Tag Archives: fantastic

[June 10, 1967] Music To Read By (July 1967 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

So May I Introduce To You The Act You've Known For All These Years.

The Beatles, that is.

I know, I know. By now you're a little tired of the Fab Four. Well, the release of their latest album in the USA early this month may change your mind.

(Those lucky folks in the UK got it late last month.)

After evolving from catchy, expertly crafted pop songs into new musical territory with the albums Rubber Soul and Revolver, the Liverpudlians have taken a giant leap.


You could spend hours just studying the cover art.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is extraordinary. It takes rock 'n' roll, mixes it up with other forms of popular music, adds more than a little modern psychedelic surrealism, and comes up with a genuine work of art. I'm afraid I'm going to wear out lots of phonograph needles listening to it over and over.

Because I've already got the songs from this album stuck in my head, let me suggest the ones you might listen to while reading the latest issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

The image on the front is stolen from one of the weekly German magazines featuring the adventures of space explorer Perry Rhodan.


Perhaps one of our German Journeyers can supply a translation.

The Narrow Land, by Jack Vance


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The only new story begins with the birth of our hero, forcing his way out of an egg and fighting off others of his kind. He then grows up swimming in swampy water with other amphibian youngsters.

You can tell he's not a human being, can't you? All of the characters are of his species, but there are different kinds. The number of ridges on their heads indicates what variety they are.

One-ridge folks are the most common, and exist as fully developed males and females. Two-ridge types are sexually neuter. Three-ridge individuals are invariably male. As we'll learn later, there used to be a lot of them, but war with the two-ridge kind left only one alive. There's also one four-ridge being, a monster that preys on the one-ridge children.

Confused? So is our hero, as he tries to understand his world. As the title implies, it's a thin strip of inhabitable land between a region of cold, dark mist and an ocean of constant thunderstorms.

(The editorial blurb states that this is a planet with one side always facing its sun. This is not explicitly stated in the text. It explains why it's always twilight.)


There are also birds, but they are barely mentioned.

We'll get a detailed explanation for the various subtypes of aliens. Suffice to say that the main character leaves the water and is taken in by the two-ridge folks as one of their own. Later, however, he is labeled a freak, and has to escape to the realm of the three-ridge being. He learns a lot more about what's going on from that fellow, and comes up with a plan.

The story's setting and exotic alien biology is fascinating. The author does a good job of seeing things through the eyes of a character very different from a human being. The end comes rather suddenly, suggesting the possibility of a sequel.

Four stars.

(Suggested listening: Fixing a Hole, because the protagonist is trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge of the world.)

The Ship Sails At Midnight, by Fritz Leiber


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

This lovely and sad story comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Illustrations by Henry Sharp.

The narrator is one of a quartet of jaded, world-weary intellectuals in a small college town. He's a writer. One is a philosopher, another is studying physics. The only woman in the group is a sculptor. They're all fairly skilled in their various fields, but far from brilliant.

The four meet a strikingly beautiful woman working as a waitress at an all-night diner. She doesn't say much, and reveals almost nothing about herself. Somehow or other, she brings out the best in each of them. They lose their cynicism, and produce works of genius.


She claims her name is Helen, suggestive of the ancient Greek myth of the Trojan War.

It's obvious from the beginning that she's from another world. If the illustration wasn't enough of a clue, the story starts with reports of a meteorite falling to earth and sightings of a UFO.

The narrator falls in love with Helen, and she returns his affection. A strange man shows up, telling her it's time to leave. She chooses to stay. It turns out that the other two men are in love with Helen as well, and had also won her heart. Jealousy rears its ugly head, leading to sudden violence.

(As a side note, it seems to me that the author very subtly suggests that the sculptress is in love with Helen too. This is somewhat disguised by the fact that she is engaged to be married to the physics student. I may be reading too much into this, but I would not be very surprised if Leiber, a sophisticated writer always ahead of his time, meant to offer hints of a lesbian romance.)

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of joy won and lost.

Five stars.

(Suggested listening: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, because Lucy is as transcendent a creation as Helen.)

The Remarkable Flirgleflip, by William Tenn


Cover art by J. J. Blumenfeld.

The May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this futuristic farce.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

At some unspecified time in the future, human activities are controlled by time travelers from an even more distant future. In particular, they forbid a researcher from inventing time travel, because it's not supposed to be invented until a later time.

(I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Time travel stories are confusing.)

The guy decides to invent it anyway, and to heck with the consequences. He tricks the narrator into getting sent to the Twentieth Century. The fellow just wants to go back to his own time. Complications ensue, partly because people of the future don't wear clothing.

After hiding in a garbage can for a while, he winds up with a wisecracking newspaper reporter. It seems his story makes for hot news, even if nobody really believes him.

This is a silly story, without much of the satiric edge often found in Tenn's sardonic yarns. As you can tell from the title, it's full of goofy invented words. That always annoys me in a science fiction comedy.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!, because it's the most whimsical song on the album.)

From This Dark Mind, by Rog Phillips


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

The November/December 1953 issue of the magazine is the source of this look at tomorrow's psychiatry.

Using a device that gives a patient a word association test and analyzes it, the headshrinker is able to determine that a woman needs psychological surgery. This consists of altering her memory of an incident in her past.

As a secondary plot, another patient fails to show up for an appointment, and the psychiatrist suspects he's going to kill somebody. This part of the story turns into a kind of mystery, with a twist ending of sorts.

The background assumes that psychiatry is going to take over many of the functions of medical care. An outbreak of influenza among children, for example, is said to be caused by their anxiety over an event in the Little Orphan Annie comic strip!

At that point, I thought the author's intent was satire. As far as I can tell, however, the story is meant to be serious. The premise reminds me of the pseudoscience of Dianetics. (There's even a reference to pre-birth experiences as a source of mental disorders, which sure sounds like part of L. Ron Hubbard's nonsense to me.)

Setting aside my disdain for Dianetics, this isn't a very exciting story. There's some banter between the psychiatrist and his receptionist to fill up space. The two plots never come together, and they're resolved pretty much as you'd expect.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: A Day In The Life, because the story takes place during one long day and night for the psychiatrist.)

The Man with the Fine Mind, by Kris Neville


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

This chiller comes from the January/February 1953 issue of the magazine.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

A man is at a party with his fiancée. He's drinking pretty heavily, and he doesn't seem to be too happy. He even thinks about killing her.

(Don't ask me why these two are engaged. They seem like a very unlikely couple indeed.)

She makes some remarks about how it's a shame he has to leave. He insists that he's staying. Things get weird when everybody at the party acts like he's gone. They ignore him completely. Figuring that this is some kind of cruel prank, he gets angrier and drunker. The situation ends badly.

I have to admit that I didn't fully understand this story. I wasn't sure if the guy had actually left, and some kind of unseen doppelganger was left at the party, or the other way around. Despite my confusion, and an unpleasant lead character, it held my interest.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: With A Little Help From My Friends, because the protagonist was in desperate need of assistance from his acquaintances.)

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part Two of Two), by Bob Olsen


Cover art by Leo Morey.

Here's the conclusion of a novella that appeared (in one part) in the Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly.


Illustration by Morey also.

Last issue, we met a fellow who attempted suicide because his loss of religious faith led to his girlfriend leaving him. (Oddly, the guy remains a rather jolly, wisecracking sort.) A Mad Scientist rescued him. In return, the man agreed to undergo a bizarre experiment.

Part of his brain went into the body of an ant, so he could experience its sensations. (This involved a lot of shrinking and growing. That's one talented Mad Scientist.)

In this half, the guy's mind goes into several different kinds of ants. We learn about gentle farmers of fungus, aggressive warriors that enslave other ants, herders of aphids that live on the liquid they secrete, and so forth. It all winds up with the fellow regaining his faith in God, based on life among the ants, and going back to his sweetheart.

As in the first part, the main appeal of the conclusion is in the detailed description of the ant colonies. The author must have done a lot of research. Some of this stuff is a little too anthropomorphic, but otherwise it seems very accurate.

The subplot of attempted suicide and loss of faith seems way out of place with the rest of the story. It's not a comedy, but it's very lighthearted. (The man gives whimsical nicknames to the other ants, such as Sherlocka Holmes.) The premise is outrageous, of course, but go along with it and it's not a bad read.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: When I'm Sixty-Four, because this is the oldest story in the issue, and the song is also a featherweight piece of fluff.)

Mr. Steinway, by Robert Bloch


Cover art by Augusto Marin.

From the April 1954 issue of the magazine we get this bit of dark fantasy.


Illustration by Bill Ashman.

The narrator is a woman who falls in love with a pianist. The musician practices an odd sort of meditation, in which he enters a trance. In this unconscious state, he communicates with everything, including inanimate objects.

In particular, he has a special relationship with his piano. Nicknamed Mr. Steinway, it was a gift from his mother, now deceased. The instrument has its own preferences. It doesn't like certain composers, for example.

As the two lovers grow closer, Mr. Steinway displays signs of jealousy. As you might imagine, this doesn't end well for anybody.

On a superficial level, this is just a spooky yarn about a haunted piano. There's a bit more to it than that, I think. The author does a pretty good job of writing from a woman's point of view, which is not always something you can say about a male writer. What happens to the narrator is more subtle and disturbing than you might expect.

(If they made this into a movie, her fate would be a little more openly violent, I think.)

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: She's Leaving Home, because the narrator is never going home again.)

I've Got To Admit It's Getting Better, A Little Better All The Time.

Well, that was a pretty decent issue, with only a couple of poor pieces, a very good new story, some readable reprints, and one great classic. Not as perfect a masterpiece as the latest Beatles album, but enough to keep smiles on our faces.


Mustaches and band uniforms optional.





[May 4, 1967] The Marvel Superheroes Have Arrived!  (Marvel Comics in the UK)


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Last Weekend in London, the most happening party of the year took place, The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream.

The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream Poster

In order to help raise funds for International Times legal defence fund, Alexandra Palace was hired out for an extravaganza of the most “out there” artists around. Throughout the whole of Saturday Night there were a wide array of different entertainments to enjoy.

The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream crowds at Alexandra Palace
The crowds at Ally Pally

Whether that be the psychedelic music of Pink Floyd, the films of Kenneth Anger, the auto-destructive art of Yoko Ono or just Beatniks throwing flour bombs, it was an experience that London has never quite seen before. Quite a long way from the extended poetry reading at the Albert Hall less than 2 years ago.

Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd being filmed
Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd being filmed

With ads everywhere, from the underground papers to the up-market boutiques of Chelsea, it became the place to be seen with everyone from members of The Beatles to Warhol. From Dick Gregory to the near mythical Suzy Creemcheese.

The Exploding Galaxy Dance Troupe perform ‘Fuzzdeath’
The Exploding Galaxy Dance Troupe perform ‘Fuzzdeath’

Whilst some of the mods in attendance didn’t really dig the young men in long scruffy hair wearing cowbells or some of the interactive art, it has been hugely popular with an estimated 7000 attendees. There have been discussions of what to do with all the money, although a hitch that some of the tickets appear to have been stolen, so proceeds may come up short of what is expected.

A person Preparing to make another cut as part of Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’
Preparing to make another cut as part of Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’

With this new generation of flower loving beatniks (or ‘hippys’ according to the American press) coming up there is definitely a change in the kind of artistic expression they like. And one surprising thing they seem to enjoy is Marvel Superhero comics:

Getting Here From There

When Marvel’s superhero line began a few years ago there were two main ways to read them in the UK, neither of which were easy.

Creepy Worlds Fantastic Four

The first was via reprints from Alan Class. This company has several titles devoted to reprinting American comic strips. The problem with these is they would often be a pretty random selection of titles, considering these superheroes not really as ongoing stories, just the same as one-off horror and SF tales to sprinkle occasionally through issues. Also, at a shilling these are at the more expensive end of the comic book market, where around sixpence is the usual price.

Marvel Edition of Spider-Man with UK Price Stamp on it
Spidey reminding you to pay 10 pence, not 12 cents!

The other was through direct import, predominantly via Thorpe & Porter. These, however, did not have wide distribution compared with British comics and, when the company went bankrupt last year, it was purchased by IND, National’s (AKA DC) distributor and the flow of Marvel imports slowed to a trickle.

So, acquiring these stories was a real challenge for UK readers. That is until another surprising source came through. One due to the success of British Comics superstar, Leo Baxendale.

A Non-Cowardly Lion

Minnie The Minx

Starting in the early 50s Leo Baxendale began working for DC Thompson on The Beano, Britain’s top selling comic book (over a million issues a week, about the same as national newspapers like the Daily Telegraph). For it he created some of their best loved strips, such as Minnie The Minx, When The Bell Rings and Little Plum.

When The Bell Rings and The Tiddlers Panel Comparison
Spot the difference, When The Bell Rings and The Tiddlers

After leaving DC Thompson, Odhams hired him to create a new humour comic for them, the result was Wham! launching in 1964. Whilst containing some new ideas, it contained a number of very similar ideas from DC Thompson titles (e.g. The Beezer has The Numskulls, about the inner life of a child’s senses, Wham! has Georgie’s Germs, about the lives of germs on a dirty child).

Smash! cover Man From BUNGLE

However, it was successful enough for Odhams to want a second title in the same style. This was Smash! which followed in early 1966 in much the same style, with the Minnie-esque Bad Penny and another microscopic strip The Nervs, along with parodies, such as The Man From BUNGLE.

House Ad for Hulk’s arrival
House Ad for The Hulk’s arrival

A few months in they began to import two American strips. The Newspaper version of Batman and Marvel’s The Hulk.

Hulk Smashes On To The Scene

Smash! Hulk Cover
A much older Banner and a flesh toned Incredible Hulk make their first appearance in Smash!

I think it is important to start with the differences in the importation of these strips. The first, and most obvious point, is that British comics do not have many colour pages. Smash! itself only has them on the front cover (used for the first half of the Batman strip) and the back (currently occupied by surreal humour strip Grimly Feendish), and, even then, in a limited number of tones. As such all of the Hulk’s exploits are in black and white.

Comparison of Marvel and Odhams hulk Pages
How a page break becomes an issue break for Smash! (Notice the slight difference between bottom left and bottom right panel).

Secondly, as this is in the standard British weekly anthology style of comic book, it does not often have the space to reprint an entire story. As such they have to be broken up into multiple issues. At the same time, British comic dimensions are slightly different, so some panels have to be either rearranged or modified to fit.

Two Letter to Smash!
Contrasting views on the changes from David and Nicholas

Whilst some readers did not appreciate their Baxendale style comedy being interrupted by superhero antics, in general the changes have been well received and Hulk continues to lumber on. Which leads to third difference: Odhams made the choice to follow the characters through their appearances as best as they can, regardless of what book they were originally published in. Which leads us to the arrival of The Fantastic Four.

(Flower) Power Comics

Fantastic Four Ad in Wham!
A reminder in Smash! of where to read The Fantastic Four

As Marvel readers in the US will probably recall, there was a period between the ending of Hulk’s own series and his continued strip in Tales to Astonish. Rather than simply stopping one and starting the other, they follow his continued exploits. Next is his encounter with the Fantastic Four, so they are the next to be imported. After an introductory story, the tales of them facing each other begin in Smash!, followed by The Fantastic Four appearing regularly in big-sister title Wham!.

Hulk and the Avengers

Next, he is on to The Avengers where things get particularly interesting. First off, these are rebilled as The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers (later V. The Avengers), to reflect the continuing adventures of Bruce Banner’s alter ego. However, what it also did was introduce readers to a whole range of characters they wanted to see more of.

The Incredible Hulk: The Monster and the Matador
The story you always wanted, what happens when The Hulk becomes a bullfighter!

Secondly, there are gaps in the Hulk’s story between issues, so they have their own strips drawn to fill them in. the first of which explaining what happened to him after he goes into the sea near Gibraltar.

Power Comics Christmas Message
Christmas wishes from Power Comics (which Tony Stark seems to take as a sales pitch)

This combination of showing off the range of heroes available and willingness to play with exclusive material opened the floodgates, leading to new branding of them as Power Comics and the launching of three primarily superhero titles.

Pow! Comics Cover Issue 1

First, is Pow!. In this are two reprints, Spider-Man and Nick Fury (originally Agent of SHIELD but since replaced by Howling Commandos era). In between are a few forgettable humour strips and two new adventure strips, Jack Magic, about a magician’s assistant who is transported to the present day, and The Python, where two adventures fight snake men and their giant mechanical reptile.

Fantastic Issue 1 Cover

Missing Link Panels

Then came Fantastic, this time containing three Marvel titles, Thor, Iron Man and The X-Men. In addition, they have their own superhero series, The Missing Link. Originally a Hulk like character menacing London King-Kong Style, he has recently got into a nuclear reactor accident which has given him super-intelligence and a normal appearance, whilst keeping his superhuman strength.

Terrific Issue 2 Cover
The most recent to debut is Terrific, which is entirely reprints, giving us the adventures of The Submariner, Dr. Strange and The (now Hulkless) Avengers. Plus occasional horror shorts from Marvel’s back catalogue in order to fill the space if the main stories run short.

Ad for four of the five Power Comics
Ad for four of the five Power Comics

All of this means the majority of Marvel’s superhero line is now being reprinted in these “Power Comics”. With a recent announcement that Daredevil is in negotiation, this just leaves Giant Man, who I don’t see anyone crying out for, and Captain America, who might need some localization to work. Maybe he could follow GI Joe’s lead and become “Captain Action”?

The Power-House Period

End caption of comic strip referring to the Power-House Period
Doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Marvel Age” does it?

Now, going back to my introduction, what we are seeing is the new generation of beatniks seem to love them. Reportedly a recent poll of Berkley students placed The Hulk as the 6th greatest man in the world (Dylan won, obviously) and I regularly see ads in British fanzines and underground presses for people seeking out copies of the American originals.

Doom Patrol and TV Century 21
Why does free love not extend to the soapy antics of Doom Patrol or the TV Century 21 crossovers?

What is the reason for this? Some have cited some of the technical innovations with more serialization, crossovers and soap opera dynamics. However, many of these are elements already present in many British comics and certainly seen in more recent DC titles like Doom Patrol and The Legion of Superheroes.

Dr. Strange and Fantastic Four Panels
Psychedelia and Progressive Politics? A Power-House indeed!
(from Dr. Strange and Fantastic Four respectively

I think the answer lies in the characters they are creating. The Hulk and the Thing are figures of great angst. Peter Parker and Johnny Storm are much more relatable teenagers than the richer but flatter Teen Titans. Nick Fury appeals to the Bond fans, whilst Dr. Strange is pure psychedelia. There are also regular smart uses of progressive politics, such as dealing with hate organizations or the existence of an advanced African society. A stark contrast of the excruciating message issues we get from other companies.

“It's a sign of the times, and a year ago I never could have seen it”

Until recently both Odhams and the British youth scene seemed mired in the past, with Eagle being a shadow of itself and extremely high-priced boutiques churning out the same modish styles for rich kids to dance to the same beat sounds since ’63.

Over the last year we have seen fascinating new life emerging, with the Americans trying to teach us Brits a thing or two. Let’s see if we can learn the lessons.

Elektra Ad for Doors and Love Albums
The latest exciting American bands coming out from Elektra




[April 16, 1967] The Generation Gap (May 1967 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Youth is Wasted on the Young

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
— attributed to Socrates

It's no secret that young people are rejecting many of the opinions of their elders these days. That's always been true to some extent, of course. However, with the hippie culture, the civil rights movement, and antiwar protests, all of which mostly involve young adults, the gap between the generations seems wider than ever.

In particular, once heavy bombing of North Vietnam began a couple of years ago (Operation Rolling Thunder, still going on intermittently), college students, led by such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society, started demonstrating against the war. On April 17, 1965, somewhere between fifteen thousand and twenty-five thousand people showed up at the nation's capital, in the largest protest to date.


SDS members and others during the March on Washington, almost exactly two years ago.

There have been many other protests since then, both in the United States and other nations. I don't mean to imply that these demonstrations consist entirely of young people, but they do seem to make up the majority of peace activists.

Just yesterday, thousands appeared at massive protests against the conflict in Vietnam in major cities across the United States. In New York City, well over one hundred young men burned their draft cards, followed by a speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., at the United Nations.


The crowd fills Kazar stadium in San Francisco.

What does the parallel escalation of America's involvement in the war and the rejection of it by many young adults and their elders mean for the immediate future of the United States?  It's hard to say, but things look dark.  Just as the struggle for civil rights sometimes looks like a second Civil War, complete with bloodshed, the battle between Hawks and Doves threatens to tear the country apart along political lines.  Let's hope the nation is never as divided as it seems to be now.

Music to Argue With Your Parents or Children By

The tension between generations shows up in popular culture as well. A fine example of this happened recently. From late March until the middle of April, a cheerful little tune from the young folks who call themselves The Turtles was at the top of the American music charts. Happy Together is a great favorite of teenagers, I believe.


I like the part near the end, when the frequently repeated title changes to How is the weather.

Mom and Dad are likely to prefer the song that replaced it as Number One this week. Veteran crooner Frank Sinatra, assisted by daughter Nancy, currently has the nation's biggest hit with the much more traditional number Somethin' Stupid.


I'll refrain from commenting on the propriety of having father and daughter sing a love song together.

Catch a Wave

Not even speculative fiction escapes the conflict between generations. The so-called New Wave movement within the field, primarily in the United Kingdom, offers experimental, controversial, and sometimes incomprehensible stories to readers. The latest issue of Fantastic, a magazine which has been rather stodgy since it went to a policy of containing mostly reprints, mixes a bit of New Wave with plenty of Old Wave stuff.


Cover art by Malcolm Smith.

As usual, the cover reprints art from an old magazine. In this case, it's from the back cover of the July 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


The original looks a lot better.

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part One of Two), by Bob Olsen


Cover art by Leo Morey.

The whole of this Old Wave, pre-Campbell novella appeared in full in the Spring-Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly. I guess Fantastic didn't want to devote most of the magazine to it.


Illustrations by Morey also.

The narrator tries to kill himself by jumping into the ocean, but a scientist rescues him. The scientist suggests a bizarre scheme. He has a gizmo that can increase or decrease the size of anything, even living creatures. He combines that with neurosurgery in order to perform a weird experiment.

First, he'll increase an ant to the size of a human being. After that, he'll put a part of the narrator's brain into the ant's head. When he shrinks the ant back down to normal size, the narrator will experience everything the ant does, and will be able to control the ant's actions. In essence, he will become the ant.

After the strange transformation takes place, the narrator takes us on a guided tour of life in an ant colony. This first part ends with a cliffhanger, promising the reader that a violent event is about to occur.


Mad Science!

This is an odd story, not only because of the outrageous premise. The mood varies wildly. Some sections deal with the narrator's loss of religious faith, which drove him to attempt suicide. Others are very lighthearted, with playful banter between the two characters. The best part of it is the description of life as an ant, which is depicted in vivid, accurate detail.

Three stars, mostly for taking me into the ant colony.

The Thinking Seat, by Peter Tate


Cover art by Keith Roberts, better known to me as a writer.

The magazine calls this a new novelette, which is a half-truth. It's new to American readers, but it appeared in the November 1966 issue of the British publication New Worlds. My esteemed colleague Mark Yon reviewed it at that time, but let's take another look.


Illustration by Gray Morrow, which is the only truly new thing in the magazine.

The setting is the seacoast of California in the near future. The rugged shore has been replaced with artificial beaches of a tamer nature. The water is warmer, due to the discharge from a nuclear power plant. (I also got the impression that it made the water thicker, almost gelatinous, but I may be wrong about that. This New Wave story isn't always clear.)

A man and a woman with a strange relationship show up at a beatnik colony. She'd like to be more intimate with the fellow, but he doesn't seem interested. Instead, he becomes fascinated by a charismatic poet, who openly announces that he's going to take the woman away from the other man. Things come to a climax during an attempt to sabotage the nuclear power plant, as a way of protesting what it's done to the coast.

I have probably greatly simplified and distorted the plot, because this isn't the easiest story to understand. The narrative often stops to offer examples of obscure poetry, which adds more ambiguity. (Apparently the poet steals phrases from the Beat poets, but I don't know enough about their work to confirm that.)

I got the impression that this example of the Eternal Triangle, which ends badly, was really a case of repressed homosexuality. That's a theme you won't find in most Old Wave science fiction, to be sure. The whole thing works better as a study of the psychology of the three main characters rather than as science fiction.

Three stars, mostly for keeping me wondering about things.

A Way of Thinking, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Art Sussman.

The October-November 1953 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this supernatural chiller from the pen of one of the field's greatest stylists.


Illustration by Ernest Schroeder.

The narrator is a writer of science fiction and fantasy, who even mentions his work appearing in Amazing, so I assume it's a fictional version of the author. He tells us about an acquaintance who reacts to problems in unusual ways, often by thinking about things backwards. The fellow's brother is dying a slow, horrible death. The suggestion arises that it might have something to do a doll owned by the dying man's vengeful ex-girlfriend. The brother deals with the situation in his usual unorthodox manner.

This synopsis makes the story sound like a typical tale of voodoo, but that's misleading. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot goes in unexpected directions, and the climax is truly disturbing. Of course, given the author, it's very well written. It's not his most ambitious work, to be sure, but it succeeds as a horror story.

Three stars, mostly for the shocking conclusion.

The Pin, by Robert Bloch


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

From the December-January 1953-1954 issue of Amazing Stories comes another tale of terror.


Illustration by Lee Teaford.

An artist looking for a cheap studio comes across an abandoned loft. It's supposed to be empty, but there's a guy inside, surrounded by a huge pile of telephone books, directories, and so forth. The fellow stabs at random names in the books with a pin.

You may have already figured out that the pin causes the death of those whose names are selected. (The premise reminds me of Ray Bradbury's 1943 story The Scythe, as well as the 1958 movie I Bury the Living.) There aren't a lot of surprises in the plot, but it's an effective little thriller.

Three stars, mostly for creating an eerie mood.

Cold Green Eye, by Jack Williamson


Cover art by Richard Powers.

The March-April 1953 issue of the magazine offers yet another spooky tale. In its original appearance, it was called The Cold Green Eye. Don't ask me why they left out the first word.


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The child of a pair of daring explorers is raised by Buddhist monks after his parents die in a mountaineering accident. He's adopted by an aunt back in the United States. She's a harsh disciplinarian, punishing the boy for what she thinks of as his heathenish ways. In particular, she hates flies and kills them whenever she can, while the child believes in reincarnation and that all living creatures should be protected. Things get strange when the kid uses the sacred scroll he has in his possession.

There's a good chance you'll see the ending coming, although it still raises goose bumps. What's more surprising is that the cruel aunt is a devout Christian, in contrast to the boy's gentle Buddhism. I didn't expect that from an American horror story from more than a decade ago. Maybe the author just thought it made for a good story, and wasn't really trying to say anything about the two faiths.

Three stars, mostly for aunt's comeuppance.

Hok Draws the Bow, by Manly Wade Wellman


Cover art by C. L. Hartman.

Here's a sequel to a story that was reprinted in the previous issue of Fantastic. It comes from the May 1940 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by Robert Fuqua.

Once again our hero is Hok, a Homo sapiens fighting a war of extermination against sinister, cannibalistic Neanderthals. (It's best to forget about this story's version of prehistory and just think of it as a sword-and-sorcery yarn.) A fellow shows up bragging about his ability to project a spear farther than anybody else. That's because he's got a leather strap that he winds around it, sending it spinning.

The boastful man also has plan to take over Hok's clan, and he's particularly interested in Hok's pretty mate. He's made himself a god-like ruler over the Neanderthals, even teaching them basic military tactics. It looks like Hok's people will be wiped out, but our hero combines the man's strap and a throwing stick used by the Neanderthals to create a secret weapon.


That doesn't keep him from being captured. Fortunately, his mate has a throwing arm Sandy Koufax might envy.

The title and the opening illustration give away the fact that this story is about Hok inventing the bow and arrow. Other than that, it's an efficient adventure story.

Three stars, mostly for keeping things moving quickly.

Beside Still Waters, by Robert Sheckley


Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

The same issue as the Sturgeon story is the source of this tale. A spaceman lives on an asteroid, turning rock into soil that can grow crops and extracting oxygen from minerals. His only companion is a robot. The machine starts off only able to speak a few phrases, but over time the man teaches it to converse more fully. The story ends with a scene that tries to touch the reader's emotions.

The fact that the man can live on the surface of an asteroid unprotected, even if he somehow produces oxygen and food, is ludicrous. (Not to mention the fact that the asteroid's tiny gravity is going to send the oxygen out into space quickly.) The ending takes the plot into pure fantasy. An author best known for his wit tries to be sentimental here, and the result is bathetic.

Two stars, mostly for the excellent illustration.

Bridging the Gap

That was mostly a middle-of-the-road issue, coming to a sudden halt at the end. Maybe there's something to be said for mediocrity. If nothing else, both young and old can agree that the Old Wave and the New Wave have their ups and downs.


The late President Kennedy closes the generation gap.





[February 12, 1967] All's Fair in Love and War (March 1967 Fantastic)

by Victoria Silverwolf

Peace on Earth? No. Peace Above Earth? Maybe.

With the conflict in Vietnam growing ever more bloody, and tensions building between the Soviet Union and China, it seems that war is here to stay on this sad little planet. Dare we look to the skies for a way to escape this endless chaos?

Although humanity is just starting to take its first baby steps into the cosmos, some folks are trying to make sure that it will be filled with plowshares instead of swords. Late last month, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union signed the so-called Outer Space Treaty.


President Lyndon Baines Johnson shakes hands with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin at the signing ceremony. Barely visible between them are British ambassador Sir Patrick Dean and American ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg. I think that's American Secretary of State Dean Rusk at the podium. Don't ask me who the other folks are.

The agreement is formally known as The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. That's quite a mouthful, but what does it mean?

In brief, it bans nuclear weapons in space; limits use of the Moon and other extraterrestrial bodies to peaceful purposes; and prevents any nation from claiming sovereignty over any region of space or any celestial body. Of course, only three countries have signed it so far, and any treaty is only a piece of paper, so we'll have to wait to see what really happens outside the atmosphere. Hope for the best.

Monkeying Around With My Heart

Let's turn our backs on war and look for romance. Love songs are always popular, and the current Number One hit in the USA is no exception. The upbeat number I'm a Believer by the Monkees has been at the top of the charts since early January, and shows no signs of fading away.


And all this time I thought they were just a fictional band created for a television situation comedy.

Tales of Mars and Venus

The latest issue of Fantastic is full of stories involving wars, both large and small, as well as amorous relationships between women and men. Sometimes both themes show up in the same yarn.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

This issue, unsurprisingly, features one new story and a bunch of reprints. The cover illustration is also from an old magazine.


The May 1939 issue of Fantastic Adventures, to be exact.

Happiness Squad, by Charles W. Runyon


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

A personal war meets love gone very bad in the opening of the only original story in the magazine. A man places a timebomb in his wife's flying car, so it will explode during her flight to visit her mother. After this stark beginning, we learn something about this future world, and the man's place in it.

In the tradition of Aldous Huxley's famous novel Brave New World, this is a society bent on eliminating unhappiness through the use of drugs. It has also nearly wiped out the ability of human beings to perform acts of violence on each other, in a way reminiscent of the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange.

In addition to that, it also manipulates memories, in such a way that it can give people completely new identities. The uxoricidal protagonist accidentally discovers that he was once a brilliant plastic surgeon, who transformed an unattractive woman into a raving beauty. The woman, with the help of the man's rival, then altered his memory so that he imagines himself to be her loving husband.

Because of his programmed aversion to violence, the man sabotages all his attempts to kill the woman he blames for ruining his life. (Besides everything else, he also lost the woman he really loves, who had her memory altered in such a way that she now works in a brothel.) Unable to perform the murder himself, he hires one of the very few people who avoided the programming to do the dirty work. (This fellow was one of the rare folks born on Mars who survived a failed colony and escaped to Earth.)


The killer, the victim, and the man who hired him.

There's a twist ending that changes everything we thought we knew. Without giving too much away, I interpret the conclusion as implying yet another reversal, which the author leaves unwritten. I may be reading too much into this, but what remains unsaid is just as powerful as what is made explicit, I believe.

I have a hard time giving a fair rating to this very disturbing story. It's not exactly pleasant to read, but it held my attention from the beginning to the (incomplete?) end. It's nearly impossible to sympathize with any of the characters, even if they're not really responsible for the kind of people they've been manipulated into becoming. The subtle implications of the conclusion may just be in my imagination. In short, I think I like this story more than I should, if that makes any sense at all.

Four stars.

Shifting Seas, by Stanley G. Weinbaum

The April 1937 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this apocalyptic work from the pen of a pioneering author who died much too young.


Cover art by Leo Morey.

Gigantic volcanic explosions and earthquakes rip apart the isthmus of Central America, driving most of the land under the sea. Besides the immediate deaths of millions, this changes the flow of the Gulf Stream, so that much of Europe becomes much colder. The crisis alters political alliances. In particular, war between the United States and a desperate Europe, led by the sea power of the United Kingdom, seems imminent.


Illustration also by Leo Morey.

Besides war, we also have love. The protagonist is an American man engaged to a British woman. The impending conflict threatens to destroy their relationship, until the man comes up with a way to solve the problem without a clash of arms.

The premise is an interesting one, and I liked the way the author considered the political implications of a major change in world climate. The resolution may be a little too simple, and the narrative style a bit old-fashioned, but the story creates a decent sense of wonder.

Three stars.

Judson's Annihilator, by John Beynon

An author now better known as John Wyndham supplies this war story, which first appeared in a British publication under the title Beyond the Screen.


Cover art by Serge Drigin. This issue, number one of only three ever published, is dated 1938, without specifying the month.

It was quickly reprinted in the October 1939 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

In true Astounding/Analog style, a lone genius invents gizmos producing fields that make anything inside them disappear. When combined German and Italian forces send a huge number of planes to attack England, the devices cause the aircraft to vanish.


Illustration also by Robert Fuqua.

The inventor's sister falls into the field produced by one of the machines and disappears. The hero, in love with her, follows her into it. As the reader suspects by this point, the invention doesn't really destroy what passes through the field, but sends it somewhere else. The place turns out to be an England inhabited by a small number of people living in a primitive way. With the help of a local woman, the hero and his beloved escape from the clutches of the Germans who went through the field.

There's a nice little twist about where they've wound up that is mentioned in passing, but nothing much comes of it. The plot is pretty straightforward once the hero enters the field. I found the imaginary version of World War Two the most interesting part of the story. Other than that, it's a pretty typical science fiction adventure.

Three stars.

Battle in the Dawn, by Manly Wade Wellman

From the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories comes this vision of the remote past.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua again.

Apparently, this is the first of a series of stories about a caveman named Hok. In this tale, his tribe is moving to better hunting grounds when they run into Neanderthals. Contrary to what modern anthropologists think, these are bestial creatures, who attack the group of Homo sapiens and even kill a baby and eat it. Obviously, a war between the two species begins.


Illustrations also by the ubiquitous Robert Fuqua.

After an initial triumph over the subhumans, Hok steals a woman from a rival tribe of Homo Sapiens, in order to make her his mate. She objects, going so far as to threaten to kill herself if he doesn't let her go. Eventually, the first kiss in history makes the woman fall in love with her captor, and the two tribes unite against the Neanderthals.


Not to mention other challenges.

With nearly three decades of hindsight, it's easy to dismiss this story as a very inaccurate portrait of prehistory. It might better be thought of as a sword-and-sorcery yarn, without swords and without sorcery. The Neanderthals are monsters, the hero is a brave warrior with a beautiful woman to win, and so forth. As such, it's a fair example of the form.

Three stars.

The Draw, by Jerome Bixby

The March 1954 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this tale of the Old West, where war often consisted of one man against another.


Cover art by Clarence Doore.

You may have already seen it in a paperback collection of the author's stories that came out a few years ago.


Cover art by Ralph Brillhart.

An onery teenager — we'd call him a juvenile delinquent these days — is an excellent marksman, but not good at all when it comes to pulling his pistol from his holster. This is the only factor that keeps him from becoming an infamous killer.


Illustrations by William Ashman.

Through sheer force of will, he develops the telekinetic ability to instantaneously transport his gun to his hand, making him the deadliest gunman around. After terrorizing the local townsfolk, he challenges the sheriff to a gunfight. As you'd expect, things don't go well for him.


A scene from Gunsmoke?

I don't have a lot to say about this story. The ending is somewhat anticlimactic, but there's nothing particularly wrong with it. The usual Western clichés are present, which may be inevitable.

Three stars.

Masters of Fantasy: A. Merritt Illustrated, by Anonymous

The magazine ends with a few drawings by Frank R. Paul that accompanied a reprint of Abraham Merritt's 1919 fantasy novel The Moon Pool, which was serialized in Amazing Stories in the May, June, and July 1927 issues.


I guess this is the Moon Pool.


All cover art by Frank R. Paul as well.


I didn't notice the frog people at first.


I'm guessing this is a scene from The Moon Pool.


Is she doing the Twist?


Caution! Mad Scientist at Work!

What can I say? Three stars.

Fighting for Something to Love

In this magazine full of love and war, the stories were fair. Not that great, not that bad. I predict that Runyon's new novelette is going to produce strong reactions, both positive and negative. The reprints are likely to be less controversial.

As for the choice between the two great themes I've noted, it seems like an easy one.


Somebody came up with this catchy slogan a couple of years ago, and now you can get it on a poster.



 



[December 8, 1966] Flesh and Blood (January 1967 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Burning Curiosity

It's probably just my morbid imagination, but it seems to me that the most intriguing, if horrifying, event in recent days was the demise of Doctor John Irving Bentley earlier this month. The elderly physician was reduced to a pile of ashes (except for part of one leg) in what some people are calling a case of spontaneous human combustion.


The scene of the fire. Notice the large hole in the floor caused by the flames. I have deliberately avoided sharing more gruesome photographs.

Church Music

After that piece of news, it's a relief to turn to a piece of light entertainment. The unique novelty song Winchester Cathedral by some British folks calling themselves the New Vaudeville Band, currently at the top of the American music charts, is a deliberately old-fashioned number. It sounds like something Rudy Vallee might have offered in the 1920's, complete with singing through a megaphone and a finishing chorus of oh-bo-de-o-do.


Rumor has it that the song was recorded by session musicians hired for the occasion, and that the band was hastily put together when it became a hit.

Well, that got me to thinking about all the folks buried in Winchester Cathedral. (There's that morbid imagination at work again.) The most familiar one — to me, at least — is the great author Jane Austen.


It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a dead woman in possession of a good reputation must be in want of a lengthy epitaph.

Gore on the Pages

Given my grim mood, it's appropriate that the
latest issue of Fantastic is full of violence, horror, and bizarre manipulations of the human body.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul, stolen from the back cover of the March 1941 issue of Amazing Stories.


The original, with brighter colors. The Reptile Men (no women?) are cute.

The Ultimate Gift, by Bryce Walton

We begin our journey into the macabre with the magazine's only original work.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Aliens arrive at the Moon. They seem ready to conquer the world, but are hesitant about humanity's ability to put up a fight. They allow envoys to pay a visit, but kill them for some unknown violation of protocol. The dying words (thoughts, really, but let's not get into that subplot) of the most recent victim lead to an unusual choice for the next diplomat.

The so-called Basket Man was born without arms or legs. After years of misery, he winds up as a sideshow freak, making use of advanced technology to move around and manipulate things. In his bitterness, he refuses to have artificial limbs attached to his torso. A representative from the United Nations, based on the hint noted in the paragraph above, convinces him to acquire robotic arms and legs, and to head to the Moon to meet the aliens.


The fact that they're reptilian, sort of like the creatures on the cover, is relevant.

A little knowledge of zoology may lead you to predict the reason for the aliens' violent reaction to their visitors. As you may have guessed from my description, this is a ghastly little story, with a particularly disquieting scene near the end. It has a certain raw power, I suppose. Given the infamous thalidomide tragedy of not so many years ago, the premise may strike many readers as being in poor taste.

Two stars.

The People of the Black Circle, By Robert E. Howard

Dominating the issue is a bloody sword-and-sorcery adventure, featuring a hero who seems to be making a comeback of sorts. This novella was originally serialized in three parts, in the September, October, and November 1934 issues of Weird Tales.


All cover art by Margaret Brundage.


Brundage often painted scantily clad young ladies for the magazine.


Two scantily clad young ladies.

Before I get into the story itself, let me talk about the revival of interest in Robert E. Howard and his most famous creation. The tales of Conan were left in the yellowing pages of old pulp magazines until specialty publisher Gnome Press starting collecting them in several volumes.


Cover art by David A. Kyle. The novella under discussion appears in this book, number two in the Gnome Press series, from 1952.

Earlier this year, the story appeared in a paperback collection. (It should be noted here that L. Sprague de Camp completed some of Howard's unfinished works about Conan.)


Cover art by Frank Frazetta.

The setting is an imaginary ancient past. There are clues that this takes place in a fantasy version of the Afghanistan/Pakistan/India region. (Some of the hints are a bit too obvious, such as a chain of mountains called the Himelians.) We begin with a king whose soul is about to be stolen by evil sorcerers. Rather than allow this to happen, he orders his sister to kill him.


Illustrations by Hugh Rankin.

This opening scene is just a hint of the carnage to follow. The plot is a complex one, with various factions scheming against each other, betrayals, allies becoming enemies, and foes forced to work together. Frankly, I had some trouble following it. In brief, the sister wants to force Conan, now the leader of a group of hill people, to wreak revenge on the sinister forces that attacked her brother. This involves several of his men who have been taken prisoner by another realm. (It's complicated.)

Instead, Conan kidnaps the sister, hoping to exchange her for the freedom of his men. This plan is ruined when a sorcerer, betraying the dark forces for whom he was working, works with the sister's disloyal servant on their own scheme to rule the land, which results in the death of Conan's men. (I said it was complicated.)


Conan, his captive, and a horse.

After a whole bunch of wild adventures, with plenty of killings, the pair wind up at the mountain where four powerful sorcerers dwell, along with their less powerful minions and one ultra-powerful sorcerer. By this time, the sister's hatred for Conan has turned to love, just in time for her to be kidnapped from her kidnapper, if you see what I mean.


One of the many torments to which the sister is subjected.

I hope this gives you some idea of the breakneck pace, non-stop action, and frequent plot twists in this story. I lost count of how many people are slaughtered by sword or magic. (At one point, Conan acquires a magic item that protects him from deadly sorcery. This seems awfully convenient.) There are even battle scenes, with hundreds or thousands of warriors massacring each other.

There's plenty of weird magic as well, which may be the most interesting part of the story. I was particularly impressed by the floating cloud on which the four sorcerers travel.

Howard had an undeniably important influence on sword-and-sorcery fiction, and his imitators continue the tradition. (Brak the Barbarian, created by John Jakes, comes to mind.) The raw intensity of Howard's style and the bloodthirstiness of his plots aren't for all tastes. Personally, I prefer the wit and elegance of Fritz Leiber's tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Three stars.

The Young One, by Jerome Bixby

From the April 1954 issue of the magazine comes this supernatural yarn.


Cover art by Augusto Marin.

Jerome Bixby is probably best known to SF fans for his chilling tale It's a Good Life and the memorable episode of Twilight Zone adapted from it. He has also dabbled in screenwriting, coming up with the kind of B movies I enjoy, such as It! The Terror From Beyond Space.


Illustration by Sanford Kossin.

A young boy meets a fellow his own age, newly arrived in the United States from Hungary. He seems nice enough, but all animals hate him. What's even stranger is that his parents eat raw meat and have very sharp teeth. (You can already see where this is going, can't you?)

The immigrant boy says he absolutely has to be back home before seven at night. The American kid tricks him by taking him into a cave, then pretending to be lost, so the Hungarian lad can't return until after his strict curfew. You can probably guess what happens.

It's an decent story, if predictable. (The exact way the plot is resolved may be a little bit unexpected.) The description of the cavern is intriguing, if nothing else.

Three stars.

The Ambidexter, by David H. Keller, M.D.

This Kelleryarn comes from the April 1931 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Leo Morey

The world's two greatest surgeons, one American and one Chinese, have a meeting. The American has a brain tumor, so he wants the Chinese physician to remove part of his brain and replace it with part of a brain from another person. Can you guess that this is going to go very badly wrong?


Illustration by Leo Morey also.

This tale of Mad Science reminds me of old horror movies, the kind that show up on Shock Theater. In particular, the transplant theme brings to mind things like Mad Love, although that was about hands and not brains.

The partial brain transplant concept is unique, as far as I know, and Keller's background as a physician makes the crazy idea seem somewhat plausible. The character of the Chinese surgeon reeks of the old Yellow Peril stereotype, unfortunately. Replace him with, say, Boris Karloff and you might have the basis for a decent black-and-white chiller. I don't think the censor would care for the ghastly ending, however.

Two stars.

Mad House, by Richard Matheson

The January-February 1953 issue supplies this reprint.


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

Like Bixby, Matheson is associated with Twilight Zone and has written screenplays for feature films. His movies are too many to list, but a couple worth mentioning are the Jules Verne adaptation Master of the World and The Last Man on Earth. (Apparently Matheson wasn't happy with this version of his novel I am Legend, so he used the pseudonym Logan Swanson for his share of the screenwriting credit. I actually thought it was pretty good.)

As with Howard's novella, Matheson's story has already been reprinted in a couple of collections. The first one is named after his first published story, already considered a classic.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

The second one is sort of a reduced version of the first one, omitting some stories.


Cover art by Charles Binger.

This psychological horror story features a frustrated writer who ekes out a living as a poorly paid instructor of literature. He's nearly always boiling over with anger about his inability to be published, lashing out at his students and just about everyone else. Fed up with his rage, his wife leaves him.


Illustrations by Bill Ashman.

He also fights a daily battle with inanimate objects around the house. They seem to be conspiring to harm him. An acquaintance — he can't be called a friend, given the fact that the main character is as nasty to him as he is to everybody else — suggests that the house is sort of absorbing his anger.


Chaos ensues.

Like other stories in this issue, it leads to a blood-soaked conclusion. It's also similar in that it's pretty predictable. The best part of it is the author's style, full of short, rage-filled sentences that really get you into the main character's head. That's not a very nice place to be, of course.

Three stars.

Worth All That Suffering?

The magazine ends with this appropriately macabre anecdote, which I offer without comment.


I don't believe it. Oh, wait a minute, that was a comment, wasn't it? Sorry about that.

Not a great issue, although a bare majority of the stories were at least worth reading. The Conan story is of historical importance, anyway. I suppose the magazine would be enjoyable enough if you happen to be in a situation where you need to be waiting around.


Cartoon by somebody called Salame, from the same issue as the Matheson story.



[Join us tonight for the next episode of Star Trek — airing at 8:30 PM Pacific and Eastern!]




[October 16, 1966] Only the Lonely (November 1966 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf
with apologies to Roy Orbison

Solitary Confinement

To be a citizen of a nation inside another nation must be a very lonely feeling. Italy contains two of these countries, the tiny nations of San Marino and Vatican City. A third member of that exclusive club came into existence on October 4, when the former British colony of Basutoland won full independence, changing its name to the Kingdom of Lesotho. Lesotho is completely surrounded by the nation of South Africa.


King Moshoehoe II, constitutional monarch of Lesotho.

A Song for the Sorrowful

You don't have to be living in any of those three countries to feel lonely, of course. People experiencing that painful emotion might obtain some solace from the current Number One song on the American popular music charts. The Four Tops have a smash hit with their powerful ballad Reach Out (I'll Be There), with lyrics that are clearly aimed at a lonesome listener.


They seem to be reaching out to the record buyer.

Fiction for the Forlorn

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic is full of stories featuring characters who are literally, or metaphorically, isolated.


Cover art by Bob Hilbreth, stolen from the December 1946 issue of Amazing Stories.


The original, illustrating a story that was part of the infamous Shaver Mystery.

Broken Image, by Thomas N. Scortia


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The only new story in this issue features a protagonist who feels himself estranged from those around him, human or not.

His name is Baldur, and he has been surgically altered to resemble one of the humanoid aliens inhabiting a planet for which Earthlings have plans. It seems that humanity has evolved beyond sectarianism and violence, and seeks to bring the blessings of peace to other worlds.

(If I sound a little sarcastic, that's because the story's view of humanity is somewhat ambiguous. Baldur is completely loyal to the idea of Man as a perfect being, but his vision of the species is, as we'll see, a little distorted.)

One group of aliens oppresses another, going so far as to execute rebels in a particularly gruesome way.


Such as this.

The plan is to have Baldur act as a messiah for the lower class. Highly advanced technology allows him to perform healings and other miracles.

(At this point, you've probably figured out that Baldur is intended as a Christ figure. The oppressors are kind of like the Romans, the lower class is sort of like the Judeans, and so on. Given that analogy, some of what happens won't surprise you. The character's name also suggests an allusion to myths about the Norse god Baldr, sometimes spelled Balder or — a ha! — Baldur.)

There's a human woman, also in disguise, to help Baldur in his role as the savior of the oppressed. However, it turns out that she's hiding something from him, and that the folks in the starship orbiting the planet have schemes of which he is not aware.

This is a pretty good story, which held my interest all the way through. The Christian metaphor might be too blatant, and there's a twist ending that made me scratch my head. It explains why Baldur thinks of humanity as superior to other species, but I'm not sure if it really works.

(One interesting thing is that Baldur is not only physically changed, but mentally as well. His memories seem to be slightly distorted. Since we see everything from his point of view, although the story is told in third person, he serves as what some literary critics are starting to call an unreliable narrator. This all goes along with the twist ending.)

Three stars.

You're All Alone, by Fritz Leiber


Illustrations by Henry Sharp.

There's a title that suggests loneliness, for sure.

Before I get into the story itself, let me go over the rather complex history of the text. It seems that Leiber intended it to appear in Unknown, the fantasy magazine edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. as a companion to Astounding. Unknown died before the story could be published.

Leiber expanded the work from about forty thousand words to approximately seventy-five thousand, hoping to have a book publisher accept it as part of their fantasy line. The company stopped publishing fantasy before it sold.

Back to the drawing board! Leiber next sent it to Fantastic Adventures, who agreed to buy it if — guess what? — it was cut back to forty thousand words. It finally appeared in the July 1950 issue. That's the version that's been reprinted in the current issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

We're not done yet! The seventy-five thousand word version wound up as one half of a double paperback, under the name The Sinful Ones. The publisher came up with the suggestive new title, altered the text slightly to make it racier, and added sexy chapter titles like The Strip Tease and Blonde Prostitute, trying to convince the reader that it was hot stuff.


Anonymous cover art. The companion novel, about a lady bullfighter, looks . . . interesting.

Back to the story itself. (At forty thousand words, it actually justifies, if just barely, its label by the magazine as a Complete Novel.)

Carr Mackay works at an employment agency in Chicago. A frightened young woman comes into his office, followed by a big blonde woman. The younger woman is obviously terrified of the blonde, but tries to ignore her. She talks to Carr, pretending to have a job interview, and asking him if he's one of them.


By the way, the blonde woman has a big, vicious, scary pet dog, but it's not anywhere near as large as shown in this illustration, or the cover of Fantastic Adventures!

Before leaving, she scribbles a note warning him to watch out for the blonde and her two male companions, and leaving a cryptic message to meet her at a certain location if he wants to learn more.

Of course, this all sounds like the paranoid ravings of a lunatic. Things get weirder when the blonde slaps the young woman across the face, and she forces herself not to react. Then a co-worker shows up, acting as if he's introducing Carr to somebody, but there's nobody there. Some kind of practical joke?

It's hard to deny that something strange is going on when Carr shows up at his girlfriend's place, and she goes through the motions of greeting and kissing him, but he's not where she apparently thinks he is. She ignores the real Carr, and continues to interact with an imaginary one.


She should really be smooching the empty air instead of a ghostly figure, but that's artistic license for you.

Although he's reluctant to accept the truth, Carr realizes that almost all humans are mindless automatons, just going through the motions like wind-up toys. Only a very few, like the young woman, the blonde and her companions, and himself, are conscious beings. He meets with the woman, leading to dangerous encounters with sinister folks and wild adventures in a world full of clockwork people and those who take advantage of the situation.


A moment of happiness in a public library after hours. I like the subtle hint that the light above their heads is an eye watching them.

The premise is a fascinating one, and the author conveys it in a convincing manner. There's some philosophical depth to the idea, too. Who among us hasn't felt like a cog in a big machine? It moves very quickly, almost like a Keith Laumer novel. (Maybe the longer version allows for more exploration of the concept.)

I could quibble that not everything about the plot is completely logical. Inanimate objects sometimes act as if they're part of the mindless mechanism of life, and sometimes don't. The conscious people are able to knock off the hats of the automatons, for example, and steal their drinks, but the keys of a piano move by themselves when the person supposed to be playing them isn't there.


The floating hands are more artistic license.

Despite this tiny flaw, and the fact that the ending seems rushed, it's an enjoyable short novel. As you'd expect from Leiber, it's well-written. As a bonus, it provides a vivid portrait of the city of Chicago, in all its bright and dark aspects.

Four stars.

Breakfast at Twilight, by Philip K. Dick


Cover art by Clarence Doore.

From the July 1954 issue of Amazing Stories comes this tale of a family isolated from their own time.


Anonymous illustration.

Mom, Dad, and three kids are enjoying a typical morning at home, although there's some kind of fog or smoke outside, and the radio isn't working. The lone boy heads off for school, but quickly comes back. There are soldiers everywhere blocking his way.

It turns out that their home is now seven years in the future. The Cold War has heated up, leading to a dystopian society. (Apparently a bomb caused the time travel effect.) The soldiers are stunned to see a woman and children out in the open, and are even more amazed at the food available in the house.

A political officer (another sign that the United States government has become authoritarian, along with the casually mentioned book burning) suggests that they wait for another bomb to send them back to their own time.

Although the plot is simple enough for an episode of Twilight Zone, this is a powerful story, sending a clear warning of the dangers of escalating world conflicts. (The theme seems even more relevant today, with the situation in Vietnam, than it did just after the Korean War.)

Four stars.

Scream at Sea, by Algis Budrys


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

The January-February 1954 issue of the magazine provides this example of extreme loneliness.


Illustrations by Ernie Barth.

A man survives an explosion that destroys his ship. He manages to hang on to a piece of the vessel that's got some canned ham and water, so it serves him as a sort of raft. The ship's cat happens to escape the disaster as well.


The only other character in the story.

The author manages to create a true sense of isolation and desperation. It's not a bad piece, but there isn't a trace of science fiction or fantasy at all! There's a twist in the tail that would have been more appropriate for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine than Fantastic.

(By the way, the editor's blurbs for the last two stories are backwards! I guess that's a sign of how little the publisher cares for these poorly funded magazines full of unpaid reprints.)

Three stars.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Artists Behind Him, by Anonymous

Serving as a coda is this portfolio of illustrations for stories by ERB that appeared in Amazing years ago.


For The Land That Time Forgot (1918, reprinted 1927), illustration by Frank R. Paul.


Same credits as above.


For The City of the Mummies (1941), illustration by J. Allen St. John.


For Black Pirates of Barsoom, same year, same artist.


For Goddess of Fire, same year, same artist.

I don't have much to say about these old-fashioned pictures. They're OK.

Three stars.

Some Solace For Solitude

If you're feeling lonesome, picking up a copy of this issue might provide some relief for a few hours. All the stories are worth reading, and a couple of them are better than average. If that doesn't raise your spirits sufficiently, visiting your neighbors might do the trick.


That astronaut won't be lonely. Cartoon by Frosty from the same issue as the Budrys story.






[September 26, 1966] All that glitters: in praise of Cele Goldsmith Lalli


by John Boston

Gone but not Forgotten

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.

Fantastic November 1959

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.

Fantastic May 1961
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.

Fantastic October 1962
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.

Fantastic May 1964
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.

Fantastic August 1962
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.

Fantastic June 1965
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.

January 1965 Fantastic
Ed Emshwiller's iillsutration for "The Girl in the Gem" by John Jakes.
Fantastic March 1965
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.

Modern Bride, December 1965
No more mighty muscles in Cele Goldsmith Lalli's new stomping grounds, though at least the gothic castles and maidens in white gowns remain.





[August 10, 1966] Dollars and Cents (September 1966 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Render Unto Caesar

There's a new way to lose your money when visiting Las Vegas. A hotel, showroom, and casino called Caesars Palace (no apostrophe) opened a few days ago. As the name implies, it has an ancient Rome theme rather than the Western theme found in most gambling dens in Sin City.


A showgirl advertises the grand opening. I don't think that's an authentic costume of the time.

The inauguration ceremony is said to have cost one million dollars, including money spent on huge amounts of caviar, filet mignon, crabmeat, and champagne.


A page from a brochure advertising the place. Or possibly an illustration for a time travel story.

The Deuce Gets Loose

Speaking of losing money, today the United States Department of the Treasury announced that it would no longer print two-dollar bills. (The U.S. Mint hadn't actually printed any since June 30, but now they're going to stop completely.)


Thomas Jefferson looks glum about the situation. At least he'll still be on the nickel.

Two-dollar bills only make up a tiny percentage of the paper money in circulation. Some folks think they're unlucky. They're welcome to give any they don't want to me.

Wild Success

One thing you can do with a two-dollar bill is buy a couple of 45 rpm single records, and maybe even have a little change left over. A lot of people are shelling out a buck or so for the current Number One smash hit Wild Thing by the British band the Troggs. This raw, energetic tune was originally recorded last year by an American group called, appropriately enough, the Wild Ones, but failed to reach the charts.


It's the only rock 'n roll hit I can recall that features an extended ocarina solo.

You Pays Your Money And You Takes Your Choice

If you've only got fifty cents to your name, you can still purchase a copy of the current issue of Fantastic. That's less than one-third of a cent per page, so it sounds like a pretty good deal.

Of course, as my esteemed colleague John Boston recently pointed out, both Amazing and Fantastic are publishing lots of reprints without paying the authors. Whether you want to support these publications or boycott them is your choice. As for me, duty calls.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Of course, the image on the front is also a reprint, and I doubt it was paid for either. In any case, it comes from the back cover of the April 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.


Here's the original painting, titled City of the Future. Looks a lot better this way, doesn't it?

For a Breath I Tarry, by Roger Zelazny

As the cover announces, here's the author's newest story.

Wait a minute! Haven't I read this before? Let me see, where could it have been?

Oh, yeah, it appeared in the March issue of New Worlds, and was reviewed by my esteemed colleague Mark Yon just a few months ago. I hope the author got paid twice.


Anonymous cover art.

I cannot hope to match the quality of this outstanding article. I will simply offer my own views, for whatever they might be worth.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Long after humanity has disappeared, Earth is controlled by machines. Orbiting the planet is the supreme ruler, Solcom. Dwelling deep underground is a rival machine, named Divcom. (An allegory with God and the Devil seems intended, and some of the story reminds me of the Book of Job. However, the plot is completely original, and not merely a retelling of the Bible story.)

Solcom creates a machine to rule the northern hemisphere, calling it Frost. The ruler of the southern hemisphere is Beta. Frost makes a hobby of studying what little remains of humanity's relics. A machine named Mordel, in the service of Divcom, comes to Frost with a supply of ancient books. These excite Frost's curiosity, and it sets out on a quest to understand human emotions; in fact, to become a human being. Mordel offers Frost a deal. It will give Frost all the aid it requires to achieve this goal, but if Frost comes to realize that the task is impossible, it will have to serve Divcom forever.

(An allusion to the legend of Faust also seems intended. Note the similarity in names.)

Frost travels to the southern hemisphere, in order to witness one of the last places where people dwelled. This act is in defiance of Solcom's will, leading to a conflict between creator and created. (We are told that a temporary malfunction in Solcom's operation, at the time it made Frost, caused Frost to be unique among machines. Perhaps this is a form of original sin.)


What Frost wants to be.

I have barely touched the surface of a remarkable story. I haven't mentioned, for example, the giant ore-digging machine that carries the remains of the human being it accidentally killed within itself, causing all the machines it encounters to listen to its story. The fact that it bears parts of a dead human is enough to make other machines obey it, a subtle and important point. I also haven't talked about the role Beta plays in the plot. Go see for yourself.

Five stars.

"You Can't See Me!", by William F. Temple

If we allow the Zelazny tale to be considered new, our first reprint comes from the June 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Walter H. Hinton.

A fellow discovers that the people around him are happily conversing with folks he can't see. At first, a few others witness the same peculiarity, assuming the chatterers are crazy. Soon everybody succumbs to the delusion, and only the protagonist doesn't have an imaginary companion.


Illustration by Gerald Hohns. I assume all the reprinted drawings failed to earn the artists any new money, just like the writers.

Of course, there's an explanation for this strange happening. It's a pretty weak one, unfortunately, and the story just kind of fizzles out toward the end. Although it's not really a comedy, the fact that the main character has the unlikely name Zechariah Zebedee Zyzincwicz, and that this unusual moniker is relevant to the plot, tells you that you shouldn't take it too seriously.

Two stars.

Carousel, by August Derleth

This chiller comes from the April 1945 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by R. E. Epperley.

A little girl lives with her father and a wicked stepmother, straight out of a fairy tale. The evil woman is insanely jealous of the man's affection for his daughter, and would even be happy to see her dead.


Illustrations by Robert Fuqua.

A few years before the story begins, a mob lynched a carnival worker, leaving behind a wrecked merry-go-round. The child often goes to play in the ruins, claiming to be friends with a black man. The wicked stepmother takes advantage of the situation to make sure the girl is punished for her actions, whipping her severely. She follows her to the merry-go-round, hoping that the dangerous machinery will cause the child to suffer a fatal accident. (The implication that the woman intends to cause the accident is pretty clear.) Things don't work out the way she expects.


The haunted carousel.

As you can probably tell from this synopsis, there are no surprises at all in the plot. It's a pretty ordinary horror story, of the supernatural punishment variety. Although the murder of the carnival worker is obviously due to racial hatred, this isn't really relevant, which lessens the story's impact.

Three stars.

The Little People, by Eando Binder

This fantasy novella first appeared in the March 1940 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

A scientist, his adult daughter, and her boyfriend are in a cabin somewhere in a remote area. The gruesome discovery of a cat with its throat cut is the first hint that something weird is going on. The next odd happening is the disappearance of a gold watch.

We find out right away that a community of fairies, or whatever you want to call them, is located nearby. One of them went into the cabin to steal the watch as a sign of bravery, in order to win the hand of the woman he loves, and had to kill the cat to escape.


Illustrations uncredited. They might be by Robert Fuqua again.

A rival for the fairy woman's affection tries to outdo the other by stealing a pair of binoculars. He gets caught by the scientist, who wants to exploit the little people as a scientific curiosity. The two young people are more sympathetic to their plight. The rival acts as a traitor to his kind, helping the scientist capture others.


Happier times, before the big people trap them.

The fairy man who stole the watch undertakes the dangerous task of rescuing his people from their captor, as well as defeating the treacherous rival.

I may as well mention here that Eando Binder is a pseudonym, used by brothers Earl (deceased) and Otto Binder. They're best known for a series of stories about the robot Adam Link. My sources tell me that this story is the work of Otto alone. In any case, it's not a bad fairy tale, if not outstanding in any way. Animal lovers should be warned that the cat is not the only creature to fall victim to the diminutive hero.

Three stars.

The Psionic Mousetrap, by Murray Leinster

The March 1955 issue of Amazing Stories is the source for this Cold War thriller.


Cover art by Edward Valigursky.

Our hero parachutes into the Soviet Union on a suicide mission. His grim task is to kill a kidnapped scientist before he can reveal the secrets of powerful psionic technology to the Reds.


Illustration by Paul Orban.

Things go badly right from the start. The hero winds up in the hands of the enemy. They force him to complete the work of the captured scientist, which turns out to be their undoing.

I didn't get much out of this spy yarn. The plot depends on the fact that the Commies are too materialistic to believe in psionics, which was a little hard to swallow. The story's conclusion strains credulity as well. You'd expect something like this in a mediocre issue of Astounding, given the fact that psionics is pretty much just another word for magic.

Two stars.

No More Tomorrows, by David H. Keller, M.D.

Here's a Kelleryarn (as they used to call the works of this author) from the December 1932 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Leo Morey.

The narrator develops a substance that destroys the part of the brain that allows one to imagine the future. He plans to sell the secret of this stuff to a trio of Soviet agents for a ton of money.


Illustration by Leo Morey also.

He rather stupidly whips up a vial of the substance, as well as a vial of plain water, in order to brag about his plot to the woman he wants to marry. (He figures that being a multimillionaire will win her hand.) Predictably, she winds up switching the two vials, so the narrator is hoist by his own petard.

This story has an intriguing premise, but it isn't developed very well. As I've indicated, the switching of the two vials requires that the narrator act like a complete fool. (There doesn't seem to be any reason at all to have a vial of water around.) The three Soviet agents are bizarrely deformed, as the illustration indicates. I guess the author really hates Communism, but this makes the whole thing seem ridiculous.

Two stars.

Rocket to Gehenna, by Doris Piserchia

At last! A story that hasn't appeared anywhere else. It's the author's first publication, too. It's a comic tale in the form of a series of letters. (A work of epistolary fiction, for those of you with highfalutin vocabularies.)

It seems that Earth sends the bodies of the deceased to the supposedly uninhabited planet Gehenna. It turns out that the place is occupied by a caterpillar-like alien and a very naïve human boy. Since they have the power to transport anything from one place to another, they start sending bodies back to Earth. The boy also captures a woman, because he thinks he needs a wife, although he doesn't even know the basic anatomical facts of life.

This is all very silly stuff. It's obviously trying to be a wacky farce, but I didn't find it very amusing. Let's hope the author does better work in the future.

One star.

Did You Get Your Money's Worth?

The Zelazny story, all by itself, is worth the four bits you'll pay for the magazine. The rest of it goes downhill at a rapid pace. If you have half a buck to spare, you might want to give it a try.


That isn't exactly what I had in mind.



A copy of Rosel George Brown's new hit novel, Sibyl Sue Blue, is worth every penny! Buy one today!




[June 10, 1966] Summer Reruns (July 1966 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Away

Summertime is right around the corner, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and all patriotic Americans know what that means; reruns on television. Not only does this save the production companies money, it allows defunct programs to continue to appear on TV screens long after they're gone, like ghosts haunting a house. (Of course, they're easier to exorcise than traditional specters; just pull the plug.)

Two popular, critically acclaimed, and long-running series recently cast off this mortal coil, ready to enter the monochromatic afterlife of reruns.

Late last month, the courtroom drama Perry Mason slammed down the gavel for the last time with The Case of the Final Fade-Out. The story involved a television studio, so a large number of crew members made cameo appearances, pretty much as themselves. There was also a very special guest star.


That's executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson on the left and Hollywood columnist Norma Lee Browning on the right. The fellow in the middle? That's bestselling author Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, dressed up for his role as a judge in the final episode.

At the start of this month, The Dick Van Dyke Show came to a conclusion with the appropriately titled episode The Last Chapter. Van Dyke's character, television writer Rob Petrie, finishes the book he's been working on for five years, and looks back on his life.


Because The Last Chapter was really just an excuse to reuse sequences from previous episodes, I'm offering you this scene from the penultimate episode, The Gunslinger. Surrounding Van Dyke in this Western parody are cast regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Deacon.

I'm sure that both of these hit series will be reincarnated in American living rooms for quite a while.

Not all summer television programming consists of reruns, to be sure. There are so-called summer replacement series as well. In a week or so, we'll enjoy (or avoid) the first episode of The Dean Martin Summer Show (not to be confused with The Dean Martin Show, which has been going on since last year. Are you still with me?) It will be hosted by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.


Rowan on the left and Martin on the right, in a scene from their 1958 Western spoof Once Upon a Horse. I wonder if they'll have any success as TV hosts.

A Home Run The First Time At Bat

Although it's not unknown for popular songs of yesteryear to return to the charts — auditory reruns, if you will — listeners are usually searching for something original. Newcomer Percy Sledge offers an notable example with his smash hit When a Man Loves a Woman. This passionate, soulful ballad, currently Number One in the USA, is not only the first song recorded by Sledge, it is the first song recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city famous for its music studios, to reach that position.


Your fans mean it, Mister Sledge.

I've Seen This All Before

The reason I've been talking about reruns, before I get to the contents of the latest issue of Fantastic, isn't just the fact that they've been filling up the magazine with reprints for some time now. As we'll see, many of the old stories in this issue have reappeared several times before. Reruns of reruns, so to speak. Whether fans of imaginative literature will be willing to spend four bits for fiction they may have already read in collections or anthologies remains to be seen.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Predictably, the front cover is also a rerun.


The back cover of the June 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It looks better in the original version.

Before I get to the reruns, however, let's start with something new.

Just Like a Man, by Chad Oliver


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three men are in an aircraft, flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet. A sudden storm forces them to abandon the vehicle, stranding the trio in an area resembling an African savannah. Because the place is full of leonine predators, they hightail it to the relative safety of a nearby rainforest.


Climbing one of the planet's gigantic trees in order to get away from the hungry cats.

They wind up far above the ground, among an unsuspected community of highly intelligent primates. These mysterious creatures help them survive, and even offer the possibility of reaching their home base, located five hundred miles away across uncharted wilderness.


Among the primates, who are not as hostile as shown here.

This is a decent tale of adventure, and the enigmatic primates are interesting. The planet is so similar to Earth — the feline predators are pretty much just lions — that you might forget you're reading a science fiction story. Overall, it's worth reading, if not outstanding in any way.

Three stars.

The Trouble With Ants, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

From the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures comes this final story in the author's famous City series. (By the way, the title of this work was changed to The Simple Way when it appeared in book form.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth. From this point on, all the illustrations are reruns from the original appearances of the stories.

In the far future, people are gone from Earth, with the exception of one fellow in suspended animation. Long ago, humans increased the intelligence of dogs, gave them the power of speech, and built robots to serve their needs. The canines, in turn, taught other animals to speak.

Complicating matters is the fact that a man caused ants to develop technology of their own, including robots the size of fleas. Now the ants are constructing a building, for an unknown purpose, which threatens to take over the planet.

An ancient robot returns from humanity's new home in a mysterious fashion. It seeks out the man in suspended animation as part of its quest to understand the ants.

Brought together as a fix-up novel in 1952, the City series won the International Fantasy Award the next year. It is usually considered a classic of science fiction, and has been reprinted many times.


One of the many editions of this work. Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

Highly imaginative, and with a sweeping vision of the immensity of time, Simak's tales also have a gentleness and intimacy that touches the reader's heart. The mood is one of quiet melancholy, and the acceptance of the fact that all things will pass away.

Although SF fans are likely to have read this story before, its quality makes it a welcome repeat. (One can rarely say the same thing about television reruns, or else viewers would stay glued to their screens.)

Five stars.

Where Is Roger Davis?, by David V. Reed


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Let's take a break from stuff that has already been reprinted multiple times, and take a look at the first reappearance of this yarn, taken from the yellowing pages of the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. (The author is unknown to me, but I have discovered that he also writes for comics, particularly Batman. Apparently a couple of episodes of the new television series are based on his scripts for the comic book.)


Illustrations by Julian S. Krupa.

Two young men working for a New York City tour bus encounter an invisible, telepathic Martian. One of them is seduced by the alien's plot to take over the world, and soon becomes a megalomaniac.


The fact that the Martian makes robbing a bank as easy as pie is another factor in his decision.

The other fellow has to figure out a way to keep the Martians from conquering Earth.

The mood of the story changes drastically from light comedy at the start to grim tragedy by the conclusion. Given the year it was written, I wonder if the dictatorial intentions of the first man were influenced by the rise of Fascism.

The author claims that this story is a true account, sent to him by the second man. There are also bits of imaginary news articles scattered throughout, in an attempt at verisimilitude. These don't work very well, particularly the long one at the end. The only thing I found mildly intriguing, if implausible, was the way the hero manages to plot against beings who can read his mind.

Two stars.

Almost Human, by Tarleton Fiske


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

The introductory blurb makes it clear that the author of this story, reprinted from the June 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, is really Robert Bloch, using a rather absurd pseudonym. (As is common practice, this was done because he had another story in the same issue under his own name.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth.

A hoodlum makes his way into the secret laboratory of a brilliant scientist. His moll has been working for the guy, so the crook knows the genius has created a robot. The machine is being educated like a child. The gangster teaches it to be an invincible criminal, and to kill without mercy. As you'd expect, things don't work out very well.

This piece reads like hardboiled fiction from a crime pulp. The final scene is particularly gruesome, in typical Bloch style. The author shows a certain knack for the Hammett/Chandler mode, but that's about all I can say for it. Not that great a story, but somebody thought it was worth reviving for an anthology.


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Two stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed, by Isaac Asimov


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

Speaking of robots, here's one of several stories about the robopsychologist Susan Calvin by the Good Doctor, from the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Enoch Sharp.

Calvin only plays a minor part in this story, which focuses on a rather mousy, insecure housewife. Her husband works for the same robotics firm as Calvin, so he brings home a test model of a new machine. It looks like a handsome young man, and is designed to be helpful around the house in many different ways. The husband goes off on a business trip, leaving his wife alone with the robot.

The housewife is frightened of it at first, but soon learns to accept it. It even helps her with home decorating, clothing, and makeup, so she learns self-confidence. A final, unexpected gesture on the part of the machine, seemingly out of character for a robot, wins her the envy of her snobbish acquaintances. Susan Calvin explains why the machine's action was a perfectly logical way of obeying the famous First Law of Robotics.


Anonymous cover art for a British edition.

The author must be fond of this tale, because he has already included it in two different collections of his work. The one shown above, as the title indicates, includes stories that take place on Earth rather than in space, despite the misleading illustration and blurb. The story also appears in an omnibus that brings together his two robot novels as well as several shorter works.


Cover art by Thomas Chibbaro.

Besides that, it is also included in the same Roger Elwood anthology as Bloch's story. My sources in the television industry tell me that it is being adapted for the British series Out of the Unknown, and should appear late this year. (Will there be American reruns? One can only hope.)

Is it worth all this attention? Well, it's not a bad yarn, if not the greatest robot story Asimov ever wrote. The housewife is something of a stereotype of an overly emotional female, dependent on a man for her happiness. (This is in sharp contrast to the highly intelligent and independent Doctor Susan Calvin.) At some point you may think that the author is violating his own rules about robot behavior, but it's all explained at the end.

Three stars.

A Portfolio – Virgil Finlay

I'm not sure if I should even discuss this tiny collection of illustrations by the great artist, but at least I can share them with you.


For The New Adam (1939) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The magazine calls it The New Atom, which is an egregious error.


For Mirrors of the Queen (1948) by Richard S. Shaver.


For The Silver Medusa (1948) by Alexander Blade (pseudonym for H. Hickey.)

What can I say? His work is stunning.

Five stars.

Satan Sends Flowers, by Henry Kuttner


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of Fantastic is the source of this variation on an old theme.


Illustrations by Tom Beecham.

A man sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. (The premise is similar to that of the Twilight Zone episode Escape Clause, but the twist ending is different.) He ensures that he will remain young, healthy, and all that, so Satan can't play any tricks on him. Obviously, he figures he'll never have to pay up.

The Devil demands surety in the form of certain subconscious memories the fellow possesses. After assuring him that he won't even know he's lost anything, the man agrees. Unafraid of either earthly punishment or damnation, he lives a life of total depravity.


His first crime is the murder of his mother.

Eventually, he persuades the Devil to give him back what he lost, even though Satan warns him that he won't like it. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Like most other stories in this issue, this one has already appeared in a book. (It acquired the new title By These Presents.)


Back and front cover art by Richard Powers.

I should mention that the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore almost always collaborated, even if the resulting story appeared under only one name. Whoever might have been responsible for whatever parts of this work, it's a reasonably engaging tale. I'm not sure I really accept the explanation for what the man's unconscious memories represent, but I was willing to go along with it.

Three stars.

The Way Home, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

This quiet story comes from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by David Stone.

A boy runs away from home. Along the way he meets a wealthy man and his glamourous female companion, in their fancy car; a man with an injured hand who has been all over the world; and a pilot in a beautiful airplane. Without giving too much away, it's clear from the start that these men represent possible future versions of himself.


Is this the road to the future, or to home?

Like Asimov's story, this piece has already appeared in two of the author's collections, but with a slight change in the title.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

(I'm not sure if I should really count these as two different collections, because all the stories in Thunder and Roses already appeared, along with others, in A Way Home. Such are the vagaries of the publishing industry.)


Cover art by Peter Curl.

In any case, this is a beautifully written little story, subtle and evocative. To say much more would be to ruin the delicate mood it creates.

Five stars.

Worth Tuning In Again?


Cartoon by somebody called Frosty, from the same magazine as Satan Sends Flowers.

I wouldn't call this issue bad at all, although there were a couple of disappointing stories.  It's no big surprise that the Simak and the Sturgeon were excellent, and Finlay's art is always a delight.  It's enough to make you want to tear yourself away from all those reruns on television and turn to some literary reruns instead.


In the world of cuisine, reruns are known as leftovers.



Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!  Even the reruns are great!




[April 8, 1966] Search Parties (May 1966 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Keep Watching the Skies!

The good citizens of Michigan were recently reminded of the warning I've quoted above, from 1951's The Thing from Another World (a loose cinematic adaptation of John W. Campbell's 1938 novella Who Goes There?).


Father and son describe what they saw.

Folks in Washtenaw County (just look for the city of Ann Arbor on the map, and you're smack dab in the middle of it) reported seeing strange lights in the sky last month. Supposedly, a UFO even landed in a swampy area near the tiny community of Dexter Township.


Looks like a classic flying saucer to me.

About one hundred people witnessed these phenomena. Naturally, the federal government got involved. They sent astronomer J. Allen Hynek to the area to check things out. Reportedly, he thinks at least some of the sightings can be explained as swamp gas. One politician isn't so sure.


Note that the article uses the phrase marsh gas. One person's swamp is another person's marsh, I suppose.

Gerald R. Ford is a United States Congressman from the Grand Rapids district of Michigan, so this situation strikes close to home for him. (He's a Republican, and the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives. Maybe this event will make him famous.)

Here's a picture of Representative Ford and wife Betty on a recent fishing trip, so you'll recognize him if his face shows up in the news in times to come.

It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier

While some Americans are tracking down UFO's, others are searching for ways to justify their nation's involvement in the conflict in Vietnam. As a counterpoint to the many demonstrations against the war, a patriotic song celebrating the heroism of the Army Special Forces has been at the top of the charts for several weeks. The Ballad of the Green Berets, sung by Sergeant Barry Sadler, seems to have struck just the right note with many conservative music lovers.


Personally, I prefer the Tom Lehrer song I have alluded to above.

Hunting Through the Pages

Meanwhile, I've been searching for good reading. Take, for example, the latest issue of Fantastic. Fittingly, many of the stories feature characters who are on quests of one kind or another.


Art by Frank R. Paul.

(I might add that I had to search through piles of old pulp magazines to find the original source of the magazine's cover art. It turned out to be the back cover of the September 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.)


Confused? We'll get to an explanation of this weird scene later in the issue.

The Phoenix and the Mirror, by Avram Davidson

Let's begin our journey with a new novella from the former editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The author's introductory note explains that the ancient Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, was depicted as a sorcerer in legends of the Middle Ages. (Davidson prefers the spelling Vergil, which I will use for the name of the fictional character in this story. He also prefers nigromancer to necromancer and Renascence to Renaissance, but that's typical erudite eccentricity on his part.) He also notes that this tale is the first part of a series to be called Vergil Magus.

Anyway, we begin in medias res, with Vergil trying to escape from an underground labyrinth full of malevolent manticores. (These are not the lion-scorpions of myth, but something more like large, clever weasels.) He manages to get out, winding up at the palace of an aristocrat with magical powers. She forces him to undertake the extremely difficult quest of creating a very special enchanted mirror, so she can see where in the world her daughter might be. He can't say no, because she steals one of his souls.

You read that right. People in this world have more than one soul, it seems. Losing one isn't fatal, but it seems to be so traumatic an event that Vergil feels compelled to undertake the nearly impossible task. He has to obtain unrefined tin and copper ore from the far ends of the known world, and then form the mirror through a long and laborious process. After many struggles, with the help of his alchemist sidekick, he manages to complete this onerous undertaking.


The mirror in use.

That isn't the end of his troubles, however. After instantly falling in love with the daughter after one glimpse in the mirror, he treks through desert wastelands, with an enigmatic Phoenician at his side, to rescue her from a Cyclops.


The lady and the cyclops.

This isn't the typical brutal, dimwitted Cyclops from mythology, but an intelligent, even sensitive creature. Multiple plot twists follow, and we find out why a phoenix is mentioned in the title.

Davidson keeps his baroque writing style under control here, and the plot is cleverly crafted. The background, which is kind of a mixture of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, with a strong dose of pure fantasy, is unique and interesting. Some readers may be impatient with several pages describing in great detail the exact method of creating the mirror, but I found it fascinating.

My one major complaint is that Vergil's lengthy and dangerous voyage to obtain copper ore is skipped over almost entirely, related in just a few sentences of flashback. I would like to learn more about his adventures there. Maybe Davidson plans to expand this novella into a novel, as authors of science fiction and fantasy often do. Otherwise, I greatly enjoyed this witty and imaginative excursion into a past that never existed.

Four stars.

Seven Came Back, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

As usual, the rest of the magazine is filled up with reprints. Let's start with a tale from the pages of the October 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by Arthur Hutah.

The setting is Mars, the favorite world of SF writers. Like many fictional versions of the red planet, this is a place where humans can survive without spacesuits. It's still a very dangerous environment, however, with all sorts of deadly creatures living in the endless desert.

The protagonist is on a quest to find the fabled lost city of the nearly extinct Martians. He hires a couple of tough guys to guide him through the wasteland. As we'll see, this turns out to be a big mistake.

Six Martians show up at their camp. It seems that they're the last of their kind, and they think that the men can lead them to a seventh. The Martians have seven sexes, you see, and this is their last chance to reproduce. (That must certainly make things complicated.)

If the humans help them out, they'll take them to the city, which is supposed to be full of fabulous treasures. The two roughnecks take off on their own, leaving the protagonist alone in the deadly desert.

Things get a lot stranger after this, and I don't want to give too much away. Suffice to say that the main character manages to survive, wins an unexpected ally, and has a mystical experience at the city.


The lost Martian city.

At first, I thought this was more or less a science fiction Western, with the hero heading for a showdown with the no-good polecats who left him to die. I have to admit that the plot went in completely unexpected directions. I'm still pondering the meaning of the ending. The author mixes space adventure with his usual warmth and concern for all living things and a touch of Bradbury's magical Mars.

Four stars.

The Third Guest, by B. Traven

The mysterious author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre offers a fable of life and death that appeared in the March-April 1953 issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Richard Powers.

Like everything else about the author, the provenance of this story is puzzling. As far as I have been able to determine, it was written under the title The Healer, was first published in German in 1950 as Macario, and somehow wound up with its current title when it showed up in Fantastic.


Illustrations by Tom O'Sullivan.

One of the few facts known about the author is that he — or she? — lives in Mexico, the setting for most of his — or her? — fiction. This tale is no exception. It takes place when the region was still known as New Spain, during the colonial period.

Macario, a dirt-poor woodcutter, barely manages to feed himself, his wife, and their many children. For most of his life, his greatest dream has been to eat an entire roast turkey by himself. Over several years, his wife saves the tiny payments she receives for doing chores for slightly less poverty-stricken folks. She buys a turkey, prepares it exquisitely, and presents it to her husband, telling him to go into the woods and devour it alone.

Before he can enjoy the delicious feast, however, three strange visitors show up. The first is a sinister fellow, richly dressed. He offers Macario enormous wealth for a share of the turkey. Macario refuses.


The first guest.

The second one is poorly dressed, gentle, and saintly. Despite his kindly manner, Macario again refuses to share his meal. The visitor blesses him anyway.


The second guest.

The third guest, as the title suggests, is the one most vital to the plot. Macario knows he cannot refuse this cadaverous figure, so he at least manages to keep half of the turkey for himself. In exchange, the guest gives him an elixir that will cure all ills, but only if the visitor chooses who will live and who will die. The rest of the story follows Macario as he wins a reputation as a great healer. A summons from the Viceroy of New Spain, whose child is dying, leads to a final confrontation with the third guest.

This is a remarkable fantasy, with the simplicity of a folktale but the sophistication of great literature. It appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1954 (edited by Martha Foley), so I'm not alone in my opinion. It was even made into a Mexican movie in 1960, which you might be able to catch at your local arthouse cinema, if you don't mind subtitles.

Five stars.

The Tanner of Kiev, by Wallace West

The last time we met this author, it was with a reprint of the antifeminist dystopia The Last Man, to which my esteemed colleague John Boston awarded one star. Even if we ignore that story's political stance, it's poorly written. Will this tale, from the October 1944 issue of Fantastic Adventures, be any better? It could hardly be worse.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this is a story about World War Two, written and published during the height of the conflict. You have to expect Our Side to be heroic Good Guys, and Their Side to be sadistic Bad Guys. In particular, the Soviets are definitely on the side of the angels here.


Illustrations by Malcolm Smith.

The hero parachutes behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. His mission is to deliver a radio transmitter to the underground resistance. Things get weird pretty quickly, as he runs into an immortal magician from Russian folklore.


The wizard and his pets.

Next thing you know, he's at the chicken-legged hut of the legendary old witch Baba Yaga. None of this supernatural stuff seems to bother him, and soon he's on his way into Kiev. He contacts the Russian guerillas, including the pretty female one with whom he falls in love. With the help of the warlock and witch, as well as a talking squirrel and a were-rat, the brave Soviets overcome the craven Germans.

Given the fact that, inevitably, a wartime story is going to paint things in black and white, this isn't a bad yarn at all. It's pretty well written, and the wild and wooly plot held my interest. The changes in mood from whimsical to romantic to horrific are disconcerting, and the love story is a little sappy, but's it worth a read.

Three stars.

Wolf Pack, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.


Cover art by Leo Summers.

The Second World War is also the background for this story, from the September-October 1953 issue of Fantastic, but this time the battle rages in Italy instead of the Soviet Union.


Illustrations by Bernard Krigstein.

The main character is the pilot of an American bomber who has already flown nearly fifty missions, raining destruction from the skies. He has recurring dreams about a alluring woman he thinks of as La Femme, or just La. It would be easy to dismiss this as a predictable fantasy for a young man deprived of female company for an extended period of time, or as an idealized image of his girlfriend back home. Yet she seems very real, and he appears to be in some kind of telepathic communication with her, even while awake.


The woman known as La.

During his latest bombing run, he nearly aborts the mission, terrified that he might destroy her. The other members of the crew have to physically restrain him to complete their gruesome task.


A bomber's world.

The author was a radio operator and tail gunner during World War Two, participating in as many bombing missions over Italy as the story's protagonist. It's no surprise, then, that the details of life as a bomber pilot are extremely realistic and convincing.   Miller took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino in 1944, which certainly had an influence on the writing of his award-winning novel A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), already considered a modern classic.

Unlike the previous story, which, understandably, was full of gung-ho patriotic glory (much like Sergeant Sadler's hit song, come to think of it) this is a somber, emotionally powerful account of the way that war turns men into machines, and how the innocent suffer as much as the guilty.

Five stars.

Betelgeuse, in Orion: The Walking Cities of Frank R. Paul, by Anonymous

I wasn't sure if I should even bother discussing this little article, but what the heck. It originally appeared under the slightly different title Stories of the Stars: Betelgeuse in Orion, supposedly by a Sergeant Morris J. Steele in the September 1944 issue of Amazing Stories. This is probably a pseudonym for the magazine's editor, Raymond A. Palmer, but I can't prove that.


Cover art by Julian S. Krupa.

Anyway, after some facts about the giant star, we get wild speculation about the beings who might live there. It's pretty much just a way to fill up some space.

Two stars.

The End of the Search

Well, my search for enjoyable fiction certainly paid off! This was an outstanding issue. Even the worst story was pretty good, and the best were excellent. It makes me ponder my skepticism about reprinting old stuff. After all, I don't complain when an movie from yesteryear shows up on television, as long as it's a good one.


Check your local listings to see if this decade-old classic will be showing in your area any time soon.