by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Loud Tensions

The news recently has been dominated by battles between the old-guard conservative and the new liberal voices in the matter of race relations.

In the USA President Johnson has urged passage of a Voting Rights Act at the same time as another Johnson (a judge this time) has agreed to let a civil rights march in Alabama continue, in spite of fierce opposition.

In the UK, Rhodesian ministers have been touring trying to drum up support for their declaration of independence under white minority rule to resolve the stalemate between Ian Smith and Harold Wilson. Given the Rhodesian argument seems to primarily be that they have real experience of governing and the black people of Rhodesia are uncivilized, I don’t think they are going to win too many friends.

At the same time we have continued debates over Commonwealth immigration into the UK. Firstly whether the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act is being circumvented illegally and how widely, secondly if those citizens should be deported and, thirdly, if further controls need to be placed on immigration. I am personally in agreement with the late leader of the opposition, Hugh Gaitskell, who stated that it was cruel and brutal, and as such I am not surprised there are some people trying to get around it.

Then there are the inflammatory statements made by Sir David Renton MP that certain communities do not wish to integrate and that we have too much of our farmland been taken up by urban sprawl. On my personal experience, Indian and Pakistani communities in the UK are doing a much better job of integration into British life than most British people living in India seemed to have done. Whilst most of the increasing land-use over the last ten years seems not to have come from immigration but from those formally in the cities moving out to areas with more space. If they are really worried about this I would contend wider availability of birth control, legalization of abortion and a proper investment into inner city renewal.

A Quiet Town

Closer to home in Bedford, however, we have long had a thriving immigrant population and I have yet to hear any complaint about it. In fact the biggest grumbling locally is the that TV signal continues to be poor and plans for a nearby relay station continue to be delayed.

Thankfully we have many other entertainments around here. We have a number of local picture houses, with The Empire continuing to show a range of excellent films for the SFF enthusiast. On Sunday they are having both Vincent Price and Boris Karloff films I hope to sync my teeth into.

As well as the national charts, we get local charts. I approve of the top 3 going into this weekend (which I definitely contributed to myself).

And, of course, plenty of reading material, including two long awaited pieces. The Fourth issue of Gamma, which is looking backwards, and City of A Thousand Suns, which has an eye on the future.

Gamma: A Long-Expected Magazine

by John Healey

First thing, we have to start with is the cover. Gone now are beautiful space pictures and instead is a lurid cover right out of the pulp era. I have to wonder if this is the influence of the new co-editor, Jack Matcha, who has made a career writing Pulp Sleaze novels for Kozy Books and has the forthcoming novel A Rogue’s Guide to Europe whose content, I have heard, is just what you would expect from the title.

The editorial confirms we are now going straight back to the pulp era. I personally was not yearning for the days:

…when Jayne Mansfield who invariably wore a space suit apparently constructed by a bikini manufacturer and every Bug-Eyed Monster attacked her for reasons known (if at all) only to himself (itself)?

We are definitely a far cry from the literary attempts to include imaginative fiction of all types, and the issue feels much the lesser for it.

The Clutches of Ruin by H. B. Fyfe

H. B. Fyfe was first published in Astounding back in 1940 and was prolific during the 50s although he has been appearing in print less often of late.

Neil Bryson and a dietician named Carole Leland (who acts as his secretary), are sent on a mission by the Galactic Federation to assess a recently admitted planet that has seen a marked population boom that is alarming the other members of the federation. They are to investigate what is being done to get this down. On this planet we meet different groups with different responses to this directive.

One reason why I like to return on occasion to pulpy space adventures is they are fun and easy to read. This, on the other hand, is like reading through treacle with over-description, pointless diversions and regular stating of Bryson’s own thought process.

And yet the actual story within is quite fascinating. At first it seems like it is going to be a colonialist parable about “stupid natives” overpopulating themselves and not accepting the tenants of “superior people”. However it quickly gets messy as the Galactic directive has completely changed the various societies on this planet in unprecedent ways and we are led to wonder if the federation itself was at fault to start with.

So a very interesting piece brought down by poor execution. Three stars.

The Towers of Kagasi, by William P. Miller

William P. Miller is apparently a well-known and respected mystery writer, but I believe this is his first foray into science fiction.  In this story, a team of astronauts investigate the titular planet from where a ray was sent to Earth, killing the entire population of four major cities.

At times it felt like what you used to get in Thrilling Wonder Stories, but it lacks any of the enjoyment and is a story that comes across to me as meanspirited, misogynistic and gross.

One star

Food, by Ray Nelson

Our first story by Ray Nelson since he got Four- and Five-star reviews for his pieces at F&SF in 1963 and is apparently now working on a novel with Philip K. Dick. He continues to show here why he is one to watch.

Ben is the last crewman alive on a planet where numerous creatures seem to be trying to kill him. This does not feel like a pulp era story at all, rather like the kinds of atmospheric vignettes we get in New Worlds.

Four stars

Hans Off in Free Pfall to The Moon, by E. A. Poe

This is a significant abridgement of Edgar Allen Poe’s Hans Pfall (about one fifth of the original length) done by cutting out his verbosity and digressions and instead sticking to the core of the tale, one of a man attempting to travel to the moon in a balloon.

Though I am not a fan of the original full-length work and do think Poe will use ten words where one can suffice, it feels like a lot is lost by making such a change. For example a section observing the Earth from above and pondering its appearance becomes a note about checking altitude on a barometer.

One star for a rather pointless exercise.

The Gamma Interview: Forrest J. Ackerman

I am a bit disappointed overall not just by the brevity of this interview but also the shallowness of it. It starts off interestingly, talking about the early history of monster movies but quickly descends into Ackerman bemoaning how terrible they all are. Also I am surprised that no real attention is given to how Hammer and Toho have really revived the monster film in recent years. He claims he watches every monster film that comes out but you would think from his description everything today was like The Creature From The Haunted Sea. You are much better off checking out Fritz Lieber’s editorial in the recent Fantastic instead.

Two stars

Open Season, by John Tanner

John Tanner is not a medical student as claimed but another alias for new co-editor Jack Matcha (and his second story for Gamma). In this tale, Ditmar is travelling to Venus to try to find out what happened to his wife, who disappeared previously on the same route. While there, the ship gets boarded and crew taken to the asteroid Zara, this being the exclusive property of Cyrus Blake, one of the wealthiest men on Earth

The story seems to be trying to be a tense mystery but I was just getting impatient. The twist itself is pretty expected for anyone who has encountered The Most Dangerous Game (and given how widely reprinted, taught, filmed and copied it is, that is probably 90% of the readership) and the whole thing feels like a very tired exercise.

One star

The Woman Astronaut, by Robert Katz

Katz is another new writer to science fiction from outside the field; if this vignette is anything to go by I hope he never comes back!

A comedic (and I use the term very loosely), dramatic telling of the first American Woman in space, this anonymous Mrs. Smith spends her time worrying about her appearance, is confused that communist China isn’t actually red from space and is generally befuddled by the whole experience.

It has been over a year since the first woman went into space on Vostok 6 and these kind of prejudiced attitudes are insulting, disgusting and probably do continued damage to any hope for progress on this front from NASA.

Unfunny, uninteresting and insulting. One star, only because I cannot give anything lower.

Happily Ever After, by William F. Nolan

The former managing editor of Gamma returns to try to raise the magazine out of the doldrums with this little tale. Donald Spencer buys an asteroid to live on with his wife, on the basis that land value increases will mean it is a sound investment in the long term. It turns out not enough was known about the asteroid and they might be destined for a different kind of happily ever after.

Not that strong, but it hums along and is at least a slight improvement on the last few pieces. Two and a half stars

Don’t Touch Me I’m Sensitive, by James Stamers

Huckelberry Waterstone Smith arrives on a heavily populated Earth controlled by various corporations (the zone he is in being the City G.L.C. Services inc.) wanting to be a space warden, but he lacks the mathematical skill and is illiterate. However, he has the unusual ability to leave behind him images of himself wherever he goes.

I have forced myself to read through this story three times now and I have no idea what is meant to be about. It seems to be written as a joke or satire but I am not convinced it really works as being about anything. Add to that the terrible prose style and it only gets one star from me.

The Hand of Dr. Insidious, by Ron Goulart

With Dr. Fu Manchu set to be brought back to life in the cinema later this year, it seems appropriate that Goulart, a skilled writer of silly satires, would do his take on the famous villain. In this version Dr. Insidious is attempting to create a talent agency and take control of Hollywood. When the 00 agents have been killed in their attempts to stop him it is up to crack spy Ian Naismith and Hollywood’s top plastic surgeon Dr. Maxwell Phoebus Jr. to take him down.

A fun and silly piece as you would expect from Goulart but it doesn’t really get at or examine the myriad problems with the Fu Manchu stories. In fact reads more as another silly version of the Spy-Fi genre.

Two Stars and a recommendation to instead check out the Goon Show stories of Fred Fu-Manchu.

A Messy Melee

Overall, a really disappointing turn for the once great magazine. My subscription is paid up until issue 7 and with the new bi-monthly schedule (assuming this one actually sticks) I should be reading up until September. However, if this is the new direction I certainly will not be renewing.

Thankfully, the other work is a significant improvement:

City of a Thousand Suns by Samuel R. Delany

And so we now come to the conclusion of Delany’s Toron trilogy, which (at least for myself) has been the most anticipated book for a decade. The first two books showed that Delany was a writer of immense skill and did an amazing job of setting up this fantastical future and the stakes of the conflict. Now he has a full length novel, rather than half of an Ace Double, to conclude this tale.

This book jumps between two main focuses. Firstly, we have agents from numerous different species in the city of the Triple Entity. Here we learn of the war with The Lord of The Flames and the previous efforts to combat him. The Lord of Flames cannot experience concepts like war or compassion as those in our universe can so he has been trying to understand them first hand. The final result of the war will depend on which side has ownership of three manuscripts of the most sensitive minds of Earth and it is up to the Triple Entity’s agents, without outside aid, to bring them.

Back on Earth, the focus is on Jon and Alter. Now back in Toron (the centre of the Toromon empire), they have discovered mysterious words scrawled on walls everywhere. Following this trail leads them to the final resolution to the many conflicts we have seen throughout the series.

This is one that I think is going to get sharp reactions from the science fiction community, this is probably the toughest novel in an incredibly experimental series. It is a philosophical work touching on religion, communication, the morality of war, class conflict, racism and free will. Through it all we have a wide range of characters and concepts across a massive scope.

To start with the positive, there is absolutely no faulting Delany’s imagination and ambition. What would take entire novellas for another writer constitute a passing reference for him. To take one example:

…one of the attendants was an attractive woman with wide hazel eyes. But a minute examination would have shown her slim almond-nailed fingers, her cream and honey skin to be a bizarre cosmic coincidence. Internal examination and genetic analysis would prove her a bisexual species of moss.

This character never becomes important to the narrative and this description could be entirely exorcised without any confusion. Yet what it does do is display the multiplicity of life in this universe and the vast difference in beings we will be encountering.

Also, in spite of how complex the story he is trying to tell is he handles the action beats and flow incredibly well. It is easy to get lost in the world Delany has created, the tribulation of the characters and feel the tension grow as the remaining pages count down.

Yet, as with the previous books, keeping all the characters and situations in my head can be a real struggle. I don’t think this is a personal thing; I like Tolkien and Tolstoy and find their enormous casts just fine to understand. What I think is the major issue with these books is that Delany is attempting to paint on such an enormous scale with an incredibly finite canvas. There is no reason these books could not be expanded to the length of The Lord of The Rings without the need for significant plot alterations.

That is not to say it is not a great work that shows a talent that seems destined to become one of the most important in the field. But I do wonder if this kind of writing might not be better off trying a mainstream publisher or a long magazine serialization than the slim paperbacks Ace produces.

Rating: Four and a half stars

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By the way, Galactic Journey will be doing a special presentation of our "Come Time Travel with Me" panel, the one we normally do at conventions, on March 27 at 6PM PDT.  Come register to join us!  It's free and fun…and you might win a prize!