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[August 31, 1969] Over (and under) the Moon (September 1969 Analog)

August 31, 2024 Gideon Marcus 7 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Being #2, they try…harder?

Last October, just after Apollo 7 went up, it looked as if the Soviets still had a chance at beating us to the Moon. Their Zond 5, really a noseless Soyuz, had been sent around the Moon two months ahead of our Apollo 8 circumlunar flight. Just a month later, the similar Zond 6 took off on November 16 and zoomed around the Moon before not just landing, but making a pinpoint landing in the Kazakh S.S.R. (near its launch site) with the aid of little wings. Apparently, the prior Zond 5's splashing down in the Indian Ocean was not according to plan.

Shortly after the flight, the Soviets dropped the bombshell that Zond 6 could have been manned—and the next one might well be.

Well, as we all know, the Communists didn't beat us around the Moon. Moreover, they didn't beat us to the Moon, either. Remember all that talk about Luna 15 during the flight of Apollo 11? That was the probe launched just before Columbia and Eagle, rumored to be a sample-return mission. Well, it crashed into the aptly named Sea of Crises about 500 miles northeast of Eagle's landing site on July 21. Had its mission been successful, the Soviets might have had bragging rights about getting the first batch of Moon rocks.

But, as the Ruskies found out after who knows how many unsuccessful Luna flights, only succeeding in 1966 with Luna 9, complicated maneuvers rarely work on the first time out.

That said, even with the clear American victory in the Moon race, the Soviets appear to still be going strong. Earlier this month, Zond 7 sailed around the Earth's companion, landing on August 14. Still no people onboard, but perhaps they worked out the communications troubles that reportedly plagued the last two Zond missions.

Whether these Zond flights presage an upcoming attempt with people onboard remains to be seen. According to former NASA chief Jim Webb, the Soviets are also building a super rocket, which they will use to put cosmonauts on the Moon. Put two and two together, and perhaps the early 70s will see the USSR catch up to and surpass the US.

Unless we get to Mars first…

Being #1, they've stopped trying

Analog has, for decades now, kept the title of the most-read science fiction magazine on the market. On the other hand, editor John Campbell has been sitting on his laurels for a long time, producing an unexciting periodical for the past several years. The latest issue of Analog only adds more fuel to the argument that perhaps it is time for the old don to step down and let someone vigorous take his place—at least to bring the magazine into the 1960s!

by Kelly Freas

Your Haploid Heart, by James Tiptree, Jr.

by Kelly Freas

A two-man team is sent from Earth to the planet of Esthaa. Their mission: to determine of the humanoid inhabitants are, well, human. The results may put to bed the two competing theories that explain the ubiquity of the human form in the galaxy: common evolution and random scattering, or independent, convergent evolution.

The Esthaans are a robust, beautiful people, but there is something somehow phony about them. Meanwhile, they seem to be on the verge of completing a genocide against the primitive Flenns…who also appear to be a type of human.

What is the connection between the two races? And why have the civilized Esthaans developed such an antipathy for the pathetic Flenns? And is an earlier Terran expedition somehow the cause of all this?

There's some interesting biology wrapped up in this story (as suggested by the title), and since biology is not my specialty, I can't even begin to speculate how plausible it is. But it's an interesting story, well-written, and easily the best I've read from newcomer Tiptree.

Four stars.

Starman, by W. Macfarlane

by Leo Summers

The assistant fifth mate on an interstellar tramp freighter decides to jump ship on a backwater world. The natives have reverted to savagery after once having broadcast power and space travel.

Said starman soon learns that Stone Age living isn't all it's cracked up to be. Luckily, there are a few relics of the old days left at his disposal.

This is a fun, if inconsequential, story. The writing is breezy, fun, and tongue-in-cheek, though the casual slurs are somewhat offputting. I'm also getting very tired of humans, humans everywhere instead of true E-Ts.

Three stars.

The Big Boosters of the U.S.S.R., by G. Harry Stine

Speaking of the Soviet super-booster—amateur rocketeer Stine conjectures as to the configuration and capability of the USSR's rocket stable. Of course, given how secretive the Russians are, there's a lot of guesswork involved.

I appreciated it, but I have to wonder how accurate he is. In particular, I'm not sure why he believes that Soyuz 1 was launched on a different rocket from the later Soyuz missions. I've seen nothing to that effect. Maybe he's talking about whatever is shooting up Zonds around the Moon. Those are, after all, just stripped down Soyuzes.

Anyway, four stars. We'll see how right he is in a decade or so…

Damper, by E. G. Von Wald

by Peter Skirka

A tyro hotshot joins the Weather Control Bureau and is dispatched to a small, Arabian country. When a Soviet incursion threatens the peace, he shifts the focus of his rain-making efforts from irrigation to interdiction.

Aside from the casual and constant male chauvinism, I have a hard time buying weather control as an SFnal theme, particularly so thinly sketched out as it is in this story. Orbital lasers (don't those count as space-based weapons?) pumped a lot of heat into the atmosphere to evaporate ocean water and create onshore winds—that heat doesn't go away. What happens when the Earth warms up by several degrees thanks to all that extra heat? Beyond that, the technique wouldn't work anyway: it takes more than wet air to make rain; you need some kind of condensate material. That's why planes seed clouds with silver iodide so the water has something to coalesce around to make droplets.

Two stars.

Stimulus-Response, by Herbert Jacob Bernstein

by Kelly Freas

A trio of scientists are using electrodes and encephalograms to record brain patterns. The goal is to train a dog to use specific thoughts to trigger its food dish. In the process, the researchers accidentally teach the beagle how to telekinese.

Not only is this story a turgid bit of pseudo-engineering, but then it abandons science entirely to enter the region of Campbell's beloved psi. Look, I can sort of enjoy psionics if I treat them like a kind of magic, but when they're mixed in with engineering to get a patina of respectability—and the story is deadly dull to boot—well, there's only one score for it.

One star.

In His Image, by Robert Chilson

by Leo Summers

A biologist synthesizes the first androids—they are human in all respects, save for their satyr-form lower halves. Bred to be performers, they have been conscious just six months, but have the minds of college professors and the bodies of nubile goddesses. When the Actors' Guild sues for an injunction against their use in the entertainment business citing unfair competition, a friendly reporter purchases one of them despite the fact that they are sentient and, for all intents and purposes, human. The goal is to force the courts to declare the androids fully human and thus exempt from measures against discrimination.

The question of whether or not androids are people has frequently been explored in science fiction, from the sublime Synth to the less than perfectly successful Trek episode Requiem for Methuselah. Chilson's tale is… well, it's dull and kind of stupid. The androids have no personality save for interchangeable sex kitten, the writing is uninspired, and the universe implausible. It's not even clear what point Chilson is trying to make, so muddied are all the story's elements. In the end, the plot of the story, such as it is, seems only to exist so we can have a trio of jiggly goat girls mincing around.

One star.

The Visitors, by Jack Wodhams

by Kelly Freas

Terrans land on the first inhabitable world ever found and make first contact with the natives. Turns out "primitive" doesn't mean "defenseless."

This would be a two-star story, inoffensive but not noteworthy, except for the sheer number of words Wodhams wastes getting to his point. Twenty pages that could easily have been condensed to, I dunno, five.

One star.

Crashlanding

Well, like the Soviets, Analog is churning issues out that look like winners, but really are just unimpressive retreads. This one clocks in at 2.4, which is higher than Galaxy (2.2), but lower than Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.7), Visions of Tomorrow (2.8), Amazing (2.9). If (3.0), New Worlds (3.3).

Only one new piece of fiction was written by a woman, and if you took all the decent stuff published this month, you'd only be able to fill two digests—and that's with the extra paperback anthology this month. Whither short SF? Whither the Soviet space program?

I guess we'll see what happens next month…

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 28, 1969] Slidin' (February 1969 Analog)

January 28, 2024 Gideon Marcus 1 Comment

by Gideon Marcus

Mudslides

Winter is the wet season for Southern California, and we've been just drenched these past weeks. I understand seven inches of rain fell in the Los Angeles area, causing terrible mudslides, property damage, and injury. Apparently, things were made worse by a spate of arson last year that got rid of the stabilizing undergrowth.

Ontario's Foothill Boulevard looking west toward Red Hill Country Club Drive, flooded. (Daily Report photo)

I've had many friends ask if we're alright, afraid we might have been swept downstream in the torrent. Rest assured that Vista is disaster-proof (knock on wood), and our house is at the top of a hill. We had some deep pools of water in the backyard, but they've since drained. Our neighbors have gotten invaded by bugs seeking refuge from the storm, though.

A man runs past a station wagon that was washed two blocks down Carnelian Avenue, along with part of the road surface. (Daily Report photo)

Ups and Downs

If the physical world is getting washed away, one edifice that manages to stand firmly, if not always proudly, is Analog, science fiction's most popular magazine. Has this month's issue slid at all, or is it holding fast? let's see:

A Womanly Talent, by Anne McCaffrey

by Kelly Freas

We're back in the world of psionic talents, perhaps related to the stories that involve ladies in towers. A pair of politicians want to pass a law protecting and enabling the psionically adept, legitimizing things like professional prognosticators and psychic manipulators. A Luddite strawman, name of Zeusman, is against it.

Meanwhile. Ruth is the wife of Lajos, a precog. She is frustrated because she has an unidentified talent, and also because she really wants to be a mom. Eventually, the latter frustration is relieved, and her daughter ends up demonstrating what Ruth's power really is.

Aside from the tale beginning with ten pages of conversation that reads more like a Socratic dialogue than a story, I just find McCaffrey's writing so flat and amateur. I'm sure all the psi stuff was music to editor Campbell's ears, including lines like "Those who truly understand psionic power need no explanation. Those who need explanation will never understand," but it doesn't work for me. Beyond that, McCaffrey's attitudes on the relations of the sexes is so atavistic, although I suppose she gets points for talking about sex at all. Maybe Campbell likes that, too.

Two stars.

You'll Love the Past, by J. R. Pierce

by Leo Summers

A time traveler from the 21st Century takes a trip in a time machine to the 24th Century. A war has transformed society: America is now largely mixed race, with the whitest of the population an inbred and stupid group. Socially, the continent is organized into placid socialist cooperatives run by religious Brothers, advanced technology provided by the Japanese. It's the sort of world one can be happy in…provided one is favored by the status quo. Every so often, one of the non-favored tries to escape.

Not a bad story, even if it seems to be obliquely casting aspersions on Communists of darker hue.

Three stars.

The Man Who Makes Planets, by G. Harry Stine

by Leo Summers

Yet another piece set in the (anti-) Utopian future of People's Capitalism, where North America has become a stratified welfare state, and money is a thing of the past.

Rex, last of the private dicks, is engaged by a government minister to find out who stole the plans for a miniaturized nuclear bomb, and why said criminal is blackmailing him, threatening to distribute the plans should a ransom not be paid promptly.

The solution to this mystery is actually trivial, and the story isn't quite long enough for what it's trying to do. Nevertheless, I always find this setting interesting. And perhaps prescient. There was piece in last week's newspaper about the National Urban League's proposal for a universal income…

Three stars.

Wolfling (Part 2 of 3), by Gordon R. Dickson

by Kelly Freas

Back in part one, Jim Kiel was sent from Earth to study the intergalactic empire whose fringes were discovered when a Terran probe made it to Alpha Centauri. An anthropologist and ubermensch, Jim is essentially a spy, though the High Born of the empire don't know that—they think that he's an interesting curiosity, favored for his bullfighting skills and independent thinking.

This installment begins just after Jim's first encounter with the Emperor, a genial, capable man who, nevertheless, seemed to suffer a stroke. A stroke that no one but Jim noticed. Much of this middle installment is devoted to Jim's navigation of High Born society, attempting to master the reading machines to determine if Earth really is a long-lost colony of the empire or something else, and also how he discovers and foils an insurrection attempt with designs on incapacitating the empire's leader. In the last portion, Jim is promoted to the equivalent of a Brigadier General and sent to quell a rebellion. This is actually a trap designed to kill him, but he neatly sidesteps it. Now he wants to know why he's marked for death.

The pot continues to boil. There's a lot of the flavor of Dickson's Dorsai series, but with a different, perhaps even more interesting, setting.

Four stars.

A Chair of Comparative Leisure, by Robin Scott

by Leo Summers

A stammering professor somehow manages to be the most magnetic, as well as effective at conveying information. Does his technique go beyond the verbal?

(Yes. He has the power of psychic projection. Whoopee. Two stars.)

Calculating the damage

You win some, you lose some, and this month's issue clocks in at exactly three stars. While nothing could compare with the superlative four-star Fantasy and Science Fiction, three stars is still lower than New Worlds (3.3) and Galaxy (3.2). It does beat out IF (2.8) and Fantastic (2.2), however.

You could fill as many as three issues with good stuff out of the six that were put out—in large part thanks to how great F&SF was this month. Nevertheless, women contributed very little of that, with only 6.67% of new fiction written by female writers, most of that Anne McCaffrey's drudge of a story.

Still, in an uncertain world, I can't complain too much. Especially since, mudslides or no, the Post Office still manages to get me my magazines on time!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[July 31, 1968] No easy answers (August 1968 Analog)

July 31, 2023 Gideon Marcus 9 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Hard reality

"Fans are Slans", or so the legend goes. Inspired by the psychic supermen in A. E. Van Vogt's Slan, the notion is that SF fans are a breed apart. Better than the average Joe, who are comparative Palookas. And why not? We're obviously smarter, given our intellectual proclivities, and our favored choice of fiction has all the answers. A problem is presented, our brilliant heroes hatch a solution, and we live happily ever after.

How else to explain Fred Pohl's call for Galaxy readers to submit solutions (in 100 words or fewer!) to the Vietnam war? Never mind that the problem has occupied our greatest minds for two decades, with no solution in sight. Indeed, ever since the Tet offensive, things have gotten more complicated.

You see, according to the Pentagon (per Aviation Weekly and Space Report), we won the Tet offensive. Handily. And that onslaught was actually a desperate 'Hail Mary'–Soviet and Chinese advisors had told the North Vietnamese that they were losing, big-time, and they had to do something to shatter American and South Vietnamese morale, no matter the cost.

And it worked! It induced LBJ to throw in the towel, declare a bombing holiday, and start a peace process, the only tangible effect of which has been to allow the communists to resume logistical deliveries down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to offload shipments of Soviet materiele in the port of Haiphong, which had been interdicted by the U.S. Air Force.

That's not the only setback to the Allied cause–Khe Sanh, that forward Marine base that held out against siege for a full season, has been abandoned. No good explanation has been forthcoming.

Now, I'm not defending our presence in Vietnam, and I'm not arguing against the peace process. I'm saying no science fiction writer, no matter how brainy, is going to have an answer. Not even an easy one. I don't think there is one.

But so long as easy solutions exist in our science fiction, we Slans will keep thinking there is. Certainly, this month's issue of Analog is chock full of solvable problems, a bunch of scenarios that might well have been developed by high school or college professors as logic puzzles for their students.These are the kind of stories you find most often in Analog, which aims at the clear-thinking, black-and-white engineering set.

Now, that's fine. Analog's job is to make money, and it has the most readers of any SF mag, so it must be doing something right. It's certainly not editor Campbell's job to disabuse fans of their Slan aspirations.

Nevertheless, as someone who isn't an engineer, I find Analog often to be a slog. I like to have more story in my stories. Sometimes Campbell lets a compelling tale slip into his pages; more often he does not. The proportion of story types usually determines whether I give an issue more or fewer than three stars.

Given the tone of this preamble, you can probably guess what kind of issue this will be…

by Kelly Freas

Logic Puzzles

The Baalim Problem, by Bruce Daniels

by Kelly Freas

Problem posed: the human race has spread throughout the stars, setting up all sorts of empires, nations, and leagues. They have never encountered evidence of aliens–until now: a putatively nonhuman distress beacon has gone off over an independent human world. Two polities, an extremely libertarian nation and a group-thinking bureaucracy, have, at their computers' recommendations, sent single representatives to investigate.

The beacon leads them both to a hostile world, one beyond the means of either of scouts to handle alone. So, these adversaries must work together to escape the planet and bring back news of what they've found.

And what they find is that the "alien" evidence is an obvious hoax, developed by…someone…for…some purpose. Who might have hatched the scheme and why is the puzzle to be deciphered by the reader. Or, if the reader be lazy, to simply read about as the characters in the story explain the answer to each other.

The sentiment is nice, but I'd rather have had the thing play out narratively rather than in narration.

Three stars.

The Fuglemen of Recall, by Jack Wodhams

by Leo Summers

Problem posed: a number of people seem to have lost their minds, convinced they are someone else. The Feds investigate and determine the common factor was that each had just had an engagement with Lidlun Spacial Electronic Enterprises. Some kind of mind/memory transfer hocus pocus is clearly afoot. But when they apprehend the President of Lidlun for interrogation, is he really who he seems?

I suppose the lesson of this tale is that cops should always have a picture of the person to prevent a false arrest.

Unfortunately, Wodhams had to write a bit too obliquely and clumsily, and also had to make the investigators morons, to make this puzzle a challenge for the reader.

Two stars.

How the Soviets Did it in Space, by G. Harry Stine

Problem posed: how did the USSR so handily beat us to orbit, and why did they keep scoring space spectaculars earlier than us?

If you've got a subscription to Aviation Weekly, you know the answer, but rocketry popularizer Stine does an excellent job of summarizing all the tidbits that have been leaked over the last few years. Now we know that the Soviets had a Saturn-class rocket from the beginning while we were still piddling around with Thors, Jupiters and Atlases.

So why didn't the Russkies keep their lead? Well, we don't know that another Soviet spectacular isn't around the corner. But assuming it isn't, I would guess it's because our Saturn 1 was the beginning of a family of superboosters whereas their Vostok/Luna/Zond launcher has already topped out its potential.

On the other hand, their new Proton rocket seems to be operational, and something launched Soyuz 1…

Great schematics, and I appreciated the strong line drawn between the development of ICBMs and the almost incidental exploitation of the rockets for civilian applications.

Four stars.

Appointment on Prila, by Bob Shaw

by Leo Summers

Problem posed: a gray terror, an alien being that can mimic anything perfectly, is trapped on a hostile cinder of a world when a Terran survey team arrives. Six self-contained pods leave the human mothership to conduct a geodetic survey; seven return. Worse still, the alien has the ability to take over any organic mind that it finds. Is there anything the team can do to withstand this menace?

Well, as it turns out, no. Indeed, the humans do precious little, and salvation relies on factors already baked into the scenario. I will confess that I had the ending spoiled for me before I started, so that might have diminished things.

That said, Shaw is a sensitive and evocative author, and this work is the highlight of the issue.

Three stars.

Satan's World (Part 4 of 4), by Poul Anderson

by Kelly Freas

Problem posed: Serendipity Inc., a knowledge broker for the loose knit Polesotechnic League of stars, is actually an intelligence-gathering front for the Shenn, an up-and-coming race of rapacious beings. Plenty of stuff happens as a lead up to this, the fourth installment in the serial, but most of it is inconsequential. This particular instance is concerned with the following questions:

1) Who are the Shenn, and how, with their frankly primitive, impulsive, and aggressive mindset, did they get control of an advanced, robotic civilization?
2) How can one reconcile their above racial habits with the fact that they are herbivores, who tend toward peaceful, communal societies?
3) How did the six human members of Serendipity's board end up in thrall to the Shenn, and how is that the linchpin to dealing with the seemingly implacable aliens?

These are all fine questions, and they are all answered tidily, in pages and pages of explanation that might well have been copied from a 30th Century encyclopedia. As often happens with Poul's work, he's created an interesting universe, only developed a plot for half of his story, and employed uninteresting caricatures to carry it out.

I'm sick of Nicholas van Rijn and his lusty Dutch oaths. I'm tired of the Buddhist dragon-centaur Adzel and the irritable (though admittedly adorable) Chee Lan, and the callow Davy Falkayn. Again, I want stories, not historical tracts of Anderson's future universe.

Two stars for this installment and 2.5 for the book as a whole.

Specialty, by Joe Poyer

by Kelly Freas

Problem posed: Tupac Araptha is an Alto Plano Peruvian, adapted to low pressure from birth. As a result, he is uniquely qualified to work on the moon. He can operate his suit at lower pressures, which means less resistance to movement, meaning he can work eight hours a "day" (twenty-four hour cycles are arbitrary on the moon) whereas lowlanders can barely manage three. How does Kelly, the local mining boss, handle the interpersonal jealousy that springs from this issue?

This story would be better served if it weren't set in the same timeline as "Spirits of '76", in which a dozen moonshiners (pun intended) establish a libertarian "republic" on the moon; it makes the context sillier, when the story is rather serious. I was also annoyed that Kelly's first solution was to suggest that Tupac beat up his rival in a manly display (on the moon? Surrounded by high vacuum?!), and when Tupac demurs, Kelly's next solution is to…take a leave of absence.

There could have been an interesting story here, but there ultimately isn't.

Two stars.

Harsh reality

Doing the math, Analog finishes at a mediocre 2.7. As uninspiring a finish as this is, it actually consitutes a median: Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.4) was worse, as were Fantastic (2.3) and Orbit 3 (2.3). IF (2.8) was a near tie.

The saving graces of this month were Famous Science Fiction (3.5), though that was mostly reprints, and Galaxy (3.9), which I seemed to like more than everyone else. Well, that's my privilege!

Despite the low aggregate ratings, there was actually enough good stuff to fill two decent sized magazines. Women contributed 10.5% of the new fiction this month, which sounds better than average, but all but one of the tales was in Orbit, which is technically a paperback rather than a magazine.

Bringing things full circle, the issue of getting more women in print has been a perennial one, one that has defied solution (or even the notion that it's a problem that needs solving). Since the magazines won't or can't fix the situation, women have moved to other media. So we see women in anthologies like Orbit. We see women like A. M. Lightner and Madeleine L'Engle writing "young adult" (the new term for juvenile) series. We see women prominent in the writing and production of science fiction shows like Star Trek.

I think it's fandom's loss when the SF mags become stag parties. I remember the salad days of Galaxy and F&SF back in the early '50s, and part of what made them great was the diversity of stories, the range of viewpoints and styles. I'd hate to lose that to other venues (though the mags' loss is obviously other media's gain).

How do we get more women back into the mags? How do we get folks to recognize the value of women in the mags? I wish I knew. After all, I'm no Slan, just a man…

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 31, 1968] Too much and too little (February 1968 Analog)

January 31, 2023 Gideon Marcus 3 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Too much

Last week, we watched the evening news with mounting dread and anxiety as President Johnson ordered 15,000 reservists into action in response to the seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea. The U.S.S. Enterprise was already in the Sea of Japan ready to initiate a retaliatory strike. It looked like the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again. Lorelei turned to me and worried that things couldn't possibly get any worse.

Then the North Vietnamese launched an all-out assault on seven provincial capitals in South Vietnam. Fighting reached the streets of Saigon, and the America embassy itself was overrun for six hours. The conflict is still raging. So much for the Tet holiday week of peace. So much for armistice overtures.

So, 1968 is already shaping up to be a scary year in the mundane world. Let's see how we're doing in the SFNal realm. The latest issue of Analog starts off strong, from its Kelly Freas cover, to Harrison's name on the masthead. But does it deliver on its promises?

Too little

by Kelly Freas

The Horse Barbarians (Part 1 of 3), by Harry Harrison

Don't let the title or the cover throw you–this latest serial is, in fact, the third installment in Harrison's Deathworld series. In the brilliant first story, we are introduced to Jason dinAlt, a psychically adept gambler and roustabout who comes to Pyrrus, the most hostile planet in the galaxy. Using his ESP talents, as well as his fine brain, he deduces that the reason the world is so antagonistic to humans is due to a kind of psychic positive feedback loop: as the colonists came to regard the planet as their enemy, the planet's flora and fauna responded in kind. The key to living at peace with the world is a change in mindset, to work with the planet rather than try to conquer it. It was a lovely ecological message, predating Silent Spring by two years.

The second dinAlt story, The Ethical Engineer is a Deathworld story only in name, with dinAlt captured and taken to another world in Chapter One. This novel, more than any other, caused me to confuse Harry Harrison for Keith Laumer (as dinAlt and Retief are rather similar in nature and tone) everafter.

This third piece is a little more closely bound to the original. The premise: all of the city-dwellers of Pyrrus who could make peace with the planet have already left the original settlement for the countryside. What's left is the hard-core who cannot change their mindset. Eventually, the planet must defeat them.

Jason has a proposal that may appeal to this remainder. The planet Felicity has resisted all attempts at establishment of a mining colony. Specifically, the northern half of the planet's sole continent is peopled by savage horse barbarians who steadfastedly resist any attempt at civilization. dinAlt suggests that the Pyrrans form a planetary exploration and pacification company; after all, who in the galaxy could be tougher than a Pyrran? About 400 city-dwellers agree to the plan.

Upon landing on Felicity, Jason is immediately konked on the head and made a captive of Temuchin, leader of the dominant barbarian tribe. This chief has slowly gained the vassalage of all of the other tribes, cementing his control over the windswept northern steppes. dinAlt manages to escape, making a trek across the barren wastes. But the trip back to his ship, the Pugnacious, is only the beginning of his worries. In order to topple Temujin, Jason and his fellow Pyrrans will have to playact at being a new barbarian tribe, and subvert the chieftain from within…

The tone flipflops between light and deadly serious, and the horse barbarians are a thinly disguised retread of the Mongols (look in your encyclopedia for the birth name of Genghis Khan), though made redheads for some reason. That said, I read the whole thing in two quick sittings, and I'm enjoying it more than Engineer so far.

Four stars for this installment.

To Make a "Star Trek" by G. Harry Stine

You know our favorite TV SF show has made the big time when Analog makes it the topic of the nonfiction science article! Stine, a model rocket enthusiast, offers up a fascinating bit of background on the program, including praises of its implementation of technology, and some behind-the-scenes information that must have come straight from show-runner Roddenberry (indeed, this schematic of the Enterprise has been reprinted in current Trekzines.

Four stars, and a must read for Kirk/Spock buffs.

"If the Sabot Fits … " by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond

by Kelly Freas

The psychic man-and-wife author team returns with this mildly diverting piece. A series of catastrophic computer failures in a Midwest town coincides with a particular broadcast at a public education station. Could there be a connection?

I'm not sure if the science is sound, but it might be–Walt is an electrical engineer (Leigh, reportedly, just types his mental emanations, but I suspect she is actually the storytelling talent of the pair).

It's not bad. Three stars.

Peek! I See You! by Poul Anderson

by John H. Sanchez

A freelance helicopter pilot spots a flying saucer out in the southwest desert. The aliens, who have already made contact with a local population, do their best to avoid widening their diplomatic contacts.

I appreciate the idea of alien relations with individual nations/groups as opposed to with planets as a whole. Science fiction writers tend to forget that planets are big places, and they can house more than one embassy/colony/climate.

But.

The story is twice as long as it needs to be, and Poul really doesn't do "light and funny" competently, certainly not in the same league as Laumer, Harrison, or Sheckley.

Two stars.

Dowsers Detect Enemy's Tunnels, by Hanson W. Baldwin

"American soldiers find tunnels in Vietnam, a country riddled with underground passageways. ONLY DOWSERS CAN BE THE REASON!"

Seriously, John? One star.

The God Pedlars, by Jack Wodhams

by Kelly Freas

The ugh continues. An interstellar corporation is selling computers to primitive tribesmen. The pitch: they are actually idols representing a great and wise god. These "gods" tell the indigenes how to live their lives, build technology, etc. Of course, it's all for the good of the natives.

In addition to being a rather specious premise, this isn't really a story. It's a mouthpiece and a straw man having a conversation such that the point is beaten into the reader with a mallet.

Editor Campbell would give this story five stars. I give it one.

Optimum Pass, by W. Macfarlane

by Leo Summers

Last up, a sequel to Free Vacation, in which Layard and his fat partner (he never gets a name, but his girth is an important aspect of his character) manage to get themselves thrown in the pokey again such that they can get another free trip to an alien world. Their official mission is to tough out 30 days to determine the suitability of the planet for colonization. Their personal mission to look for evidence of "The Prodromals", the original galactic civilization.

More light fun, albeit a bit less coherent than the last tale. Still, three stars.

Unbalanced scale

Despite the auspicious beginning, this month's issue of Analog finished at 2.7 stars, making it the least of the February 1968 magazines. Even Amazing scored slightly higher (still 2.7 when rounded), followed by IF (2.8), Fantasy & Science Fiction (3.1), New Worlds (3.3), and Galaxy (a slightly higher 3.3)

It was actually a good month for good fiction: out of six magazines released, one could fill two, possibly three with exceptional (four and five star) stuff. Women, on the other hand, continue to be underrepresented, with just 7% of published new fiction.

So, while Analog was a mixed blessing this month, all in all, the pages of the digests made for much more pleasant reading than the newspapers. Would that we could have good news in both. I guess we'll see how February fares. It is my birthday month; surely that counts for something!

If you want to see more of my beautiful face (made for radio!) tune in for the latest edition of KGJ news!

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[March 31, 1966] Shapes of Things (April 1966 Analog)

March 31, 2021 Gideon Marcus 7 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Change

Out in the world of music, there's a change brewing. One can hear it in the experimentation of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album or the otherworldly tinge of The Yardbirds' latest hit, Shapes of Things. I've been long planning to write an article on the musical scene, and I'd best get it done quickly before the landscape changes entirely!

My friend and associate, Cora Buhlert, has noted that although the Stones and Beatles are popular in Germany, the number one hit right now is the syrupy Schlager tune by Roy Black, "Ganz in Weiß" (All in white). In other words, even in times of great flux, conservative forces remain steadfast, like stubborn boulders in a stream.

Oh look — it's time to review the latest issue of Analog.

Stagnation

by Kelly Freas

Moon Prospector, by William B. Ellern

It would be hard to find a more emblematic story of the reactionary SF outlet that is Analog than this, the lead story in the April issue. Set early in E.E. Smith's Lensman series, it apparently got the full blessing of "Doc" Smith just a few days before he died! That's pretty remarkable.

The story, however, isn't. A lunar prospector in is semi-sentient "creeper" gets a distress call. Turns out an old buddy has been buried in the aftereffects of a meteor shower, and ol' Pete has to dig him out. But what was the fellow doing out in that quadrant of the Moon to begin with, and does it have anything to do with a centuries-old missile base abandoned around there?

by Kelly Freas

There's no water on the Moon, so I suppose it's appropriate that the story, itself, is dry as a bone. Perhaps it would have been more exciting if I'd had some stake in the universe. Maybe I'd have thrilled at the mention of the Solar Patrol being evolved into a Galactic Patrol. The fact is, I didn't care for Doc Smith's stories much when I was a kid, so they evoke no nostalgia for me now.

Two stars.

Rat Race, by Raymond F. Jones

by Kelly Freas

A century and a half in the future, when a completely computer-planned economy has resulted in plenty for all of humanity, a fellow decides to recreate the hobby of model train running (though not in the destructive manner of the Addams family, more's the pity).

This hobby runs the fellow afoul of the Computer, for when he tries to make his own trains, he is accused of attempting his own production, which will upset the finely balanced economy and lead to scarcity. Our protagonist must find a way to satisfy the human urge to create while not upsetting the economic apple cart. The story ends with the suggestion that do-it-yourselfism will spread and eventually topple the current order.

It's a pleasant-enough story, and I suppose the "stick-it-to-communism" sentiment appealed to editor Campbell. On the other hand, while I appreciate that some folks really like to build things even when they could just be bought (and I have to think that hobbyist building would not break a planned economy), the notion that we've become too centralized and folks should all be able to be self-sufficient, making a living from the land, is unworkable.

The fact is, we've long since populated the Earth beyond its ability to sustain a society of independent farmers. The great island cities, the vast modern nations, they only support their teeming millions through coordinated and interconnected systems. The writer in the air-conditioned apartment, who bangs out a paean to independent living before catching a television show and then popping off to the deli for dinner, is a dreamer, not a visionary.

Three stars.

The Easy Way Out, by Lee Correy

by John Schoenherr

Aliens conduct a survey of planet Earth, evaluating its species for aggressive tendencies. After coming across a grizzly bear and a wolverine, and then the human family that has adopted the latter, they decide Earth is more trouble than it's worth.

Typical Campbellian Earth-firsterism. Two stars.

Drifting Continents, by Robert S. Dietz

by John Holden

If it's a crackpot theory that flies in the face of the scientific establishment, chances are you'll read about it in Analog. But sometimes a theory is crackpot, flies in the face of the scientific establishment, and is probably right. As someone born in earthquake country, I've probably heard more about "continental drift" than many. It's the idea that the continents very slowly move around the globe. It's why the coasts of South America and Africa seem like edges of the same torn newspaper. It explains why there are similar fossils at similar depths across continents that are nowhere near each other…today.

It's a theory I found little reference to in my science books of the 50s, including Rachel Carson's seminal The Sea Around Us. But damned if Dietz doesn't make some very compelling arguments. I would not be surprised if continental drift, as has happened recently with the Big Bang Theory and global warming, did not become thoroughly accepted this decade.

Five stars.

Who Needs Insurance?, by Robin S. Scott

by Kelly Freas

Pete "Lucky Pierre" Albers has always been blessed with good fortune. Twenty years a pilot, he has always managed to avoid even the slightest injury, despite 8500 hours of flying time. He first suspected that his lucky streak was not completely due to chance after a harrowing mission over Ploesti left his B-24 with just one working engine. That tortured device not only held together all the way back to Libya, but it spun with the 800 horsepower needed to keep the plane in the air. After the crash landing, Albers found a little gray box attached to the driveshaft.

Twenty years later, over Vietnam, Colonel Albers was in a bullet-riddled Huey whose engine somehow held together long enough to get him and his charges back to base. Sure enough, a little box was installed on the engine.

Clearly someone, or something, has taken an interest in Albers' survival. It's up to Albers and his closest friends to discover the secret.

I really enjoyed this story, told in narrative fashion. It's a fun mystery, the details are evocative, and I like when a piece includes a competent woman scientist (in this case, Marty the programmer, with her pet 2706).

Four stars.

A Sun Invisible, by Poul Anderson

by Domenic Iaia

With this latest installation in the adventures of David Falkayn, the momentum gained by the magazine comes to a shuddering halt. Anderson's writing is of widely varying quality, and the adventures of this troubleshooting young protogé of Nicholas van Rijn are among the worst.

The plot takes forever to develop, but it's something about a planet of Germanics looking to take on the Polesotechnic League by working with the belligerent Kroaka. The trick is that Falkayn has to figure out where the would-be enemies make their home. By getting the female leader of Neuheim drunk and talkative, Falkayn learns enough astronomical clues to deduce the star around which the insurgents' planet revolves. Falkayn stops the threat and gets the girl.

I do like the astronomy Anderson weaves into these stories and I also appreciated the seamless way he introduced a new pronoun for an alien race with three sexes. Other than that, it's a deadly dull story, and smug to boot. Falkayn is like a boring, Sexist Retief.

Two stars.

Computation

After all that, the conservative reef that is Analog finishes near the bottom of the pack, though that is as much due to the relative excellence of the other mags that came out this month. Campbell's mag clocks in at a reasonable 3 stars, beating out the truly bad, all-reprint Amazing (2.3).

Above Analog, starting at the top, are Impulse (3.5), Galaxy (3.4), IF (3.3), New Worlds (3.1), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1).

It was something of a banner month for SF mags, actually. Enough worthy stuff was printed to fill two full-size mags (and if you take out Amazing, that means a full third of everything printed was four stars and up). Also, women produced 11.5% of the new fiction published this month, the highest proportion I've seen in a long time. We'll see if this trend holds out.

That's it for March! April is a whole new ballgame, starting with the next issue of IF. I'm very keen to see how that magazine does now that the excellent Heinlein serial has ended (I've high hopes for the Laumer/Brown novel.)

Until then, all we can to is keep trying to discern the pattern of Shapes of Things to Come…

Don't miss the next exciting Adventure-themed episode of The Journey Show, taking you to the highest peaks, the deepest wildernesses, the coldest extremes, the vacuum of space, and the depths of the sea. April 3 at 1PM — book your (free) ticket for adventure now!)

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[January 31, 1966] Milk of Magnesia (February 1966 Analog)

January 31, 2021 Gideon Marcus 7 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Hornet's Nest

Last month, I wrote a rather savage review of the January 1966 issue of Analog, one of the more egregious examples of Campbellian excess married with an aggrieving nadir of quality. In short order, my mailbox was deluged with denouncing letters asserting that:

Campbell, as the genius who founded modern Science Fiction, could do no wrong
I clearly could never understand why people appreciated Analog

It is instructive that when I give an issue of Analog a favorable review, which happens reasonably often, my mailbox stays empty. But disparage the mighty Campbell at your peril! Such are the occupational hazards of the Reviewer.

Anyway, what goes down must come up, and this month's issue of Analog is actually pretty good. Let's take a look at the final mag of the month, shall we?

The issue at hand

by Kelly Freas

The Searcher, by James H. Schmitz

Two guards at an interstellar space port watch with momentary horror as a purple cloud of radiation erupts from a star yacht and devours them in an instant. The alien marauder has traveled light years, from the dense nebula known as The Pit, in search of a purloined navigational beacon. Meanwhile, a local professor with an eye to make a buck, is preparing to fence said beacon, hoping to do so before two private agents hired by the University League thwart his plans.

Thus ensues first a cloak and dagger story followed by a crime thriller and topped off with a mad chase from alien horror.

by Kelly Freas

I was excited to see James H. Schmitz' name on the cover as he's written some of my favorite works. He also has a preference for writing women protagonists, which is refreshing. I'm afraid my review of this piece must be somewhat alloyed. The concept is great, the characters are interesting, and I enjoyed the piece. But.

I think the biggest problem with The Searcher is its length. Had this been a novel length story, Schmitz could have unfolded the mystery of the alien's existence and motivations more organically, rather than relying on straightforward exposition. We get a lot of solid chunks of explanation interspersing the action. And it's certainly not the case that Schmitz can't write action; he does so quite admirably, beginning with the very first scene.

Had I received this manuscript, I'd have asked for an expanded rewrite — and been happy to publish it!

As is, it's a promising but uneven three star work.

The Switcheroo Revisited, by Mack Reynolds

by John Schoenherr

A rather bumbling young Lieutenant in the KGB is dispatched to the United States to find a marvelous invention first depicted in the pages of a science fiction magazine (name unknown, but I think it starts with an A). He's intercepted by the CIA, but rather than simply arrest him, instead they do their best to convince the agent that the fictional invention is real. There's a cautionary sting at the end of the story.

Cute, but rather trivial for Reynolds. I do enjoy how the author has woven a future history of the Superpowers, though, based on his extensive world travels. The geopolitics and slang lend a tang of verisimilitude. Three stars.

Twin-Planet Probe, by Lee Correy

This is a fun piece that purports to report the results of the first Martian probe to the twin worlds of Earth and Luna, written so as to mirror the sparse and potentially misleading data obtained from Mariner 4. The moral of the story is that we don't have enough data to make sweeping conclusions yet.

Four stars (and let's get some more data!)

An Ornament to His Profession, by Charles L. Harness

Patrick Conrad, once a chemist, later an attorney, and now a patent lawyer, is a haunted man. Three years ago, he lost his chemist wife and their young daughter in a car accident. This trauma has left him in something of a working daze, redoubling his vocational efforts in an effort to put the pain out of his mind.

His current problem: the patenting of a company chemical is threatened from several corners, most trivially by the impending poaching of Conrad's highly efficient secretary by another department, more seriously by a key team member's certainty that he has made a deal with the Devil to ensure success of the chemical's synthesis, and most critically by the revelation that the patent is based on a previously published college thesis.

Conrad must untangle all of these intertwined issues, all while wrestling with the pain of loss that seems also to be directly involved with the patent somehow.

by Kelly Freas

While Charles Harness is a name that may be unfamiliar to you, as it is a byline that has not appeared in more than a decade, Analog readers will certainly remember "Leonard Lockhard", a pseudonym for the combined talents of Harness and Theodore L. Thomas, who currently writes for F&SF. I'm pretty sure Harness is a patent attorney in real life as his knowledge of the law seems prodigious.

In any event, Ornament is a beautiful story, lyrical and thoughtful — almost misplaced in this magazine, honestly. I'm not quite sure I understood the ending, though I reread the piece to see if I had missed something; I may have simply missed a subtle reference. In any event, it's my favorite story of the issue.

Four stars.

Minds Meet, by Paul Ash

by Kelly Freas

Lastly, we have the welcome return of Pauline Ashwell (a Campbell discovery from England who goes by both feminine and masculine bylines for some reason). In this tale, a human and alien finally achieve true communication after seven years of frustratingly dissatisfying, if technically successful, discourse. All it took was a little filthy intoxication.

A pleasant three stars.

Summing up

I'm sorry to disappoint those hoping to yell at me for "not understanding why people like Analog", but I liked this month's Analog. Indeed, this issue virtually ties the (similarly returned to form) latest issue of Galaxy with a 3.4 rating, the best of the month. Close behind are New Worlds (3.2), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.1), and Science Fantasy (3).

Only IF (2.9) and Amazing (2.1) finished below the mediocrity line, and IF has the new Heinlein serial to commend it.

We are back to late 50s levels of female engagement in the genre: 10.2% of the new fiction was by women. There was also a full two magazines' worth of superior content this month, more than twice as much as in December. It really was a pleasure to be a fan this first month of January 1966!

Let's see how February fares…

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

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[September 18, 1961] Balancing Act (October 1961 Analog)

September 18, 2016 Gideon Marcus 9 Comments

Science fiction digests are a balancing act. An editor has to fill a set number of pages every month relying solely on the stories s/he's got at her/his disposal. Not to mention the restrictions imposed if one wants to publish an "all-star" or otherwise themed issue.

Analog has got the problem worst of all of the Big Three mags. Galaxy is a larger digest, so it has more room to play with. F&SF tends to publish shorter stories, which are more modular. But Analog usually includes a serialized novel and several standard columns leaving only 100 pages or so in which to fit a few bigger stories. If the motto of The New York Times is "All the news that's fit to print," then Analog's could well be, "All the stories that fit, we print."

How else to explain the unevenness of the October 1961 Analog? The lead novella, Lion Loose, by James Schmitz, is 60 pages of unreadability. It's a shame since Schmitz has written some fine work before, but I simply unable to finish this tale of space piracy and teleporting animals. Your mileage may vary. One star.

Gordie Dickson's Love Me True fares better, though it is a bit Twilight Zone-esque. Space explorer risks all to bring a cute fuzzy-wuzzy back from Alpha Centauri as a pet. In the end, it turns out the bonds of domestication run the other way. Nicely written, but the idea is two decades behind the times. Three stars.

The Asses of Balaam is Randall Garrett's contribution, under the pseudonym "David Gordon" used by many Analog writers. It's the best piece in the book (didn't expect that from Garrett!), a first contact story told from the point of view of some all-too human aliens. I particularly appreciated the imaginative setting, the priority placed on ecological conservation, and the cute (if not unpredictable) twist at the end. I must say – Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics have become axiomatic to all science fiction. Four stars.

by Schoenherr

Now, the science fact column of Analog is the worst of those included in the Big Three mags, usually filled with the crankiest of crank hypotheses. I have to give credit to editor Campbell's printing of Report on the Electric Field Rocket, by model rocketeer, G. Harry Stine. This report is, in fact, an experimental refutation of H.C. Dudley's dubious proposal to use the Earth's electric field to help launch rockets. Actual science! Three stars.

Harry Harrison's Sense of Obligation continues, to be completed next issue. It's reminiscent of Harrison's excellent Deathworld in that it features a man made superhero by virtue of having grown up on a hostile planet. Sense is not as good as Deathworld, though. Full rating when it finishes.

That leaves The Man Who Played to Lose, another disappointing outing from a normally good author, in this case, Laurence Janifer (writing as "Larry M. Harris). Interstellar Super Spy is sent to a planet in the throes of civil war. His job is to stop the insurrection – by making it too successful! A smug, implausible story, with far too much preaching at its tail. Two stars.

This all adds up to a sub-par score of 2.6 stars out of 5. This is not the worst Analog has gotten, but it's not all that unusual, either. This is why it usually takes me the longest to get through an issue of Campbell's magazine.

Next up… a special article from a surprising source!

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[April 18, 1961] Starting on the wrong foot (May 1961 Analog)

April 18, 2016 Gideon Marcus 19 Comments

Gideon Marcus, age 42, lord of Galactic Journey, surveyed the proud column that was his creation. Three years in the making, it represented the very best that old Terra had to offer. He knew, with complete unironic sincerity, that the sublimity of his articles did much to keep the lesser writers in check, lest they develop sufficient confidence to challenge Gideon's primacy. This man, this noble-visaged, pale-skinned man, possibly Earth's finest writer, knew without a doubt that this was the way to begin all of his stories…

…if he wants to be published in Analog, anyway. One might suggest to John Campbell that he solicit stories with more subtle openings. To be fair, the May 1961 isn't actually that bad, but every time a piece begins in the fashion described above, I feel like I've discovered a portal to 1949's slush pile.

Case in point is Chris Anvil's Identification. I know Chris has got a good story in him somewhere, but not when he submits to Campbell. This tale is about the use of actual bugs, psychically linked to a human operator, to eavesdrop on and prevent potential instances of crime. It's not a bad premise, but the story is too padded at the beginning and end, and too clunky in the middle. Two stars.

Arthur C. Clarke's Death and the Senator, on the other hand, is very good. What evil irony for an anti-space politician when it turns out that space offers the cure to a fatal heart condition. An intense, personal story, with some plausible speculation on the world circa 1976. Four stars.

I can perhaps forgive Join our gang? for being Sterling Lanier's first piece. It is the distillation of all that is wrong with Analog — not only is the Terran Empire the strongest force in the universe, but the animals of Earth are the toughest in the universe. And preventative genocide is acceptable diplomacy. I can't make this up, folks! Two stars.

The teeter-totter goes up again with James Schmitz's Gone Fishin', as one might expect given his quite good Summer Guests from a couple of years back. It starts out with the same hoary formula, but where it goes is quite surprising. It's basically the The Door through Space concept done right. Three stars; there's gold in there, but it gets docked for the slow beginning and the somewhat know-it-all air at the end.

There's a G. Harry Stine "non-fiction" article. It's not worth reprinting, this piece about how science fiction writers are too conservative in their predictions given how fast everything is moving these days. He includes a bunch of asymptotic curves that indicate, among other things, that we will have hyperdrive by 1980 and crushing overpopulation by the end of the century. I believe that one should not interpret the trends of the last two decades as representative of a sustainable pace; rather, they represent a quantum jump to a new plateau. In support of this observation is Enovid, the new "birth control" pill that will, mark my words, blow a hole in Malthusian population growth predictions. Two stars.

The rest of the magazine comprises Part II of Cliff Simak's promising The Fisherman, which I won't spoil at this time. All told, it's a 3-star mag — imagine how much higher it could be if Analog's authors could figure out a better way to start their stories!

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[February 10, 1961] Two for two! (March 1961 Analog)

February 10, 2016 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

Analog (my errant fingers keep wanting to type “Astounding”) was even better than last time. This particular copy is a seasoned traveler, having ridden with me to the lovely shores of Kaua'i and back. At long last, I've finished reading, and I can tell you about it. A sneak preview: there's not a bad piece in the book!

In lieu of a serial, nearly half of the issue's pages are taken up with Mack Reynold's novella, Ultima Thule. My nephew, David, was so enamored with this one that he specifically recommended it to me in a recent letter. It's the story of Ronny Bronston, an agent employed by the mysterious Section G, responsible for maintaining mutual non-interference between the 2000 member planets of the Galactic Federation. Bronston is sent on the trail of “Tommy Paine,” an elusive agitator who travels from planet to planet, upending the various status quos. Can you figure out who Paine really is? I particularly liked Bronston's 'assistant,' the highly capable, and delightfully reproachful Tog Lee Chang Chu. Reynolds never has trouble writing good female characters. Three stars.

Cliff Simak is back with another rustic-themed story, Horrible Example. Can a robot programmed to be the town drunk rise to be more than the sum of his code? A sensitive piece in that inimitable Simak style. Four stars.

G. Harry Stine used to be a professional rocketeer—until his calls to action in response to Sputnik rubbed his superiors the wrong way. Now, he is a technology evangelist. In his latest piece, Sub-Mach Rockets, he explorers the much neglected field of rocketry at speeds below the speed of sound. Makes me want to build a baby missile or two! Three stars.

The next piece was written with tongue firmly in cheek, a bit of engineering fluff by Maurice Price descriptively entitled, An Introduction to the Calculus of Desk-Cleaning. See Price illustrate the correlation between engineer output and desk-based chaos; it's surprisingly informative! Four stars.

Next, we've got one of those “non-fact” articles, though it's just billed as fiction. The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel, by Arthur W. Orton, is a science fictional interpretation of the biblical book of Ezekiel. It's as good an explanation for that bizarre book as any! Three stars

Now, I admit it. I am biased toward stories of interstellar travel with ships and captains and interesting situations. Poul Anderson's Hiding Place is a wonderful puzzle cloaked in all the trappings I like: a refreshingly multi-racial starship crew finds itself trapped in deep space between a pirate fleet and a quickly diminishing provisions supply. Only by making contact with a friendly alien ship do they have a hope of seeing the fires of home. Unfortunately, said alien ship, a zoological vessel with a menagerie of beasts for its cargo, takes the humans for pirates and hides in the animal cages. Can the terrestrials discern the sentient creatures from their beasts and plead their case in time? Five stars.

That all adds up to a 3.5 star issue—well worth the half dollar you'll fork over at the newsstand (less if you buy a subscription, which, if the quality continues to be this good, might be a fine investment).

Aloha!

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[Jan. 25, 1961] Oscillating circuit (the February 1961 Analog)

January 25, 2016 Gideon Marcus 9 Comments

John Campbell's science fiction magazine continues to defy my efforts to chart a trend. Following on the heels of last month's rather dismal issue, the February 1961 Analog is an enjoyable read. Let's take a look, shall we?

It took me a little while to get into Everett Cole's lead novella, The Weakling, but once I understood what he was doing, I was enthralled. Cole paints a world in which people with psi powers dominate those without. It is a planet of slave-owning aristocrats who can force people to do their bidding through mental will alone. The viewpoint character is Barra, scion of a noble family. His ascension to lordhood was accidental, caused by the premature deaths of his father and brother. Without the aid of an array of potent psychic enhancers, he would be barely more powerful than the "pseudo-men" he controls.

Weakling is the account of this bitter, cruel man, contemptuous of the slaves he resembles, jealous of his psychically more powerful peers, who entices rich merchants to his estate, murdering them for plunder. The story can be hard to read at times, but it is an excellent insight into the mindset of the 19th Century slave-owner (and thus an indictment of the sentiment that still prevails over much of the modern South). Four stars.

Teddy Keller's short, The Plague, is more typical Analog fare. When a sickness sweeps the nation, with no apparent rhyme or reason to its epidemiology, one doctor must race against time to find a cure. The solution is contrived and rather silly. Two stars.

Freedom, the latest in Mack Reynolds' slew of stories set in the Soviet Union of the 1980s, is a horse of a different color. Once again, Reynolds expertly conveys the character of life behind an Iron Curtain where Communism has achieved its economic goals, but not its social ones. In this tale, we see how difficult it is to extirpate a desire for intellectual freedom once it has taken root. I appreciate the evenhandedness with which Reynolds evaluates both the East and West. I also liked the romantic element, portrayed as between two equals unencumbered with conservative moral values. Four stars.

Campbell trumpeted his expanded coverage of science fact in his magazine, and it seemed a worthy experiment at the start. I'm always happy to see more Asimov articles, after all. But recently, the "non-fiction" portion of the magazine has been devoted to self-penned articles on the editor's hobbies or favorite crackpot inventions. We get a blessed break from these with a short photo-feature showing rockets of the past and present. Too short to garner a rating.

I don't think I quite got H.B. Fyfe's The Outbreak of Peace, a short short that takes place at an interstellar peace conference. I even read it twice. Would someone explain it to me, please? Two stars (for now).

At last, we have Chris Anvil's latest, The Ghost Fleet. A space fleet commander is forced to ignominious flight when the enemy strikes with an unbeatable weapon. Can he recover his honor (and save the day) with an audacious gambit? It's good, if something of a one-trick pony. Three stars.

The issue finishes off with the conclusion to Occasion for Disaster, which I previously covered. All told, the book clocks in at a slice over three stars, which is perfectly acceptable for 50 cents of entertainment.

Now let's see if this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction can top that.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction