It's been more than a quarter of a century since the Communist Party of the United States ran candidates for President and Vice-President. That was back in 1940, when Earl Browder and James W. Ford were nominated.
They didn't win.
This month, the Party chose Charlene Mitchell and Mike Zagarell for the honor.
Zagarell is technically too young to serve as Vice-President, but I don't think he'll have to face that problem.
Overdue Notice
One month isn't anywhere near as long as twenty-eight years, but the failure of a July issue of Fantastic to hit the shelves of drugstores and newsstands (in June, of course, given the proclivities of the publishing industry) may have caused as much anxiety among readers of imaginative fiction as the lack of a Commie candidate caused in Red voters.
Not to worry. My esteemed colleague John Boston has explained the situation in typically erudite fashion in his latest review of Amazing. I'll wait here while you go take a look.
Ready? Good. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's take a look at the August, not July, issue of Fantastic to see if our patience has been rewarded.
Cover art by Johnny Bruck.
Our first hint that the delay hasn't changed things very much, if at all, is the fact that the cover is once again a reprint from an issue of the popular German space opera serial Perry Rhodan.
We begin in promising fashion with our old pals Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, in another witty and imaginative adventure from the living master of sword-and-sorcery.
Illustration by Jeff Jones.
The two lovable rogues have gotten their hands on some incredibly valuable magic jewels. Each one of them tries to cash in on the stolen goods, making use of different fences.
The Mouser goes to a blind fellow, who has a nubile female assistant. Fafhrd seeks out a woman of mature years, who insists on an intimate encounter before the deal is completed. Suffice to say that things don't work out as they expect.
As you'd expect, this is a beautifully written and highly enjoyable tale. It's a bit lighter in tone that some other stories in the series; an anecdote rather than an epic, perhaps.
As a bonus, the likable character Alyx, created by Joanna Russ, makes a guest appearance. Obviously Leiber approves of the way Russ is influenced by his work, and he has acknowledged this in a gracious manner.
A new writer makes his third appearance in print with this science fiction story. Narrated by a spaceman to an unknown listener over drinks, it tells how an inexperienced crew member got in trouble. It seems he clumsily injured an alien. Put on trial, he is found guilty and punished in a way the aliens can't convey to the humans. He seems perfectly fine, until strange things start happening.
What the aliens did to the fellow is the whole point of the narrative. It's pretty much a puzzle story. For that kind of thing, it's reasonably interesting. It could have appeared in Analog, except for the fact that the aliens aren't shown to be inferior to humans. It's not bad, but not outstanding in any way.
My advice to Mister Tiptree is to keep writing; the man shows promise.
Three stars.
Horror Out of Carthage, by Edmond Hamilton
Here come the reprints. This old-fashioned yarn comes from the September 1939 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.
Our cast of characters includes the manly hero, an older archeologist, and the latter's beautiful daughter. They're on a dig to locate the Temple of Moloch at the site of Carthage.
Illustrations by Jay Jackson.
Right away we're told that the daughter feels as if someone is trying to force her out of her body. It's no surprise, then, when the mind of a woman of the ancient vanished city takes possession of her physical form. Pretty soon our hero's mind goes far back in time to inhabit the body of a Carthaginian man.
The big problem is that Carthage is about to be wiped off the map by invading Romans. (The two folks from the doomed city came forward in time to escape that fate.) Can the hero find a way to save his beloved from being sacrificed to Moloch, and return to his own time with her? Come on, you know the answer to that already.
War, with elephants.
This is a typical old-time pulp adventure story, with characters who are walking archetypes. It's got some vivid scenes, so it's not boring. Carthage is constantly described as a wicked, barbaric place. That sounds more like Roman propaganda than accurate ancient history, but I'm no expert.
The July 1948 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this unusual work.
Cover art by Arnold Kohn.
A mysterious entity sends a musical note from an ethereal realm to the material world. In mundane reality, a man strikes up a conversation with an airline stewardess. They are obviously attracted to each other, but eventually go their separate ways.
Illustration by William A. Gray.
This is a very strange story, and I have described it badly. The author creates a highly detailed mythological background, much of it difficult to comprehend. I'm not really sure what he's getting at. Did the musical note cause the pair to fall in love?
I found this peculiar tale rather haunting, if confusing. It's definitely not the same old thing, anyway.
Three stars.
When Better Budgies Are Built, by Bryce Walton
The November 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures is the source of this futuristic farce.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
The narrator is a vacuum cleaner salesman. He gets pulled into the future by a guy using a forbidden time machine. It seems that two rival merchandisers, the only ones left in this new version of the USA, are about to start selling gizmos that will supply everything that anyone could want, for a price. The problem is that one of the corporations has an army of robots who are able to sell anything to anybody.
Illustration by William Slade.
What makes this even more alarming is the fact that the head of the company is a would-be dictator planning to use the robots to sell people on the idea that he should be their leader. In exchange for a piece of future technology that will make him rich when he goes back to his own time, the narrator figures out a way to defeat the irresistible robot salesman.
Pretty silly stuff, really. The plot depends on the robots being absolutely perfect at selling merchandise and ideas, without any clue as to how they do this. We don't get to find out what the narrator earns for his service, either.
The ending makes use of a stereotype about women that is more goofy than offensive.
This two-fisted, he-man yarn comes from the October 1948 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by James B. Settles.
A Cro-Magnon runs away from his tribe after a fight with the bullying leader. He witnesses a sphere arrive and discharge two men and a woman. After saving the trio from a wolf, he jumps into the vessel to escape a sabretooth tiger. The four go off to another planet.
Illustration by J. Allen St. John.
The folks on this world are under attack by green monsters. The Cro-Magnon defeats the creatures easily, while the effete males around him cower in fear. Naturally, the woman is instantly attracted to his manliness.
The author is obviously trying to promote the idea that men should be fearless warriors. The Cro-Magnon's contempt for the decadent males surrounding him is evident, and the author appears to share it.
Even if I ignore all that, as an adventure story it failed to hold my interest. There are parts of it where there seems to be something missing; one scene jumps to another without any kind of transition.
Here's a tale of paranoia from the March 1955 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Ed Valigursky.
A guy gets fed up with everything being fake. He goes on and on about this, until his exasperated wife calls in a buddy to talk some sense into him.
Illustration by Virgil Finlay.
The two fellows argue about stuff being phony for a while. The guy reveals what he thinks is behind all these ersatz things. There's a twist ending you'll see coming a mile away.
Definitely a one idea story. It's like one of Philip K. Dick's what-is-reality tales, with all the subtlety and complexity surgically removed. Or maybe it's more like a clumsy version of Robert A. Heinlein's famous solipsistic nightmare They.
This screwball comedy comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
A nutty scientist uses a gizmo to remove an actor's head, as far as anybody can tell. Apparently he can still talk and breathe and such. He tells the actor to get a job without his handsome face within a month, or stay that way forever.
Illustration by Robert Gibson Jones also.
The actor's head is stored, in some way or other, like a photographic negative. Only pure alcohol can make it go back to normal. Let's just say that beer and a cat are involved in the ridiculous climax.
This thing is even more of a lunatic romp than I have indicated. The nutty scientist does all kinds of impossible things, from teleportation to literally flying.
Of possible interest to fans of pure wackiness.
Two stars.
The Wrong People, by Ralph Robin.
Yet another comedy, from the November/December 1953 issue of the magazine.
Cover art by Vernon Kramer.
A married couple who pretty much dislike everything, including each other, inadvertently conjure up a being from somewhere else in space and time. The creature is friendly enough, it seems, even if it scares the daylights out of the humans at first.
Illustration by Ed Emshwiller.
After they calm down, they think it's some kind of genie or something, ready to offer them whatever they want. This misunderstanding doesn't end well, leading to a shockingly gruesome conclusion.
There seems to be a touch of satire here, although you have to dig deep to find it. The sudden change in mood at the end really threw me for a loop.
Two stars.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Princess of Mars, by Charles R. Tanner
The author retells the story of ERB's famous novel in the form of a humorous poem.
Illustration by Jim.
I found it too sophomoric for my taste in literary spoofing. I may be prejudiced, as I am not a fan of Burroughs.
One star.
Worth Waiting For?
This issue started off well, but quickly sank into mediocrity and lousiness. Amazing and Fantastic seem to have reached the bottom of the barrel when it comes to reprints. Too much thud-and-blunder adventure, too much stupid comedy. It's enough to make you sick.
Cartoon by Frosty, from the same issue as Ralph Robin's story.
Bjo Trimble, a superfan from the wayback, put together a fan shindig in Los Angeles last weekend. Called F-UN Con, it is not only an SF convention, but it's also the first Star Trek convention, with a whole day of programming dedicated to the show.
This article is not about F-UN Con.
Why did we fly to the Bay Area this past weekend rather than trundling up to L.A., which is closer? Well, we know the gang in 'Frisco, and they've been putting together informal conclaves every year. We couldn't very well shuck tradition just for a new event, even if it's nominally in our back yard.
It was a good decision. For one thing, they had a bit of Star Trek up there–this lovely reproduction of the captain's chair.
And now that The Prisoner is showing in the States, we're getting some lovely costumage, too!
Speaking of traditions that are worth upholding, the latest issue of Galaxy feels like a return to the quality of yore. Usually, magazines pack their summer issues with their least impressive offerings, but such was not the case this time around. Take a trip with me!
by Vaughn Bodé
Among the Bad Baboons, by Mack Reynolds
by Vaughn Bodé
Mack Reynolds continues his stories of life under "People's Capitalism" in the '80s, this time focusing on the last of the Bohemians, living in the decaying ruins of Greenwich Village. With most of the country now on the dole, and white flight having been taken to its logical extreme, the cities are now all but abandoned, save for the "babboons"–lawless squatters–and the "hunters", who go downtown to shoot for thrills.
This story is more a vehicle for philosophical discussion than plot, and I found the end a bit distasteful. That said, there are some fascinating suppositions in this tale. One is that the current regime, in which prospective authors send their manuscripts to editors, who then publish them through traditional channels, will be supplanted by a revolutionary new process. In the '80s, any author can take their novel (or story, or artwork) to a computer and have it stored for infinite reproduction. These reproductions can then be read on a tv-phone (or in the case of art, facsimile duplicated).
This means that anyone can be a writer or an artist, and anyone can appreciate any work, any time. And since everyone is on the dole anyway, why not be an artist or a writer? Well, it does mean there's a lot more competition, and it's harder to become a phenomenon, but on the other hand, there's no barrier to entry.
Now, Reynolds assumes most people won't want to be artists, and they will be content to watch 24 hours of television a day while tranked up on cheap drugs. Maybe he's right. But as someone who already publishes nontraditionally (what is Galactic Journey and The Fantasy Amateur Press Association if not decentralized publishing), it's an exciting prospect.
I really had not been looking forward to this second installment of Leiber's tale. Last time, as you recall, a spaceman-actor had landed in post-apocalyptic Texas (now ruler of all North America save the two Black republics in the southwest and southeast) to 1) perform in a short tour and 2) make good on a pitchblende claim in the Yukon. The eight-foot tall, cadaverous, cybernetic thespian was recruited in a hit on the current President of Texas, whereupon he escaped to join causes with the revolutionary Mexican underclass.
It was all a bit silly, and while I appreciated what Leiber was doing, it didn't quite resonate with me. This time, however, the needle fell into the groove. As Chris Crockett La Cruz assumed the role of La Muerta, spurring the downtrodden Mexicans with promises of Vengeance and Death, Leiber's writing took on sublime proportions. The way he navigates the line between satire and seriousness so deftly, with such beautiful language and characterization, even as the characters are all caricatures, is an accomplishment for the ages.
Five stars for ths installment.
For Your Information: In Australia, the Rain …, by Willy Ley
The topic for this month's non-fiction piece is an interesting one: the artificial lakes, rivers, and resulting hydropower systems of Australia. The presentation, however, leaves much to be desired. I want to know the impact of these developments, both on settlement and on the environment, not be given pages of details of their precise geographical location.
Three stars.
The Time Trawlers, by Burt K. Filer
by Dan Adkins
A thousand years from now, humans will fish the future just as they now fish the seas. As the solar system's population grows to number into the quadrillions, our race must pluck planets from 30 billion A.D. to plunder them for their resources. An 18-year old fisherman with "the knack" for finding rich worlds, decides he doesn't want to do it anymore after seeing what the process does to already-inhabited planets. He embarks on a one-man crusade against the practice, hatching a novel scheme to bring it to an end.
Never mind the silliness of the premise, or the fact that culture looks pretty much like 20th Century Earth in the tale. It's a good story, well-told. Sure, it feels a bit like early vintage Galaxy, but I like that era!
Thorinn, that diminutive traveler introduced in The World and Thorinn and later in The Garden of Ease, has returned. This time, he has stumbled across an enormous warehouse filled with all manner of wondrous items. From rich garments to strange engines to a talking box, all are marvels to the medieval-minded explorer.
Of course, it's at this point that our suspicions are confirmed that the myriad of worlds Thorinn passes through are all parts of a giant generation ship, this being the cargo hold. What makes this segment so compelling is the description of these (to us) more-or-less familiar items to a man with no conception of technology. The interactions between Thorinn and the little computer, particularly the way the box learns English, feel very natural. I only wish Thorinn could have taken the box with him; it'd make an interesting companion.
Four stars.
HEMEAC, by E. G. Von Wald
by Joe Wehrle
Long ago, the robots took over the human power plants, and they also claimed a number of human hostages, who they began to educate in their own, logical images. But the robots are breaking down, and the "renegade" humans are pounding at the gates.
What is HEMEAC, a teenaged robot-trained youth supposed to think when his teachers all start behaving erratically and the wild people defile the sacred halls of cybernia?
This is another tale with a classic (i.e. '50s) sense to it. I particularly enjoyed the rendering of the robots, and HEMEAC's not-entirely-successful attempts to make rigid his thought processes.
Four stars.
Missed it by THAT much
Put it all together, and you get an issue that soars almost to four stars in quality–surely to contend for the best magazine of the month. It's reads like this that keep me going, and also cause me to commend editor Pohl for keeping the proud publication on an even keel. I know some disagree with his lambasting of the New Wave (and, indeed, Pohl is not averse to printing examples of it), but I think there is value to the continued production of novel, interesting, but also conventional SF prose.
Science fiction has a reputation for being a serious genre. In tone, that is–it's still mostly dismissed by "serious" literary aficionados. Whether it's gloomy doomsday predictions or thrilling stellar adventure, laughs are usually scarce.
There is, however, a distinct thread of whimsy within the field. Satire and farce can be found galore. For instance, Robert Sheckley was a master of light, comedic sf short stories in the '50s (he's less good at it these days). In moderation, fun/funny stories break up a turgid clutch of dour tales.
On the other hand, when you put a bunch together, particularly when only one of them is above average…
Before we get to the stories, in his editorial column Fred Pohl reminds Galaxy readers to submit proposals for the ending of the Vietnam War…in 100 words or fewer.
It makes me want to send something like this (with apologies to Laugh-In:
How I would end the War in Vietnam, by Henry Gibson.
"I would end the War in Vietnam by bombing the Vietnamese. I would bomb them a lot. When there are no more Vietnamese, we would win."
The lead piece is the beginning of a new serial by one of the old titans of science fiction. It tells of one Christopher Crockett de la Cruz, an actor from a space colony orbiting the moon. He has come down to Earth to ply his trade, a very risky endeavor as even lunar gravity is uncomfortable for him. De la Cruz requires an integrated exoskeleton to get around. That plus his emaciated, 8-foot frame makes him look like nothing so much as Death himself. A handsome, well-featured Death, but Death just the same. (Hmmm… a handsome, gaunt actor–I wonder on whom this character could be based!)
As strange as De la Cruz is, the situation on Earth is even stranger. He makes touchdown in Texas, now an independent nation again in the aftermath of an atomic catastrophe in the late '60s. Its inhabitants have all been modified to top eight feet as well (everything is bigger in Texas, by God's or human design), and they claim sovereignty of all North America, from the Guatemalan canal to the Northwest Territory. And over the Mexicans in particular, who not only are excluded from the height-enhancing hormone, but many of whom are forced to live as thralls, harnessed with electric cloaks that make them mindless slaves.
Quickly, De la Cruz is embroiled in local politics, unwittingly used to spearhead a coup against the current President of Texas. Along the way, the descriptions, the events, the setting are absurd to the extreme–from the reverence paid to "Lyndon the First", father of the nation, to the ridiculous courtships between De la Cruz and the two female characters.
It shouldn't work, and it almost doesn't, but underneath all the silliness, there is the skeleton of a plot and a fascinating world. It doesn't hurt that Leiber is such a veteran; I've read froth for froth's sake, and this isn't it. I'm willing to see where he goes with it.
Three stars.
McGruder's Marvels, by R. A. Lafferty
by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
The military needs a miniaturized component for its uber-weapon in two weeks, but the regular contractors can't guarantee delivery for two years. The colonels in charge of procuring reject out of hand a bid that will provide parts for virtually nothing and almost instantly. It is only when they start losing a global war that they grasp at the seemingly ludicrous straw.
Turns out the fellow who made the bid used to run a flea circus. Naturally, now he's into miniaturization. His parts really do work, and they really are cheap, but as can be expected, there's a catch.
If I hadn't known this story was written by Lafferty, I'd still have guessed it was written by Lafferty. After all, he and whimsy are old companions. It's more of an F&SF fantasy than SF, but it at least has the virtue of being memorable. Three stars.
The best piece of the issue is this one, featuring a new Niven character (the 180-year-old space prospector Louis Wu) in a familiar setting (Known Space). This is set later than the rest of the stories, past the Bey Schaeffer tales, contemporaneous with Safe at Any Speed somewhere close to the year 3000.
Wu has gotten tired of people, and so he has gone off in his one-man ship to explore the stars. His motive is fame–he wants to find himself a relic of the Slavers, the telepathic race of beings who ruled the galaxy and died in an interstellar war more than a billion years ago. In a far off system, his deep radar pings off an infinitely reflective object in orbit around an Earthlike world. Assuming it's a Slaver treasure box, kept in stasis these countless eons, he moves in for the salvage. But a new kind of alien has gotten there first…
Once again, Niven does a fine job of establishing a great deal with thumbnail, throwaway lines. In the end, Tide is a scientific gimmick story, the kind of which I'd expect to find in Analog (why doesn't Niven show up in Analog?), but the personal details elevate the story beyond its foundation.
It's funny; I read in a 'zine (fan or pro, I can't remember) that Niven writes hard SF that eschews characterization. I think Niven writes quite unique and memorable characters and hard SF. It's a welcome combination.
Four stars.
Bailey's Ark , by Burt K. Filer
by Brock
Now back to silliness. Atomic tests have caused the oceans to flood the land. After a few decades, only a few mountaintop communities are left, and soon they will be inundated. Fourteen humans have been chosen to be put into cold storage for 1500 years, to emerge when the waters have receded.
All the animals have died, except for a few caged specimens, and no effort has been made to preserve them through the impending apocalypse. It's up to one wily vet to save at least one species by sneaking it into the stasis Ark without anyone noticing.
Everything about this story is dumb, from the set up to the execution. Its only virtues are that it's vaguely readable and that it's short.
Two stars.
For Your Information: Interplanetary Communications, by Willy Ley
This is a strange article which never quite makes a point. The subject is sending messages from points around the solar system, but ultimately, Ley presents just two notable things:
1) A table of interplanetary distances (available in any decent astronomy book, and without even a convenient translation of kilometers to light-seconds/minutes/hours).
2) The assertion that satellites, artificial or natural, will be necessary as communications relays as direct sending of messages from planetary surface to planetary surface is prohibitively power-intensive. It is left to the reader's imagination as to why that would be.
Two captains of industry vie for control of a city. One offers a collaboration; the other takes advantage of the offer, double crosses the offerer, and leaves him penniless. When the double-crosser gets second thoughts, he subjects himself to a "play-out", a sort of mind trip where he gets to recreate and re-examine his decision in a fantasy world scenario. The double-crossed, coincidentally, engages in a "play-out" at the same time, for the same reason.
This concept was done much more effectively more than a decade ago in Ellison's The Silver Corridor. Two stars.
A callous capitalist comes across "Factsheet Five", a rudely typed circular that details all the horrible injuries caused by the defects in various companies' products. This and the prior Factsheets have had harmful impacts on the companies listed, from financial loss to outright bankruptcy. The capitalist, who has his own industrial empire (and attendant quality-control issues), wants to find the author of the Factsheets so he can get inside knowledge to make a killing in the investor market.
Of course, we know who will be featured in Factsheet Six…
This is the kind of corny, Twilight Zone-y piece that shows up in the odd issue of F&SF. I was sad to find it here.
Two stars.
Seconds' Chance, by Robin Scott Wilson
by Brand
Ever wonder who cleans up after the James Bonds and Kelly Robinsons of the world, settling insurance claims, smoothing diplomatic feathers, etc.? This is their story.
Their rather pointless, one-joke-spread-over-too-many-pages, story.
Two stars.
When I Was in the Zoo, by A. Bertram Chandler
by Vaughn Bodé
Here's a shaggy dog story, told White Hart style, about an Aussie fisherman who gets abducted by jellyfish aliens, exhibited in a zoo with a collection of terrestrial animals, and then seduced for professional reasons by one of the lady jellyfish.
Frankly, I'm not quite sure what else to say about it other than it's the sort of tale you'd expect from A. Bertram Chandler writing a White Hart story–competent, maritime, Australian, and forgettable.
Three stars.
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Lester del Rey
The issue ends with a review panning 2001 as New Wave nihilism, meaningless save for the vague suggestion that intelligence is always evil. This is a facile take. It's possible 2001 is what I call a "Rorschach film", like, say, Blow Up, where the director throws a bunch of crap on the screen and leaves it to the viewer to invent a coherent story. However, there are enough clues throughout the film to make the film reasonably comprehensible. Moreover, there is a book that explains everything in greater detail.
I'm not saying 2001 is perfect, and I imagine those who had to sit through the longer, uncut version enjoyed it less (save for Chip Delany, who apparently preferred it. I'll never know which I would have liked best, since the director not only trimmed down the film after release, but burned the cut footage!) But it is a brilliant film, extremely innovative, and it's worth a watch.
Starving for a bite
After eating all that cotton candy, with only the smallest morsel of meat to go with it, I am absolutely famished for something substantial. Thankfully, I'm about to hop a Boeing 707 for a trip to Japan, where not only the food will be exquisite, but I can catch up on all the 4 and 5 star stories recommended by my fellow Travelers in earlier months.
I need not remind you of the recent shocking murder of a genuinely great man who dedicated his life to nonviolence. Nor is it necessary to mention the wholesale slaughter of soldiers and civilians in Southeast Asia, which shows no signs of abating.
As if the heavens wish to mourn for the horrors humanity unleashes upon itself, there will be a total eclipse of the Moon tonight, visible from almost all parts of the Western Hemisphere.
An visual depiction of the phenomenon.
It is tragically appropriate that light reflected from Earth makes the eclipsed Moon appear reddish; an event known as a Blood Moon.
Even in the frivolous world of popular music, we are reminded of tragedy. At the top of the American music charts is the melancholy ballad (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay by the late Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash last December. It holds the unhappy distinction of being the first posthumous single to reach Number One.
Recorded just three days before Redding's death.
Better to Light One Candle Than to Curse the Darkness
It is tempting to sink into silence and depression. Instead, let us take what comfort we can from small pleasures. One such anodyne, at least for me, is reading science fiction and fantasy. Let's take a look at the latest issue of Fantastic and see if we can draw any solace from it.
Cover art by Johnny Bruck.
As has happened a few times before, the image on the cover comes from an issue of the popular German magazine Perry Rhodan.
That seems to mean The Little Men from Siga, presumably a fictional planet.
In this trivial bagatelle an Admiral (clearly supposed to be Christopher Columbus) has a scheme to sail west from Europe to the Indies without bumping into the new continent in the way. He uses gunpowder to send his ship into the air.
Can you guess this won't work out the way he thinks?
This is a weak joke, hardly the outstanding new story promised on the cover. At least it's short and inoffensive.
Two stars.
The Little Creeps, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The December 1951 issue of Amazing Stories is the source of this tale of the Cold War turned Hot.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
We start off with an odd scene in which a huge number of tiny glowing things invade the Tokyo home of an American General at night. Only light drives them away. They manage to talk to the officer by invading his phonograph and manipulating the needle. These are, of course, the Little Creeps.
Illustration by Leo Summers.
China and the USA are in a shooting war. The Soviet Union is supposedly neutral, but gives aid to its Red ally. The Little Creeps tell the General not to do three things.
1. Don't fire a Japanese servant.
2. Don't listen to a visiting General from the front lines.
3. Don't bomb Chinese installations along a river that serves as the border with the USSR.
You can probably predict that the General doesn't listen to the annoying Little Creeps, and things go from bad to worse.
This is a strange story, with a strong antiwar message mixed up with bizarre science fiction content. The latter never really made sense to me.
The visiting General is a loathsome character indeed. Not only does he love war, he also endlessly harasses a WAC Sergeant. I understand that he's the story's villain, but he really gives me the creeps (if you'll excuse the expression.)
Very mixed feelings about this one. The author has his heart in the right place, and the escalating tension of the situation creates a great deal of suspense, but the Little Creeps are kind of goofy.
Three Stars.
Dr. Immortelle, by Kathleen Ludwick
From the Fall 1930 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly we have the only story, as far as I can tell, this author ever published. I managed to take a look at a copy of the yellowing pages of the old magazine, and the table of contents lists her name as Luckwick. The introduction to the story refers to her as Miss Ludwick. I don't know which one is correct.
Cover art by Leo Morey.
Anyway, this is a horror story about a Mad Scientist who discovered a way to extend his life way back in the 18th century. (Did the title give you a clue?)
Illustration also by Morey.
He and his mulatto slave have kept themselves alive and young by transfusing the blood of children into their bodies. Even more improbable, and embarrassing for the modern reader, the transfusion of blood from white children has made the mulatto completely Caucasian!
Sometimes the children don't survive the sinister procedure. Justice finally catches up with the evil scientist and his servant (who developed a conscience about what they were doing over the decades) in the form of the grown sister of a little boy who died because of the transfusion.
It's easy to tell this yarn is nearly four decades old. Besides the stuff about the mulatto turning white, there's a lot of flowery language. The author uses a narrative technique I've seen in other antique works. We start with a narrator, who then quotes at length from another narrator. (In this case, the dying servant.)
Thirty-odd years ago, this could have been very loosely adapted into a cheap Boris Karloff movie, of the kind I eagerly seek out on Shock Theater. In print form, the years have not been kind to it. Whatever became of Miss Ludwick/Luckwick, she does not appear to have been a major loss to the literary world.
Two stars.
Spawn of Darkness, by Craig Browning
Never heard of Craig Browning? That's because he's really Rog Phillips, who gave us this story in the May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by H. L. Blumenfeld.
Guess what? Gregg Conrad, whose name appears on the cover, is also Rog Phillips! The guy gets around!
Illustration by Edmond Swiatek.
In a future war, two death rays meet, causing an entity to appear out of nowhere. It takes the form imagined by a soldier; namely, a genie.
Forget the futuristic stuff. From this point on, we've just got a story about a guy and his genie. He might as well have found it in an old bottle in the desert.
Anyway, he wishes his way home. Things seem fine, but then the military sends his mother a telegram, stating that her son is missing in action and presumed dead. I guess the mother is pretty superstitious, because a self-proclaimed psychic convinces her the young man is a ghost. Complications ensue when the guy rather foolishly uses the genie to perform practical jokes that seem like the work of a poltergeist.
I don't know what to make of this thing. As I've indicated, the science fiction content is pointless. I guess the author is making fun of parapsychologists and such, but nothing particularly funny happens.
Let's recap. Chandler's series character John Grimes, a female ethologist, and a bunch of other folks have arrived on a planet without women, as far as the bulk of the population knows. The elite Doctors actually have a secret cache of women hidden away.
Our protagonist is a military police officer native to the planet. He becomes a secret agent for the head of Intelligence, assigned to keep an eye on the new arrivals while also investigating the Doctors.
In this installment, the officer finds himself strangely attracted to the ethologist, although he thinks of her as an alien. On a tour of the planet, they come across the place where girl babies (considered to be deformed) are left to be eaten by predators. Of course, the ethologist rescues the sole surviving infant.
Meanwhile, another woman from Grimes' spaceship is raped (blessedly, this is obliquely described) by a gang of locals. The implication is that men who have no idea that women exist, and who imagine the strange visitors to be bizarre creatures of another species, are irresistibly drawn to them.
Eventually, there's a huge mob of men trying to get at the women hidden by the Doctors. After the battle, Grimes offers a long speech explaining how the planet developed its unique society.
As you can see, this half of the novel is a lot darker in mood and a lot more violent than the first half. After plenty of action, Grimes' expository speech slows things down quite a bit. Overall, I didn't mind reading it once, though this segment is somewhat distasteful.
Three stars.
Something for the Woman, by Ivar Jorgensen
As you may know, Ivar Jorgensen is a name used by a whole bunch of different writers in various science fiction and fantasy books and magazines. In this case, my research tells me it's really Randall Garrett hiding behind the name, in the March/April 1953 issue of Fantastic.
Cover art by Richard Powers.
A family (Mom, Dad, and two little kids) go through the process of selling everything they own except the clothes on their backs and a few other small items. They're going on a long, long journey.
Illustration by Ed Emshwiller, often known as Emsh.
The story mostly deals with the woman's fear of leaving home for the unknown. A small gesture from her husband makes the impending voyage less terrifying.
I think I like this story more than it deserves. Yes, it supports the stereotype that women are timid creatures. (There's reference to a few rare women who are as eager for adventure as men.) But it's sensitively written, and it was a welcome novelty to read something that was unashamedly sentimental.
Four stars.
Brave Nude World, by Forrest J. Ackerman
A hint in the introduction to this reprinted article led me to track down the publication where it originally appeared. I hope you appreciate the effort and embarrassment it took to secure a copy of an old nudist magazine. Namely, the August 1961 issue of American Sunbather.
I have cut off the lower half of the cover, which features the young lady with the big smile completely unclad, in order to spare the delicate sensitivities of any Journeyers who might be offended.
Big Name Fan Ackerman chatters away about his experience of nudism, while also mentioning a few science fiction stories that deal with the topic. Notably, the original magazine featured drawings by another well-known fan, Betty JoAnne Trimble, universally known as Bjo.
Ackerman claims this is the title of a story by Spencer Strong (Ackerman himself), but I can find no reference to it. Maybe it appeared in a fanzine.
On the other hand, this is a famous story by Robert A. Heinlein. (Galaxy, March 1952.)
This tale appeared in the December 1956 issue of the girlie magazine Caper, attributed to Spencer Strong (Ackerman again) and Morgan Ives (Marion Zimmer Bradley.)
The author indulges his love of puns throughout. There's not really any point to this look at nudism in science fiction. It's kind of like Sam Moskowitz without the scholarship. Too bad Fantastic didn't reprint Bjo's cute cartoons, so I had to dig them out for you.
Two stars.
A Portfolio: H. G. Wells' When the Sleeper Wakes, by Anonymous
The magazine fills up a few pages with illustrations from the Winter 1928 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly, which reprinted the famous novel in full.
Cover art by Frank R. Paul.
The drawings were themselves reprinted from the 1899 hardcover edition.
Cover art by . . . indulge me a while as I explain how I solved a mystery.
The introduction in Fantastic says the artist's identity was lost.
In fact, it says that even Amazing Stories Quarterly didn't know the artist's name.
I'm not sure I believe that. Maybe the magazine just didn't bother to give credit where credit was due.
Fantastic just attributes them to an English artist.
In fact, my research revealed that the artist was actually French, a fellow named Henri Lanos who often illustrated scientific romances.
Nice drawings, and the enigma of the artist's identity piqued my curiosity.
Three stars.
Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber
The master of sword and sorcery reviews books of that kind (Conan and King Kull) by Robert E. Howard, with much additional material by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp. Leiber doesn't talk much about the two modern authors, and generally praises Howard while pointing out his poorest stories and offering an example of his worst prose.
No rating.
Light at the End of the Tunnel?
This issue offers only mild diversion from the terrors of the real world. Most of the stories were poor to mediocre, with only Jorgensen/Garrett rising a bit above that level. Maybe that's enough for now.
It's hardly shocking news to point out that much of modern American society is dominated by men. To pick a random example, out of one hundred members of the United States Senate, there is only one woman.
Margaret Chase Smith (Republican, Maine) who also served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1948, when she was elected to the Senate.
Popular culture isn't much different. Take, for example, a new television series that's drawing a lot of attention. It's named for the two male hosts.
From left to right, straight man Dan Rowan and goofy partner Dick Martin.
I have to admit that I'm already a big fan of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, which premiered last month. Besides the rapid-fire pace of its jokes, I also admire the talents of a quartet of regular female performers on the program. Here's to you, Ruth Buzzi, Jo Anne Worley, Judy Carne, and new cast member Goldie Hawn!
This is not meant to detract in any way from the fine work provided by the men on the series. Bravo, Henry Gibson, Arte Johnson, and announcer Gary Owens!
(I would be remiss if I did not also mention the appearance of a remarkable entertainer calling himself Tiny Tim on the premiere episode. His performance is unique, to say the least.)
Dick Martin is nonplussed.
The same pattern of male domination is often found in the world of popular music (though not always–if the Beatles are the Kings of Pop, the Supremes are the Queens.) Right now, for instance, the Number One hit in the USA is Green Tambourine, a sprightly little psychedelic number performed by some guys calling themselves the Lemon Pipers.
Even the 45 rpm single is groovy-looking.
Proving the old adage that behind every great man there's a great woman, the lyrics for the song were written by Rochelle (Shelley) Pinz.
Pinz with Paul Leka, who wrote the music.
Stag Party
As we'll see, the only original work of fiction in the latest issue of Fantastic takes male domination to an extreme, in a certain way. Let's take a look.
Cover art by Johnny Bruck.
As usual, the cover comes from another source. In this case, it's from an issue of the popular German publication Perry Rhodan.
The original looks better, even if I can't read it.
As the title implies, the setting is a world with a culture based on ancient Greece, particularly Sparta. Society is rigidly divided into various classes, determined at birth. The main character is a military policeman.
The native animals on this planet reproduce by splitting themselves apart, a bloody and painful process. The human inhabitants believe that they used to have children this way, but now make use of a so-called Birth Machine, which makes things much easier. Nobody has access to this fabled device, except for members of the Doctor class.
Did I mention that there are no women to be seen? This is an all-male world, at least as far as the vast majority of the population knows.
There's an implication of homosexual relationships. The so-called helots tend to be slightly effeminate, compared to the red-blooded Spartans, and there's mention of close friendships between members of the two classes.
The planet receives twice-yearly shipments from their only colony world, founded by a group of rebels. The two societies have a distant relationship, trading goods but having no other contact.
The story begins when a starship from another group shows up. Aboard is our old friend John Grimes, who has appeared in a handful of other stories by Chandler. More important is the fact that he's got an ethologist with him, here to study the planet's culture.
The ethologist. Can you tell there will be trouble?
The locals, having never seen a woman before, assume the ethologist is either deformed or an alien. The protagonist feels a peculiar mixture of emotions. (The implication is that males are inherently attracted to females, even if they have no idea that such people exist. That's debatable, at least.)
Meanwhile, a security officer gives the policeman a secret assignment. It seems that the Doctors have some kind of hidden agenda. The hero sneaks into a forbidden area and gets a hint the world doesn't quite work the way he thought it did.
Chandler tips his hand pretty early, so it's probably not giving away too much to reveal that there are, indeed, women on the planet. The Doctors keep them locked away in a sort of harem.
I don't know how the rest of this is going to resolve itself, or what role Grimes will play, but so far it's fairly interesting. As I've noted, there isn't much suspense about the Doctors' conspiracy, but I'll keep reading.
Three stars.
The Court of Kublai Khan, by David V. Reed
The March 1948 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this mystical swashbuckler.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
A fellow is obsessed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous incomplete poem Kubla Khan (note the change in spelling from the title of the story.) So much so, in fact, that he finds himself back in time, in the palace of that fabled ruler. (Let's ignore the fact that the poem has nothing to do with real history.) People from all ages who are passionate about something wind up there. (There's even a prehistoric man around.)
Illustrations by Robert Fuqua.
Coleridge himself is present, because of his love for the maiden he saw in his vision of Xanadu. Our hero tries to help him win the adored lady. If I managed to follow the confusing plot correctly, the same day keeps repeating itself over and over, ending in Coleridge's failure. The protagonist does his best to change this endless cycle.
Sometimes this means using a sword against man or beast.
Part of his motivation is that he wants Coleridge to finish the poem. Complicating matters is a rival for the woman's affection. There's also the peculiar fact that once somebody achieves his passionate desire, he goes back to his own time with no memory of what happened.
The premise is intriguing, but I found the story difficult to follow. I never quite understood how this magical form of time travel was supposed to operate.
The bulk of the text consists of a letter the hero writes to his buddy, chronicling his adventures. (Somehow he manages to remember things just long enough to jot them down.) There's plenty of action, but the ending is anticlimactic.
I was disappointed that I never got to see Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/Through caverns measureless to man/Down to a sunless sea.
The July 1946 issue of Amazing Stories is the source of this weird tale.
Cover art by Walter Parke.
An archeologist finds an incredibly ancient bronze statue in the Australian desert. He hears a voice coming from inside, and breaks open the very thin outer shell. Inside is a figure made entirely of diamond.
(There's some nonsense about carbon being the source of life. Thus, a diamond being can live. Yeah, sure.)
Anyway, the diamond person turns into a beautiful woman. (At first, the hero assumes the figure is that of a man. I guess the voice and shape weren't enough of a clue.) She takes the fellow on a bizarre journey through time. (At least, I think so. This was another story that confused me.)
Illustration by Julian S. Krupa.
She leads him to an entity made of light. He finds out that a civilization from another planet, led to Earth by the benevolent light being, fought off loathsome creatures straight out of a Lovecraft yarn. (The story even mentions H. P. Lovecraft and his acolyte August Derleth by name.) All the people died, except for the woman, who was preserved by the power of the light entity. Now it's time to wipe out the enemy for good.
The author throws a bunch of stuff at the reader at a breakneck pace. The whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's not boring.
Two stars.
The Great Steel Panic, by Fletcher Pratt and Irvin Lester
We go way back to the September 1928 issue of Amazing Stories for this disaster story.
Cover art by Frank R. Paul.
Somebody, or something, cuts through the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. The same thing happens to elevators, subways, and other modern devices made of iron and steel.
Illustration also by Paul.
A brilliant scientist figures out what's going on, and what should be done about it.
That's the entire plot. Even the disaster stuff, which kills lots of people, is described dispassionately, in a second-hand fashion. The result is a very uninvolving piece. David H. Keller's similar work, The Metal Doom, wasn't that good, but at least it developed the basic idea to a greater extent.
The nifty Scientifiction symbol on the cover of the old magazine is a lot more impressive.
Two stars.
Incompatible, by Rog Phillips
This science fiction horror story first appeared in the September 1949 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
An alien spaceship crashes on Earth. The creature inside lives on the blood of living organisms. (Shades of Queen of Blood!)
She's also telepathic, and uses this ability in an attempt to survive in this very strange world. Besides that, she can change her appearance, eventually looking like a very attractive woman.
Illustration by W. E. Tilly.
Things work out pretty well for her, until a military man gets a little too friendly.
In essence, this is a vampire story. The first part, told from the point of view of the alien, is quite effective. The author does a fine job describing Earth and humans from an extraterrestrial's perspective. The rest of the story goes downhill here from there. Some of the sections told from the human point of view are extraneous.
Two stars.
Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber
The first installment of this new book review column discusses the nonfiction tome Spirits, Stars and Spells: The Profits and Perils of Magic by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine C. de Camp. Leiber gives a glowing review to this skeptical account of human superstitions. I mention this mostly to contrast it with Harry Harrison's editorial, which talks about the same article about dowsing rods used by the United States Marine Corps as appeared in the latest issue of Analog. Buy the de Camps' book instead.
No rating.
I Love Lucifer, by William P. McGivern
Finishing up the magazine is this tale from the December/January 1953/1954 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Mel Hunter.
A little girl who claims her name is Lucifer shows up at a place where a man watches over a junkyard of old spaceships. The only other resident is a boy the same age as the girl. The two kids play together among the worn-out vessels.
Illustrations by Ernest Schroeder.
A government agent shows up at the place, looking for escaped criminals. Meanwhile, the kids meet a seemingly friendly man who wants their help in getting away from bad guys. Let's just say that there are plots and counterplots, and neither the man nor the girl are quite what they claim to be.
Would you name this child Lucifer?
The title may suggest something supernatural, but nothing of the kind occurs. I imagine the author called the girl Lucifer just so he could pun on the name of a popular TV show of the time. (Get it?)
The story caught my interest at first, but quickly lost me. The plot started to reek of space pirates and other corny stuff. The true nature of Lucifer was just silly.
Two stars.
In Need of a Woman's Touch
Maybe my increasing awareness of feminism (they're starting to call it Women's Liberation these days, since the National Organization for Women was created last year) just puts me in a cranky mood, but it seems that this all-male issue wasn't very good. One so-so half of a novel and a bunch of unsatisfactory old stories don't add up to much. A few female writers (and fewer reprints) may not be the whole answer, but it sure wouldn't hurt. Meanwhile, go read a good book.
At least the title is honest about the contents.
You could also catch up on the news and see if they cover the emerging women's movement.
After a month or so, I’m back. It may be a little late, but a Happy 1968 to you.
Here in England the trials and tribulations of New Worlds magazine continue. If you remember, reduced subscriptions led to editor Mike Moorcock making the decision to go bi-monthly whilst finances were being sorted. Fellow traveller Kris also mentioned this last month.
Well, I’m pleased to say that things seem to be sorted, at least for now – which is why I was pleased to see this issue appear. I did have my worries that it might not. It is just labelled as “February 1968”, which means that we might be back to monthly publication again – but who knows?
Cover by Eduardo Paolozzi, designed by Charles Platt and Christopher Finch
Lead in by "The Publishers"
Photos of the key writers this month. New feature.
We seem to have moved from the idea of an editorial or an article to a section that describes the contents of the current magazine through quotes and commentary in more detail. I get the point – it’s clearly designed to get casual readers to delve further, and I must admit that it was interesting – I learned something! I just don’t see why these details couldn’t be at the top of each story or article. 4 out of 5.
And he’s back! Quick recap – readers may remember that Jack Barron is the media celebrity whose talk-show is widely watched across America. In the last part he took on the political world with an attack on his TV show on the Freezer Utility Bill, a law which will allow Benedict Howards and his corporation The Foundation for Human Mortality a monopoly on cryogenics in the future.
This part of the story deals with what happened after the show. Barron goes and picks up a woman for sex. Taking her back to his penthouse, they make love, but Barron spends time thinking of his ex, Sara Westerfeld.
Barron is then visited by Howards in his office. Howards is angry that Barron has appeared on television to oppose his Bill. Nevertheless, Howards offers in return for Barron’s support a free Freeze contract and therefore near-immortality. Barron refuses to take the offer, and is so annoyed that he sets up an angry tirade against Howards to be on his next show. Howards arranges a meeting with Barron’s ex-wife Sara Westerfeld to try and find a weakness in Barron’s armour. Westerfeld agrees to a contract with Howards in order to get Jack back and also bring down Howards.
So: lots of political wrangling given as long lecture-like rants, with angry cut-up phrases as prose. None of the characters come out of this particularly well, generally giving the impression that politics in America is filled with vicious characters who make their way through life by being nasty, lying and scheming. Mr. Spinrad seems to be a very angry young writer.
And as entertaining as this is, I can’t help feeling that there is little actually of any importance here. When you take away all the fripperies and the prose-stylings, there’s not a great deal of plot. I’m starting to see what others have claimed to be style over substance. 4 out of 5.
First page of the article. More cut-up stylings!
Article: Barbarella and the Anxious Frenchman by Michael Moorcock and Charles Platt
Another article written by Moorcock but filled with more of that cut-up art so beloved of current artists (and in this case by Charles Platt.) It is most definitely opinionated, a rant against the decline in standards in French SF. Why French SF? Well, (the yet-unreleased) Barbarella movie of course, which also gives a chance for Messrs Moorcock and Platt to decry that things in French SF are not as good as they used to be. Things are far too safe, too diluted, too… normal. As rants go, it’s quite fun. It’ll be interesting to see if the article gets a response or not (And where is our late, lamented Letters page?) 4 out of 5.
The Serpent of Kundalini by Brian W. Aldiss and C. C. Shackleton
After last issue’s positively odd installment, we continue with the Colin Charteris story. After seeing much of Brussels burn last month, god-like deity Colin Charteris returns to England. The story is mainly about the strange visions Charteris experiences on his return, as England has been affected by the drug bombs unleashed across Europe, though only slightly.
Whilst the descriptions are imaginative, the extract just feels like what I imagine is one long psychedelic trip and does nothing to change my view that this is still style over substance. Not quite as bad as last issue’s effort, but still relentlessly self-conscious. 3 out of 5.
The Square Root of Brain by Fritz Leiber
Photo illustration. Does it help explain the story? Perhaps…perhaps not.
Now here’s a name I’ve not seen around for a while, in British magazines anyway. I know that Moorcock’s a fan of Leiber’s work, so I can’t imagine much persuading was required to take up this story.
Rather clever and thoroughly scandalous, The Square Root of Brain satirizes pop culture and the insanity of modern life, juxtaposing the slight plot with dictionary quotations (!)
I did wonder if this was another example of American writers trying to “write New Wave”. It is not entirely successful – what is its point? – and yet shows that despite not being seen around much lately, Fritz has not lost any of his satirical bite. There were several places where the story just made me grin. I could see this one in a new collection of Dangerous Visions stories. 4 out of 5.
Article: Under the Sea with Hubert Humphrey by Hubert Humphrey
I must admit that at first glance I thought this title was a parody – you know, an attempt to be a riff on something like something like The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau or Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color… but cynical old me, it wasn’t.
Instead, we get a political statement from the vice-president of the US dressed up as an article showing us the potential of oceanography and the need for international cooperation in future. Political angle aside, it is actually quite interesting, and shows that the seas have future potential. But it does feel a little at odds with the anti-establishment sentiment of much of the rest of the magazine. The gulf between this and Jack Barron could not be more apparent. 3 out of 5.
A Single Rose by John De Cles
Artist: James Cawthorn
Here's another name I’ve not seen here for a while, since Sanitarium in July 1966. I liked this allegorical one (unusually for me!), a story of a man whose attempts to create perfection involve an artificially created Unicorn, and a survey to determine what makes the perfect rose, only to find in the end that it is the idea of transience that makes things special. Quite well done, if a little introspective. 3 out of 5.
In Seclusion by Harvey Jacobs
Weird art for a weird story.
A story of two film stars who fall in love on-set and seeing a publicity campaign in the making are sent by their studio to a secluded abbey with no modern conveniences. The two enjoy the novelty at first but in the end they are attacked by a creature from the ocean. Lots of sexual talk and allegory, with what I assume is meant to be sparkling repartee, but in the end just feels grubby. Another example perhaps of the magazine trying to shock and show that it is more adult in nature than before. If you are engaged by talk of phalluses, seminal fluid and pubic hair you may like this one. Personally, I can’t see Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton doing this sort of thing. 2 out of 5.
Article: Book Review – Atrocities of the Love Slaves of Equanimity by John Sladek
This month’s Book Review seem to be another example of a writer more enamoured with their own writing than actually reviewing a book. There’s a review in there, to be honest, but it has to be deciphered from the writer’s love of his own voice. Sladek reviews Come Back, Dr. Caligari by Donald Barthelme (No, never heard of that one, either.) Despite all of the lyrical posturings, Sladek seems to quite like the book of fourteen stories, clever short stories “rich with references to Freud, high culture, pop culture, (and) existentialism.” All of which seem to fit nicely with the new New Worlds vision, even if I’m unlikely to ever think about this book again.
Summing up New Worlds
An issue that on balance I liked more than I disliked – I liked the Leiber, and thought the Moorcock & Platt article was an interesting touch – though there were elements that seemed a little overwrought. Nevertheless, it was good to have the magazine back, for all of its wayward meanderings.
As people who read my review of last year’s Orbit will recall, I loved Joanna Russ’ new fantasy hero Alyx the Adventuress. These stories combined a modern sensibility, great characterization and the kind of fun you would get from Howard or Leiber.
Needless to say then, I was extremely excited to learn we would be getting a new novel of Alyx’s adventures so soon afterwards. Trying to go into the book with as little foreknowledge as possible, I found it was definitely not the story I was expecting.
When we last left Alyx she was escaping Orudh and planning her next move. In the opening paragraph of Picnic on Paradise we are reintroduced to her:
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I cannot believe you are a proper Trans-Temporal agent; I think-” and he finished the thought on the floor his head under one of his ankles… “I am the Agent, and My name is Alyx.
To understand what a sharp diversion this is, imagine picking up Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror and finding it opens in 1917 with Conan at the Battle of the Somme. A fascinating choice but also one that requires a lot of readjustment of expectations as well as explanations.
Eventually what we piece together is that while she was escaping by sea after robbing the Prince of Tyre, she was somehow brought to the future and has come to work for the transtemporal agency. Although she has learnt some elements and language of this future millennia and these weird new worlds, she is still largely a stranger.
What is continued from the previous installments is Alyx’s impatience for impractical people. Here it is the tourists she must shepherd across Paradise. They are all different representatives of this future, showing different facets of the time, but for Alyx they are all fools in one way or another, coddled by society and unable to survive without it.
In some ways this could be seen as a version of Montaigne’s Des Cannibales but it significantly improves upon it. Whilst the original uses cultural relativism as a means to critique contemporary society, Russ sets up two opposing societies as alien to us as each other: the ancient Mediterranean of Alyx and the highly complex future of the tourists, and compares them to make more complex points as well as building fascinating worlds.
It should not be thought as an old-fashioned kind of text at all, as it does not pull any punches. Instead, we have explorations of drugs, sex, religion, complex psychology, violence, humanity and much more. It is like all of society attempting to be distilled into one perilous journey.
I know it is only January but if this isn’t to be my favourite novel of 1968, something really special will have to come along in the next 11 months.
A very high Five Stars
by Victoria Silverwolf
Short and Not So Sweet
I recently came across a trio of new works of speculative fiction that don't require a lot of time to read. In fact, I was able to finish all three books in one day. Each features a fair amount of disturbing material, even though one is a comedy, one is intended for younger readers, and one is a action-packed thriller. Let's take a look at these brief, dark-tinged novels.
I use the word new loosely for this satiric Russian novella from an author who died in 1940. It was actually written in 1925, but has never been officially published in the Soviet Union. (I understand that copies of it have been circulated in the underground form known as samizdat.) Michael Glenny's translation is its first appearance in English, I believe.
Cover design by Applebaum & Curtis, Inc., according to the back cover, but the artist remains anonymous.
In classic horror movie fashion, a Mad Scientist adopts a homeless pooch for the bizarre purpose of transplanting a dead man's testicles and pineal gland into the animal's body. (The detailed descriptions of surgery are the gruesome parts of the book. Dog lovers beware.)
The mutt changes into a man, of a particularly vulgar sort. The canine fellow claims to be a loyal Communist, turning against the aristocratic scientist and siding with the bureaucrats who want the doctor to give up several rooms in his apartment.
It's obvious that the author is attacking the Bolshevik revolution in his portrait of the dog-man and the other collectivists. He also satirizes quack medicine of the time.
The narrative alternates from first person, in the dog's point of view, to third person, sometimes in a single paragraph. Some readers may find these sudden transitions jarring, although otherwise the book is quite readable. (Kudos to the translator.)
Despite the blood-soaked scenes of surgery and the savage satire of Communism, much of the novel is pure slapstick. There's an extended sequence in which the newly created man chases a cat, leading to the flooding of the apartment. Overall, the book is both amusing and thought-provoking.
Next we have an unusual fantasy for young people. I think this is the author's first book.
My sources suggest that this art is by John Holder.
We jump right into a scene of nail-biting suspense. A sixteen year old boy and his kid sister are trapped on a small rock in the sea off the coast of England. Folks with spears are ready to kill them if they make it back to shore. The tide is rising, ready to drown them.
The boy got hit on the head by one of the mob and has amnesia. This gives the girl a good excuse to tell her brother (and the reader) what's been going on for the last five years.
A mysterious something made the inhabitants of Britain hate machines. They've gone back to a medieval way of life. The boy was caught messing around with a motorboat, and his sister was seen drawing pictures of machines. The fanatical locals are ready to execute them for witchcraft. (Apparently the anti-technology effect has worn off on them.)
The boy is a weathermonger; that is, he can control the weather with his mind. (Every village in England has one, it seems. I suppose it's a side effect of the machine-hating phenomenon.)
He uses this power to create a fog. The siblings escape, make their way to the forbidden motorboat, and reach France. (The anti-technology effect is limited to Britain.)
That's just the start of their adventures. The French authorities, seeing that they are immune to the phenomenon, send them back to track down its source. Thus begins a wild odyssey to Wales, making use of a snazzy 1909 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost stolen from a museum. (I get the feeling the author is in love with that classic car.)
It's an exciting book, with one heck of a climax. The explanation for what's going on strains credibility, even for fantasy. The story is too intense for very young readers, I think, but it should be fine for teenagers. Adults who don't mind reading so-called juveniles should enjoy it as well.
The cover makes it clear that this is the start of a series. The name of the series, and the illustration, suggest that we're in for the kind of SFnal sword and sorcery yarn you might find in an old copy of Planet Stories. That's pretty accurate, but there's a bit more to it.
Cover art by Jeff Jones, who also provides a couple of interior illustrations.
The author doesn't waste any time. In just a couple of pages, a starship is destroyed by a weapon launched from the planet it's orbiting. A scout ship carrying two guys crashes on the planet. A few pages later, one of them is dead.
Let's catch our breath and see where we are. See the tiny black dot in the middle of the left side of the map? That's where the scout ship landed. The sole remaining hero won't get very far from that spot by the time the book ends. He just travels a bit to the northwest, not even reaching the coast. There are a few references to other places on the map, but the vast majority of the rest of the planet is going to have to wait for other volumes in the series.
The map art is not credited, but might be by Jeff Jones as well.
If you think the geography is complicated, wait until you hear about the population. There are humans of many different cultures present, for reasons explained later. There are at least four species of aliens, broken up into subgroups. The aliens who give the book its title, for example, are divided into the Old Chasch, the Blue Chasch, and the Green Chasch.
Complicating matters is the fact that some humans are (pick one) servants/slaves/worshippers/devotees/imitators of the various aliens. One such person is the book's most amusing character.
With all this going on, we still have a nonstop action-packed plot, as our hero sets out on a seemingly hopeless quest to get back to Earth. Along the way, he meets the traditional beautiful princess, whom he has to rescue from captivity no less than three times.
(At this point, I had to wonder if the author was poking subtle fun at the kind of work produced by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.)
The story is full of violence and, frankly, kind of puerile. What distinguishes it from a typical thud-and-blunder yarn is the extraordinarily intricate setting. The author is a master of creating exotic cultures, and that's a lot more interesting than the endless killing and corny plot.
If the male characters are two-dimensional, the females are one-dimensional. The princess exists only to be stunningly beautiful, get kidnapped, and fall in love with the hero. There's a cult of priestesses who hate men and loathe attractive women. There are no other female characters of any importance, just servants and the like.
Taking a break from her various long-running series, Andre Norton, one of the most prolific science fiction novelists, has produced a new one-off. It's a simple, dare I say, old-fashioned tale wherein ex-GI Ray Osborne gets inadvertently whipped into the distant past when he stumbles across an experimental time travel beam. Emerging into the primeval forests of "The Barren Lands" that will one day be North America, he is quickly captured by a party of Atlanteans (as in from the lost continent of Atlantis) and turned into a galley slave. Fortunately, he is able to make his escape, with the help of a fellow prisoner named Cho. The two, now sword-brothers, secure passage on a warship commissioned by Atlantis' rival, the Pacific continent-nation of Mu. On said ship, Ray and Cho make their way to the land of the Sun, where Ray is elevated to the aristocratic rank of Sun-born and welcomed.
But Ray is in for more than he bargained, as he is imbued with a subconscious geas to infiltrate the perfidious former colony of Atlantis and stop their nefarious plan to bring in other-worldly demons, their doomsday weapon in a cold war about to turn hot…
Operation: Time Search is all very Burroughsian in its setup and execution, up to and including the pseudo-scientific, modern era bookends (that do not add much to the book save padding). It's essentially riproaring action from beginning to end, and Norton delivers it competently. There are also agreeable relationships between the sword-brethren Ray and Cho, as well as, later in the book, Ray and a buccaneer captain named Taut.
This is a peculiarly shallow book, however. The Murians are portrayed as universally good and just (even when they commit actions that are not so nice, as in making Ray an unwitting weapon). The Atlanteans are foul in every respect. This could be fine–after all, when has Conan been subtle? But the writing is peculiarly sparse, almost oblique, when describing the many visceral horrors and foes of this bloody world, almost as if Norton were censoring herself (or perhaps she was censored after the fact). An encounter between Roy and "The Loving One", a gruesome Lovecraftian menace, in particular suffers for this.
Plus, I was sad that the potentially interesting Lady Ayna, captain of a Murian warship, essentially disappears shortly after her introduction. The saintly Lady Aiee, Cho's mother, is not nearly so compelling; in any wise, she is gone halfway through the book, too. Really, there just isn't a lot to become attached to in this book: Ray isn't a good enough character, and the setting is too one dimensional.
All in all, it felt like Norton was just going through the motions on this one. Three stars.
Until now, the protests and unrest have been confined to the bigger cities, particularly West Berlin. My hometown of Bremen did have its share of protests, but those were mostly just a few dozen people standing around on the market square, holding up placards. Though protests are getting bigger even here. On the day before Christmas, there was a protest against the war in Vietnam of several thousand overwhelmingly young people outside the US general consulate.
Right now, however, Bremen is seeing the biggest protests since the Bremen Soviet Republic fifty years ago. And for once, those protests are not against the war in Vietnam or the West German emergency laws or a visit of the Shah of Persia or former Nazis in positions of power, but about something far more mundane, namely an increase in bus and tram fares from 60 to 70 Pfennig for single tickets and 33 to 40 Pfennig for group tickets popular with students and apprentices. On the surface, this increase seems modest. However, for students, apprentices and young people in general who neither have cars nor a lot of money and rely on public transport to get around the city, even a small fare increase is a big problem.
The tram protests started small on January 15 with approximately fifty students of several Bremen high schools protesting the fare increase on the Domsheide square, one of the main tram traffic hubs in the city center. When the protest was ignored, the students decided to stage a sit-in on the tram tracks. The police removed the students, whereupon the protest continued outside Bremen central station – another major traffic hub – where other young people joined in.
Protesting youngsters on the Domsheide squarePolice officers face teenaged protesters on DomsheideProtesting students stage a spontaneous sit-in on the tram tracks.
In the following days, the protests continued to grow. On January 16, there were roughly 1500 young people staging a sit-in on the tram tracks, holding placards with slogans like "70 Pfennig – Lieber renn' ich" (70 Pfennig – I'd rather walk). The initial protesters had been high school students, but by now they were joined by students of the technical and pedagogical colleges and apprentices of various local companies. The protest managed to bring tram traffic in Bremen's city center to a complete halt with a backlog of trams stretching all across town.
Student leaders speak to the protestersStudent leader Christoph Köhler addresses the protesters.Young protesters hold up a banner saying "70 Pfennig – I'd rather walk"More placards. One protester announces that he will henceforth go by bike, while another declares "Avoid the tram – 70 Pfennig is crazy".
And the protest was still growing. The next day, there were 5000 young people protesting and blocking the tram tracks to the point that the public transport company BSAG suspended all tram traffic across the entire city.
Police officers stationed on the Domsheide square.
Bremen's chief of police Erich von Bock und Polach, who was a Colonel in the Waffen-SS before he reinvented himself as a member of the Social Democratic Party, proved that he had learned nothing whatsoever from the tragic events in West Berlin last June and ordered the Bremen police to attack the protesting students with truncheons, batons and water cannons. Hereby, the police not only managed to beat up several innocent bystanders, but the resulting unrest also caused damage to twenty-one tram cars and fourteen busses.
Sadly, we have seen pictures like these all too often. Police officers beat up a protester.A police water cannon attempts to blast protesters on Bremen's market square, but only manages to hit the stall of the Bürgerpark tombola and the Roland statue.A police water cannon blasts protesting students in front of the St. Petri cathedral, whose rector supported the protesters. Note the trams in the background.Two young protesters face off against water cannons and are clearly loving every minute of it.The police arrest a very dangerous protester who appears to be fourteen or fifteen at most.Police officers drag off a protester and chase a very dangerous kid on a bicycle.The editor of this student newspaper thought that marking his car as "press" would protect him from police violence, but the police officers dragged him out of the car anyway.This protesters holds up a placard asking the police not to beat up protesters, but negotiate, sadly without success.Protesters hold up placards decrying police violence.
Chaos on the streets of Bremen
And still the protests grew. The workers of the AG Weser shipyard and the Klöckner steelwork, the two biggest companies in Bremen, employing thousands of people, many of whom rely on public transport, declared their solidarity with the protesting students and apprentices. By January 18, twenty thousand people were protesting in the city center.
By January 18, the protest had grown to twenty thousand people and the protesters are no longer just teenagers.A representative of the metal workers' union speaks to the protesters.
The city was in utter chaos by now and the Bremen senate held an emergency meeting. Thankfully, cooler heads than the noxious chief of police von Bock und Polach prevailed and so Bremen's new mayor Hans Koschnik, who has only been in office since November, met with representatives of the protesters in the townhall, while the protests were still going on outside and threatened to boil over into violence again.
Bremen's new mayor Hans Koschnik has only been in office since November and really deserves better.The police has cordoned off the area around the townhall to allow members of the city parliament to attend the emergency meeting.
An unlikely heroine emerged in 54-year-old Annemarie Mevissen, deputy mayor and senator for youth, sports and education. Mrs. Mevissen left the relative safety of the townhall and went out to talk to the protesters directly. On the Domsheide, where the protests had begun four days earlier, Mrs. Mevissen climbed onto a crate of road de-icing salt, grabbed a megaphone and spoke to the protesters, explaining why the fare increases were sadly necessary, but also expressing sympathy for the protesters. Annemarie Mevissen's speech as well as the meeting with Mayor Koschnik did the trick and the protests gradually ceased. As of today, trams and busses are mostly running again.
Senator for Youth, Sports and Education and deputy mayor Annemarie Mevissen speaks to the protesters to express sympathy and call for calm.Annemaire Mevissen is a remarkable woman. Since she also is Senator of Sports, she is showing off her ball kicking skills while meeting with young football players.
By chance, I was shopping in the city center on the second day of the protests. I could still get into the city by tram, but by the time I wanted to go home I had to walk several kilometres to where I had parked my car. However, I still found the time to stop at my favourite import bookstore to peruse their spinner rack of English language paperbacks.
The Return of the Dynamic Duo: The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber's delightful pair of rogues, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have had a troubled publication history. They debuted in the pages of Unknown, Astounding/Analog's fantasy-focussed sister magazine, almost thirty years ago. After Unknown's demise in 1943, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser were left adrift, until they finally found a new home in Fantastic under the editorship of Cele Goldsmith Lalli. However, with the sale of the Ziff-Davis magazines to Sol Cohen, the appearances of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser in the pages of Fantastic became scarce. It seemed the dynamic duo was homeless once again, unless they shacked up with Cele Goldsmith Lalli over at Modern Bride magazine, that is.
So imagine my joy when I spotted the brand-new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser adventure The Swords of Lankhmar in the spinner rack of my trusty import bookstore. Nor was this adventure short fiction, like the duos' previous outings, but a full length novel. So of course I had to pick it up, even if I had to carry it five kilometres through the city, dodging protesters and aggressive police officers.
The story
Fafhrd and Gray Mouser return to Lankhmar, only to find themselves first attacked and then hired by Lankhmar's overlord Glipkerio Kistomerces to escort a fleet of grain ships to a neighbouring city. The fleet's cargo is a gift to Movarl of the Eight Cities in exchange for some help with a pesky pirate plague. Also aboard the grain ships – and another gift to Movarl – are the Demoiselle Hisvet, daughter of Lankhmar's wealthiest grain merchant, her maid Frix and Hisvet's twelve trained white rats. The ship's captain isn't happy about the presence of the rats, because rats and grain don't mix. Meanwhile, both Fafhrd and Mouser are fascinated by the Hisvet and her maid.
It does not take long for trouble to find Fafhrd and Mouser, who soon find themselves fighting off monsters, pirates and rat attacks. The two rogues also have their hands full with Hisvet and Frix. Luckily, they get some help from Karl Treuherz, a German-speaking time-travelling hunter capturing monsters for Hagenbeck's Zeitgarten. Karl Treuherz (his last name means "true heart") is a delightful character, particularly if you're German and can understand not only his dialogue in flawless German (kudos to Mr. Leiber), but also understand that Hagenbeck's Zeitgarten is a riff on Hagenbecks Tierpark, the famous Hamburg zoo, which apparently will open a time- and dimension-travelling dependency in the future. Cover artist J. Jones clearly likes Karl Treuherz, too, and put him on the cover.
The distinctive main entrance of Hagenbecks Tierpark in Hamburg. So far, they don't yet display alien monsters, but it's only a matter of time.
Something smells of rat here
If the story feels a little familiar, that's probably because it is. For the first half of The Swords of Lankhmar appeared under the title "Scylla's Daughter" in the May 1961 issue of Fantastic. That novella ended on a cliffhanger with the treacherous Hisvet and Frix escaping aboard one of the ships, leaving Fafhrd and Mouser marooned.
Fantastic's cover artist clearly liked Karl Treuherz as well.
The novel follows the two ladies as well as Fafhrd and Mouser back to Lankhmar, where even more intrigues await. For sinking a fleet of grain ships was just the start for Hisvet and her twelve trained rats. It turns out that Hisvet and her father are members of a race of intelligent rats, who live in Lankhmar Below and want to take over the entire city. Mouser shrinks himself down to rat size to spy on them, only for the mad overlord Glipkerio to ignore his warnings in favour of building a contraption that may or may not send him to a parallel universe. The way of defeating the rat invasion is as obvious as it is ingenious by using the rats' hereditary enemy against them.
The Lankhmar Below scenes were my favourite parts, probably because as a kid, I envisioned thumb-sized beings, both humans and animals, who inhabit a parallel city in the sewers, basements and walls of our world. In order to cross between the two worlds you needed a magical shrinking potion. Reading Leiber's descriptions of Lankhmar Below felt as if he had reached into my mind to bring my own fantasy world to the page. Or maybe there really is a parallel world of intelligent rodents and both Fritz Leiber and I somehow stumbled upon them in early childhood.
My imaginary parallel world of little people and animals sprang from the collection of small figures kept in this cookie tin featuring a picture of the Cologne Cathedral, hence I called them "church box people".
An ode to interracial and interspecies romance
Because this is a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story, there also are plenty of romantic entanglements. Mouser falls for Hisvet and finds himself wondering if she's human or rat underneath her floor-length gown and if it even matters to him. Fafhrd prefers Frix, but Hisvet likes Frix, too. Furthermore, Mouser is fascinated by Reetha, a maid at the overlord's palace who is completely hairless, while Fafhrd starts a relationship with Kreeshkra, a ghoul with transparent skin and flesh who is basically a walking skeleton.
Over the past few years, the amount of sex in science fiction and fantasy has been creeping upwards, as the sexual revolution makes it possible to write about previously taboo subjects. This is not necessarily a good thing, since some writers feel the need to foist sexual fantasies that had better remained private upon the unsuspecting reader – see Piers Anthony's Chthon or John Norman's Gor books. Thankfully, Leiber does not go this route, even though there is quite a bit of sexual content, including sexual content of the more unusual sort, in The Swords of Lankhmar. However, nothing here is even remotely as prurient as Chthon or the Gor books. Instead, Leiber's message – even spelled out at one point – is that love is love, no matter the gender, race or species of the participants. And indeed, none of the women Fafhrd and Mouser become involved with in this story are in any way standard love interests. Frix is a black woman, Reetha's hairlessness does not match any classic beauty standards, Hisvet may or may not be part rat and Kreeshkra is essentially a walking skeleton. Furthermore, there are several not so subtle hints that Hisvet and Frix are in a romantic relationship as well.
All in all, The Swords of Lankhmar is a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy adventure and a welcome return to the world of Nehwon and its most famous rogues. However, the plot meanders a bit, particularly in the second half. The genre that Robert E. Howard pioneered in the pages of Weird Tales almost forty years ago and that Fritz Leiber named sword and sorcery works best in the short form. Almost all of Howard's tales about Conan the Cimmerian or Kull of Atlantis, C.L. Moore's adventures of the medieval swordswoman Jirel of Joiry, which I hope will be reprinted eventually, as well as Michael Moorcock's stories about Elric of Melniboné and all previous Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories have been novellas and novelettes. A genre that focusses on action and adventures thrives best in the short form and tends to meander at novel length, a problem that's also apparent in Robert E. Howard's sole Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon, recently reprinted as Conan the Conqueror.
A few weeks ago, President Johnson signed into effect the Public Broadcasting Act. Its purpose, among other things, is to turn a decentralized constellation of educational stations and program producers into a government-funded network. It's basically socialism vs. the vast wasteland.
Given the quality of programming I've seen produced by National Education Television, particularly on independent station KQED-San Francisco (e.g. "Jazz Casual" and "The Rejected"), I am all for this move. Indeed, I've recently come across a show that has really sold me on public television.
NET Journal is a series on political matters of the day. In December, they had a program that showed the results of a week-long workshop in which 12 affluent young men and women of a multitude of ethnicities lived together and discussed their prejudices. What they determined was surprising to them, and maybe to us. As we saw in the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, even in the most bleeding heart liberal, there is prejudice; and it's not just directed from whites to minorities.
This week, we caught an interview with four journalists in Saigon. Recently, LBJ and General Westmoreland have been cheerleading the effort in Vietnam, saying that the three-year commitment of half a million troops is bearing fruit. The South Vietnam-based journalists dispute this rosy view. They say progress has been slow, that the South Vietnamese army is hopelessly corrupt and must be reformed from the head down if it is to operate effectively without American support, and that we are not engaged in "nation-building" because there is currently no nation. The elections are meaningless so long as there be no real choices to be made, so long as bribes and payoffs accomplish more than the rule of law.
Withering stuff. Next week, the program will be on draft-dodgers.
On the small page
Galaxy Science Fiction is also an exellent, long-running source of information and entertainment. This month's issue is a particularly good example.
Anderson has established a reputation for producing some of the "hardest" SF around, laden with astrophysical tidbits. On the other hand, his quality varies from sublime to threadbare. Luckily, his latest novella lies far closer to the former end of the scale.
Tragedy takes place in what appears to be the far future of his Polysotechnic League history. The loose interstellar confederation of planets became an empire and subsequently went into decline a la the worlds in H. Beam Piper's Space Viking universe and Asimov's Foundation setting. I really like these "after the fall" stories of folks trying to patch a polity back together, maybe better than it was before.
by Gray Morrow
This particular story is the tale of Roan Tom, Dagny, and Yasmin, the crew of the merchant-pirate Firedrake. Their ship is in desperate need of repairs, and the only planet within range of the married trio is a Mars-sized world around a swollen orange sun. Luckily, said world was once a human colony of the Empire and thus may have the resources needed to fix a starship.
Unluckily, the planet has been recently plundered by pirates, and the inhabitants do not take kindly to strangers–especially ones that call themselves "friends."
There's a lot to like about this riproaring tale of aerial maneuvers, overland evasion, and fast-talking diplomacy. For one, two of the main characters are women, and highly competent ones at that. Moreover, it is an ensemble cast, with each of the three coming into the spotlight for extended periods of time.
There is also a mystery of sorts, here…or several, really, all woven together: how does this undersized planet have an atmosphere? Indications are that this is a young world, but why, then, does the dense planet have so little surface metal? And why is the star so unstable, prone to devastating solar storms that play hell with the planet's weather? Solving this astronomical puzzle proves key to addressing the Firedrake crew's more immediate problems.
Of course, you have to like detailed explanations of stellar and planetary parameters and phenomena. I personally love this sort of thing, but others may find their eyes glazing. On the other hand, there's plenty to enjoy even if you decide to let the science wash over you. The sanguine antics of Roan Tom, the determined toughness of Dagny, the more refined and tentative brilliance of Yasmin. These are great characters, and I'd like to see more of them.
Four stars.
The Planet Slummers, by Terry Carr and Alexei Panshin
A pair of young thrift store bargain hunters are, in turn, scooped up by a pair of alien specimen collectors. I think the story is supposed to be ironic, or symbolic, or something.
Ah, but then we have the story of a different couple: a superannuated trillionaire and a dewy (but flinty) eyed young starlet. There's is a love fated for the ages, but not the way you might think.
Just a terrific tale told the way only Leiber (or maybe Cordwainer Smith) could tell it.
Five stars.
Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay, by Robert Sheckley
by Vaughn Bodé
Imagine moving to the city of the future: clean, architecturally pleasing, smog-free, crammed with creature comforts. Now imagine the city is run by a computer brain…with the personality of a Jewish mother.
Bob Sheckley is Jewish, so I suspect he didn't have to strain his imagination much for this one. Droll, but a little too painful and one-note to be great.
Three stars.
For Your Information: Epitaph for a Lonely Olm, by Willy Ley
This is a pretty dandy story about a sightless cave salamander that lives its whole life in the water, thus eschewing the amphibian portion of its nature. Thanks to this creature, we have the concept of "neoteny"–the retention of juvenile traits for evolutionary advantage. The blind, pale beast also ensured the fame of Marie von Chauvin, a 19th Century zoologist.
Four stars.
Sales of a Deathman, by Robert Bloch
by Jack Gaughan
How do we combat the exploding birth rate? By making suicide sexy, thus exploding the death rate!
Bloch's modest proposal would be better suited to a three line comedy routine than a several-page vignette. Three stars.
Total Environment, by Brian W. Aldiss
by Jack Gaughan
Crammed into a ten-story self-contained habitat, 75,000 persons of Indian descent live a life of increasing desperation and squalor. At first, we are given to believe that the settlement is a natural response to the crushing pressure of overpopulation. As it turns out, the Ultra-High Density Research Establishment (UHDRE) is actually a deliberate experiment in inducing psychic abilities through exposure to unique pressures. Just 25 years ago, the site had a population of only 1500. Now, teeming to bursting, the hoped-for psionic adepts are appearing–and an empire in a teapot is arising on UHDRE's Top Deck to take advantage of them.
Aldiss writes a compelling story. One thinks it's just the second coming of Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! until it isn't. In some ways, this actually hurts the story, causing it to lose focus. On the other hand, the setting is so well-drawn, and the situation suspenseful enough, that it still engages and entertains.
Four stars.
How They Gave It Back, by R. A. Lafferty
by Gray Morrow
The last mayor of Manhattan finds The Big Apple isn't worth the bother, now that it's degenerated into a ruined, gangland state run by a quintet of bandits. Thankfully, the original owners will buy it back–for its original fee.
Again, this might have made a humorous short bit. As is, you see the punchline from the first words (the title and illo help), and the slog isn't worth the ending.
Last up, a frothy adventure featuring a TV star recruited to infilitrate the last cannibal island in the South Pacific to thwart a nefarious Soviet scheme. This is yet another in the recent spate of stories involving total sensory television in which hundreds of millions viscerally experience the lives of actors.
Unlike Kate Wilhelm's or George Collyn's spin on the subject, Laumer doesn't do very much with the gimmick. Instead, it's another of his midly amusing but eminently forgettable yarns.
Two stars.
Summing up
Despite a sprinkling of clunkers, the latest Galaxy delivers the goods. Two good novellas, a fine nonfiction piece, and an excellent Lieber short would have filled F&SF nicely. So just pretend that the other stories don't exist and enjoy the good stuff.
And then tune in to NET Journal the next few weeks while you wait for the next issue!
The February 1968 Amazing, the second under Harry Harrison’s editorship, displays two themes on its face, both noted last issue. The first is puffery: this issue says WORLD’S LEADING SCIENCE-FICTION MAGAZINE at the top of the cover, which also boasts “Katherine MacLean’s outstanding new novelet,” and the table of contents lists this “New Outstanding Novelet,” a “Classic Novelet,” and a “Special Novelet.” The second theme is protesting-too-much discomfort with the mostly-reprint fiction policy, evidenced by the prominent display of “New” on the cover: MacLean’s “Outstanding New Novelet,” “New Features,” “New Article,” “New Frank Herbert Novel.”
by Johnny Bruck
But there’s a third, more substantive theme: commendable initiative in the small amount of space left open by the reprint policy. The “New Features” listed on the contents page include the first of a promised series of articles on the “Science of Man,” by Leon E. Stover, an anthropologist now at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The book review column features a long and interesting essay-review by Fritz Leiber of a translation of a book by French author Claude Seignoll, with comments about the state of Gothic fiction generally. (See below concerning both of these.) There is also the London Letter, said to be the first of a series to include a Milan Letter, a Munich Letter, etc. This one is by Harrison’s pal Brian Aldiss, and it amounts to an extemporaneous stand-up routine which probably took Aldiss 20 minutes to write. Parts of it are amusing.
These items are all touted by Harrison in his editorial, but they are not his main matter; the editorial is titled Amazing and the New Wave, and its first half amounts to a disappointingly smarmy exercise in having it both ways:
“There is no New Wave in science fiction. Or, to put it another way, Amazing is the New Wave. . . . Science fiction is the new wave that washed into existence in 1926 with the first issue of the magazine. . . .
“To me there are only two kinds of science fiction: the good and the bad. . . . It is exactly what it says it is, and it is what I happen to be pointing to when I say the magic words ‘science fiction.’ And that is all the definition you are going to get out of me.
“The present New Wave is therefore two things: it is bad SF and it is good SF. When bad it should be consigned to the nether cellars of our building with the rest of the cobwebbed debris of the years. When it is good there are plenty of rooms it can slip into and feel comfortable.”
So Harrison spends a page on a subject of current controversy while ostentatiously saying nothing of substance about it. This banal babble from an otherwise obviously intelligent editor is presumably his way of trying to ingratiate himself and the magazine with everyone while offending no one—a bad idea that will fool nobody and which one hopes is not repeated.
Meanwhile, the actual fiction content of the magazine, except for the above-average serial, is more or less what it has been since the departure of Cele Lalli and the advent of Sol Cohen.
Frank Herbert’s serial Santaroga Barrier, begun under the previous editor, concludes in this issue, and exits honorably. To begin, the protagonist Gilbert Dasein, who teaches psychology at Berkeley, is driving to the isolated and reclusive California town Santaroga, hired by an investment company wanting to know why their chain stores were forced out of town. In Santaroga, there is no reported juvenile delinquency or mental illness. Cigarettes are purchased only by transients. Nobody moves away; servicemen always return there upon discharge; and outsiders find no houses for rent or sale. Jenny, Dasein’s not-so-old flame, moved back to Santaroga when she finished at Berkeley, telling him she couldn’t live anywhere else. (The profs fooling around with the students? Shocking!) There’s a dominant local industry, the Jaspers Cheese Cooperative, but it doesn’t produce for the outside market—the stuff “doesn’t travel.” Also, Dasein is the third investigator sent to Santaroga, the two predecessors having sustained accidental deaths.
by Gray Morrow
These cards dealt, Dasein arrives at the town’s sole inn, where he tries to call his handler in Berkeley, but the line goes out, and stays out afterwards. He is then overcome in his room by a leak from an old gas jet, and rescued just in time. Jenny, alerted to his presence, and seemingly very happy about it, shows up with breakfast. It turns out she never received the letters he sent her after her return.
Dasein quickly learns that everyone seems to know who he is. He encounters new manifestations of the town’s insularity. Nobody has TV, except for a hidden room full of people whose job it is to monitor it. There’s a local newspaper, but it’s subscription only, and its concept of reporting the news is unusual: “Those nuts are still killing each other in Southeast Asia.” All commerce appears to be local. Dasein also learns that Jaspers is not just a brand name, but a substance, one which is near-omnipresent in food and drink. And he notices a “vitality and a happy freedom” in the movements of people on the streets.
Meanwhile, the Jaspers (which is referred to later as “consciousness fuel”) is having an effect on him (“he had never felt more vital himself”), which he doesn’t entirely grasp. He’s getting a little deranged, though hardly without cause, since he also keeps having near-fatal accidents—tripping over a carpet and being narrowly saved from a three-floor fall; a kid absent-mindedly loosing an arrow that barely misses him; a garage car lift collapsing; a waitress unknowingly poisoning his coffee; and more. As for his derangement, shortly after the carpet incident, still suffering from a sprained shoulder, he takes a dangerous nighttime climb down into the Jaspers factory, clambering down and through its ventilation shafts despite his injury. Eventually he is questioning his own sanity.
It becomes apparent that consumption of Jaspers has created some sort of shared consciousness among the Santarogans, though Herbert remains vague about exactly how it works. The people responsible for his “accidents” (poisoning his food, shooting an arrow at him) seem not to have consciously intended harm, but to have unknowingly acted out the hostility and fear of the Jaspers collectivity. (Monsters from the id!) Jenny hysterically acknowledges that phenomenon: “Stay away from me! I love you! Stay away!”
Dasein also begins to see some less attractive features of the Jaspers-permeated community. On his first visit to the Jaspers factory, he finds that Jenny—trained as a clinical psychologist—works on the inspection line. Leaving, he sees through a door left open a line of people with their legs in stocks doing menial work, “oddly dull-eyed, slow in their actions.” He later learns these are the people who flunked the Jaspers initiation—about one in 500. After wondering where all the children are, he finds them working in the greenhouses, marching and chanting. Dr. Piaget, the designated spokesperson for the Santaroga way, says: “We must push back at the surface of childhood. . . . It’s a brutal, animate thing. But there’s food growing. . . . There’s educating. There’s useful energy. Waste not; want not.”
At this point, Herbert’s thriller has become a philosophical novel, or at least a novel about philosophies. Dr. Piaget elaborates on Santaroga’s child rearing practices, which reflect Santaroga’s departure from the usual human understandings about everything: “We take off the binding element. Couple that with the brutality of childhood? No! We would have violence, chaos. . . . We must superimpose a limiting order on the innate patterns of our nervous systems.” Hence, child labor; got to get 'em disciplined early."
Dr. Piaget continues: “We know the civilization culture-society outside is dying. They do die, you know. When this is about to happen, pieces break off from the parent body. Pieces cut themselves free, Dasein.” And Dasein acknowledges the obvious: “Dasein knew then why he’d been sent here. No mere market report had prompted this. . . . He was here to break this up, smash it.” Piaget again: “Contending is too soft a word, Dasein. There is a power struggle going on over control of the human consciousness. We are a cell of health surrounded by plague. . . . This isn’t a struggle over a market area. . . . This is a struggle over what’s to be judged valuable in our universe.”
There is more denunciation of “outside” (another character says, with elaboration, “it’s all TV out there”), and much ambivalence on Dasein’s part about both outside and Santaroga, resolved in a final confrontation when the man who sent him to Santaroga comes looking for him.
This is a pretty solid SF novel, much better than Herbert's previous serial The Heaven Makers, with an interesting if somewhat vague idea capably revealed through a plot dense with incident, though there are minor points where things don’t hang together well. Though talky, it’s much less of a turgid slog than some of his other work (Ahem, Dune). The hive-mind idea is not entirely original, but Herbert takes a different angle and asks different questions than some of his predecessors. In fact, the novel can be viewed almost as the anti-More Than Human—do you really want to give up your individuality and privacy for the comfort of such close and inescapable community? Especially when you might end up acting violently without even realizing it? Four stars, with a couple of planetoids thrown in.
Note the portentousness of some of the names in this novel. An SF fan’s first thought about Gilbert Dasein is likely that it’s homage or satirical swipe at Gilbert Gosseyn, protagonist of van Vogt’s The World of Null-A. But that’s probably wrong. “Dasein” is German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s term for existence, as it is experienced by human beings. Karl Jaspers is another German philosopher. Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist famous for his studies of child development, some of whose work looks as much like philosophy as psychology. A student of philosophy, which I am not, might make something of these names, but I’d suggest that the novel works well enough without that kind of gloss.
Katherine MacLean contributed a number of incisive stories to the SF magazines from 1949 into the early ’50s (Defense Mechanism, —And Be Merry, Incommunicado, Contagion, etc.), and a few since then (mainly Unhuman Sacrifice). Her novelet The Trouble with You Earth People isn’t on that level; it’s an amusing and mildly bawdy story of cultural misunderstanding between doggish alien visitors, whose understanding of humanity is based on watching television, and an easily scandalized elderly scientist. It reads like it could have used another draft. Three stars.
Remote Control, by Walter Kateley
To the reprints. Walter Kateley’s Remote Control (from Amazing, April 1930), opens with the narrator’s friend Kingston showing him around a large construction project. It is being carried out by animals—whales and sharks carrying heavy freight, apes and elephants unloading it, and as for the typing and computation required for such a project: “The machines were being operated at lightning speed, not by lady typists, as one might expect, but by bushy-tailed gray squirrels!”
by Hans Wessolowski
The author now flashes back to an earlier time, when Kingston has joined the narrator on his family farm, and assists with his observations of ants. The two are puzzled by the ants’ efficiency in carrying out cooperative tasks without anything much resembling a brain and with no indication of how their activities are coordinated. Then an accidental mixture of buttermilk and cedar oil gets on one of their lenses, and—revelation! Now they can see tiny bright lines of energy leading from the ants back into the nest, which when followed to their source reveal a tiny brain that is apparently coordinating all their activity. The possibilities are obvious, and it’s a short hop from these naturally manipulated ants to whales and elephants working construction, with squirrels on typewriters in the office, and human puppet masters somewhere off premises.
This one is amusing at first, but quickly gets tedious, since the story consists mostly of Kingston and narrator lecturing each other, with the narrator at one point reading aloud a passage from his favorite entomology text. Fortunately this “novelet” runs only 18 pages of large print and is over quickly. Two stars.
Rog Phillips’s “You’ll Die Yesterday!” (from the March 1951 Amazing) is a piece of yard goods by one of Ray Palmer’s stable of hacks—but a pretty capable one. Phillips published some 44 stories in a little over six years before this one, mostly in Amazing and Fantastic Adventures, and clearly has the knack to meet Palmer’s famous editorial demand to “gimme bang-bang.” Protagonist Stevens, author of a successful book, is giving a lecture; an audience member asks a question but is shot before Stevens can answer; the killer runs out of the auditorium but inexplicably disappears. Before the cops arrive, Stevens swipes some papers carried by the decedent, Fred Stone, and shows by home carbon-dating that they are from the future. Also, Stone was carrying a “T.T.” permit (figure it out) and a printed copy of Stevens’s speech, which was extemporaneous, so it could only have been prepared later from a transcript. Next day, Stevens’s girlfriend sees Stone, alive, on the street. Turns out his body is missing from the morgue.
by Julian S. Krupa
More developments come thick and fast and there’s a revelation at the end which actually doesn’t resolve much, but might seem to if the reader wasn’t paying close attention, as I suspect was the case with much of the Palmer Amazing’s readership. So it’s a clever if insubstantial riff on the time paradox theme. Three stars for good workmanship.
The Great Invasion of 1955, by David Reid
The Great Invasion of 1955, by David Reid, from the October 1932 Amazing, is another tedious old story in which the Japanese are invading the United States and are vanquished by new technology based on now out-of-date science. It may be of interest to those interested in speculative helicopter design. Otherwise, one star.
Turnover Point, by Alfred Coppel
Alfred Coppel, author of Turnover Point (Amazing, April-May 1953), helped fill the SF pulps and lower-echelon digests with mostly forgettable material from the late ‘40s until the mid-‘50s, when he disappeared from the genre, briefly reappearing in 1960 with the well-received post-nuclear war novel Dark December. This story is a bucket of cliches—a Bat Durston, i.e. a displaced Western—which is a surprise, since it appeared in the first issue of the magazine’s brief flirtation with high pay rates and higher quality content. But here it is, alongside Heinlein, Sturgeon, and Bradbury. A sample:
“The Patrol was on Kane’s trail and the blaster in his hand was still warm when he shoved it up against Pop Ganlon’s ribs and made his proposition.
“He wanted to get off Mars—out to Callisto. To Blackwater, to Ley’s Landing, it didn’t matter too much. Just off Mars, and quickly. His eyes had a metallic glitter and his hand was rock-steady. Pop knew he meant what he said when he told him life was cheap. Someone else’s, not Kane’s.”
by Ed Emshwiller
The bad guy hiring Pop’s battered old spaceship turns out to be the one who killed Pop’s son, a Patrol officer who “was blasted to a cinder in a back alley in Lower Marsport.” Pop knows Kane is going to kill him after “turnover point”—the point at which the spaceship is turned around (a maneuver accomplished with a flywheel) so its business end faces the destination for deceleration and landing. But Pop has the last laugh—he didn’t turn the ship around to decelerate for landing, but made a full 360 degree turn, so it continues on towards the outer reaches of the solar system, where Kane can starve, suffocate, and go crazy after it is too late to do anything about it. Whoopee! Two stars, barely, since it’s at least capably written for what it is.
Science of Man: Neanderthals, Rickets and Modern Technology, by Leon E. Stover
Prof. Leon Stover’s article suggests that the Neanderthals died out because they wore clothes, shielding themselves from sunlight and therefore from vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets, which has serious enough consequences to affect evolutionary success. Clothing was the Neanderthals’ technological solution to the glaciation of their habitat; what saved them then killed them off. Vitamin D absorption, or lack of it, also accounts for the distribution of races: dark skin absorbs less than light skin, so dark-skinned peoples flourish in the tropics where there’s a surfeit of sunlight, while light-skinned people dominate at higher latitudes. The moral: people must assess the consequences of their technological development, as the Neanderthals failed to, and we need a lot more technically trained people than we’ve got.
It all seems plausible and is lucidly enough written. Is he right? Beats me. Three stars.
The Future in Books
Ordinarily I don’t rate the book review columns, but this one is unusual, containing Fritz Leiber’s review of French writer Claude Seignolle’s The Accursed: Two Diabolical Tales. Leiber traces the current revival of “Gothic” fiction, recognizable by the paperback covers depicting an anxious-looking woman, with a large house in the background displaying a single lighted window, and notes the less formulaic older books being reprinted under cover of this new wave (excuse the expression) of yard goods.
This brings us to Leiber’s typology of “the true Gothic or supernatural-horror story,” of which there are two flavors: “Can such things be?” and “Such things are! So let’s go whole hog!” He continues: “The first type of story aims to make a sensitive, intelligent reader question for a deliciously scary moment the stable, science-proved foundations of the world in which he trusts. The second provides a feast of grue for those who relish such banquets.” Seignolle’s two novellas (one featuring a young pyrotic, the other a young lycanthrope) are firmly in the second camp, as Leiber shows by judicious description and quotation.
This is all lively and informative, above and beyond the usual book review, though Leiber disappointingly fails to describe where Seignolle’s work fits into the fantastic tradition (or lack of it) in his native France. Also, the book is introduced by Lawrence Durrell, a rather large noise in contemporary literature after his Alexandria Quartet; Leiber does not mention what Durrell has to say about the book, or about Seignolle generally. So, three stars; a good piece that should have been better. (And this rating in no way reflects the other review here, a distasteful hit job on Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light bylined “Leroy Tanner,” well known as a pseudonym of Harrison’s.)
Summing Up
So, a good novel (though one begun under the previous regime), a decent new story, the usual uneven bunch of reprints, and some stirrings of life in the non-fiction departments. I’m not sure that adds up to “promising”—more like “steady as she goes”—so we’ll have to leave it with a version of the baseball fans’ lament: “wait till next issue.”
Ever since Harlan Ellison started flapping his gums about how dangerous his new anthology Dangerous Visions is, it seems a seal has been broken.
First, Michael Moorcock started putting nudes on the covers of his newly taken-over New Worlds. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction started using the word "shit" liberally. And this month, every other story features sex in varying degrees of luridity.
I'm not complaining, mind you. These things have existed in books and in avante-garde publications like Playboy for years. But it's always a bit startling to find the words you hear commonly on the street suddenly appearing in previously staid venues. Sort of like how Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf shocked everyone. As fellow traveller John Boston noted, with books and girlie mags, one knows what one is getting into. But with media that enjoys wider distribution, which could be viewed or read by the the little old lady from Peoria as much as the hippie in San Francisco, editorial tends toward the conservative.
Does an influx of liberality mean the content is improved? Let's read the latest issue of F&SF and find out!
The issue at hand
by Ed Emshwiller
They Are Not Robbed, by Richard McKenna
Richard McKenna died three years ago, but his rate of publication has, if anything, increased. His latest story maintains the quality of work that made his loss so much mourned.
The setup: about 15 years from now, aliens arrive and solve our energy crisis. They also set up cultural exchanges, but the the transactions have a seemingly sinister component. Folks with a certain prerequisite are able to go inside, disappearing for a while before returning with a large check in hand. Aldous Huxley is one of the more famous transactees, but their numbers grow and grow.
Over time, it is determined that each of the selected humans has a certain "tau factor" that has an unknown effect on their behavior and powers. It is only known that the tau factor is measurable…and that it is gone once the humans come back.
Normal humans (those without the tau factor) become jealous, enforcing increasingly rigid restrictions on the tau-enabled humans, with ghettos a foreseeable future. Meanwhile, exchange after exchange begins to disappear.
Amidst this backdrop, we are introduced to our hero, Christopher Lane. Already half dropped out from society, he learns that he is blessed with the tau factor, and upon entering an exchange, learns that it enables him to step out of phase with time. This gives him access to a fairyland world divided into little islands of time. There he meets his true love and hatches a plan to sever his ties with the old Earth before the last exchange closes forever.
As for the sex content, much is made of pulchritude of Christopher's vapid and Earthbound girlfriend (we even learn the color of her pubic hair: black). In this case, the focus on mechanical, unsatisfactory love-making is contrasted with the more elevated relations Chris enjoys out of time.
Only barely science fiction, it is nevertheless a good read. Four stars.
The Turned-off Heads, by Fritz Leiber
The issue takes a bit of a tumble with the next short-short. This exploration of pop culture and the evolving relation of mankind to machinekind is affectedly outré and rather pointless. At least it's short, and I suppose Leiber gets points for forecasting fashion.
Two stars.
by Ed Emshwiller
I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg, by Harlan Ellison and Robert Sheckley
Here's a piece that reads like it could have been in Dangerous Visions. I'm not sure how much was written by Ellison and how much by Sheckley, but it definitely reads like a fusion of their styles.
Our "star" is Joe Pareti, a man whose prime distinction from the rest of the Earth's teeming, over-educated billions is his ability to harvest "goo." This gray, mucousy sludge has choked the planet's oceans and now provides humanity's main source of food. It also has an alarming tendency to writhe, occasionally forming itself into grotesque parodies of animal life.
The goo also, on rare occasion, infects its harvesters. In an act of carelessness, Pareti succumbs, losing all of his hair overnight. His doctor warns that greater changes may be in store, but given that only six cases preceded Joe's, all of them wildly different in their courses, nothing more can be determined.
It doesn't take long for Joe to find out. In short order, every woman finds him irresistible. A life of increasingly exotic sexual escapades is frustrated when inanimate objects also start to make advances on the former goo farmer. Will he succumb to their inorganic advances? What happens if he says no?
This is a weird piece. But, like most things by Ellison and Sheckley, it's a good piece. Four stars.
Light On Cader, by Josephine Saxton
A young undertaker, bade by his mother's dying wish, climbs Cader Idris in Wales on a raw, misty morning. At the summit, he encounters his life's desire…or maybe an unearthly trap.
That's it. There's really not much to this story–except flavor and texture, which is competently done.
Three star.
Crack in the Shield, by Arthur Sellings
This UK author offers up a glimpse of life in the 22nd Century. The development of the personal shield, and (for the less wealthy) shields for structures, causes society to fracture into a myriad of animal-totemed clans. Each has laid claim to a province of the economy: Bees make food, Peacocks are in advertising, etc. Assured immortality by falling in line within this strict societal structure, imagination largely disappears.
The only hope for the race lies with those who voluntarily give up their shields. Crack is the story of Philip Tawn, Peacock, who is driven to do just that.
I found this an implausibly optimistic piece, but Sellings writes it well enough. It's also a bit more fuddy-duddy than the rest of the mag, but I suppose balance has its place.
Three stars.
The Seventh Metal, by Isaac Asimov
Last issue, I praised Doc A.'s article on the ancient discovery and use of the first seven metals (what a kitschy store in Borrego Springs, where I spent the weekend, described as "the seven mystic metals"). Left undiscussed in that piece was mercury, remarkable among the first seven for being the only one that is a liquid at usual temperatures.
Asimov does a fine job talking about element Hg (and why it has that abbreviation). Four stars.
Lunatic Assignment, by Sonya Dorman
Sonya Dorman's tale is of "Four men, dressed in limp white shirts and slacks," each with his own madness. Keepsy, a pervert who sleeps with his hand on his crotch, has a maelstrom of a mind, betrayed all the more by his frustrated desire to project normalcy. Arrigott, having no sense of ego, has trouble with the word "I". Fomer is a schizoid, an empty vessel. And Braun, their leader, has barely suppressed desires to rape and ravage.
But the world is an asylum, and someone has to run it.
I can't say I quite understood this piece, but it is memorable. Three stars.
In His Own Image, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
by Ed Emshwiller
Lastly, we have the tale of Gordon Effro, a spacewrecked sinner who ends up at a lifeboat station at the edge of space. He washes up at a station inhabited by a mad proselytizer with a coterie of robotic disciples. All Effro wants to do is drink himself blind until the rescue ship arrives, but the wild-eyed Christian has other plans.
I liked this story quite a lot up to its conclusion. There are a number of ways this story could have ended. Biggle chose perhaps the least satisfying, the most conventional.
Thus, three stars.
Can I open my eyes?
As it turns out, the stories with smut were my favorites. However, I don't think their salacious content was what sold me; rather, they were just the most interesting of the pieces. On the other hand, perhaps McKenna and Ellison/Sheckley were able to write so effectively because they felt less fettered when they produced these pieces.
I guess only time will tell if 1967 marked an experimental flirtation with sex in science fiction…or if it presaged an SFnal revolution!
![[July 14, 1968] Long Time No See (August 1968 <i>Fantastic</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/COVER-2.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[July 10, 1968] Back in the Saddle Again (August 1968 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/680710cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[June 10, 1968] Froth and Frippery (July 1968 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/680610cover.jpg?resize=653%2C372)
![[April 12, 1968] Darkness (May 1968 <i>Fantastic</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/SMALLCOVER.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
This tale appeared in the December 1956 issue of the girlie magazine Caper, attributed to Spencer Strong (Ackerman again) and Morgan Ives (Marion Zimmer Bradley.)
![[February 10, 1968] It's a Man's World (March 1968 <i>Fantastic</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cover-2.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[January 26, 1968] Jack Barron Returns!<i>New Worlds</i>, February 1968](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/New-Worlds-Feb-68.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
Cover by Eduardo Paolozzi, designed by Charles Platt and Christopher Finch
Photos of the key writers this month. New feature.
More sex from Jack Barron. Artist uncredited.
First page of the article. More cut-up stylings!
Weird art for a weird story.
![[January 20, 1968] Alyx and Company (January 1968 Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/680120covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[January 16, 1968] Worthy programming (February 1968 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/680110cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[January 14, 1968] As Is (February 1968 <i>Amazing</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/amz-0268-cover.png?resize=492%2C372)
![[December 20, 1967] Smut! (January 1968 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/671220cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
