It's been more than a quarter of a century since the Communist Party of the United States ran candidates for President and Vice-President. That was back in 1940, when Earl Browder and James W. Ford were nominated.
They didn't win.
This month, the Party chose Charlene Mitchell and Mike Zagarell for the honor.
Zagarell is technically too young to serve as Vice-President, but I don't think he'll have to face that problem.
Overdue Notice
One month isn't anywhere near as long as twenty-eight years, but the failure of a July issue of Fantastic to hit the shelves of drugstores and newsstands (in June, of course, given the proclivities of the publishing industry) may have caused as much anxiety among readers of imaginative fiction as the lack of a Commie candidate caused in Red voters.
Not to worry. My esteemed colleague John Boston has explained the situation in typically erudite fashion in his latest review of Amazing. I'll wait here while you go take a look.
Ready? Good. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's take a look at the August, not July, issue of Fantastic to see if our patience has been rewarded.
Cover art by Johnny Bruck.
Our first hint that the delay hasn't changed things very much, if at all, is the fact that the cover is once again a reprint from an issue of the popular German space opera serial Perry Rhodan.
We begin in promising fashion with our old pals Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, in another witty and imaginative adventure from the living master of sword-and-sorcery.
Illustration by Jeff Jones.
The two lovable rogues have gotten their hands on some incredibly valuable magic jewels. Each one of them tries to cash in on the stolen goods, making use of different fences.
The Mouser goes to a blind fellow, who has a nubile female assistant. Fafhrd seeks out a woman of mature years, who insists on an intimate encounter before the deal is completed. Suffice to say that things don't work out as they expect.
As you'd expect, this is a beautifully written and highly enjoyable tale. It's a bit lighter in tone that some other stories in the series; an anecdote rather than an epic, perhaps.
As a bonus, the likable character Alyx, created by Joanna Russ, makes a guest appearance. Obviously Leiber approves of the way Russ is influenced by his work, and he has acknowledged this in a gracious manner.
A new writer makes his third appearance in print with this science fiction story. Narrated by a spaceman to an unknown listener over drinks, it tells how an inexperienced crew member got in trouble. It seems he clumsily injured an alien. Put on trial, he is found guilty and punished in a way the aliens can't convey to the humans. He seems perfectly fine, until strange things start happening.
What the aliens did to the fellow is the whole point of the narrative. It's pretty much a puzzle story. For that kind of thing, it's reasonably interesting. It could have appeared in Analog, except for the fact that the aliens aren't shown to be inferior to humans. It's not bad, but not outstanding in any way.
My advice to Mister Tiptree is to keep writing; the man shows promise.
Three stars.
Horror Out of Carthage, by Edmond Hamilton
Here come the reprints. This old-fashioned yarn comes from the September 1939 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.
Our cast of characters includes the manly hero, an older archeologist, and the latter's beautiful daughter. They're on a dig to locate the Temple of Moloch at the site of Carthage.
Illustrations by Jay Jackson.
Right away we're told that the daughter feels as if someone is trying to force her out of her body. It's no surprise, then, when the mind of a woman of the ancient vanished city takes possession of her physical form. Pretty soon our hero's mind goes far back in time to inhabit the body of a Carthaginian man.
The big problem is that Carthage is about to be wiped off the map by invading Romans. (The two folks from the doomed city came forward in time to escape that fate.) Can the hero find a way to save his beloved from being sacrificed to Moloch, and return to his own time with her? Come on, you know the answer to that already.
War, with elephants.
This is a typical old-time pulp adventure story, with characters who are walking archetypes. It's got some vivid scenes, so it's not boring. Carthage is constantly described as a wicked, barbaric place. That sounds more like Roman propaganda than accurate ancient history, but I'm no expert.
The July 1948 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this unusual work.
Cover art by Arnold Kohn.
A mysterious entity sends a musical note from an ethereal realm to the material world. In mundane reality, a man strikes up a conversation with an airline stewardess. They are obviously attracted to each other, but eventually go their separate ways.
Illustration by William A. Gray.
This is a very strange story, and I have described it badly. The author creates a highly detailed mythological background, much of it difficult to comprehend. I'm not really sure what he's getting at. Did the musical note cause the pair to fall in love?
I found this peculiar tale rather haunting, if confusing. It's definitely not the same old thing, anyway.
Three stars.
When Better Budgies Are Built, by Bryce Walton
The November 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures is the source of this futuristic farce.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
The narrator is a vacuum cleaner salesman. He gets pulled into the future by a guy using a forbidden time machine. It seems that two rival merchandisers, the only ones left in this new version of the USA, are about to start selling gizmos that will supply everything that anyone could want, for a price. The problem is that one of the corporations has an army of robots who are able to sell anything to anybody.
Illustration by William Slade.
What makes this even more alarming is the fact that the head of the company is a would-be dictator planning to use the robots to sell people on the idea that he should be their leader. In exchange for a piece of future technology that will make him rich when he goes back to his own time, the narrator figures out a way to defeat the irresistible robot salesman.
Pretty silly stuff, really. The plot depends on the robots being absolutely perfect at selling merchandise and ideas, without any clue as to how they do this. We don't get to find out what the narrator earns for his service, either.
The ending makes use of a stereotype about women that is more goofy than offensive.
This two-fisted, he-man yarn comes from the October 1948 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by James B. Settles.
A Cro-Magnon runs away from his tribe after a fight with the bullying leader. He witnesses a sphere arrive and discharge two men and a woman. After saving the trio from a wolf, he jumps into the vessel to escape a sabretooth tiger. The four go off to another planet.
Illustration by J. Allen St. John.
The folks on this world are under attack by green monsters. The Cro-Magnon defeats the creatures easily, while the effete males around him cower in fear. Naturally, the woman is instantly attracted to his manliness.
The author is obviously trying to promote the idea that men should be fearless warriors. The Cro-Magnon's contempt for the decadent males surrounding him is evident, and the author appears to share it.
Even if I ignore all that, as an adventure story it failed to hold my interest. There are parts of it where there seems to be something missing; one scene jumps to another without any kind of transition.
Here's a tale of paranoia from the March 1955 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Ed Valigursky.
A guy gets fed up with everything being fake. He goes on and on about this, until his exasperated wife calls in a buddy to talk some sense into him.
Illustration by Virgil Finlay.
The two fellows argue about stuff being phony for a while. The guy reveals what he thinks is behind all these ersatz things. There's a twist ending you'll see coming a mile away.
Definitely a one idea story. It's like one of Philip K. Dick's what-is-reality tales, with all the subtlety and complexity surgically removed. Or maybe it's more like a clumsy version of Robert A. Heinlein's famous solipsistic nightmare They.
This screwball comedy comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
A nutty scientist uses a gizmo to remove an actor's head, as far as anybody can tell. Apparently he can still talk and breathe and such. He tells the actor to get a job without his handsome face within a month, or stay that way forever.
Illustration by Robert Gibson Jones also.
The actor's head is stored, in some way or other, like a photographic negative. Only pure alcohol can make it go back to normal. Let's just say that beer and a cat are involved in the ridiculous climax.
This thing is even more of a lunatic romp than I have indicated. The nutty scientist does all kinds of impossible things, from teleportation to literally flying.
Of possible interest to fans of pure wackiness.
Two stars.
The Wrong People, by Ralph Robin.
Yet another comedy, from the November/December 1953 issue of the magazine.
Cover art by Vernon Kramer.
A married couple who pretty much dislike everything, including each other, inadvertently conjure up a being from somewhere else in space and time. The creature is friendly enough, it seems, even if it scares the daylights out of the humans at first.
Illustration by Ed Emshwiller.
After they calm down, they think it's some kind of genie or something, ready to offer them whatever they want. This misunderstanding doesn't end well, leading to a shockingly gruesome conclusion.
There seems to be a touch of satire here, although you have to dig deep to find it. The sudden change in mood at the end really threw me for a loop.
Two stars.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Princess of Mars, by Charles R. Tanner
The author retells the story of ERB's famous novel in the form of a humorous poem.
Illustration by Jim.
I found it too sophomoric for my taste in literary spoofing. I may be prejudiced, as I am not a fan of Burroughs.
One star.
Worth Waiting For?
This issue started off well, but quickly sank into mediocrity and lousiness. Amazing and Fantastic seem to have reached the bottom of the barrel when it comes to reprints. Too much thud-and-blunder adventure, too much stupid comedy. It's enough to make you sick.
Cartoon by Frosty, from the same issue as Ralph Robin's story.
As people who read my review of last year’s Orbit will recall, I loved Joanna Russ’ new fantasy hero Alyx the Adventuress. These stories combined a modern sensibility, great characterization and the kind of fun you would get from Howard or Leiber.
Needless to say then, I was extremely excited to learn we would be getting a new novel of Alyx’s adventures so soon afterwards. Trying to go into the book with as little foreknowledge as possible, I found it was definitely not the story I was expecting.
When we last left Alyx she was escaping Orudh and planning her next move. In the opening paragraph of Picnic on Paradise we are reintroduced to her:
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I cannot believe you are a proper Trans-Temporal agent; I think-” and he finished the thought on the floor his head under one of his ankles… “I am the Agent, and My name is Alyx.
To understand what a sharp diversion this is, imagine picking up Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror and finding it opens in 1917 with Conan at the Battle of the Somme. A fascinating choice but also one that requires a lot of readjustment of expectations as well as explanations.
Eventually what we piece together is that while she was escaping by sea after robbing the Prince of Tyre, she was somehow brought to the future and has come to work for the transtemporal agency. Although she has learnt some elements and language of this future millennia and these weird new worlds, she is still largely a stranger.
What is continued from the previous installments is Alyx’s impatience for impractical people. Here it is the tourists she must shepherd across Paradise. They are all different representatives of this future, showing different facets of the time, but for Alyx they are all fools in one way or another, coddled by society and unable to survive without it.
In some ways this could be seen as a version of Montaigne’s Des Cannibales but it significantly improves upon it. Whilst the original uses cultural relativism as a means to critique contemporary society, Russ sets up two opposing societies as alien to us as each other: the ancient Mediterranean of Alyx and the highly complex future of the tourists, and compares them to make more complex points as well as building fascinating worlds.
It should not be thought as an old-fashioned kind of text at all, as it does not pull any punches. Instead, we have explorations of drugs, sex, religion, complex psychology, violence, humanity and much more. It is like all of society attempting to be distilled into one perilous journey.
I know it is only January but if this isn’t to be my favourite novel of 1968, something really special will have to come along in the next 11 months.
A very high Five Stars
by Victoria Silverwolf
Short and Not So Sweet
I recently came across a trio of new works of speculative fiction that don't require a lot of time to read. In fact, I was able to finish all three books in one day. Each features a fair amount of disturbing material, even though one is a comedy, one is intended for younger readers, and one is a action-packed thriller. Let's take a look at these brief, dark-tinged novels.
I use the word new loosely for this satiric Russian novella from an author who died in 1940. It was actually written in 1925, but has never been officially published in the Soviet Union. (I understand that copies of it have been circulated in the underground form known as samizdat.) Michael Glenny's translation is its first appearance in English, I believe.
Cover design by Applebaum & Curtis, Inc., according to the back cover, but the artist remains anonymous.
In classic horror movie fashion, a Mad Scientist adopts a homeless pooch for the bizarre purpose of transplanting a dead man's testicles and pineal gland into the animal's body. (The detailed descriptions of surgery are the gruesome parts of the book. Dog lovers beware.)
The mutt changes into a man, of a particularly vulgar sort. The canine fellow claims to be a loyal Communist, turning against the aristocratic scientist and siding with the bureaucrats who want the doctor to give up several rooms in his apartment.
It's obvious that the author is attacking the Bolshevik revolution in his portrait of the dog-man and the other collectivists. He also satirizes quack medicine of the time.
The narrative alternates from first person, in the dog's point of view, to third person, sometimes in a single paragraph. Some readers may find these sudden transitions jarring, although otherwise the book is quite readable. (Kudos to the translator.)
Despite the blood-soaked scenes of surgery and the savage satire of Communism, much of the novel is pure slapstick. There's an extended sequence in which the newly created man chases a cat, leading to the flooding of the apartment. Overall, the book is both amusing and thought-provoking.
Next we have an unusual fantasy for young people. I think this is the author's first book.
My sources suggest that this art is by John Holder.
We jump right into a scene of nail-biting suspense. A sixteen year old boy and his kid sister are trapped on a small rock in the sea off the coast of England. Folks with spears are ready to kill them if they make it back to shore. The tide is rising, ready to drown them.
The boy got hit on the head by one of the mob and has amnesia. This gives the girl a good excuse to tell her brother (and the reader) what's been going on for the last five years.
A mysterious something made the inhabitants of Britain hate machines. They've gone back to a medieval way of life. The boy was caught messing around with a motorboat, and his sister was seen drawing pictures of machines. The fanatical locals are ready to execute them for witchcraft. (Apparently the anti-technology effect has worn off on them.)
The boy is a weathermonger; that is, he can control the weather with his mind. (Every village in England has one, it seems. I suppose it's a side effect of the machine-hating phenomenon.)
He uses this power to create a fog. The siblings escape, make their way to the forbidden motorboat, and reach France. (The anti-technology effect is limited to Britain.)
That's just the start of their adventures. The French authorities, seeing that they are immune to the phenomenon, send them back to track down its source. Thus begins a wild odyssey to Wales, making use of a snazzy 1909 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost stolen from a museum. (I get the feeling the author is in love with that classic car.)
It's an exciting book, with one heck of a climax. The explanation for what's going on strains credibility, even for fantasy. The story is too intense for very young readers, I think, but it should be fine for teenagers. Adults who don't mind reading so-called juveniles should enjoy it as well.
The cover makes it clear that this is the start of a series. The name of the series, and the illustration, suggest that we're in for the kind of SFnal sword and sorcery yarn you might find in an old copy of Planet Stories. That's pretty accurate, but there's a bit more to it.
Cover art by Jeff Jones, who also provides a couple of interior illustrations.
The author doesn't waste any time. In just a couple of pages, a starship is destroyed by a weapon launched from the planet it's orbiting. A scout ship carrying two guys crashes on the planet. A few pages later, one of them is dead.
Let's catch our breath and see where we are. See the tiny black dot in the middle of the left side of the map? That's where the scout ship landed. The sole remaining hero won't get very far from that spot by the time the book ends. He just travels a bit to the northwest, not even reaching the coast. There are a few references to other places on the map, but the vast majority of the rest of the planet is going to have to wait for other volumes in the series.
The map art is not credited, but might be by Jeff Jones as well.
If you think the geography is complicated, wait until you hear about the population. There are humans of many different cultures present, for reasons explained later. There are at least four species of aliens, broken up into subgroups. The aliens who give the book its title, for example, are divided into the Old Chasch, the Blue Chasch, and the Green Chasch.
Complicating matters is the fact that some humans are (pick one) servants/slaves/worshippers/devotees/imitators of the various aliens. One such person is the book's most amusing character.
With all this going on, we still have a nonstop action-packed plot, as our hero sets out on a seemingly hopeless quest to get back to Earth. Along the way, he meets the traditional beautiful princess, whom he has to rescue from captivity no less than three times.
(At this point, I had to wonder if the author was poking subtle fun at the kind of work produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.)
The story is full of violence and, frankly, kind of puerile. What distinguishes it from a typical thud-and-blunder yarn is the extraordinarily intricate setting. The author is a master of creating exotic cultures, and that's a lot more interesting than the endless killing and corny plot.
If the male characters are two-dimensional, the females are one-dimensional. The princess exists only to be stunningly beautiful, get kidnapped, and fall in love with the hero. There's a cult of priestesses who hate men and loathe attractive women. There are no other female characters of any importance, just servants and the like.
Taking a break from her various long-running series, Andre Norton, one of the most prolific science fiction novelists, has produced a new one-off. It's a simple, dare I say, old-fashioned tale wherein ex-GI Ray Osborne gets inadvertently whipped into the distant past when he stumbles across an experimental time travel beam. Emerging into the primeval forests of "The Barren Lands" that will one day be North America, he is quickly captured by a party of Atlanteans (as in from the lost continent of Atlantis) and turned into a galley slave. Fortunately, he is able to make his escape, with the help of a fellow prisoner named Cho. The two, now sword-brothers, secure passage on a warship commissioned by Atlantis' rival, the Pacific continent-nation of Mu. On said ship, Ray and Cho make their way to the land of the Sun, where Ray is elevated to the aristocratic rank of Sun-born and welcomed.
But Ray is in for more than he bargained, as he is imbued with a subconscious geas to infiltrate the perfidious former colony of Atlantis and stop their nefarious plan to bring in other-worldly demons, their doomsday weapon in a cold war about to turn hot…
Operation: Time Search is all very Burroughsian in its setup and execution, up to and including the pseudo-scientific, modern era bookends (that do not add much to the book save padding). It's essentially riproaring action from beginning to end, and Norton delivers it competently. There are also agreeable relationships between the sword-brethren Ray and Cho, as well as, later in the book, Ray and a buccaneer captain named Taut.
This is a peculiarly shallow book, however. The Murians are portrayed as universally good and just (even when they commit actions that are not so nice, as in making Ray an unwitting weapon). The Atlanteans are foul in every respect. This could be fine–after all, when has Conan been subtle? But the writing is peculiarly sparse, almost oblique, when describing the many visceral horrors and foes of this bloody world, almost as if Norton were censoring herself (or perhaps she was censored after the fact). An encounter between Roy and "The Loving One", a gruesome Lovecraftian menace, in particular suffers for this.
Plus, I was sad that the potentially interesting Lady Ayna, captain of a Murian warship, essentially disappears shortly after her introduction. The saintly Lady Aiee, Cho's mother, is not nearly so compelling; in any wise, she is gone halfway through the book, too. Really, there just isn't a lot to become attached to in this book: Ray isn't a good enough character, and the setting is too one dimensional.
All in all, it felt like Norton was just going through the motions on this one. Three stars.
Until now, the protests and unrest have been confined to the bigger cities, particularly West Berlin. My hometown of Bremen did have its share of protests, but those were mostly just a few dozen people standing around on the market square, holding up placards. Though protests are getting bigger even here. On the day before Christmas, there was a protest against the war in Vietnam of several thousand overwhelmingly young people outside the US general consulate.
Right now, however, Bremen is seeing the biggest protests since the Bremen Soviet Republic fifty years ago. And for once, those protests are not against the war in Vietnam or the West German emergency laws or a visit of the Shah of Persia or former Nazis in positions of power, but about something far more mundane, namely an increase in bus and tram fares from 60 to 70 Pfennig for single tickets and 33 to 40 Pfennig for group tickets popular with students and apprentices. On the surface, this increase seems modest. However, for students, apprentices and young people in general who neither have cars nor a lot of money and rely on public transport to get around the city, even a small fare increase is a big problem.
The tram protests started small on January 15 with approximately fifty students of several Bremen high schools protesting the fare increase on the Domsheide square, one of the main tram traffic hubs in the city center. When the protest was ignored, the students decided to stage a sit-in on the tram tracks. The police removed the students, whereupon the protest continued outside Bremen central station – another major traffic hub – where other young people joined in.
Protesting youngsters on the Domsheide squarePolice officers face teenaged protesters on DomsheideProtesting students stage a spontaneous sit-in on the tram tracks.
In the following days, the protests continued to grow. On January 16, there were roughly 1500 young people staging a sit-in on the tram tracks, holding placards with slogans like "70 Pfennig – Lieber renn' ich" (70 Pfennig – I'd rather walk). The initial protesters had been high school students, but by now they were joined by students of the technical and pedagogical colleges and apprentices of various local companies. The protest managed to bring tram traffic in Bremen's city center to a complete halt with a backlog of trams stretching all across town.
Student leaders speak to the protestersStudent leader Christoph Köhler addresses the protesters.Young protesters hold up a banner saying "70 Pfennig – I'd rather walk"More placards. One protester announces that he will henceforth go by bike, while another declares "Avoid the tram – 70 Pfennig is crazy".
And the protest was still growing. The next day, there were 5000 young people protesting and blocking the tram tracks to the point that the public transport company BSAG suspended all tram traffic across the entire city.
Police officers stationed on the Domsheide square.
Bremen's chief of police Erich von Bock und Polach, who was a Colonel in the Waffen-SS before he reinvented himself as a member of the Social Democratic Party, proved that he had learned nothing whatsoever from the tragic events in West Berlin last June and ordered the Bremen police to attack the protesting students with truncheons, batons and water cannons. Hereby, the police not only managed to beat up several innocent bystanders, but the resulting unrest also caused damage to twenty-one tram cars and fourteen busses.
Sadly, we have seen pictures like these all too often. Police officers beat up a protester.A police water cannon attempts to blast protesters on Bremen's market square, but only manages to hit the stall of the Bürgerpark tombola and the Roland statue.A police water cannon blasts protesting students in front of the St. Petri cathedral, whose rector supported the protesters. Note the trams in the background.Two young protesters face off against water cannons and are clearly loving every minute of it.The police arrest a very dangerous protester who appears to be fourteen or fifteen at most.Police officers drag off a protester and chase a very dangerous kid on a bicycle.The editor of this student newspaper thought that marking his car as "press" would protect him from police violence, but the police officers dragged him out of the car anyway.This protesters holds up a placard asking the police not to beat up protesters, but negotiate, sadly without success.Protesters hold up placards decrying police violence.
Chaos on the streets of Bremen
And still the protests grew. The workers of the AG Weser shipyard and the Klöckner steelwork, the two biggest companies in Bremen, employing thousands of people, many of whom rely on public transport, declared their solidarity with the protesting students and apprentices. By January 18, twenty thousand people were protesting in the city center.
By January 18, the protest had grown to twenty thousand people and the protesters are no longer just teenagers.A representative of the metal workers' union speaks to the protesters.
The city was in utter chaos by now and the Bremen senate held an emergency meeting. Thankfully, cooler heads than the noxious chief of police von Bock und Polach prevailed and so Bremen's new mayor Hans Koschnik, who has only been in office since November, met with representatives of the protesters in the townhall, while the protests were still going on outside and threatened to boil over into violence again.
Bremen's new mayor Hans Koschnik has only been in office since November and really deserves better.The police has cordoned off the area around the townhall to allow members of the city parliament to attend the emergency meeting.
An unlikely heroine emerged in 54-year-old Annemarie Mevissen, deputy mayor and senator for youth, sports and education. Mrs. Mevissen left the relative safety of the townhall and went out to talk to the protesters directly. On the Domsheide, where the protests had begun four days earlier, Mrs. Mevissen climbed onto a crate of road de-icing salt, grabbed a megaphone and spoke to the protesters, explaining why the fare increases were sadly necessary, but also expressing sympathy for the protesters. Annemarie Mevissen's speech as well as the meeting with Mayor Koschnik did the trick and the protests gradually ceased. As of today, trams and busses are mostly running again.
Senator for Youth, Sports and Education and deputy mayor Annemarie Mevissen speaks to the protesters to express sympathy and call for calm.Annemaire Mevissen is a remarkable woman. Since she also is Senator of Sports, she is showing off her ball kicking skills while meeting with young football players.
By chance, I was shopping in the city center on the second day of the protests. I could still get into the city by tram, but by the time I wanted to go home I had to walk several kilometres to where I had parked my car. However, I still found the time to stop at my favourite import bookstore to peruse their spinner rack of English language paperbacks.
The Return of the Dynamic Duo: The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber's delightful pair of rogues, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have had a troubled publication history. They debuted in the pages of Unknown, Astounding/Analog's fantasy-focussed sister magazine, almost thirty years ago. After Unknown's demise in 1943, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser were left adrift, until they finally found a new home in Fantastic under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith Lalli. However, with the sale of the Ziff-Davis magazines to Sol Cohen, the appearances of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser in the pages of Fantastic became scarce. It seemed the dynamic duo was homeless once again, unless they shacked up with Cele Goldsmith Lalli over at Modern Bride magazine, that is.
So imagine my joy when I spotted the brand-new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser adventure The Swords of Lankhmar in the spinner rack of my trusty import bookstore. Nor was this adventure short fiction, like the duos' previous outings, but a full length novel. So of course I had to pick it up, even if I had to carry it five kilometres through the city, dodging protesters and aggressive police officers.
The story
Fafhrd and Gray Mouser return to Lankhmar, only to find themselves first attacked and then hired by Lankhmar's overlord Glipkerio Kistomerces to escort a fleet of grain ships to a neighbouring city. The fleet's cargo is a gift to Movarl of the Eight Cities in exchange for some help with a pesky pirate plague. Also aboard the grain ships – and another gift to Movarl – are the Demoiselle Hisvet, daughter of Lankhmar's wealthiest grain merchant, her maid Frix and Hisvet's twelve trained white rats. The ship's captain isn't happy about the presence of the rats, because rats and grain don't mix. Meanwhile, both Fafhrd and Mouser are fascinated by the Hisvet and her maid.
It does not take long for trouble to find Fafhrd and Mouser, who soon find themselves fighting off monsters, pirates and rat attacks. The two rogues also have their hands full with Hisvet and Frix. Luckily, they get some help from Karl Treuherz, a German-speaking time-travelling hunter capturing monsters for Hagenbeck's Zeitgarten. Karl Treuherz (his last name means "true heart") is a delightful character, particularly if you're German and can understand not only his dialogue in flawless German (kudos to Mr. Leiber), but also understand that Hagenbeck's Zeitgarten is a riff on Hagenbecks Tierpark, the famous Hamburg zoo, which apparently will open a time- and dimension-travelling dependency in the future. Cover artist J. Jones clearly likes Karl Treuherz, too, and put him on the cover.
The distinctive main entrance of Hagenbecks Tierpark in Hamburg. So far, they don't yet display alien monsters, but it's only a matter of time.
Something smells of rat here
If the story feels a little familiar, that's probably because it is. For the first half of The Swords of Lankhmar appeared under the title "Scylla's Daughter" in the May 1961 issue of Fantastic. That novella ended on a cliffhanger with the treacherous Hisvet and Frix escaping aboard one of the ships, leaving Fafhrd and Mouser marooned.
Fantastic's cover artist clearly liked Karl Treuherz as well.
The novel follows the two ladies as well as Fafhrd and Mouser back to Lankhmar, where even more intrigues await. For sinking a fleet of grain ships was just the start for Hisvet and her twelve trained rats. It turns out that Hisvet and her father are members of a race of intelligent rats, who live in Lankhmar Below and want to take over the entire city. Mouser shrinks himself down to rat size to spy on them, only for the mad overlord Glipkerio to ignore his warnings in favour of building a contraption that may or may not send him to a parallel universe. The way of defeating the rat invasion is as obvious as it is ingenious by using the rats' hereditary enemy against them.
The Lankhmar Below scenes were my favourite parts, probably because as a kid, I envisioned thumb-sized beings, both humans and animals, who inhabit a parallel city in the sewers, basements and walls of our world. In order to cross between the two worlds you needed a magical shrinking potion. Reading Leiber's descriptions of Lankhmar Below felt as if he had reached into my mind to bring my own fantasy world to the page. Or maybe there really is a parallel world of intelligent rodents and both Fritz Leiber and I somehow stumbled upon them in early childhood.
My imaginary parallel world of little people and animals sprang from the collection of small figures kept in this cookie tin featuring a picture of the Cologne Cathedral, hence I called them "church box people".
An ode to interracial and interspecies romance
Because this is a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story, there also are plenty of romantic entanglements. Mouser falls for Hisvet and finds himself wondering if she's human or rat underneath her floor-length gown and if it even matters to him. Fafhrd prefers Frix, but Hisvet likes Frix, too. Furthermore, Mouser is fascinated by Reetha, a maid at the overlord's palace who is completely hairless, while Fafhrd starts a relationship with Kreeshkra, a ghoul with transparent skin and flesh who is basically a walking skeleton.
Over the past few years, the amount of sex in science fiction and fantasy has been creeping upwards, as the sexual revolution makes it possible to write about previously taboo subjects. This is not necessarily a good thing, since some writers feel the need to foist sexual fantasies that had better remained private upon the unsuspecting reader – see Piers Anthony's Chthon or John Norman's Gor books. Thankfully, Leiber does not go this route, even though there is quite a bit of sexual content, including sexual content of the more unusual sort, in The Swords of Lankhmar. However, nothing here is even remotely as prurient as Chthon or the Gor books. Instead, Leiber's message – even spelled out at one point – is that love is love, no matter the gender, race or species of the participants. And indeed, none of the women Fafhrd and Mouser become involved with in this story are in any way standard love interests. Frix is a black woman, Reetha's hairlessness does not match any classic beauty standards, Hisvet may or may not be part rat and Kreeshkra is essentially a walking skeleton. Furthermore, there are several not so subtle hints that Hisvet and Frix are in a romantic relationship as well.
All in all, The Swords of Lankhmar is a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy adventure and a welcome return to the world of Nehwon and its most famous rogues. However, the plot meanders a bit, particularly in the second half. The genre that Robert E. Howard pioneered in the pages of Weird Tales almost forty years ago and that Fritz Leiber named sword and sorcery works best in the short form. Almost all of Howard's tales about Conan the Cimmerian or Kull of Atlantis, C.L. Moore's adventures of the medieval swordswoman Jirel of Joiry, which I hope will be reprinted eventually, as well as Michael Moorcock's stories about Elric of Melniboné and all previous Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories have been novellas and novelettes. A genre that focusses on action and adventures thrives best in the short form and tends to meander at novel length, a problem that's also apparent in Robert E. Howard's sole Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon, recently reprinted as Conan the Conqueror.
SF editors come in highly assorted makes and models and evoke equally varied reactions. Some are revered as movers and shakers (though not always unanimously); a few are reviled as debasers of the field; some are barely noticed at all. A few have earned sympathetic respect for making something out of nothing, or close to it. Before World War II, Frederik Pohl edited several pulp magazines with a budget of zero, and he had to beg for stories from his friends. Robert Lowndes had little more than zero to work with, but managed to publish three at-least-readable magazines through the 1950s, occasionally coming up with something excellent. (And he’s at it again with Magazine of Horror.)
Another in this mode was Cele Goldsmith, later Lalli, who joined Ziff-Davis in 1955, straight out of Vassar. First, she was editorial assistant to Howard Browne, then to Paul Fairman when Browne left, with promotions along the way to associate editor and managing editor. At the time she was hired, she had read no SF beyond Verne and Wells. When Fairman left at the end of 1958, she inherited the editor’s mantle. During that time, the magazines were firmly, and intentionally, stuck in a rut of formulaic stories. Most of them were produced almost literally by the yard by a small number of regulars (among them Robert Silverberg, Randall Garrett, Stephen Marlowe (nee Milton Lesser), and Howard Browne, joined in midflight by Harlan Ellison and Henry Slesar) under various pseudonyms and house names as well as their own names. Though more outright fantasy did appear in Fantastic than in Amazing, overall there was not much difference between their contents, and in fact the label Science Fiction appeared on Fantastic at times.
Things changed quickly under the new editor. (Hints of these changes were already apparent in the last months under Fairman, when Goldsmith was assuming progressively more responsibility). The contents pages gradually became more various, with respectable middle-grade writers from outside the regular crew appearing more and more frequently—some of whom, like Cordwainer Smith and Kate Wilhelm, became much more prominent later. Though some of the regulars—Silverberg, Garrett, Slesar, Ellison—continued to appear, the pseudonyms vanished.
Goldsmith’s most audacious coup in her first year as editor was the November 1959 Fantastic, which consisted entirely of five stories by Fritz Leiber. No SF magazine had previously devoted an entire issue to one author (though some issues of Amazing and Fantastic had probably come close, with authors’ identities obscured by pseudonyms.) Most notable among the stories was "Lean Times in Lankhmar," the first new entry in a number of years in Leiber’s sword-and-sorcery series featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, which signaled a revival of a style of fantasy that had fallen badly out of favor.
By 1960, the magazines had been reestablished as having some claim to merit, a welcome counter-trend to the rapid disappearance of other SF magazines. (No fewer than 15 magazines ceased publication from 1958 to mid-1960.) Amazing’s and Fantastic’s roster of contributors quickly became more impressive. Frank Herbert, James Blish, James E. Gunn, Damon Knight, and Clifford Simak all appeared during 1960, and Fritz Leiber made multiple contributions to both magazines. Other signs of an enterprising editor included the resumption in Fantastic of Sam Moskowitz’s articles on early figures in SF and fantasy, which had been running in Satellite when it folded; pieces on Lovecraft, Stapledon, Capek, M.P. Shiel and H.F.Heard, and Philip Wylie appeared in 1960. (The series was later continued in Amazing with more recent writers as subjects.) Amazing began a selection of reprints from its earliest days, selected and introduced by Moskowitz. Fantastic published a “round robin” story titled "The Covenant", with chapters by Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Robert Sheckley, Murray Leinster, and Robert Bloch, modelled on similar stories published in the 1930s. On the outside as well, the magazines improved, with the covers of Fantastic in particular becoming steadily less cheesy and more imaginative.
Goldsmith’s most often recognized achievement is the significant number of excellent writers whom she discovered and who went on to considerable success. The list speaks for itself: Keith Laumer, Neal Barrett, Jr., Roger Zelazny, Sonya Dorman, Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin, Phyllis Gotlieb, Piers Anthony. She also provided a home for David R. Bunch, who had been publishing in semi-professional and local markets throughout the ‘50s, but who became a regular in Amazing and Fantastic, albeit to decidedly mixed reception. Similarly, she was the first American editor to publish J.G. Ballard, who had made a substantial reputation in the British SF magazines but had not previously cracked the US magazines. Lalli’s lack of background in SF before she came to Ziff-Davis may have served her well by leaving her more open than other editors to departures from genre business as usual.
That’s the good news—the straw-into-gold part. But the magazines were not all gold by any means. Being at the bottom of the market in terms of pay rates meant that the stories Goldsmith received from the most prominent writers would be those that had been rejected everywhere else. She could (and had to) take a chance on new writers who might or might not pan out, and in some cases she had to take work that she probably would rather have avoided. Many of the serialized novels were quite weak. Jack Sharkey’s disastrous Amazing serial The Programmed People comes to mind. Overall, the bag was especially mixed in Amazing. Most issues of the magazine included some stories that were variously crude, inane, or otherwise barely readable. Reading Amazing month by month was a perpetual bait-and-switch game, with expectations raised by impressive issues and dashed the following month.
Nevertheless, by the end of the Ziff-Davis era, the Goldsmith/Lalli Amazing had put up an enviable score of memorable stories. There are too many to list here, but the highlights include Arthur C. Clarke’s Before Eden (June 1961); J.G. Ballard’s startling run including The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista (March 1962), Thirteen to Centaurus (April 1962), and The Encounter (June 1963); Mark Clifton’s scarifying Hang Head, Vandal! (April 1962); Roger Zelazny’s Moonless in Byzantium (December 1962); Keith Laumer’s It Could Be Anything (January 1963) and The Walls (1963); and Philip K. Dick’s The Days of Perky Pat (December 1963). The last half-dozen issues amounted to a crescendo towards oblivion, featuring Zelazny’s serial He Who Shapes (January-February 1965), Frank Herbert’s Greenslaves (March 1965), Clifford D. Simak’s brief and elegant Over the River and Through the Woods (May 1965), and Zelazny’s exuberantly shameless performance The Furies (June 1965). Fantastic offered among others Jack Vance's The Kragen (July 1964), Thomas M. Disch's chilly Descending (the same issue!), Ursula Le Guin's April in Paris (her first story!), and the renewed series of Gray Mouser/Fafhrd stories by Leiber.
It’s not clear whether Lalli had the option of staying with Amazing and Fantastic when they were sold, but if so, it’s just as well she didn’t take it. Life under the Sol Cohen almost-all-reprints, negligible-budget regime, shortly to be compounded by a boycott by the Science Fiction Writers of America when Cohen refused to pay for reprints, could scarcely have been anything but miserable. She wisely slipped sideways into Ziff-Davis’s Modern Bride, there to purvey a different sort of fantastic literature, while the Sol Cohen magazines’ editorials and letter columns rang with surly bad-mouthing of her time at the helm of Amazing and Fantastic. Something tells me that her decade’s foray into SF and fantasy will be well remembered long after her successor is forgotten.
Cele Goldsmith and the Sword and Sorcery Revival
by Cora Buhlert
When Cele Goldsmith took over editing duties at Amazing and Fantastic in 1958, sword and sorcery was not just dead – no, the type of historically flavoured adventure fantasy with a good dose of horror that was pioneered by writers like Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner or Nictzin Dyalhis in the pages of Weird Tales some thirty years ago did not even have a name. A few stalwarts were holding up the flame in the fanzine Amra, but commercially the subgenre was dead and those who'd written it during its brief flourishing in the 1930s had either passed away (Howard, Kuttner, Dyalhis) or had retired from writing (Moore and Smith).
One of the few writers from the genre's heyday who was still around and still writing was Fritz Leiber, who had published several stories about a pair of adventurers called Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Unknown and other magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. The last Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story "The Seven Black Priests" appeared in Other Worlds Science Stories in 1953. For all intents and purposes, the two rogues from the city Lankhmar, though dear to Leiber's heart, were permanently retired, as the market had moved away from the sort of swashbuckling fantasy that characterized their adventures.
Enter Cele Goldsmith and the Fritz Leiber Special Issue of Fantastic in November 1959. Of the five stories Leiber wrote for that issue, two were part of his Change War series (a novel in that series, The Big Time, had just won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novel), two were standalones and one, "Lean Times in Lankhmar", was the first new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story in six years.
The May 1961 issue of Fantastic, illustrating a memorable scene from Fritz Leiber's "Scylla's Daughter". There's also a reprint of a Robert E. Howard story.
"Lean Times in Lankhmar" is one of the best and definitely the funniest story in the entire series, a satire of organized religion that manages to be sharp but not offensive. The story must have struck a chord both with Cele Goldsmith and the readers of Fantastic, for over the next six years eight new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories appeared in Fantastic, more than had been published in Unknown, where the series originated in 1939.
Ed Emshwiller's striking cover illustration for Fritz Leiber's "The Unholy Grail".
In 1961, the still nameless genre that was about to undergo a revival finally got a name, when Fritz Leiber proposed "sword and sorcery" in an exchange with Michael Moorcock in the pages of the fanzines Amra and Ancalgon. The alliterative term stuck, so now there was finally a name for stories like the adventure of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Robert E. Howard's Conan.
Ed Emshwiller's portrait of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, patron wizard of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, adorns the cover of the May 1964 issue of Fantastic, which reprinted Fritz Leiber's "Adept's Gambit".
Cele Goldsmith had only just been born during sword and sorcery's first heyday in the 1930s and certainly did not read Weird Tales in the crib, but she knew a rising genre when she saw one. So she began publishing more sword and sorcery stories by other authors.
Roger Zelazny is one of Cele Goldsmith's great discoveries. His first professional story "Horseman!", which appeared in the August 1962 issue of Fantastic, was a sword and sorcery story. It wasn't even the only sword and sorcery story in that issue. The title story "Sword of Flowers" by Larry M. Harris a.k.a. Laurence M. Janifer as well as "The Titan," a reprint of a 1934 story by P. Schuyler Miller, were sword and sorcery as well.
Roger Zelazny debuted in the August 1962 issue of Fantastic which also featured sword and sorcery by Laurence M. Janifer and P. Schuyler Henstrom. The cover is by Vernon Kramer.
Zelazny has since branched out, but he keeps returning to sword and sorcery once in a while, for example in the haunting Lord Dunsany-inspired stories of Dilvish the Damned, three of which have appeared in Fantastic to date.
Roger Zelazny's Dilvish the Damned story "Thelinde's Song" is the cover story of the June 1965 issue of Fantastic, which was also the last issue edited by Cele Goldsmith-Lalli.
Though only in his thirties, John Jakes is already a veteran writer who has been publishing across various genres since 1950. An admitted fan of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories from the 1930s, Jakes created his own Conan-like character in Brak the Barbarian, who has appeared in four stories in Fantastic between 1963 and 1965.
Ed Emshwiller's iillsutration for "The Girl in the Gem" by John Jakes.Gray Morrow's cover for the March 1965 issue of Fantastic illustrates "The Pillars of Cambalor" by John Jakes.
British writer and editor Michael Moorcock has been a prolific contributor to the fanzine Amra and also pushed the sword and the sorcery genre into new directions with the adventures of Elric of Melniboné, an albino elven warrior who depends on drugs to survive and fights evil with his cursed sword Stormbringer. The majority of Elric's adventures have appeared in the pages of Science Fantasy, but "Master of Chaos" appeared in the May 1964 issue of Fantastic alongside a reprint of Fritz Leiber's 1947 Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story "Adept's Gambit."
Since Amazing and Fantastic were sold to Sol Cohen and Cele Goldsmith Lalli left for the greener pastures of Modern Bride, the appearances of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Dilvish the Damned and Brak the Barbarian have become rare in the pages of Fantastic (and what stories there did appear were likely leftover from Goldsmith's tenure). However, the sword and sorcery revival is still in full swing and Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, which started it all back in 1932, are set to be reprinted later this year.
One day in the future, when the history of sword and sorcery is written, Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock and John Jakes will be remembered as pivotal figures in the revival of the genre in the sixties. However, I hope that any history of sword and sorcery will also make room for Cele Goldsmith, who championed the genre when it had neither a name nor a market and without whom the sword and sorcery revival may well have been strangled in the crib.
No more mighty muscles in Cele Goldsmith Lalli's new stomping grounds, though at least the gothic castles and maidens in white gowns remain.
An ancient Chinese representation of the topic I will discuss.
Up and down. Left and right. Hot and cold. Female and male. Good and evil.
There's a natural tendency for human beings to think in pairs of contrasting concepts, sometimes in opposition, sometimes complementing each other. Such dualities are useful, but are often greatly oversimplified, painting everything as black or white, and ignoring the many shades of gray between.
I thought about this, oddly enough, when I heard the news just yesterday that Singapore is no longer part of the nation of Malaysia, as it had been since winning full independence from the United Kingdom in 1963. Instead, it is now a sovereign nation.
Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, announces the city-state's new status at a press conference.
Political differences between the central Malaysian government and Singapore led to the split, as well as strife between persons of Malay ethnicity and the mostly ethic Chinese population of Singapore. It's not yet clear whether Malaysia kicked Singapore out, or if the city left of its own free will.
This division of one nation into two made me think about the way our minds see things as dyads. I even perceived recent hit songs as a pair of opposites.
For most of July, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones was at the top of the American music charts. It's a hard-driving tune, sure to grab your attention the first time you hear it.
And it's now my favorite rock 'n' roll song.
As if the gods of record stores and jukeboxes wanted to help me prove my theory of duality, the song that reached Number One in the USA this month could not be more different. Herman's Hermits have a smash on their hands with I'm Henry VIII, I Am, a comic music hall ditty that goes all the way back to 1910.
The success of this very silly song may foretell the end of the world.
New and old. Serious and funny. Good and bad. (OK, that last one is a matter of opinion.) Even when it comes to entertainment, things seem to exist as opposites, at least in our heads. The latest issue of Fantastic is no exception.
It's Two — Two — Two Magazines In One!
I trust the makers of Certs will forgive me for making fun of the well-known slogan from their TV commercials. It's appropriate for the revised version of Fantastic, which combines one new story with a quartet of reprints.
Art by the late Frank R. Paul.
That cover looks pretty old-fashioned, doesn't it? That's because it first appeared more than a quarter of a century ago, as the back cover of the very first issue of Fantastic Adventures, May 1939.
Look familiar?
The new publisher of Fantastic obviously intends to reuse as much material from the past as possible. Also dating back to the innocent days before World War Two is the following now-dated scientific explanation for why a Martian might look something like the being on the right. (The one on the left is a human, in case you were wondering.)
The redundancy in Item F makes me giggle.
Before this place becomes, as Tom Lehrer put it in Bright College Days, soggy with nostalgia, let's take a look at something hot off the presses.
Starting off the issue is a new adventure of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, whom we've met many times before.
Illustrations by Gray Morrow. You can already tell that a lot is going to happen.
This time we're in Fafhrd's homeland, a place of snow and ice. A cryptic bit of doggerel leads our heroes to a chain of mountains. In search of a fabulous treasure, the ill-matched pair make their way, slowly and painfully, up a gigantic peak. Along for the fun is a large white feline, who becomes as important a member of the team as the giant Northerner and the diminutive Southerner.
They've already made a long, hard climb before they even begin to scale the highest mountain.
All kinds of challenges and mysteries stand in their way. The Gray Mouser has visions of a green, mask-like face, and Fafhrd experiences dreams of touching a woman he can't see. Two rivals are after the same treasure, and they have a pair of unusual companions. Most bizarre of all, gigantic invisible beasts, something like flying mantas, carry equally unseen enemies.
And what would a sword-and-sorcery yarn be without a monster to fight?
Eventually, the bold duo reach the top of the mountain, encounter the beings who live inside, and find out who led them there, and why.
A naked Gray Mouser and a dwarf who isn't naked.
Lieber's imagination runs wild here, and his writing is simply gorgeous. A lecture by Fafhrd, in which he describes each mountain in poetic language, is a thing of beauty. The trek up the ice-covered peak is described in exquisite, vivid detail. (I suggest reading this story while wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot cocoa.) There are enough fantasy elements for a full-length novel, and the plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader's attention.
The rest of the magazine consists entirely of reprints. The first comes from the pen of the Good Doctor. It first appeared in the May/June 1953 issue of the same publication.
Art by W. T. Mars. At least Ike got his name on the cover.
As you might expect, the story deals with robots, of a sort. In this case, we're talking about self-driving automobiles, with positronic motors that are also their brains. The narrator runs a sort of retirement home for these intelligent vehicles, once their owners have passed on. The cars have personalities, as far as their caretaker is concerned. The sedans are boys, and the convertibles are girls, including the title character.
An unscrupulous fellow, one of Asimov's few villains, tries to purchase the retired cars, so he can put their brains into different bodies. The idea is that he can then make a profit, selling old autos for new. The narrator, as horrified as he would be if the man was suggesting vivisection on people, refuses. The Bad Guy returns, using force this time to get his way. Let's just say that things don't work out for him.
There aren't a lot of surprises in the plot, unless you count the fact that the author's famous Three Laws of Robotics don't apply here. As usual for Doctor A, he writes clearly and efficiently.
Illustration by Emsh. All the illustrations for previously published stories are also reprints.
Automobile enthusiasts, among whom I cannot count myself, will probably get an extra kick out of this story. I thought it was worth reading, while waiting to have your vehicle fixed at the car shop.
This story first appeared in the July 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures (not to be confused with Fantastic.) Flipping through the pages of the older magazine, I note that it still had the quotation marks around the title, but also had an exclamation point. (I worry about these things.)
Art by Robert Gibson Jones. The cover story has an exclamation mark also, as do several other pieces in the table of contents. I guess it was an exciting magazine.
A team of space explorers lands on a distant planet. It's made very clear, right from the start, that these folks are extremely careful when it comes to investigating a new world. The many scientists aboard the spaceship check out everything to make sure the place is safe, and there are soldiers to keep the peace.
A seemingly primitive humanoid alien shows up. A gizmo allows the alien and the humans to communicate, which is definitely a convenient plot device. The extraterrestrial offers the statement quoted in the title (without exclamation mark) not as a threat, but simply as a statement of fact.
Illustrations by Leo Summers.
The rest of the story deals with the explorers trying to figure out what the alien meant. It turns out to be something about the planet they hadn't considered.
A broken watch provides a clue.
In essence, this is an Astounding-style puzzle story, and not a very interesting example of one. Somebody like Hal Clement would have come up with a better solution to the mystery. By 1951, Simak was already an experienced pro, so it's written decently. However, there is none of the appreciation for the outdoors, or the affection for all living things, that we expect from him.
We go back to Fantastic (not to be confused with Fantastic Adventures, or, for that matter, Fantastic Universe) and dig out a copy of the July-August 1953 issue for our next blast from the past.
Art by Rupert Conrad. The great Theodore Sturgeon is reduced to being one of others.
We begin with a married couple leaving a party. They're both devastated by what has just happened. You have to read between the lines a bit, but it becomes clear that the woman, for no reason she can explain, had sex with another man there.
Illustrations by Emsh.
After the couple breaks up, the man, still an emotional wreck, finds out that other people have done equally inexplicable things at parties held by the same wealthy host.
Looks like a nice party, doesn't it?
Some of these incidents are minor, as when a sweet, grandmotherly woman who writes innocent books for children comes up with an extremely dirty story. Some seem good, as when a man who knows nothing at all about music creates a hit song. Others are much more serious, even including murder. In each case, somebody did something completely out of character.
Maybe not so nice after all.
Launching his own investigation into the mystery, the betrayed husband sneaks into the rich man's home; in particular, to the dark room of the title. (This is itself an anomaly, as the room is decorated in an ultra-modern fashion, while the rest of the house is very conservative.) He discovers something strange and frightening, and learns an uncomfortable fact about himself.
The lady and the spider have more in common than first meets the eye.
This unique psychological fantasy, with more than a touch of horror, demonstrates Sturgeon's gift for creating memorable, three-dimensional characters. The premise is much more subtle than just the typical monster story you might expect when the giant spider shows up. It might even make you ponder your own personality, and what you would never do.
As Mister Peabody might have said to Sherman, it's time to jump into the WayBack machine, and visit the remote past. Come with me now to the year 1929, and the March issue of Amazing Stories.
Art by Frank R. Paul, of course.
An old guy lives alone, except for his dog, in a mill that hasn't been used in a long time. He hears an odd noise, similar to what the mill's grinding stones used to sound like, coming from beneath the basement. Pretty soon the source of the noise is obvious.
Illustration by Frank R. Paul, naturally.
The man makes a desperate effort to stop the bizarre creature from destroying his home and everything in it. Does he succeed? You'll have to read the story to find out.
I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much from a Gernsbackian, pre-Campbellian, bit of scientifiction from three-and-one-half decades ago. To my surprise, this chiller was pretty well written. There's even some sophisticated characterization, as when the man recites random bits of poetry to himself. It's a simple yarn, executed with some talent.
Three stars.
Half a Loaf is Better Than None
With extra pages, and the contrast between original fiction and reprints, I felt like I was getting two magazines for the price of one. The first part, with Leiber's fine new story, was worth four bits all by itself. The second part was a mixed bag. Sturgeon's story was very good, Simak's was a disappointment, and the others were OK, if nothing special. If you pick up a copy, I'd suggest taking a break and enjoying a cup of coffee after you read Stardock, so you'll be ready for some lesser works.
It would seem fitting to add some of this stuff to your java.
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Beatles again have the most popular song on the U.S. charts. This time is it's a cheerful little melody called Can't Buy Me Love.
You'd be grinning too, if you were that popular.
I suppose there will be no end of imitations. My sources in the UK tell me a new group just released its first album. You can't tell from the minimalist cover, but they're called the Rolling Stones.
I thought they were called Decca.
The album isn't yet available on this side of the Atlantic, so I can't tell you what it sounds like. Judging by the haircuts, I assume it will be a lot like the Fab Four. Fantastic Five, maybe, if Marvel Comics doesn't object.
The British don't just export music, of course. They also supply us with sex and violence, in the person of James Bond, Agent 007. From Russia With Love, the sequel to the hit movie Dr. No opened on Yankee screens this month.
One should always be properly dressed while wielding a pistol.
All's Fair
Other nations besides the United Kingdom have a chance to impress Americans for the next couple of years. The New York World's Fair opened to the public today, with exhibits from dozens of foreign countries, as well as several states and business corporations.
That's the Unisphere, symbol of the Fair. I call it a globe.
Those of us with long memories will recall the 1939 New York World's Fair. It's hard to believe that a quarter of a century has gone by.
The pointy one is the Trylon and the round one is the Perisphere. They look more modern than the new one, don't they?
It would tedious to try to describe all the stuff going on at this extravaganza, but let me point out a few highlights. Science fiction fans will want to visit the Space Park.
NASA shows off their fancy equipment.
The state of Wisconsin brags about its most famous products.
Does that mean the World's Largest Cheese gets in free?
Noted puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft will present a stage spectacular called Les Poupées de Paris (The Dolls of Paris.) So what? Who cares about a kiddie puppet show? Well, this musical revue is for adults only. Seriously. You have to be at least twenty-one years old to get in. It's just too sexy and too scary for the little ones.
Here's one of the scary parts. I can't show you the sexy parts unless you have proof of age.
For those of us who can't make it to the Big Apple this year or next, at least we can explore strange new worlds in the pages of our favorite magazines. Let's head for the main gate and see what the latest issue of Fantastic has to offer.
Our first exhibit is an oldie but a goodie — this issue's Fantasy Classic deserves the name, and I won't complain about filling more than one-third of the issue with a reprint. It appeared in the pages of the 1947 Arkham House collection Night's Black Agents.
Cover art by Ronald Clyne
Just over three thousand copies of the book exist, so most fantasy fans won't be familiar with this novella featuring our old friends Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
A brief introductory note explains that the two adventurers are no longer in their usual fantasy realm of Nehwon. Having made their way through passageways that connect all possible worlds, they are now on Earth. To be specific, the Eastern Mediterranean area, in what seems to be ancient times. Don't expect historical fiction, though. This is a place full of enchantment and supernatural menace.
As they often do, the pair relax after their struggles in the arms of beautiful young women. Things quickly go wrong when Fafhrd's paramour turns into a sow. He suspects his companion of playing tricks on him, but this theory explodes when the Mouser's girlfriend changes into a giant snail. Both ladies regain their normal shapes after a while, but whenever either of the heroes embraces a woman, the same thing happens.
This is, of course, an intolerable situation. Reluctantly, they seek out their eldritch mentor Ningauble of the Seven Eyes. That bizarre being sends them on a weird quest, in the company of a mysterious woman. A long flashback sequence, narrated by the woman, relates the strange connection she has with her brother, a powerful practitioner of black magic. It all leads up to a final confrontation with the evil sorcerer.
Nobody writes sword-and-sorcery adventures as well as Fritz Leiber. This tale has just the right balance of wit, imagination, action, suspense, fully realized characters, colorful descriptions, and more than a touch of the macabre.
Five stars.
To the Victor, by Leo P. Kelley
Cover art by George Schelling
We exit the giant Leiber pavilion and enter the first of four smaller exhibits.
The setting is a planet inhabited by primitive aliens. Humans colonized the place long ago, filling it with vast, high-tech buildings. They want more elbowroom, and the aliens don't want their environment sacrificed to the newcomers. Conflict is inevitable. This isn't the usual kind of war, however. One human being and one alien face each other in single combat.
A man well over one hundred years old, with doubts about what humanity has done to the planet, is the protagonist. He witnesses the battle, and makes a symbolic gesture of his own.
The author contrasts the rapaciousness of the technological invaders with the aliens' love of the natural world. I appreciate the point he's trying to make, but he does it in a heavy-handed way. The combat scene involves odd, almost comic Rube Goldberg devices, which spoils the story's somber mood.
Time for a brief excursion outside the American section of this paper World's Fair, and a quick look at what the British have on display. Will they offer us something as groundbreaking as the Beatles?
Well, not really. Like the lead novella, this is a swashbuckling fantasy adventure yarn. The hero goes to a castle that lies at the edge of the Earth. After nearly losing his way inside its labyrinthine corridors, and doing battle with a monster, he confronts the sole inhabitant (As tradition demands, a beautiful and seductive sorceress). Their meeting leads to a new challenge.
The most interesting and original concept in this story is the idea that Earth is surrounded by ever-changing Chaos. As Chaos is conquered, Earth grows. It's a striking notion, and adds a novel touch to an otherwise typical example of the genre.
Three stars.
All For Nothing, by David R. Bunch
Cover art by Lutjens
Back to the States with a writer like no one else, for good or bad. In this offbeat creation, written in the author's eccentric style, a man creates an exact duplicate of himself. His mad scheme is to challenge God to accept the double in his place, so he can escape from life and the afterlife. Adding to the horrific mood is the elaborate machines the fellow intends to use to kill himself in a particularly slow and painful way.
I don't know what to make of this grim account of someone who doesn't want to exist in Earth, Heaven, or Hell. It certainly held my attention, if only in a depressing way.
Two stars.
Gulliver's Magic Islands, by Adam Bradford, M. D.
Cover art by Blair
If Fritz Leiber's name brought me into the fairgrounds, then Adam Bradford's made me want to find the exit. Fair is fair, however, and I have to give the man a chance to redeem himself. His last two Swiftian pastiches failed to add anything to the original, and missed the satiric point. Will he stumble again?
(By the way, the magazine's editorial reveals that the author's real name is Joseph Wassersug. He's a physician who writes medical articles. As far as I can tell, he's never published any fiction other than this series. The editorial also promises – or should I say threatens? – another one to follow.)
Once again, the narrator follows in Gulliver's footsteps. He visits Balnibarbi, the island of scientists; Laputa, the flying island that floats above it; Glubbdubdrib, the island of magicians; and Luggnagg, the home of the immortal struldbrugs. Not much is done with any of these except Balnibarbi. I have to admit that the author provides some decent satire on the way in which scientists have to chase after money for their projects. For that reason, this entry is a little better than the others.
(One odd thing that struck me. The inhabitants of Glubbdubdrib are described as dark-skinned. The name of their leader is Loother Krring. All other words made up by the author seem to be meaningless, but this one appears to be an allusion to Doctor Martin Luther King, the famous civil rights leader. What the point of this reference might be escapes me.)
Two stars
After the Fair is Over
As night falls and we leave the fairgrounds, souvenirs in our hands, we look back over an eventful day. Obviously, the Fritz Leiber pavilion was the highlight of the fair. If the other exhibits were disappointing, well, that's life. At least we can send a postcard telling the folks back home all about it.
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
Galactic Journeyers from the United Kingdom have often spoken about the strange phenomenon known as Beatlemania. Not too long ago, CBS News offered a report on the craze.
This peculiar form of passionate devotion to four shaggy-haired musicians has made little impact here in the United States. That may change soon.
released January 10
released January 20
With the nearly simultaneous release of Beatles albums by two rival record companies this month, Yanks have the opportunity to judge the British quartet for themselves.
For now, Americans seem to prefer ballads to upbeat rock 'n' roll.
Originally a hit for baritone Vaughn Monroe nearly twenty years ago, crooner Bobby Vinton reached the top of the charts for the third time with his sentimental remake.
Whether or not the USA welcomes the foursome from Britain remains to be seen. It might be an omen that the latest issue of Fantastic features only American authors.
This prolific author specializes in quirky accounts of tomorrow's fads and follies. His latest offering is no exception.
Most Americans live in gigantic communal apartment buildings. The government still allows voting, but there's only one political party. The President has no real power. The most revered figure is the First Lady, who is still young and beautiful after a century.
(The description of the character, and the way in which the nation idolizes her, suggest that she is a parody of Jacqueline Kennedy. The writer could not predict that the target of his gentle mocking would soon suffer a devastating tragedy.)
The protagonist dreams of winning the First Lady's favor by performing classical music with his brother on water jugs. The brother works at a spaceship dealer, with the help of a robotic imitation of an extinct Martian creature. The device, like the defunct Martians, can influence human minds. Everything comes together when the brothers make their appearance before the First Lady, and discover her secret.
This is a mixture of comedy and serious political satire. Imaginative details create a portrait of a neurotic future United States. A hint at the end that the brothers may escape their subtle dystopia lighten the story's mood. Although the plot is disjointed at times, it makes satisfying reading.
Four stars.
The Soft Woman, by Theodore L. Thomas
A man has a doll that looks like a naked woman with the head of a frog. He meets a beautiful woman and brings her to his room. A strange and frightening thing happens to him.
I can't say much more about this very brief story without giving away the ending. It confused me. I don't understand why the doll has a frog's head, or why it's named maMal [sic]. There seems no good reason for the man's unfortunate fate. There's some beautiful writing, but what does it all mean?
Two stars.
The Orginorg Way, by Jack Sharkey
An unattractive fellow who grew up alone in a Brazilian jungle has a strange ability to crossbreed plants into organic versions of technological devices. At first, he makes simple things like fishing rods. Eventually he creates substitutes for telephones and lightbulbs. He earns a vast fortune, enabling him to win the girl of his dreams. Of course, there's an ironic ending.
The absurd misadventures of the protagonist provide mild amusement. They way in which the plants imitate machines shows some imagination. As a whole, however, the story is too silly.
The conclusion of this short novel brings Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser together, along with the two rival brothers they serve, at the funeral pyre of the siblings' father. The death of the ruler of the underground kingdom leads to open warfare between his heirs. Sorcery and swordplay follow.
Disguise, deception, and skulking around keep the story moving at a rapid pace. A major twist in the plot near the end is predictable. Although there's plenty of colorful adventure, much of the hugger-mugger seems arbitrary.
Three stars.
They Never Come Back From Whoosh!, by David R. Bunch
In this surreal tale, people go inside a gigantic, soot-spewing building. They do not return. The narrator, like the others, feels a compulsion to enter the place, against his own will. Within he meets one of the building's strange caretakers.
This is a bizarre allegory of life, death, nature, and technology. The author's unique style is compelling, if not always lucid.
Three stars.
Return to Brobdingnag, by Adam Bradford, M.D.
A couple of months ago, the fictional Doctor Bradford journeyed to Lilliput, Jonathan Swift's land of tiny people. Now he visits the realm of giants. He finds out that they keep their population under control through death control instead of birth control. Whenever a baby is born, an elderly person takes poison to ensure a quick and painless demise. Their government is democratic, but the elite have more votes per person than the lower classes. The author also describes the science-based sun worship of the inhabitants, as well as their unusual way of performing surgery.
As with the previous installment in this series, the story takes far too long to get the narrator to his destination. The peculiar ways of the Brobdingnagians seem arbitrary, with no satiric point.
One star.
Death Before Dishonor, by Dobbin Thorpe
As we saw last month, Dobbin Thorpe is really Thomas M. Disch in disguise. Like Thorpe's creation in the previous issue, this is a tale of horror.
A woman wakes up from an alcoholic blackout and finds a tattoo on her thigh. She has no memory of how she got it. It turns out she had a one-night affair with a tattoo artist while she was drunk. The tattooist is a man of uncommon skill. His creations have a life of their own. The woman's romance with another man leads to terrifying consequences.
The story is gruesome, with a touch of very dark humor. Some might see it as a cautionary tale about drunkenness and promiscuity. I think the author just came up with a scary idea, and the plot grew out of it. On that level, it works well enough.
Three stars.
Summing Up
With eight Americans offering seven works of imagination, there are certain to be some stories you like and some you don't. I appreciate the wide range of fiction found here. We have satire, pastiche, adventure, allegory, comedy, surrealism, and horror. The only thing I'd like to stir into the mixture would be a few pieces from talented British writers. A story by Aldiss, Ballard, or Clarke – to mention just the ABC's of the UK – would be refreshing. Maybe the Beatles will add the same thing to American popular music. At least it would mix things up a bit.
[Time is running out to get your Worldcon membership! Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos.]
Ring Out the Old
Is it 1964 yet?
The caption says Happy New Year, Kids!
These happy young cosmonauts seem to think so. That's a Vostok rocket they're carrying. You remember Vostok, don't you? The Soviet space program that sent the first man and the first woman into orbit? No wonder they look so happy.
Here in the good old USA we do things a little differently.
It's not even Christmas yet, but this guy is ready.
No matter how you celebrate the holiday season, this is the time to remember the old and look forward to the new. For Americans, of course, the most important change was the loss of a martyred President and the inauguration of a new one. We are not likely to forget 1963 for a very long time.
Norman Rockwell pays tribute to the late JFK.
When it comes to space travel, yesteryear's new ideas turn old very quickly. The X-20 program was cancelled this month, after seven years of development. There goes $660,000,000 down the drain. Looks like the proposed Dyna-Soar reusable spacecraft is now as dead as a dinosaur.
Now that's what I call a real spaceship!
The old British Empire continues to evolve into new, independent nations. As of December 12, Zanzibar and Kenya are the newest members of the United Nations.
In the world of popular music, a new artist paid tribute to a man who lived more than seven hundred years ago. Belgian singer-songwriter Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers, better known in the United States as the Singing Nun, holds the top position on the American music charts with her original composition Dominique.
Deckers is a member of the Missionary Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Fichermont, where she took the name Sister Luc-Gabrielle. In her native land she is called Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile.) The song pays tribute to Saint Dominic (1170-1221), for whom the order is named. You don't have to be Catholic, or understand French, to appreciate the Singing Nun's pleasant voice, or the cheerful melody of her song.
The second foreign language song to reach Number One in the USA this year. At least the Americans didn't give it a silly name, the way they changed Kyu Sakamoto's lovely tune Ue o Muite Arukō into Sukiyaki.
Ring In the New
Fittingly, the latest issue of Fantastic (and the first dated in the coming year) features the first half of a new novel, but one that was born twenty-five years ago.
You may not know the name Harry Fischer. A new writer, perhaps? Well, not exactly. In fact, Fischer created the famous characters Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in a letter to his friend Leiber nearly three decades ago. Since then, of course, the great fantasist has made the pair of adventurers his own. In 1937, Fischer wrote about ten thousand words of a novel. Leiber completed it, and it appears here for the first time.
Quarmall is a strange kingdom. Its ruler lives in a keep above ground, but the rest of his realm lies deep down below. He has two adult sons. One reigns over the upper half of this underground land, the other the lower half. The brothers are bitter rivals, each trying to destroy the other through treachery and magic. They also plot against their father. He, in turn, hopes to eliminate his sons and leave his kingdom to the unborn child of a concubine.
Unknown to each other, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are each hired as a swordsman by one of the brothers. When the king's archmage announces the death of his master, the conflict between the siblings explodes into open warfare.
As you would expect from Leiber, this tale of derring-do is full of vivid, exotic details. The plot moves slowly, with much of the story taken up with the bored frustration of the two heroes. Fafhrd's rescue of a lovely young slave doomed to be tortured provides some excitement. No doubt the second half will provide plenty of sorcery and swordplay. It's not a bad yarn, but hardly up to Leiber's usual standard.
Three stars.
Minnesota Gothic, by Dobbin Thorpe
Another new author? Hardly. Thomas M. Disch, who appears later in the magazine, hides behind this peculiar pseudonym. The story is about a little girl named Gretel, but don't expect an old-fashioned fairy tale. The time is now. Gretel's mother leaves her in the care of a very old woman and her strange, bedridden brother. Black magic is involved, but not the way you might expect. This is a well-written, chilling little story. I wouldn't advise reading it on a dark and stormy night.
With four or five stories to her credit, LeGuin is still a relatively new voice in fantasy fiction, but her skill makes her seem like an old pro. Her latest tale of enchantment begins with a wizard trapped in a prison made of darkness. An evil sorcerer robbed him of his magic staff and locked him away. Although the loss of his staff greatly diminishes his power, he still possesses the ability to transform himself. He attempts to escape in many ways, only to be recaptured and made even weaker. In order to defeat his enemy, he must pay the ultimate price.
The author creates a dark fantasy of great imagination and vividness. The reader is sure to empathize with the despair and heroism of the protagonist.
Four stars.
Last Order, by Gordon Walters
Like LeGuin, Walters is a writer with few published works. Sadly, he doesn't share her talent. The story begins on an asteroid. An undescribed being tries to protect its master from an attack by police robots. When the master dies, it seeks revenge on all those who resemble the robots. The scene shifts to Earth. A detective with a fear of space travel receives an invitation to investigate the asteroid with his old partner, who left for space long ago. It turns out that the vengeful being kills anyone who arrives on the asteroid. After a dangerous encounter with the being, the truth comes out.
The characters frequently speculate about the possibility of a disembodied alien lifeform joining with spacemen in symbiosis. This turns out to be a complete red herring. The reader quickly learns that the spacesuits of the future are intimately connected to the bodies of their wearers, so the climax of the story is no surprise. There's much too little plot for a novelette.
Two stars.
A Thesis On Social Forms and Social Controls in the U. S. A.,by Thomas M. Disch
The secret identity of Dobbin Thorpe emerges from disguise with this fictional essay. It describes a nightmarish world of the future. In the Twenty-First Century, China and the Soviet Union destroy each other in an atomic war. Africa collapses into a state of permanent crisis. Europe is under the control of the Vatican. (Most Protestants move to the United States, which now includes Canada.) Only Australia emerges unchanged.
Disch begins with the famous dictums of George Orwell. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. To these, he adds two more. Life is Death. Love is Hate. One by one, he describes how these principles apply to American society. All adult males serve one year out of every five as a brutalized slave. The other four years they indulge in unrestrained orgies of pleasure. Women must care for the children they bear from multiple mates, or else serve as laborers or prostitutes.
The author paints a terrifying portrait of a culture that deliberately chooses to be schizophrenic. The essay's cold logic convinces the reader that such an insane world might truly exist. The stories by Thorpe and Disch could not be more different, except for the fact that they both induce a strong sense of foreboding.
Four stars.
Summing Up, and a Bonus Review
The new year begins with a very pessimistic issue of the magazine. From the sadistic Lords of Quarmall, to the insane world of the future, hardly a hint of hope appears in its pages. Even the book review by S. E. Cotts deals with a novel haunted by doom. I have read The Sundial by Shirley Jackson, discussed in the column. It's a very strange book. A group of eccentric people waits for the end of the world inside a weird house. Like everything I have read by Jackson, it is unique. I recommend it for reading by the fireplace on a dark night, waiting for the old year to fade away.
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