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Magazine, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 22, 1968] What wonders await? (January 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Where'd you get those peepers?

Few things excite the imagination more than adventures in space.  In particular, we love to hear about doings in the cosmos that can't be done on Earth.  And one of the main things we can't do on Earth is see the sky.

Oh sure, when you look out at the starry night, you think you're witnessing infinity.  In fact, your eyes barely apprehend a tiny fraction of the electro-magnetic spectrum.  We are blind to radio waves, to ultra violet, to X-rays, to infrared.  Our sophisticated telescopes are similarly handicapped.  Even the mighty 200 inch telescope on Mount Palomar can't see in most of light's wavelengths, for they are blocked by the Earth's atmosphere.  In the X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, and cosmic ray bands, the glass seeing-eye tubes are as sightless as we are.

Which is why the launch of the Orbiting Astronomy Observatory (OAO) on December 7, 1968, was such an exciting event.  Dubbed "Stargazer", it is the very first space telescope.

Well, technically, it's the second.  The first one went up on April 8, 1966, but its power supply short circuited shortly after launch, and it never returned any data.  This is a shame, as there were some nifty experiments on board, including a gamma ray experiment similar to the one carried on Explorer 11, another gamma ray counter supplied by NASA's Goddard center, and a Lockheed-made X-ray counter.  But, the main experiment, a set of seven telescopes designed to look in the ultraviolet spectrum, provided by the University of Wisconsin, was duplicated for OAO-2.

This telescope cluster will be used for long-term observation of individual stars, something that only recently became possible with the perfection of star tracking technology.  In addition, the Smithsonian has provided an additional package of four telescopes for the investigation of large masses of stars, up to 700 per day, to get an overall UV map of the sky.

Think of how revolutionary it was when the first radio observatories began mapping the heavens.  We learned about the existence of quasars and weird storms on Jupiter and also a lot more about the stars we had been observing visually for centuries.  Stargazer is about to give us a whole new view of the universe.

That's exciting—truly science fiction made fact!

Jeepers Creepers

While we wait to see what excitement OAO 2 returns from the heavens, let's turn to the latest F&SF to see what terrestrial treasures await us this month.


by Gahan Wilson

A Meeting of Minds, by Anne McCaffrey

We return to the world of "The Lady in the Tower", one of my favorite McCaffrey stories, for the lead story this issue.

Damia, the daughter of that first story's protagonist, is 20 and humanity's strongest telepath.  As tempestuous as she is beautiful and brilliant, she has refused the attentions of men, holding out for something…better.

That's when she meets Sodan, an alien inexorably approaching the Terran sphere from far, intragalactic space. Thus ensues a completely mental courtship, and Damia becomes infatuated with the foreign entity.  But Afra, an experienced mentalist, who has been secretly in love with Damia for ages, is suspicious.  What if the being is simply manipulating Damia so that Earth's greatest defense will be neutralized?

The stage is set for a cosmic battle, and a realignment of Damia's priorities.

I really wanted to like this story.  I was anticipating an "Is There in Truth no Beauty?" romance where two beings find love despite fundamental physical differences.  Instead, the viewpoint shifts from Damia's to Afra's early on, and all we get is his certainty that Sodan is up to no good, which is vindicated.  Then, after the battle, Damia realizes the worthy that's been under her nose this entire time and, of course, gives him her love.

Of late, there has been a shallowness to the emotion displayed in McCaffrey's writing that just puts me off.  Also, a sort of petty volatility.  All of her characters snipe at each other constantly.  But the real nadir of the story comes at the end:

Shyly, her fingers plucking nervously at her blanket, Damia was unable to look away from an Afra who had altered disturbingly. Damia tried to contemplate the startling change. Unable to resort to a mental touch, she saw Afra for the first time with only physical sight. And he was suddenly a very different man. A man! That was it. He was so excessively masculine.

How could she have blundered around so, looking for a mind that was superior to hers, completely overlooking the fact that a woman's primary function in life begins with physical submission?

I feel like if Piers Anthony had written that, we'd have given him the Queen Bee.  Two stars.

A Brook in Vermont, by L. Sprague de Camp

De Camp muses poetically on the Carboniferous, and what future beings, millions of years hence, will burn the coal being formed today.

I think the author missed a real opportunity to imply that we would be the anthracite mined in the far future, suggesting that we run the very real risk of leaving nothing to the ages but our combustibility.

Three stars as is.


by Gahan Wilson

Black Snowstorm, by D. F. Jones

This is nothing more, nothing less, than an extremely well-told story of a plague of locusts. There's no satire, no metaphor, no literary experiments. Both shoes drop simultaneously, though slowly, gradually, rivetingly.

Five stars.

Unidentified Fallen Object, by Sydney Van Scyoc

One day, a small UFO falls with the snow, and a precocious teen boy picks it up to examine.  As he handles the small craft, flakes of it come off, perhaps sliding into his very pores.  Soon, he begins to radiate a frightful miasma, inciting hatred in all approach him.

Including his teacher, who has also touched the fell ship…

"Object" is a chilling, effectively written little horror.  It's not particularly to my taste, and it's a bit one-note, so it's just a three-star story for me.  Others may find more to like (for those who enjoy a sense of dread).

How I Take Their Measure , by K. M. O'Donnell

In the future, everybody's on relief…or administering it.  This is a little slice-of-life story about a sadistic relief worker, who gets off on the tenterhooks he hangs his relief applicants on.  No Brock, George C. Scott's kindhearted social worker from East-Side, West-Side; this guy is a real bastard.

This is my favorite story about terminal unemployment that I've read since one in IF a decade ago (the one about the guy who gets a job tightening all the screws on the buildings in the cities—which have been systematically unscrewed by some other schnook the night before…).

Four stars.

Santa Claus vs. S. P. I. D. E. R., by Harlan Ellison

Here's St. Nick like you've never seen him before.  In the style of Ian Fleming's James Bond series (though not Edward S. Aaron's Sam Durrell, Harlan offers up Agent Kris Kringle, a hard-stomached, oversexed, lean killer whose red suit is filled with every lethal device known to Elfkind.  His nemesis is S.P.I.D.E.R., an international organization devoted to evil.  This time, their nefarious scheme involves mind control: they have brainwashed LBJ, HHH, Nixon, Daley, Reagan, and Wallace into doing the most horrid deeds, and only the jolly agent from the North Pole can defeat them.

Okay, it's a bunch of silly fluff, probably written between bonafide adventure yarns Ellison probably writes under another name like "Rod Richards" or "Length Peters".  I did appreciate how every cruddy thing in the world is ultimately attributable to S.P.I.D.E.R.—humanity is basically good and cuddly.  Only the nefarious "them" subvert our goodness.

I've often noted that comic books and spy novels offer an easy way out for readers.  It's tough to deal with everyday problems, with economic malaise, with systemic issues that cause crime and misery.  How much easier to topple the goon of the week to get our cathartic kicks.  Ellison lets us know he understands the flavor of his own cheek with the subtlety within the broadness.

That said, it's a one-note joke, and once you've gotten the punchline, I don't think the story bears much rereading, especially since it is so very much of a very specific moment in our history (as Judith Merril notes in her book column, August 1968 already feels like an age ago).

Three stars.

The Dance of the Satellites, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor continues his examination (see last month's piece) of what the Galilean moons of Jupiter might look like from the innermost moon, Amalthea.  This time, he focuses on eclipses, the appearance of the moons in Jupiter-shine, and more.

Interesting cosmic data, of use to writers and laymen alike.  Four stars.

The Legend and the Chemistry, by Arthur Sellings

The 3607th (or was it 3608th) interstellar exploration mission from Earth seems like it will be yet another humdrum operation.  In all the expeditions, though many aliens have been found (most humanoid), all have been planetbound, none of them having reached our space traveling level of technology.

This latest planet is no exception, its humaniform denizens possessing a primitive tribal culture.  But they have no less pride than any other race.  What happens when the very existence of far superior beings constitutes an unpardonable affront?  And who is responsible for the catastrophe that ensues?

A decent, moralistic yarn from the late, great Arthur Sellers.  This may well be his last work published (unless he has a posthumous career like Richard McKenna) as he died recently.  While Legend is not the best thing he's ever written, it has its own kind of power.

Three stars.

Wild ride

There are a lot of vicissitudes in this first F&SF of the year.  The strong points cancel the weak points, and the magazine ends in positive territory, but because the lack of consistency makes things a bit sloggish.

Well, that's why I do this, right?  To be your guide to ensure you only get the highlights!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 20, 1968] It comes and goes (October 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Out and in

Being something of a geography buff, one of my favorite games is to go to a thrift shop and inspect their globe collection.  I can generally tell what year a globe was manufactured from the configuration of countries.  And while we haven't had anything like the banner year of 1960, when more than a dozen African states sprang into existence, nevertheless, there are still enough changes every year to keep the game going.

For instance, this month, the Kingdom of Swaziland with its 400,000 denizens, achieved independence from the United Kingdom.  The second-smallest African country, is not entirely free, of couse.  It is completely surrounded by South Africa, with all transportation lines running through Pretoria.  The money is South African.  All telegraph lines go through South Africa.  As for their economy, it's mostly propped up by British hand-outs.

But they do have sovereignty, something South Africa tried to snatch from them time and again, but which was thwarted by the British.  Plus, the new country has vast mineral reserves of asbestos and iron, plus forests and fertile soil.  So King Sobhuza I just might make a go of things.

Going the other way, the people of West Irian (formerly Netherlands New Guinea) have has been annexed as Indonesia's 26th province.  Six years ago, the United Nations stepped in to stop a budding conflict between the Dutch and the Indonesians, who both laid claim to the region.  Now the 800,000 poverty-stricken inhabitants are officially under the auspices of General Suharto.  Sometime soon, they will be given the choice between independence and a union with their neighboring would-be superpower.  It is anyone's guess how free and honest the local elections can be under the Suharto dictatorship (i.e. don't expect a free West Papua any time soon…)


The Morning Star Flag—which you won't see flown until and unless the Irians get independence…

Good and bad

Speaking of mixed bags, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction has much to recommend it, but then there's all the rest of the magazine.  See for yourself:


by Ronald Walotsky

The Meddler, by Larry Niven

Bruce Cheeseborough, Jr. is a private dick operating some time in the near future.  While in the course of waging a one man crusade against the new crime boss, Lester Dunhaven Sinclair, a certain meddler crosses his path.  Said meddler first appears as a nebbishy, softish man, but he quickly betrays himself as a protean blob, possessed of all manner of wondrous powers.  The "Martian" offers to help the detective, granting him invulnerability, the gift of flight, time dilation…but Cheeseborough finds the tilting of the scales unsporting.

Still, when the detective makes his final assault on Chez Sinc, it's going to take every resource he has, from human wit to alien marvel, to come out the other end alive…

The Meddler is a brilliant piece of genre hybridization, combining hard-boiled noir with cunning science fiction.  Every piece of the story's myriad puzzles is meticulously laid out, so that an astute reader can figure out the revelations just before they materialized.  Beyond that, the piece is funny as well as perfectly paced.

Five stars, and a nice broadening of the author's talents.

Time Was, by Phyllis Murphy

Picture a man so obsessed with saving time, that he applies the art of speed reading to life.  You know: skipping over most of it, trying to absorb only the salient points.  Except, how do you know which bits are the important ones?  And what if you lose the ability to focus on any given thing in the pursuit of apprehending everything?

This story reminded me of a friend who insisted a person must do several things at once to be truly efficient.  If she read the paper, she listened to the radio.  When we watched television together, she'd inevitably crochet.  Remarkably efficient…except half the time, she lost track of the show's plot and had to ask us what was going on.

Three stars.

The Wide World of Sports , by Harvey Jacobs

They say that football is a bloody sport, but it's nowhere near as bloody as whatever Jacobs is describing in this story, featuring machine guns, the slaughter of all audience members of a certain name, and general mayhem.

This story would be more effective if it made a lick of sense and/or had a plot.  Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Coffee Break, by D. F. Jones

There's a Laugh-In bit where the projected news break underneath the action runs, "The United Nations today voted unanimously on everything; UN police are still looking for who put grass in the vents."

This story covers the exact same ground, but it takes much longer to do it, and not in nearly as funny a manner.

Two stars.

Dance Music for a Gone Planet, by Sonya Dorman

Fiddling after Rome is burnt?  A tinge of hope for a post-apocalyptic ode?

I'm not sure—I found this one a bit too obtuse to understand.  Maybe I'm the obtuse one.

Two stars.

Possible, That's All!, by Arthur C. Clarke

The Other Good Doctor takes umbrage at Asimov's assertion that nothing can go faster than light.  He offers up some counterexamples, but they're honestly rather feeble, and the article is not particularly coherent.

Three stars.

Try a Dull Knife, by Harlan Ellison

Eddie Burma is an empath, life of the party, and he has so much to give.  Folks are drawn to his magnetic personality like moths to flame, but, unknowingly, each takes a little bit from Burma in each encounter.  This is the price of popularity: eventually, there can be nothing left of you, the you behind the glamor and charm, because no one wants you.  They just want what rubs off.

If you've heard this refrain before, it's because Ellison delivered a soliloquy on the subject in his last collection, From the Land of Fear.  Harlan is afeared that no one really loves him; they just love The Talent that resides within his physical husk.  Readers of that collection also have encountered Knife in its embryonic form, a snippet of it among the story fragments at the beginning of the book.

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your soul overlaps with Harlan's, then his writing resonates with you as The Truth.  If you are much unlike the man (as, for instance, I am), then you can admire the way he strings words together, but they don't move much.

Three stars for me.  Four stars, perhaps, for you.

Segregationist, by Isaac Asimov

Organ transplants are the topic du jour in both science and science fiction.  I find it particularly interesting that much is made of the muddled identity of a person when they incorporate the parts of other humans (viz. Van Scyoc's A Trip to Cleveland General in this month's Galaxy).  This time around, Asimov takes things a step further: are humans less human if they have metal hearts?  And are robots more human if they incorporate biological components?

I liked this story, one of the better pieces Dr. A has done since largely going on fiction hiatus after the launch of Sputnik.

Four stars.

The Ghost Patrol, by Ron Goulart

Speaking of crossed genres, Ghost Patrol is the latest in the Max Kearny series about an art director who solves occult crimes in his spare time.  These yarns range from hilariously clever to limp.

This one, about a free doctor beset both by celebrity ghosts and Bircher anti-freeloaders, belongs, sadly, in the latter category.

Two stars.

Little Found Satellite, by Isaac Asimov

This month's piece is worth it for the funny anecdote that forms its preface.  The rest is a pleasant, if not particularly deep, history of Saturn's telescopic observation.  The piece culminates in the discovery of Saturn's tenth moon, Janus, just outside the ring system.

Four stars.

The Fangs of the Trees, by Robert Silverberg

At a recent convention, my daughter led a panel entitled "Plants vs. People", in which the panelists and audience discussed green menaces of various kinds.  Triffids, killer ragweed, stuff like that.  I wish I'd had Fangs as an example, as it's a good one.

Zen Holbrook is runs a plantation on a world countless light years from Earth.  His trees produce a valuable, hallucinogenic-juiced fruit.  They're also quasi-sentient, something like ultra-advanced Venus Fly Traps.  Though he tries to keep his relationship with his trees strictly business, he can't help ascribing them personalities, giving them names, and treating them like pampered pets.

Which makes it all the more difficult when he gets news that all of the trees in Sector C have been afflicted with "rust", a disease that not only spells their impending death, but has the risk of spreading throughout the whole planet.  Holbrook must kill his friends lest an entire world's economy die.  Further complicating the matter is his 15-year old niece, Naomi, who would rather die than see the grove decimated.

It is implied, though never specifically stated, that there is no less destructive way to solve the problem: not only must the trees die, but so must an entire species of benign hopper-bear—a link in the infection cycle.  Lord knows what that will do the local ecosystem, but "the needs of the many…"

It's an interesting, thought-provoking piece, composed with Silverberg's usual excellence, though I'm not quite sure which side we're supposed to take, if any.  Like, do we all need to grow up and realize that ecological destruction is a valid and important necessity?  Or is Zen actually the villain?  I could have done without so much of the Uncle's attraction for his niece, too, even if it was supposed to say…something…about Zen's character.  I know that the word for people who ascribe the emotions of an author's creation to the author himself is "moron" (at least, per Larry Niven), but Silverbob sure includes a lot of just-pubescent minors in his stories…

Four stars.

Whaddaya make of that?

If you read judiciously, this month's mag is terrific, kind of like how, if you parse the news in just the right way, it's all positive developments.  Look deeper, and the seams show.  Still, whether the news or the magazine are half full or empty all depends on your temperament, I suppose.

I guess I'll leave with the wishy washy conclusion that's always true: things could be worse!




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 16, 1966] The God Slayers (two computer-themed novels)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Just as with the ancient Norse concept Ragnarök, it is inevitable the gods of music will fall. In America exciting new acts have been emerging to challenge the so-called British Invasion. The Grateful Dead appeared on an episode of documentary series Panorama, Otis Redding got a full dedicated special on Ready, Steady, Go and ? and the Mysterians have entered the top 40 with the bizarre Vox Organ sound of 96 Tears.

But none has been more dramatic than the dethroning of Eric Clapton by young James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix.

Clapton is God graffiti
Pro-Clapton graffiti

Eric Clapton has become a central figure of the London Blues scene.  Making his name with The Yardbirds, he has also recorded with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and The Powerhouse. He had become seen by many as the greatest guitarist in the world, with the phrase “Clapton is God” spray-painted in Islington.

When Former Animals Bassist-turned-Manager Chas Chandler brought Jimi Hendrix to England, he took the American guitarist to see Clapton’s new band Cream at the London Polytechnic. In the middle of their set, Hendrix went on stage and asked Clapton if he could play a couple of numbers. He then proceeded to play a fast-paced version of Killing Floor (A Howlin Wolf song Clapton has reportedly found difficult in the past) and then walked off stage—thereby managing to upstage this musical God at his own concert.

Jimi Hendrix on Ready, Steady, Go!
Jimi Hendrix on Ready, Steady, Go!

Since then, he has given a fiery performance on Ready, Steady, Go! and released his first single “Hey Joe”. Is this kind of Nietzschean destruction of the British musical gods to prove permanent? Only time will tell.

It is not just in music the old gods are being replaced by new ones. There are two books that have come out where scientists are forced to face new computer overlords:

TACT computers for dating, recently profiled on Tomorrow’s World
TACT computers for dating, recently profiled on Tomorrow’s World

Battle of the Computers

B.E.A.S.T. by Charles Eric Maine

Charles Eric Maine is one of the old hands of British SF, having begun publishing short fiction before the war and novels since the early 50s. However, he has never quite impressed me in the way others of his generation have, like Eric Frank Russell, John Wyndham or Arthur C. Clarke. His latest has actually managed to lower my opinion of his work further.

The first thing to note about B.E.A.S.T. is it is a pretty short novel. The print is rather large and the whole thing probably only amounts to around 50,000 words.

The author then proceeds to spend a large amount of time at the start of the book explaining in great detail what DNA is and how genetics works. Whilst Maine clearly delights in showing his knowledge it is largely extraneous (do we need to know the names of the nucleic acids for things to progress?)

The depiction of women is also appalling. The narrator spends his time dissecting the looks of each one he sees with an horrendous judgement on each. One extroverted woman is described as a “congenital nympho”; of an an introvert a few pages later: “If she wasn’t exactly fat, she was well turned. Her face wouldn’t have launched a dinghy, let alone a thousand ships…[yet] somewhere inside her was a woman waiting to get out.” This is proceeds throughout text whenever a woman is introduced and, even ignoring the tackiness of it, represents another waste of space.

What remains is a rather mediocre thriller where Mark Harland, a member of the Department of Special Services, is sent to investigate Dr. Gilley, a research director at a genetic warfare research division. It is discovered Gilley has been doing experiments in simulating evolution in accelerated fashion inside a computer and believes he has created a sentient machine. The whole thing is oddly paced, filled with long conversations, and it has an ending that is among the most cliched possible

B.E.A.S.T. is a jumble of the most fashionable current ideas in science fiction, sexual psychology and spy-craft, gene warfare and computer control, thrown together in an attempt to appeal to the current reader. But it is done so poorly, it comes off as amateurish and cynical.

One star for this mess.

Colossus by D. F. Jones

From an old hand to a new writer. To the best of my knowledge this is the first SF work of DF Jones, and little seems to be known about him from the people I have spoken to. However, this novel makes it seem like he will have a bright future in science fiction.

The plot: Forbin has spent years devoting himself to the project of making a computer powerful enough such that it can be trusted to control the USNA nuclear weapons systems, thereby removing the dangerous threat of someone launching an unnecessary strike. However, as the launch of this computer (named Colossus) approaches he becomes nervous of its power, worried they will have no way to stop it if something goes wrong. The USNA president dismisses this and sets it to activate, then putting it in an impenetrable location so no one can tamper with it.

Two unexpected things happen however:
1. Colossus proves to be even more intelligent than Forbin had predicted;
2. It turns out the Soviet Union have also been building their own computer system, and now both sets of nuclear weapons are in electronic hands.

Most fans of science fiction may well be able to guess where this story was going, I myself was particularly reminded of Doctor Who: The War Machines (albeit with more nuclear missiles and fewer giant plastic boxes roaming the streets of London).

However, Jones is a very capable writer and manages to keep the tension up even as we are just reading Colossus reel off simple sums or instructions. One of the least discussed truths of our world is that the most important decisions in life are just made by people talking in rooms and calculations being made. Yet this will rarely be shown in films in this manner as it is hard for even a skilled director to keep you engaged. This is one advantage that the written word has over the screen, which Jones puts to excellent use (and I fear what would happen if this was made into a movie: presumably a lot of noise and gunfire signifying nothing).

In a recent interview with New Worlds, Kingsley Amis criticizes Colossus for spending some of the early part of the book explaining how the computer works, on the grounds that the concepts would be well known to the average science fiction reader. As much as I respect Mr. Amis, I would like to disagree at the most basic level with his argument. Firstly, unless something has truly entered popular culture enough that it would not need to be explained to one's grandfather (e.g. the presence of a gun in a western) the facts should be laid out for the reader that will be pertinent to a later understanding. And in this case I believe what Jones laid out is necessary to the reader's comprehension of future plot points, (not merely the explanation for its own sake we get from Maine). Secondly, and relatedly, I think we should be careful not to make SF books opaque to the mainstream reader. Particularly with those being released by a mainstream publisher, one never knows when a book will be the first science fiction novel a reader will pick up. If we simply assume they will know what a given term means because A. E. van Vogt used the term in a novelette in 1948 the genre will become increasingly insular.

In spite of just being a computer who largely communicates in curt typed instructions, Colossus must rank among the more memorable of science fictions villains. It is at once both coldly utilitarian and has its own god complex. Based on its own assessment of the facts and a belief that its mission is to prevent war, it cannot understand why it should not control the world, be worshipped as a deity and kill millions of humans in order to achieve greater aims.

Unfortunately, something this book shares with B.E.A.S.T. is the poor treatment of women. Whilst it is nowhere near as bad as what Maine has published, we still get Dr. Cleo Markham, one of Forbin's team, having a scene where she is naked for no apparent reason other than to titillate the reader, and we hear more about her “female intuition” than her actual skills at her job.

In contrast to B.E.A.S.T. which feels complete, Colossus feels open-ended. I have not heard if Jones has plans for a sequel or if it is meant to simply suggest the horror of what might come (ala Asimov’s The Evitable Conflict) but in either case it finishes the book on a high note rather than a damp squib of an ending that Maine gave us.

A high three stars

To The Victor…

So, in the future cybernetic war of who will control us, it definitely appears Colossus is going to win out over B.E.A.S.T. Whether we wish to accept their dominance is another matter…

[Having read about two fictional computers, you might enjoy reading about the state of the art in real computers. The Journey has a great many articles devoted to the subject. Stay up to date and give them a read!]




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