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

March 20, 2023 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

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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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 20, 1966] An Embarrassment of Riches (February Galactoscope #2)

February 20, 2021 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

On Saturday 29th January, Science Fiction and Fantasy fans in England were spoiled for choice in their viewing options.

On the BBC you could see the final part of Doctor Who's recent epic Dalek story. Later in the evening you could see the latest episode of US magical sitcom Bewitched.

Over on ATV London the evening stated with Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds, then there was aired the film version of Quatermass II and the evening ended with new horror anthology series Mystery and Imagination, adapting a J. Meade Falkner’s story The Lost Stradavarius.

Mystery and Imagination: The Lost Stradavarius

When ABC Midlands also aired Mystery and Imagination, you could also see a golf themed adventure of The Avengers, along with a new episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Due to the weird TV areas, I can also get a weak Anglia signal. In addition to the above, they started the evening with episodes of The Flintstones and Lost in Space.

Dracula Prince of Darkness - Plague of the Zombies — Poster for Hammer’s latest horror double bill

Whilst, on the radio, The Home Programme was continuing their serialisation of Neil M. Gunn’s novel Green Isle of the Great Deep and in the cinema, you could still see Hammer’s most recent double bill, Dracula: Prince of Darkness and Plague of the Zombies.

When at the end of the last decade we would be waiting months for a single science fiction episode of ITV playhouse, this is a big change for the SF fan.

What also came through to me on that weekend is John Carnell’s latest New Writings:

New Writings in SF 7

Invader by James White

James White should need no introduction to most SF fans, but, though he was a regular contributor to New Worlds up to Carnell’s final issue, he has not had anything published in the new British magazine landscape.

Here he returns with the first Sector General tale since Star Surgeon came out in ’63. This one deals with an interesting problem, where one of their senior physicians, Mannen, may have killed a patient through careless action. Conway, however, is determined to investigate and prove his innocence.

Although there are almost a dozen other Sector General tales printed you can easily pick this one up straight away without foreknowledge and the medical mystery aspect of this story is handled well and kept me engaged for the whole length.

Four Stars

This is not his only return to the SF scene, he also has a new novel out (see below for my review of that).

The Man Who Missed the Ferry by Douglas R. Mason

Usually Mason publishes as John Rankine, but with another story under that name in this issue (see below), we are getting his first non-pseudonymously published story. Given that he has his first novel coming soon under the Mason name, it will be interesting to see which he becomes better known for.

On to the actual piece in this issue: it is a bit of a puzzling one. Arthur Sinclair is a shipping clerk who loses his memory and decides to take a walk across the river Mersey, literally walking across the water without a second thought. More details and powers of his emerge as the story goes on but things do not end up going entirely well.

The whole thing reads more like a description of someone’s dream than a science fiction tale. Too much that is unexplained and seems to happen for reasons that make neither narrative nor thematic sense.

Two Stars

The Night of the Seventh Finger by Robert Presslie

Returning after his confounding piece in the last anthology he does something a little more traditional here.

Sue Bradley travels from the boring Eastwood New Town to the city for an evening of entertainment. There she meets a mysterious man, who may be mad or from the future.

The topic is a bit of a cliched one but what I did appreciate is the focus on the boredom of teenagers in the new planned towns, an area that is very contemporary and unmined by SFF writers in Britain, who tend to either prefer city centres or isolated villages.

Three Stars

Six Cubed Plus One by John Rankine

At Goresville Comprehensive school they have setup a cube shaped annex to house an “automated section” for study groups to use. However, it is actually an experiment in creating a new form of life. As you would expect, things go wrong,

This feels more like a pitch document for an ATV children’s television serial than a modern piece of science fiction. Overall, I didn’t feel there was much to it and I had real trouble maintaining my interest to keep reading. Clearly Carnell likes Rankine\Mason, but I am yet to be convinced by his writings.

Two Stars

Coco-Talk by William F. Temple

Temple has been largely absent from the British magazines for a while, publishing pieces in America which often have a quite old-fashioned sensibility. This, on the other hand, feels like a bit more of a step forward.

It concerns the Minister of Cultural Exchange going to Venus as a spy on the Venusians. The problem is their tendency to speak in Coco-Talk, a form of shocking double-speak. The whole thing then goes into a form of interplanetary espionage which is, in itself, a quite interesting little escapade.

I do have questions about whether the choice of name is meant to evoke non-European cultures, and, if so, if we are meant to read the text as colonialist or an anticolonial satire. It seems to go so close to the line on this point that I struggle to determine intent.

Three stars

A Touch of Immortality by R. W. Mackelworth

In the future there has been developed a means to send bullets into the far future. This is to be used to grant immortality to President Strom. However, there is a method of physical immortality available, but who would want that?

A middling piece on the nature of immortality and largely forgettable.

Two stars

Manscarer by Keith Roberts

Did you really think we would get away from Mr. Roberts? No chance of that!

In this final novelette, a colony of artists have been building a series of giant sculptures, but when a death occurs the colonists begin to question their purpose.

I found this a real struggle to get through, the message had been done many times before and the treatment of women here was terrible.

If you want better treatment of the nature of art and artist I would instead recommend Leaf by Niggle by J. R. R. Tolkien in Tree and Leaf.

Two stars

So this was not an exceptional example of the series, with only one real standout and the rest merely being adequate to average. Carnell also continues to fail to branch out in his author selection. The results tend to be variable, but maybe it is worth taking the lead from If and reserving a few pages for newer writers. Carnell may be a steady hand at the helm but it would be great to see him venture out of his lagoon.

The Watch Below by James White
Cover by George Zeil

Whilst next month the British hardback is coming out, Ballantine’s edition is already available in the US and I managed to acquire one early.

A few years ago James White was one of the most celebrated British SF authors and seemed to be going from strength to strength. With his Sector General tales being published in the US and Second Ending becoming a Hugo Finalist. But he had nothing new released last year and only Open Prison the year before.

Thankfully Carnell seems to have dragged him back to the SF field once again (White describes Carnell in the dedication as “Friend, Agent, Slave-driver”) with a most unusual take on familiar concepts.

In 1942 the tanker ship The Gulf Trader, sinks in a convoy after a torpedo attack, miraculously those on board find themselves in an air bubble on the ship and begin to work out how to survive down there in their new isolated home. Something they have to do for generations.

Meanwhile, the Uthans, an aquatic species, have left their now uninhabitable planet on giant starships, heading towards a distant world whose surface is mostly water, using freezing technology to keep their crew and passengers alive for the whole journey. However, it turns out multiple freezings and unfreezings causes brain damage. So the only solution is for a selection of the crew to stay unfrozen and have their descendants continue leading the voyage for them.

As you can tell, this is a tale of two accidental generation ships, one of air breathers trapped underwater, one of water breathers travelling through space. The stories, in fact, do not connect until the penultimate chapter so what we are left with is an interesting case of having the themes parallel each other without directly interacting for the most part. This is a trick I am familiar with from literary fiction, but not one I recall seeing in science fiction before.

In fact, I wonder if this is an attempt to keep up with the changing nature of science fiction. I would say I have seen three camps of SF fans: Pulp readers (who want adventure and splashy concepts), Hard SF fans (who want real science and problem stories) and New Wavers (who want experimentation and literary flourishes). This book seems to strive to have something for everyone. It has the bold ideas of an underwater home and an aquatic spaceship. White then also goes to pains to try to explain the science of these ridiculous concepts, having pages of the different crews explain how they will eat, breathe, reproduce, etc. But then adds a lot of literary techniques whilst also touching on areas often considered taboo by some SF writers, such as menstruation, death in childbirth, and orgies.

As you can probably tell this is an ambitious novel trying to do a lot of different things and please a wide audience. The big question is, of course, does White manage to pull it all off? Unfortunately, not entirely. His usual easy readability is lost as he attempts to establish his worlds and I found myself wanting to put down the book as he spends paragraphs discussing the necessary quantities of plant growth.

Even worse, although the decision to make the two crews not meet until the end of the novel is an interesting idea, it results in the ending seeming incredibly rushed, with White moving from a slow paced discussion to a frantic attempt to wrap up the story before he runs out of words.

I can’t help but feel this book too ambitious and in search of a larger page count. In the end I found myself admiring The Watch Below more than enjoying it.

Three Stars

The Lost Perception by Daniel F. Galouye

From a Northern Irish writer first published in the US, to an American writer being first published in the UK. However, as far as I know, there is no release date from The Lost Perception yet from Bantam. I am not sure why this is, but I am still glad to be able to get another book from one of the most interesting North American writers.

After his detour into the Philip K. Dick-esque Simulacron-3, he returns to another Post-Disaster tale, reminiscent in many ways of The Lords of Psychon.

As usual Galouye throws a lot at us. In 1983 those known as screamers begin to emerge, people have violent seizures they are not able to escape from. By the mid-90s it is an epidemic causing an almost societal collapse. Gregson, an agent for the Security Bureau (what remains of the former United Nations) is sent to look into the situation with the screamie epidemic.

This is only the start of what is happening. There has also been the appearance of an alien race known as The Valorian, who appear to be trying to infiltrate society. Further, the title of book itself refers to zylphing, a form of ESP that begins to become unlocked for humans.

The whole thing is a very fast paced thriller that throws around concepts and ideas as if they were rice at a wedding. I have read through it a few times now and I am still not sure I fully understand everything that was going on. There are layers of double crosses and conspiracies that made my head spin trying to keep up with all of them.

As such I feel explaining more of the plot is a fool’s errand. Also, with so much going on the characters felt very flat to me, merely serving to be moved around like pieces on a chess board. Helen in particular feels less like a person as a plot device to keep the story going. The attempts to make it feel more global also fall flat, with them talking about “a turbaned Oriental” and a “robed African”.

Two areas where it does shine are in the concepts and the pacing. The story does not let up for one page before you are moving on to the next bizarre occurrence or new piece of information. At the same time this post-disaster world felt very lived-in and believable that this kind of organisation would spring up in the face of such a threat.

So, whilst I was able to read it fast and feel it was an experience, I was often lost. It may be perceptive, but of what I remain unsure.

Three Stars

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

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 30, 1964] Are You For Real? (Simulacron-3 AKA Counterfeit World by Daniel F. Galouye)

July 30, 2019 Victoria Silverwolf 6 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

Life is But a Dream

I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?

— Zhuangzi, Chinese philosopher, 4th century BC

Science fiction writers have often pondered the nature of reality, and speculated about the ways in which appearances can be deceiving. Among the many stories making use of this theme, a few stand out as particularly thoughtful explorations of the real and the illusory.

Phillips didn't make the cover.

First published in Astounding half a dozen years ago, The Yellow Pill by Rog Phillips presents two characters with contradictory views of reality. Each believes the other to be hallucinating. The drug mentioned in the title changes their view of things, and it's up to the reader to decide who is right, if either. The story obviously had a strong impact on readers, as it has already been reprinted in anthologies in the USA and the UK, as well as being adapted into an episode of the British television series Out of This World.

Pohl did.

A few years earlier, Frederik Pohl tackled a similar idea in his story The Tunnel Under the World. The inhabitants of a small town live the same nightmarish day over and over again. It turns out that neither the community nor its inhabitants are what they seem to be. This powerful tale of deception and manipulation of reality must have struck a chord, as it was quickly adapted into an episode of the radio series X Minus 1.

Note that this was published not as science fiction, but as a novel of menace.

Philip K. Dick's novel Time Out of Joint explores related concepts in a surrealistic way. The protagonist thinks he lives in a typical American suburb in 1959, the year the book was published. The reader soon discovers that something is odd about this version of our mundane world, such as the fact that nobody has ever heard of Marilyn Monroe. Things get really bizarre when a soft-drink stand disappears, replaced with a small slip of paper bearing the words SOFT-DRINK STAND. Further weird breakdowns of a simulated reality lead the hero to discover the truth about the world and himself.

Bits and pieces of all three of these works came to mind as I read the latest novel from an author whose previous books won a great deal of praise from the Galactic Journeyers.

The Visionary From the Big Easy

The author at the time he started publishing science fiction.

Born in New Orleans, Daniel Francis Galouye served in the US Navy during World War Two, returning to work as a journalist. Fortunately for SF fans, he doesn't limit his writing to reportage. Ever since 1952, he's appeared frequently in the genre magazines. It took him a while to make the leap into novels, but when he took the jump he did so with a splash.

Galouye's first book-length work, Dark Universe, made a big hit with our host, as well as with Hugo voters. It nearly took the prize, bested only by the unstoppable juggernaut of Robert A. Heinlein's controversial novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which was not so popular around here.

Although it was not nominated for a Hugo, Galouye's second novel, Lords of the Psychon, won plaudits from a Galactic Journeyer. Will he continue this lucky streak with his newest effort? Let's take a look and find out.

Planet of the Pollsters

The American edition, with anonymous cover art.

The British edition, with no cover art.

Simulacron-3, known in the United Kingdom as Counterfeit World, takes place in the middle of the 21st century. It's a technologically advanced place, with flying cars, moving pedestrian sidewalks, and many other wonders familiar to readers of futuristic fiction. The most noticeable change in society is that opinion polls dominate commercial and political life. One-quarter of all employees are engaged in this line of work, and answering their questions is mandatory. So far we have a satiric portrait of the business world, similar to the sort of thing Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth offered in their novel The Space Merchants, but Galouye has something else in mind.

Leaving the Party Too Soon

The narrator, Douglas Hall, works for business tycoon Horace P. Siskin, as a computer expert for Reactions, Incorporated (REIN). Like so many other companies in this future, REIN studies consumer reactions in order to determine which products will sell. The book begins with Douglas attending a party at Horace's fabulous mansion. He is about to take control of the Simulacron-3 project from the recently deceased Hannon Fuller, killed in what seems to be a freak accident.

Simulacron-3 is a computer-simulated community, inhabited by artificial people who interact with each other and their environment as if they were real. By studying their reactions to various situations, it is possible to determine how living persons would behave under the same circumstances. This threatens to eliminate the need for pollsters, putting them all out of work.

Morton Lynch, the security chief for REIN, shows up in an agitated state. He claims that Hannon discovered something of critical importance that led to his demise. Not much later, he simply vanishes into thin air. Douglas reports the disappearance, but nobody else even remembers that Morton ever existed. Because Douglas suffers from occasional blackouts, he begins to doubt his own sanity.

It Takes All the Running You Can Do to Stay in the Same Place

With the help of Hannon's adult daughter Jinx, Douglas searches through her father's papers. They find a drawing of an ancient Greek warrior and a tortoise. This is, of course, a reference to the famous Zeno paradox, in which Achilles can never catch up to the slow-moving animal. The relevance of the sketch is obscure, but it seems to be a vital clue to Hannon's secret. Whatever it may mean, it disappears quickly, and Jinx denies that she ever saw such a thing.

Tensions mount between REIN and the powerful pollsters organization, leading to mass demonstrations and the possibility of a violent attack on the company. As if Douglas didn't have enough problems, Siskin plans to use Simulacron-3 to predict voting behavior, in order to make himself the leader of a one-party state. Add to this the fact that Douglas narrowly escapes being killed, by a flying car and then a bomb, and our hero is in plenty of hot water. Complicating matters is the presence of Dorothy Ford, Siskin's personal secretary/mistress, who uses her seductive wiles to keep a close eye on Douglas in order to make sure he doesn't spill the beans about her employer's political ambitions. There's also the possibility that the police suspect Douglas murdered Hannon. The guy just can't catch a break!

I've mentioned a lot of characters, but I've also left out quite a few. The story involves a lot of plots and counterplots, with the narrator never quite sure who's working for him and who's working against him. Up to now we have a science fiction suspense story, with a whodunit aspect, but things are about to get a lot different.

Stop! Read No Further If You Don't Want to Learn the Big Secret!

Almost exactly halfway through the book, Galouye throws in a major plot twist. Astute readers may anticipate the revelation that follows, but others may not.

Are you sure you want to find out? Last chance to turn back. OK, here we go.

Douglas finds out that his entire world is a computer simulation, and that he himself is no more than an artificial human being living inside it. The rest of the novel deals with his effort to escape into the real world, while avoiding the efforts of the unseen, unknown, god-like person running the simulation to eliminate him.

It's Safe to Read Again

Simulacron-3 (or, if you prefer, Counterfeit World) is a fascinating, cleverly plotted novel, full of intriguing concepts and plenty of fast-paced action. If some parts are melodramatic, and if other aspects seem implausible, those are minor flaws compared to the intriguing theme. I suspect it will earn more praise for the author, and I wouldn't be too surprised if somebody adapts it into a movie someday; maybe even more than once!

Four stars.

Until next time, try to keep a grip on what's real!

An advertisement for a drug invented a few years ago.

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Magazine

[March 23, 1964] What's New? Not Much (April 1964 Fantastic)

March 23, 2019 Victoria Silverwolf 3 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

Things that Came

Judging by the unstoppable juggernaut known as the Beatles, it would seem that not much has changed in the last month or so. Following the massive success of I Want to Hold Your Hand, which remained Number One in the USA for all of February and half of March, the four Liverpudlians had another smash hit. Perhaps best known for its frequent use of the phrase Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, the upbeat rock ditty She Loves You is currently the most popular song on this side of the Atlantic.

Will they beat Elvis?

Of course, new things continue to happen. The Ford Motor Company just produced a snazzy sports car called the Mustang.

It even matches that lady's outfit.

Voters in New Hampshire overwhelmingly approved the first legal state lottery in the nation since 1895. Governor John W. King bought the first ticket.

He'll look even happier if he wins.

The Issue at Hand

Similarly, the latest issue of Fantastic offers a touch of the new, along with a lot of things that will seem familiar.

by Frank Bruno

Centipedes of Space, by Daniel F. Galouye

Here's a story filled with the traditional elements of space opera. The main character is an Admiral in command of a fleet of two thousand starships. (Writers always seem to assume that military space vessels will resemble Navy ships. I suppose it’s the romance of the high seas.) An enemy armada threatens a group of inhabited worlds. To reach the area in time to stop the attack, he must guide his flotilla through a dangerous region of space. Few ships have survived such a journey.

Bizarre creatures, from giant worms to dinosaurs, attack the warships. Even stranger things happen, such as a naked woman suddenly appearing on the Admiral's flagship. The phenomena can't be explained as hallucinations, because ships are destroyed and men die. (There are no women in this future Space Navy.) Will anyone survive to stop the invasion?

Despite some originality, decent writing, and good characterization, this is a typical space adventure. There's an explanation for the weird happenings, but it's not particularly convincing or interesting.

Three stars.

The Dunstable Horror, by Arthur Pendragon

(Based on what little I know about the legends of Camelot, I presume the author is using a pseudonym. Further evidence for this is the fact that the narrator of this tale of eldritch horror is named Grail.)

In 1920, a British researcher arrives in New England to investigate an Indian burial ground. He meets the owner of a lumber mill. The fellow wants to look at the area also, as a possible source of wood. Complicating matters is a strange blue light seen by his workers. If that isn't spooky enough, the bodies of drowned animals keep showing up in the local river. It won't surprise you to find out that this involves the grave of an Indian sorcerer.

There aren't many surprises in this imitation of Lovecraft. Nitpickers will notice that the phrase comic book appears, although those didn't exist in 1920.

Two stars.

A Ritual for Souls, by Albert Teichner

We get a break from old-fashioned storytelling with this offbeat yarn. Very peculiar aliens arrive on a depopulated Earth. They take on human form in order to study the extinct species, which they think of as soulless. They decide to imitate human behavior as well. This turns out to be a bad idea.

I'm not sure what the author is trying to say in this dark satire of humanity's foibles. It seems to be, at least partly, an attack on the philosophy of behaviorism. At least it's different.

Two stars.

The Rule of Names, by Ursula K. LeGuin

Back to the familiar, with a tale of wizards and dragons. The only magician on a small island is a middle-aged man, short and fat, without much skill. A seafarer arrives, who also happens to be an enchanter. It seems that a wizard made off with a dragon's treasure some time ago. The new arrival thinks the local magician has it. He's in for a surprise.

Deftly written, this light fantasy is reasonably entertaining, but the twist ending is predictable. Particularly notable is the author's creation of an interesting fantasy world consisting only of islands. Perhaps she'll make further use of it in the future.

Three stars.

The Devil Came to Our Valley, by Fulton T. Grant

This month's Fantasy Classic comes from the March 1937 issue of Bluebook. I hesitate to call it a Classic, and it definitely isn't Fantasy. The introduction by Sam Moskowitz tries to convince me that it's part of the Lost Race subgenre, but I don't buy it. The isolated group of people in the story are very real. Known as the Jackson Whites, they inhabit a mountainous area of New Jersey. Their ancestry isn't clear, although the author presumes they're a mixture of Indian, African, and European. Whatever the truth may be, there is nothing supernatural about these folks, in reality or in fiction.
An orphaned girl is not one of the Jackson Whites, but is raised among them. She falls in love with a young man of the people. The community thinks of them as married, without the need for ceremony. A wealthy man shows up in a nearby town. The woman is drawn to the luxuries he can provide. This leads to murder, a dramatic courtroom trial, and a self-sacrificing gesture by the woman.

This tragic tale walks a thin line between genuine emotion and melodrama, often falling on the wrong side. There's plenty of local color, although I can't vouch for how accurate it is. Some of the narration is beautifully written, some of it is overwritten. The author appears to feel great sympathy for the Jackson Whites, but also portrays them as ignorant and lawless. Although not speculative fiction in any sense of the word, the background is exotic enough to appeal to readers of such.

Three stars.

Summing Up

Without any outstanding stories, this is a disappointing issue. Neither the traditional tales nor the one unusual piece offer much excitement, although some are enjoyable enough. I guess it goes to show that, however much we might hunger for something new, change isn't always an improvement.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction