.

Gods of Dark and Light, by Bruce McAllister

Gregory Shawn is a member of a religious movement which has come to V-Planet-14 to live according to their own rules. Things aren’t going well. Most of the story consists of Gregory’s prayers as the harsh conditions test and shape the group’s faith. These are interspersed with the prayers of one of the native life forms.

There isn’t much to say about this one. I think McAllister has something he’s trying to say, but it’s not entirely clear. The whole thing is very dark.

Two stars.

Forest in the Sky, by Keith Laumer

The Terran Mission to the planet Zoon is having trouble finding the natives. It turns out the Groaci have beaten the CDT to the punch, though they aren’t doing any better. Once again, it’s Retief to the rescue.


The Terran Mission sets off to look for the local government. Art by Castellon

I noted back in October that Laumer seemed to be having fun with Retief again. That still seems to be the case, but while this is more than just going through the motions, it’s still the same old formula. If you’re new to Retief, this is probably a lot of fun. Otherwise it’s palatable, but more of the same.

A low three stars.

The Fan Awards, by Lin Carter

This month, Our Man in Fandom takes a look at the Hugos. Carter traces the development of the award and tells us a bit about who Hugo was. Next month, he promises to talk about some of the Hugo winners and to look at the new Nebula Awards from the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Three stars.

The Iron Thorn (Part 2 of 4), by Algis Budrys

Hunting his first Amsir, Honor White Jackson learns that his prey is an intelligent being with better technology than his own people have. Eventually, he decides to defect to the Amsir and is taken to their home, a deep bowl filled with dense air and greenery. A vision of his people’s paradise. But paradise it is not. The food of the Amsir is poisonous to humans, and Jackson faces death by starvation. His only hope is to find a way into the Thorn Thing, a short metal tower with a locked door at the top of a ladder. The door instantly destroys any Amsir attempting to go through it after issuing a warning in an unknown language. The only one who can get close is Ahmuls, who is deformed in such a way that he resembles humans more than he does Amsir. If the door likes humans, then presumably there’s something Jackson can eat on the other side. As this installment ends, Jackson convinces the door to open and dives through, followed by Ahmuls and the spears of the Amsir.

To be continued.


Jackson enters the Thorn Thing. Art by Gray Morrow

This story certainly moves fast. Nothing feels as rushed as it did in the first part, but Budrys isn’t wasting any time. I have some suspicions about what’s going on. Much of that will probably be resolved next month, though I have no idea how it will all be wound up.

Three stars.

Confession, by Robert Ray

Father Hume sits on his veranda, waiting for the oppressive heat of an Australian afternoon in the back of beyond to dissipate. He closes his eyes for a moment, but must have nodded off, since there is suddenly a stranger in his back garden. A stranger who would like the Father to hear his confession, but can’t wait until church tomorrow. What Father Hume hears will change his life and, hopefully, the world.

On first reading, this seemed like the sort of story you read, don’t mind and then forget. As I’ve thought about it, though, some other aspects have occurred to me. I can’t really say anything without giving the whole story away and ruining its impact, but it’s a little better than I first credited it.

A solid three stars.

The Evil Ones, by Richard Wilson

Wally Hengsen beat a murder charge with an insanity plea. Now, he’s biding his time until his organization can bust him out. When an alien spaceship lands on the grounds of the rest home, he starts looking for an angle to play, but a reminder of events in New Guinea during the War sets him on a different path.


Hengsen wonders if he really does belong in an asylum. Art by Vaughn Bodé

This is a decent story. It sags in a couple of places, and Hengsen’s change of heart relies so much on a flashback that it feels a little out of place. On the other hand, it does finish strongly, which is probably enough.

Three stars.

The Dangers of Deepspace, by Mather H. Walker

A colonel of the Deepspace service is interviewing a volunteer and seems to be doing his best to discourage the young man from signing up.

Here we have this month’s first-time author. The whole thing is very obvious, doesn’t entirely make sense and isn’t worth your time. The nicest thing I can say is that the prose is serviceable.

Barely two stars.

A Beachhead for Gree, by C. C. MacApp

Steve Duke and friends go behind enemy lines. They make contact with the locals, use a ruse to infiltrate an enemy base and thwart Gree’s plans.


This time the locals are humanoids who can build wings for themselves. Art by Burns.

I’m going to make several carbons of that summary and whenever a Gree story appears, I’ll just cut one out and paste it into my manuscript. Will this interminable series never end?

Two stars.

Summing up

No matter how you look at it, this month’s IF is par for the course. One really good story, some decent stuff and some junk. And as good as it’s been so far, the serial needs to start paying off next month. At least we have the special Hugo edition to look forward to next month. The authors are good, but will they offer up their best stuff?


No mention of Frank Herbert this time. Hmmmm.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[July 2, 1965] Gallimaufry (August 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

A gallimaufry is a kind of stew. Like any stew, it’s composed of a bunch of things thrown together and so has also come to mean any sort of hodge-podge. Since I haven’t been able to come up with some sort of overarching theme this month (and perhaps because, as I write this, I skipped lunch and it’s a couple of hours until dinner), let’s just look at the mish-mash of things that caught my eye (and ear) this month.

The British Invasion continues

On June 12th, the Beatles were named Members of the British Empire. That’s the lowest level of honor granted by the British government, but unsurprisingly a lot of old fuddy-duddies are unhappy with popular musicians being so honored. Member of the Canadian House of Commons Hector Dupuis complained, “British royalty has put me on the same level as a bunch of vulgar numbskulls.” According to my research, apart from seven and a half years in the Canadian Parliament, Mr. Dupuis’ main contribution to society is selling insurance. I’m not sure he’s the one who ought to be complaining about the comparison.


James P. McCartney, George Harrison, John W. Lennon and Richard Starkey showing their medals. You didn’t think his parents named him Ringo, did you?

Sticking with music for the moment, lately I’ve really been enjoying For Your Love by the Yardbirds. It’s a catchy little number that’s been moving up the charts the last few weeks and unusually features a harpsichord. The band took over as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England when the Rolling Stones went on to bigger things and then acted as the backing band for Sonny Boy Williamson when he toured Great Britain in early 1964. They’ve had a bit of airplay with some old blues numbers, but this is their first real hit. Alas, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. One of their guitarists, a young man by the name of Eric Clapton, has left the band, unhappy with the move to a more commercial sound. He’s since been replaced by Jeff Beck. Let’s hope that Mr. Clapton is content with the relative obscurity of the blues scene.

The Miracles of Technology

On June 14th, a test planned by American and French doctors and communications experts sent an electrocardiogram from a ship at sea to a hospital in France. The ECG was taken from a passenger aboard the SS France in the Atlantic Ocean and transmitted via facsimile machine first to Cornell University hospital, then RCA Communications, Intelsat, D'Liaisons Radiotelephotographiques de France and then to Boucicaut Hospital in Paris. The image that arrived in France was clear enough for doctors to use for diagnosis. Look for this technique to be used in earnest in the future.


Facsimile technology has been used in meteorology for several years. Its use in remote diagnostic medicine shows promise.

Eppur si muove

The British journal Nature dated June 19th included a paper by astronomers Gordon Pettengill and Rolf Dyce titled "A Radar Determination of the Rotation of the Planet Mercury". They have determined that the planet Mercury is not tidally locked to the sun, but rather has a rotation period of approximately 59 days. That means a day on Mercury is about two-thirds as long as its year. Bad news for Larry Niven, whose very first story, “The Coldest Place”, hinged on the planet always showing the same face to the sun, but those are the breaks in the science fiction game.

An IFfy stew

Speaking of science fiction (and the magazine Niven first appeared in) what is Fred Pohl putting on our plate in this month’s IF? Let’s take a look at the ingredients.


Retief makes his way across town. Art by Gaughan

Trick or Treaty, by Keith Laumer

Things are looking grim for the Terran cause on the planet Gaspierre. The planetary parliament is set to decide if they’re going to be neutral, on the side of the Terries, or support the warlike Krultch, and the presence of a Krultch warship heavily outweighs that of the CDT mission under Ambassador Sheepshorn. Anti-Terry riots are blowing up all over, and Krultch soldiers walk the streets with impunity.

We open with Retief using his usual good relations with the locals to get lodgings for a troupe of Terran entertainers (if four people can be said to constitute a troupe). On his way back to the embassy, Retief cripples a couple of Krultch soldiers (they did start it) and learns from the local police that the Terrans are confined to their embassy until the ambassador is due to make his speech to parliament. After a brief consultation with the ambassador, Retief escapes the embassy, makes his way across town and enlists the aid of the entertainers in tossing a monkey wrench in the Krultch plans. Will he succeed in tipping the balance in Earth’s favor? Of course, the only question is how. Will he win the favors of the lovely, red-headed acrobat with the tattoo? Unusually, no, or at least not on the page.


The Krultch captain gets the drop on Retief. Right where Retief wants him. Art by Gaughan

I’m on record as a fan of Retief, but even I have to admit that things are getting a little stale. To carry on with the stew analogy, this is an onion that’s gone a little spongy or a rubbery carrot. The means by which Retief and friends take the wind from the Krultch’s sails are deeply improbable, bordering on the ridiculous. On the plus side, Ambassador Sheepshorn is one of the best names Laumer has come up with in ages. Is that Sheeps-horn or Sheep-shorn? I suspect that the ambassador and the author have very different opinions on that. In any case, long-time readers of the series will likely find this one a bit dull, though newcomers might enjoy it more. However, it’s not the best entry point for the series. A low three stars.

Against the Odds, by John Brunner

On the planet Galrex, an apparent crank is making a scene outside the office of the Superintendent of Galactic Records, warning that the human race is in danger. Superintendent Motice Bain emerges from his office and agrees to listen to the man’s concerns.

Falkirk, as his name proves to be, once planned to make a career in archaeology studying the vanished civilization of the planet Gorgon. The story goes that the natives of Gorgon had learned to manipulate luck and ultimately bored themselves to death. The planet was originally found three or four hundred years earlier by one of the pioneering starscouts, Morgan Wade, who supposedly figured out the lost secret and ultimately became extremely wealthy. Eight or nine years before the time of the story and before Falkirk could go to Gorgon and begin digging, a starship made an emergency landing on the planet. It took several weeks for a needed spare part to arrive, but once the ship was repaired the crew managed to destroy all that was left of the ancient civilization when taking off. Now every member of that crew is the ruler of a planet. Falkirk is convinced that these ten men are going to take over the galaxy.

Using the example of the birthday problem, which shows that it takes a remarkably small number of people to ensure that two members of the group share a birthday, Bain points out to Falkirk that in a galaxy of two trillion people, it isn’t that unlikely for ten of them to become important. After a despondent Falkirk leaves, Bain gets down to business.

There’s a twist at the end of this tale that anybody who has been reading science fiction for more than a handful of years can see coming. It’s a reasonably well told story, but a far cry from the more modern sort of stories that Brunner is capable of writing. Apparently, IF is where he sends his more old-fashioned work. It’s not bad, it’s just not anything special. Three stars.

We Hunters of Men, by Bruce McAllister

Edmond Reud is out hunting scalps when he is attacked by another hunter. He kills the attacker and takes the other man’s scalp. Ignoring the “mind-prickling” that urges him to go toward the Minced Mountain, which touches the ocher-colored sky, he returns to the underground city to exchange his scalps for pellets. Eventually, he reaches the Minced Mountain and meets an old man trapped there by a broken leg. Without pellets, the old man has had his long-term memory return. Together, they solve the mystery of the “mind-prickling”.

Interspersed throughout this are naval communiques between a ship orbiting the planet Tinni and Base Roquefort. It seems that Tinni was one of twelve planets beset by the Judicians, who managed to close the planet in a charge field when they lost the war. The navy believes that the Judicans’ weapons were destroyed, but because they are physically weak they must have found some way to control the human population. They did manage to get a device through the field which will home in on charge field generators and send out cortex wave emissions to get humans to come and tinker with the generators.


The scalper scalped. Art by Giunta

This is McAllister’s second story, and it’s not very good. Clearly the pellets affect memory and are addictive, giving the Judicians a way to get the humans to kill each other, but I fail to see how the system was originally imposed. Further the tonal shift between the two narratives is rather jarring. That on the planet is somewhat grim and rather fitting to the circumstances, while the naval communiques are rather light and a bit jokey. On the other hand, McAllister is only 18 and does show some raw talent. If he spends some time working at his craft and honing his skills he could be a decent writer down the line. But this story? Two stars.

The Crater, by J. M. McFadden

Insurance investigator Johnny Andrews appears to be on vacation in Hawaii. Actually, he’s on the trail of a group that has hijacked two shipments of irillium somewhere between the asteroids (at a guess, it’s never specified) and landing at the docks in North Africa. Waikiki is a good spot to observe the ships entering parking orbit and firing their retrorockets for landing. He figures he’s on the right track, since a couple of suspicious characters have started watching him.

After observing the next hijacking from out beyond the surf line, he manages to get pictures of the two goons, but they grab him before he can contact his home office. He’s bundled into an interisland subway and taken to Wailuku, the main city on the rather rural island of Maui. Johnny escapes and takes refuge in Fenner’s Grill, the best Mexican restaurant in the islands run by a fellow of Chinese extraction who goes by the name Manuel. From Manuel (who is seemingly related to everyone on the island), Johnny learns of the mysterious group which has taken over the ranch in Haleakala crater. With Manuel’s help, he infiltrates the ranch and sets out to thwart the hijackers for good.


Manuel and Johnny discover some really high tech cattle ranching. Art by Nodel

McFadden is this month’s first-time author. According to Fred Pohl, he’s a former naval officer and has already sold another story to IF. Beginning authors are often advised “Write what you know.” I’d bet that McFadden spent a fair amount of time stationed in Hawaii and was likely a radar officer. Anyway, this one was a rather fun adventure tale with a good dose of humor. Maybe a bit of Keith Laumer influence here. Also Manuel is a great sidekick who feels like a real islander without being an offensive stereotype. Three stars.

Patron of the Arts, by Fred Saberhagen

As the Berserker fleet closed in on Sol, the artistic treasures of Earth were loaded aboard the museum ship Franz Hals to be carried to safety at Tau Epsilon. Aboard are a two man crew and famous artist Piers Herron, a man who has lost all interest in living and with it his ability to create. The ship is captured by a Berserker and the crew killed, but Herron is kept alive for observation. He attempts to paint the Berserker and he and the Berserker, using one of its smaller remote units, discuss the meaning of art on the basis of Titian’s Man with a Glove.

Herron tries to capture his captor, while the subject looks on. Art by Gaughan

I mentioned above that Retief is getting stale. Saberhagen has certainly avoided that problem in his Berserker series. Each of the stories has been very different, even when the settings have been similar, such as one or more people being held captive by the great killing machines. That’s most likely because these stories are really about people. In the hands of many other authors, this series would be one massive space battle after another, while with Saberhagen the one story that actually was about a space battle had a tight focus on some of the people involved.

This is an ambitious story, and while that ambition carries it a long way, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. There’s a subplot about a stowaway that really doesn’t work. If Roger Zelazny wrote a Berserker story, this might well be it, and he might have gotten all the way to where Saberhagen was trying to take it. A high three stars, and I mourn what could have given it that fourth.

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 3 of 5), by E. E. Smith

As DuQuesne watches, Dick Seaton launches a brutal counterattack against the mysterious force that struck at the end of the last episode. The Skylark of Valeron, grievously damaged, beats a hasty retreat, and DuQuesne slinks away toward Earth. Seaton has identified their attackers as Chlorans, the bad guys from the last book. Apparently, intelligent life which develops on any Earthlike (or Tellus-type, as Smith would have it) world will be human. They might be green or squat and hairless, but still human. Any intelligent life that develops on a world with a chlorine atmosphere will be Chlorans, and so on. Look, if you shout at every bit of nonsense science in this thing, you’ll lose your voice and probably frighten your neighbors. Just go with it.


The Skylark of Valeron takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Art by Gray Morrow

Seaton hatches a plan to find an enslaved human world in the Chloran controlled galaxy and find or create a resistance. That will give the Skylarkers a base of operations to fight the Chlorans. Naturally, all of the men volunteer to be the one to go down and carry out the plan while all of their wives object. They leave the choice of the best person to the ship’s Brain. It, of course, chooses Seaton. He goes down to the planet chosen by the Brain, meets the resistance, turns them into an effective fighting force and snatches the planet from the clutches of those humans who willingly serve their Chloran masters.

Meanwhile, DuQuesne returns to Earth and looks up Stephanie “Hunkie” de Marigny, brilliant scientist and the one woman who can come close to piercing the armor of cynicism and disdain he’s wrapped himself in. While his agents buy up all the materials he needs to build his own Valeron, Blackie and Hunkie go on a date (Dutch at her insistence). Afterwards, he hotfoots it off to the opposite side of the universe from the Chloran galaxy, finds an uninhabited Earthlike world and, using the plans he got from Seaton, builds his new ship, which he dubs the DQ.


Dick Seaton settles a labor dispute with his foreman. Art by Gray Morrow

Although the “wherefores” continue to fly, this installment is a small step up from last month. In fact, the stuff involving Seaton setting up his resistance movement actually isn’t all that bad. Of course, Smith crams a novel’s worth (or at least a novella’s) of material into 15 or 20 pages. DuQuesne also moves back toward being a slightly more complex villain than he was last time. Two stars.

Summing Up

So, what does the dish that Fred Pohl has given us look like overall? A couple of ingredients that aren’t as fresh as they might be, but are still acceptable; a couple of tasty morsels, not quite gourmet but good; one that’s not very good, but under normal circumstances would be drowned out by the other ingredients; and then there’s the giant lump of meat that’s really gone off at the end. Outside of Skylark, there does seem to be a slight uptick in quality over the way things have been over the last year or so. That or Skylark is making the rest of the stuff look good by comparison.

Every cloud, so they say, has a silver lining. Skylark has been a big black cloud lowering over IF for a while and will continue to do so for a couple of months. The demands it has made on space (originally intended to be just three installments) has made the editorial team take a look at some of their production procedures. Starting next month IF will have 32 more pages in every issue. Fred says that’s enough for two more novelettes, four or five short stories, a complete short novel, or an extra serial installment. Best of all, the price is staying at 50¢. Five months of Doc Smith is a heavy price to pay, and 32 pages isn’t going to make up for Amazing and Fantastic going bimonthly and running more reprints, but it’s a step in the right direction.




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Magazine

[June 4, 1963] Booked passage (July 1963 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

How quickly the futuristic becomes commonplace.  Just two years ago, I marveled about how fast one can cross the oceans by jet.  Now, on the eve of another trip to Japan (we really have joined the Jet Set, haven't we?) I look at the flight itinerary and grumble.  Why must we stop in Hawaii?  That adds several hours to the trip — it'll take more than half a day to get from LAX to Haneda.

Spoiled rotten, I tell you.

Speaking of travel stories, a fresh crop of science fiction digests has hit my mailbox.  Many of them will be joining me on my trip to the Orient, but I finished one of them, the July 1963 IF, pre-flight.  All of them feature some element of star-hopping, and so this issue sets a fine mood as we embark on our latest journey:

That Notebook Again, by Theodore Sturgeon

I find it interesting that editor Fred Pohl has gotten Ted Sturgeon to write his editorials for him.  I'm not complaining — it's always nice to see Sturgeon in print in any capacity.  This time around, he treats us to a number of technological proposals, a wishlist of inventions that should be right around the corner, given a little interest and effort.  I found his idea for a home TV-tape camera and player particularly titilating (and not farfetched — my nephew already audio-tapes television shows onto reel-to-reel).

The Reefs of Space (Part 1 of 3), by Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl

A good third of the issue is given to a new serial (illustrated on the cover — EMSH is big in this issue, though I also like the work of Nodel, who is new to me).  Hundreds of years from now, Earth's population is highly regimented, its economy utterly socialized, under the authority of The Machine and its master Plan.  Dissent is punished by incarceration and the forced wearing of an explosive ring around one's neck.  Further disobedience results in one's "salvage" (dissasembly into component body parts for the use of others). 

Steve Ryeland is an experimental physicist, a touchy job to have when scientific advancement poses both boon and risk for the Plan.  At Reef's beginning, he has been a prisoner for three years, unaware of his crime, but consistently questioned about "spacelings," "fusorians," "reefs of space," and "jetless drive" — terms about which he knows nothing.  Adding to his confusion is a three-day gap in his memory.

And then comes the urgent summons — the Machine will have Ryeland discover the secret of the reactionless drive, and soon, or be sent to the Body Banks.  For at the edge of the solar system lies a biological construct, the tremendous analog of a coral reef created by organisms that live on interstellar hydrogen.  Not only does this alien structure pose a hypothetical threat to the Plan, but it affords sanctuary to a more existential opponent — the revolutionary-in-exile, Donderevo.  Can Ryeland accomplish his mission in time to save his hide and human society?  Is such a goal even worth fighting for?

It's an interesting concept for a novel, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired.  It suffers from the same plodding repetitiveness as Simak's concurrent serial in Galaxy, but betrays none of Simak's literary expertise.  The writing is simple, uninspired, and the scientific concepts (including Hoyle's steady-state theory, which I find uncompelling) feel dated.  Two stars, but with cautious hopes for the next installment.

The Faces Outside, by Bruce McAllister

Here is a short tale of a married couple, the last of humanity, mutated to live in a large alien aquarium with a host of other terrestrial life forms.  The Terrans have the last laugh when the male of the pair develops psychic powers and compels the aliens to commit mass suicide.

McAllister is the first and weaker of the two new authors featured in this issue.  His writing shows potential, though.  Two stars, trying hard for three.

Mightiest Qorn, by Keith Laumer

Another IF, another Retief story.  This time, the omnipotent but much-suffering Terran agent is tapped to investigate the sudden reappearance of the fearsome Qorn, a race of dreadnought-wielding, glory-seeking warriors who appear to have the power of teleportation.

Unfortunately, the Retief shtick is starting to wear thin (arguably, it raveled a while ago), and it's really time Laumer focused his attention to the more worthy efforts we know he's capable of.  The bright spot is that Retief's nominal boss, Magnan, is now pretty game to do whatever his "underling" says.  Some might call that progress.  Two stars.

In the Arena, by Brian W. Aldiss

Given up?  Take heart — it's all better from here.  Prominent British writer, Aldiss, gives us another man-and-woman pair in the thrall of aliens.  In this case, it is two gladiators performing for a race of insectoids who have conquered the Earth (but not all of humanity).  Call it Spartacus for the 30th Century.  It's a nicely written trifle.  Three stars.

Down to the Worlds of Men, by Alexei Panshin

14-year old Mia Havero is part of a society of human space-dwellers, resident of one of the eight galaxy-trotting Ships that represent the remains of Earth's high technology.  She and 29 other young teens are dropped on a primitive colony as part of a rite of passage.  There is always an element of danger to this month-long ordeal, but this episode has a new wrinkle: the planet's people are fully aware (and resentful) of the Ships, and they plan to fight back.  Can Mia survive her coming of age and stop an insurrection?

Panshin hits it right out of the park with his first story, capturing the voice of a young almost-woman and laying out a rich world and an exciting adventure.  Finally, I've got something I can recommend to the Young Traveler.  Four stars, verging on five.

The Shadow of Wings, by Robert Silverberg

The last story introduces Caldwell, an expert in the dead language of Kethlani.  He is called back from a family vacation when a real live Kethlan shows up, bearing the banner of peace.  Can the linguist overcome his revulsion of the alien's form and forge a partnership between the two species?

This piece could have been a throwaway save for Silvergerg's careful drawing of the Caldwell's personality.  I found myself wishing the story had been longer — certainly, it could have taken some of the pages away from the stale stories of the first half.  Four stars.

Like my impending vacation, this month's issue starts with a hard slog but ends with great reward.  I'd say that's the right order of things.  See you in Tokyo!

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