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Magazine

[July 8, 1965] Saving the worst for first (August 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Milestones

Galaxy has now finished 15 years of publication, two thirds of it under the tenure of H. L. Gold and the last five years with Fred Pohl as editor.  If Analog (ne Astounding) is representative of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and Fantasy and Science Fiction represents the literary fringes of the genre, then Galaxy is emblematic of Science Fiction's Silver Age. 

Now, in the editorial for this month's issue, Pohl notes that Galaxy has evolved with the times and is a different magazine from the one that debuted with an October 1950 cover date.

I'm not sure I agree.  The magazine still looks largely the same, there's still a Willy Ley article in the middle, and the contents still feel roughly within the same milieu: a bit "softer" than the nuts and bolts in Analog, a little meatier than the often light fare of F&SF.  Certainly nothing so avant-garde as what we're seeing from the "New Wave" mags in the UK.

In any event, Pohl undercuts his own assertion by trumpeting next month's issue, which will feature nothing but alumni from the early days of the magazine.  I'm quite looking forward to it, and clearly Pohl is, too.

And after reading this month's issue, boy can I see why…

Recipe for Disaster


by Gray Morrow

Do I Wake or Dream?, by Frank Herbert

The creator of Dune and other lesser titles dominates the current issue: a full 119 pages are devoted to this short novel.  I was dreading it last month, and my dread was well-founded.  Here's the premise:

A giant sphere of a ship, the Earthling, is headed out of the solar system toward Tau Ceti.  On board are six normal human crew, two thousand frozen and dehydrated people, and a thousand embryos.  The humans are all genetic duplicates (with full memories, natch) of actual people, and their main job is to tend the ship-controlling disembodied human brains of "defectives" that have been integrated and trained for the task since birth (a la McCaffrey's The Ship who Sang or Niven's recent series starring Eric the Cyborg).

One by one, the three brains go nuts and either commit suicide or have to be shut down.  Two of the tending crew are murdered in the process.  Now the remaining four have to decide whether to turn back or not.  Complicating the decision is the fact that running the ship without a built-in brain is virtually impossible — the ship has been designed to be extremely delicate to handle, even to the point of having artificial crises pop up just to keep the crew on their toes!

Ultimately, the crew decides to thaw a frozen doctor (so they have, you know, one woman in their ranks) and then, together, create an artificial computer brain to run the ship.

And if that's not enough random factors to juggle, it is also noted that the Earthling is the seventh ship to have its brains all give up.  So this problem has happened twenty one times (what is it that Einstein is reputed to have said about the definition of madness?) And the last time humanity tried to build a sentient computer, the computer, the installation in which it was developed, indeed the entire island disappeared off the face of the Earth into some other dimension, destination unknown.

Herbert is nothing if not ambitious.


by John Giunta

He is, however, also a lousy writer.  I said as much after reading the sprawling, tedious, and humorless Dune World and its second half, Prophet of Dune.  One of my readers suggested that Herbert's third-person omniscient perspective, switching viewpoint characters almost every line, accented by (often superfluous) musings in italics was a deliberate stylistic choice to render the telepathic resonance shared by users of the spice melange.  But he uses the exact same style in Do I Wake, and there is nothing supernatural in this book.

I also found the overt anti-woman prejudice annoying, with the woman doctor character starting out pumped full of anti-sex drugs to keep her from being too excited all the time (one of the men debates taking some, himself, because he worries he'll be too attracted to the doctor; he decides against it because they reduce intelligence.  Fine for her, though.) Even the drawing of the doctor features her tawdrily topless.

Then there is the endless technical jargon that is not only gibberish, but often archaic gibberish: describing the ship's computer's "relays" (as opposed to transistors or microcircuits) is anachronistic for modern times, more so for machines of the future.

So, not only is Do I Wake a distinct displeasure to read, but it also is utterly implausible every step of the way.  At the Journey, we attempt to review everything in the genre that gets put to print, but we refuse to do it to the point of mortification.  I gave up on page 40, and you should feel no shame if you follow suit.

One star.

Peeping Tommy, by Robert F. Young

Yet another Robert F. Young reworking of a fable.  It keeps you engaged until the end, which is typically terrible.

Two stars.

The Galactic Giants, by Willy Ley

The one bright spot in the issue is Ley's competent science article, the majority of which is devoted to giant stars.  The rest deals with tape as a medium for data storage.

Interesting stuff.  Four stars.

Please State My Business, by Michael Kurland

A traveling salesman from the future ends up in the wrong century.  High jinks ensue.  Well, given that the story starts with a sexual assault and ends with a whimper, the jinks are rather low.

Two stars.

The Shipwrecked Hotel, by James Blish and Norman L. Knight


by Gray Morrow

Seven hundred years from now, the Earth houses One Trillion Humans in relative comfort.  This piece details the unfortunate saga of the "Barrier-hilthon", a beach-ball shaped hotel loosely anchored in the South Pacific.  Thanks to some literal bugs in the system, it becomes unmoored, ultimately crashing into an undersea mountain.  A rescue follows.

Hotel could have made an excellent novel by Arthur C. Clarke — a cross between A Fall of Moondust and Dolphin Island.  As is, it's not only surprisingly amateur, but it's also just sort of lifeless, more plot thumbnail than story.

I was a bit surprised as Hotel's expository style did not feel like James Blish at all (I don't know who Norman L. Knight is).  Then I got to the end where it says the story was by James H. Schmitz and Norman L. Knight.  I'm not sure whether its Blish or Schmitz, but Schmitz makes a lot more sense.  Schmitz is often good, but he's also often not, and in just this sort of way.

Two stars.

Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

I don't normally devote inches to the book columns. Nevertheless, I've given Budrys a long rope since he came on few months ago, and I can now say with certainty that not only is his judgment orthogonal to mine, but his writing is impenetrable, too.  This is a pity.  I've liked much of the fiction Budrys has written (at least long ago when he was writing consistently), and I used to greatly value Galaxy's book reviews. 

All Hope Abandoned

Wow.  That was just dreadful.  The only faint praise I can damn with is that the Herbert novel was so bad, it meant I didn't have to waste time on 80 pages of the magazine.  This is, without a doubt, the most worthless issue in the Galaxy series.

At least the bar to clear for next month is nice and low!

If you need to get the bad taste out of your mouth (and I know I do!) come register for this week's The Journey Show! 

We'll be discussing the latest fashion trends of 1965, and we have some amazing guests including the founder of Bésame Cosmetics.  Plus, you'll get to see the Young Traveler show off her newest outfits!

DON'T MISS IT!




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Magazine

[June 30, 1965] Every Day has its Dog (July 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Hail the Sun God

Summer has officially begun.

On June 21, 1965, the northern hemisphere of Earth enjoyed its longest period of daylight (while in Australia, poor fellow traveler, Kaye Dee suffered through the longest night). The Summer Solstice is an event that once had great religious significance, but as the Mosaic religions spread across the globe, celebration of the day waned.

Today, with the rise of neo-druidism (the North American version of it having been related in articles by Erica Frank), the Solstice has once again become a holy day. And 1965's was particularly special: as the Fraternal Order of Druids gathered around Stonehenge, they were treated to the first uncloudy sunrise in 13 years.

With such an auspicious sign, one might expect that June (July cover date) would be a good one for science fiction magazines. Instead, what we got was a dreary muchness that was more akin to the overcast skies of prior Solstices. And no magazine more exemplifies this drabness than this month's Analog:

Noonday Overcast


by John Schoenherr

Trader Team (Part 1 of 2), by Poul Anderson


by John Schoenherr

Poul Anderson is the Cepheid variable of the science fiction genre: he pulses from brilliance to dullness with regularity. In the midpoints, he produces competent but longwinded stuff like the Van Rijn tales, which detail the exploits of a canny Terran trader trying to enhance his fortune in the Galactic "Polesotechnic League."

Trader Team features David Falkayn, a young cadet we last saw in the mediocre Three-Cornerned Wheel. Thanks to the ingenuity he displayed in that story, Falkayn has been tapped to be Van Rijn's apprentice, his first mission to open up trade on the backward planet of Ikrananka.

The story starts crackingly, introducing the four members of the crew of the Muddlin' Through: Falkayn, the young Captain; Chee, a furry, imprecation-throwing female from planet Cynthia; Adzel, the gentle saurian neo-Buddhist from Woden; and "Muddlehead", the ship's computer. The ship has been in virtual quarantine for several weeks as no representative of the planet's local feudal state will approach them.

Then, in the midst of an intense poker game, Falkayn espies a beautiful woman soldier fleeing from a troop of Ikranankan cavalry. He saves her and brings her aboard ship only to discover that he has given aid to a fugitive of the very polity he is trying to establish relations with!

So far so good, but the next thirty pages are a drag. There's some nice scientific worldbuilding, in which we learn Ikrananka is a one-face planet, that Stepha (the saved soldier) is one of the third generation of spacewrecked humans who now, as a race, hire themselves out as mercenaries, and that Ikrananka would make a nice planet for trade if only its disparate fiefdoms could be unified.

But the story itself meanders in that wordy, shaggy dog style that Poul defaults to when he's on autopilot. The scene in which Adzel gets roaringly drunk and then implicated in a human insurrection is played for laughs, but it's just tedious. When Chee is captured, too, the reaction it elicits is a yawn rather than concern.

And if I have to read another line about what Falkayn thinks of Stepha's physical form, I'll throw the book against the wall. It'd also be nice to see more non-romantic female characters in general (though I will concede that Chee being female is a step in the right direction).

A low three stars.

In the Light of Further Data, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

Data is an Anvil story in a Campbell-edited mag, so caveat emptor.

And your caution is justified. Data is a story in newspaper article excerpts of two intersecting threads. The first is the development of a miracle tissue regrowth process that quickly recruits millions of patients seeking replacements for lost teeth. The second is the battle between a professor who asserts that science is the foundation of truth, and the religious community who pushes back on the assertion.

In the end, said professor cheerfully gets a new mouth of choppers, just as it's determined that there is a fatal flaw in the regrowth technique. The punchline is he quits science and becomes a missionary.

The moral, I assume, is that those eggheads don't know everything. It's certainly a philosophy Campbell has flogged to death.

Anyway, it's a dumb story. Two stars.

Hands Full of Space, by Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

We get a respite of sorts in the nonfiction article. It's about the difficulties of engineering for the intense harshness of space. Kallis tells us what happens to electronic components when exposed to zero pressure — they weld to each other, their surfaces vaporize and then coat other surfaces — and then there's the wear of hellish radiation and the danger from whizzing micrometeoroids.

It's all very informative and accessible, if a bit long and occasionally disjointed. When Analog's science piece is better than Ley's in Galaxy and Asimov's in F&SF, you know the world is truly inconstant!

Four stars.

Soupstone, by Gordon R. Dickson


by John Schoenherr

Here's another ingenue spaceman saves the day story. Soupstone is the sequel to Sleight of Wit, in which a clever human defeats an alien adversary largely by virtue of said alien being implausibly dim.

This time, Major Hank Shallo is sent to Crown World as a special trouble-shooter. The problem he must solve involves a crop of alien oversized grapes that would produce a most exquisite brandy in tremendous quantities if only they could keep them from rotting in the warehouses. It's all a matter of timing in the picking process, you see.

Shallo, an inept buffoon, is unable to solve the problem himself, but he is able to gather all the folks together who can solve the problem, and in doing so, sets them on their way to effecting the solution. And if you know the fable about making soup from a stone (I did) then you get the reference. And if you don't, don't worry — Dickson explains it for you.

Dickson is capable of much better than these "funny" stories, and once again, the ladies are included just for leering.

Two stars.

The Adventure of the Extraterrestrial, by Mack Reynolds


by John Schoenherr

It is rare that the science fiction and mystery genres overlap. Asimov's R. Daneel Olivaw tales and Garrett's Lord Darcy series pretty much round out the list. In Adventure, Reynolds crosses SF with The Detective, the one and only supersleuth of Baker Street (though neither Holmes nor Watson are ever mentioned by name).

An octogenarian Holmes is engaged by the spendthrift son of a rich gentleman. The son is putatively concerned for his father's mental health as he has engaged in a Fortean obsession with aliens, which have taken up residence in London, he maintains.

Reynolds is a good writer, and he executes a fair homage to the Doyle style. But while I enjoyed the story, I found Watson's constant and repetitive harping on Holmes to be offputting. And there are only so many times I need to be reminded of Holmes' age through note of his "senility," "chortling," "blathering," "dribbling," "inanity," etc. etc. Virtually every line includes a reference, and it's overmuch.

Also, and this is a small thing, Holmes' client talks of his father's obsession with "flying saucers." The story is indisputably set in the mid-to-late 1930s. Flying saucers did not become idiomatic vogue until after the war, in astonishing concert with the arrival of jet planes and rocketships. The anachronism vexed.

Still, it's the best story of the issue. A high three stars.

Though a Sparrow Fall, by Scott Nichols

One of those conversation pieces in which the story progresses in party dialogue. Turns out that the human genetic code has been written, or at least tampered with, such that a message has been buried within. By whom, and for whom, it is not known.

There's an interesting germ of a story here, almost something Theodore L. Thomas might address in his little column in F&SF. It doesn't really go anywhere, though.

Three stars.

Delivered with Feeling, by Lawrence A. Perkins


by Kelly Freas

At last, Mr. Perkins offers up another "lone man solves the problems of an alien world" story. This one deals with a planet whose disunion into dozens of profession-castes has made it easy prey for alien raiders. Because the invading planet and Earth are party to a mutual non-aggression pact, our protagonist can provide no material aid. Instead, he simply gives them a rallying slogan, which because of the unique qualities of the subjugated race, proves sufficient to throw off the alien onslaught.

The kicker, of course, is how the protagonist hatched his scheme. It's one of those technical puzzle stories that has been the stale bread and butter of the genre for decades. It's readable and forgettable.

Three stars.

A Dim Augury

Just one magazine cracked the three-star barrier this month: Fantasy and Science Fiction with 3.2 stars. IF and Science Fantasy were inoffensive three-star issues whilst (as Mark and Kris might say) New Worlds stumbled in at just 2.7. As this month's Analog scored a 2.8, it barely misses out on being the worst of the bunch.

And what a meager bunch it is! Without Galaxy and Worlds of Tomorrow (they're bimonthlies) and since the former Goldsmith mags, Amazing and Fantastic were on hiatus this month, there really wasn't much to read. Worse yet, there was just one woman-penned piece out of the 27 fiction stories published this month.

That the magazines were all fairly unremarkable, save perhaps for the unusually decent F&SF, just goes to show that even when the Sun God makes an appearance, it doesn't always herald good fortune.

Ah well. The Sun sets, but it also rises, and each day brings promise anew…


Sunrise, Roy Lichtenstein's latest masterpiece — see, this month wasn't all bad…




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Magazine

[June 18, 1965] Galactic Doppleganger (July 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Those of you who have been following the Journey over the past several years know that my appraisal of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has changed a few times.  Back in the days when Anthony Boucher and then Robert Mills were editing F&SF, it was my favorite magazine, a dessert I saved for reviewing last.

Then Avram Davidson took over in 1962, and while there were still standout issues, Davidson's whimsical, somewhat obtuse preferences led to a pretty rough couple of years.  Recently, Joe Ferman, son of the owner of the magazine, took over, and quality has been on a slow but perceptible rise.

One thing about F&SF is that it has always been unique amongst its SFF magazine brethren (which once numbered 40 and now less than ten).  It was the literary sibling, the most highfalutin.  Composed largely of vignettes and short stories, it contrasted sharply with the crunchier digests like Analog.

Which is why the current July 1965 issue is so unusual.  It's not bad; indeed, it's pretty good.  But it reads much like an issue of Galaxy or IF, one of the more mainstream mags.  I'm not disappointed.  It's just odd is all.  Read on and see what I mean.


by Jack Gaughan (he likes dragons — he did the illos for Vance's The Dragon Masters too!

Rogue Dragon, by Avram Davidson

Last year, Davidson left editing to go back to writing full time, and Rogue Dragon is his first major work since his departure from the helm of F&SF.  From the title, I expected a fantasy piece, or perhaps the dragon would even turn out to be metaphorical.  Both suppositions were wrong: Rogue Dragon is pure science fiction set on a far future Earth, one that had been conquered and then abandoned by the merciless insectoid Kar-chee.

Now simply called Prime World, humanity's original home has devolved to a handful of city-states. The planet's economy is based on Hunts, wherein the dragons introduced by the Kar-chee are slain by off-world big game hunters.  These dragons are nigh invulnerable things, their chest armor only pierceable in a weak spot identified with a painted white cross.

Enter Jan-Joras, the Private Man (representative) of the great off-world leader, Por Paulo.  Sent to arrange a vacation for the elected king he serves, Jan-Joras quickly gets caught up in a political struggle between the aristocratic Gentlemen class, who raise the dragons, the base-born (known pejoratively as dogcatchers and potato-growers), and the outlaws, who have hatched a scheme that will strike at the very foundation of the Hunt system.

But Rogue Dragon is no political thriller.  Rather, after a slightly difficult to read opening act (Davidson introduces many concepts and an abundance of idiomatic language in a short space), Rogue Dragon is an adventure story filled with derring-do, great escapes, and much traveling across increasingly hot frying pans — and we all know what destination lies at the end of that trail.

I found that I liked the story quite a bit, although it is perhaps less substantial than it might have been.  I waver between giving it three stars (perfectly adequate entertainment) and four stars (there's creative worldbuilding here).

Generosity wins.  Four stars it is, and welcome back to where you belong, Avram.

Computer Diagnosis, by Theodore L. Thomas

For his latest science fact vignette, Thomas discusses computer-assisted medical diagnosis — feed the data in, get a determination of malady and a life expectancy out.  Expanded, this could have made a nice article.  As is…

Three stars for being harmless.

The Expendables, by Miriam Allen deFord

In this odd bird of a story, the first astronauts sent to Mars are senior citizens.  The logic is that the mission is so hazardous, with so remote a chance of returning, that it is kinder to send folks with fewer years remaining in their lives.

It doesn't make a great deal of sense, and the story is hampered by some clunky "as you know" dialogue.  On the other hand, I thought the characters were pretty well drawn, and I appreciated the non-standard protagonists (two men, two women, all over 68).

Three stars.

The Eight Billion, by Richard Wilson

Many have made the dire prediction that Earth is heading toward massive overpopulation.  Indeed, the tremendous-sounding number, "Eight Billion", may well be reached by the end of the century.  Now imagine that crowding was such that eight thousand thousand thousands were crammed just into the island of Manhattan!

Wilson's story is mostly humorous fluff supporting a twist ending, but I enjoyed it.

Three stars.

Becalmed in Hell, by Larry Niven

Niven continues to impress with his fourth tale, sequel to The Coldest Place, which appeared in IF.  In his hard as nails variation on McCaffrey's The Ship who Sang, Howie and Eric-the-cyborg-ship explore the boiling planet of Venus.  There, floating twenty miles above the molten surface, Eric develops a fault and is unable to blast back into orbit.  Is the problem mechanical or psychosomatic?

This is the first story set on post-Mariner 2 Venus, and what a delight it is to see what is probably a much more accurate representation of the Planet of Love.  I do balk at the notion that it would be pitch black under Venus' clouds — it's not under an equivalent pressure of ocean, after all.  On the other hand, perhaps they were exploring the night side.

In any event, it's a neat story (albeit one I might have expected to find in Analog).  Four stars.

Exclamation Point!, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor continues his streak of turning his frivolous meanderings through mathematics into readable but not particularly momentous articles.  In this latest, he expounds on the "Asimov series", a cute way he has developed to approximate the value of the special constant, e.

An enjoyable ride, I suppose.  Three stars.

A Murkle For Jesse, by Gary Jennings

Gary Jennings last appeared in print in this very magazine, some three years ago, with the story Myrrha.  It was nominated for the Hugo, though I didn't think it merited such acclaim.

In any event, I think I liked Murkle better.  It stars an eight-year-old boy, a section of the rural Northeast, a little lost girl, and a 400-year old Irish fairy who is most certainly not lost.

If Clifford Simak and R.A. Lafferty were put in a blender, this piece might pour out.  Three stars.

The Pterodactyl, by Philip José Farmer

The book concludes with a short poem about the wing-fingered flying reptiles of the Mesozoic.  A difficult read, it also seems to suggest that pterodactyls were the evolutionary precursors of birds.

The weakest piece of the issue; two stars.

Wrapping up

And there you have it: a pleasant, above-average issue, but with stories that seem slightly odd fits for F&SF.  I'm not really complaining, though. 

Unless, of course, it means the other mags suffer…

[Don't miss the next episode of The Journey Show, featuring singer-songwriter Harry Seldon.  He'll be playing a mix of Dylan, Simon, and some unique original compositions!]




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Science / Space Race

[June 8, 1965] A Walk in the Sun (the flight of Gemini 4)

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by Gideon Marcus

Coming of Age

The second age of American human spaceflight has begun.  Until this month, the US' steps into space have been tentative.  The longest Mercury flight lasted just one day, and at that, stretched its capabilities to the limit.  The first crewed Gemini, launched in March, completed just three orbits — the same duration as Glenn and Carpenter's Mercury flights.  In the last five years, the Soviets, on the other hand, hit the day-long mark in 1961 with Titov's Vostok 2 mission, and since then have launched two dual Vostok flights, a three-man Voskhod mission, and in March, conducted the first walk in space during the two-man Voskhod 2.  The current "winner" of the Space Race was evident.

But on June 3, 1965, Gemini 4 launched into orbit, and everything is different now.

Dress Rehearsal for Moon Trips

Gemini is America's first real spacecraft.  Unlike Mercury, which could do little more than spin on its axis and carry a human in space for 24 hours, Gemini has the ability to maneuver.  It can rendezvous with other craft in orbit, change orbits to a degree, can stay in space for up to two weeks, and it seats two.  Because of this last, an astronaut can be deployed for extravehicular activity.  All of these capabilities are vital prerequisites for any Moon-bound craft, and the lessons learned in operating Gemini are directly applicable to Apollo, the three-seat spacecraft destined to reach Earth's celestial companion.

This fourth Gemini mission, the second to be crewed, was the first to really put the spacecraft through its paces.  And boy did it ever.  There's a reason the flight dominated the news before, during, and after the event.

Into the Wild Black Yonder

At around 8:00 PM Pacific Time (as all times shall be rendered; pardon my San Diego bias) on June 2, ground crews began fueling the repurposed Titan II ICBM that would carry the Gemini 4 capsule.  Note that the ship did not and still does not have a name.  This is a first, and I think it a rather sad state of affairs.

At 1:10 AM the following morning, Majors James McDivitt and Ed White, command pilot and co-pilot respectively, were awoken; whereupon they feasted on the "low residue" breakfast that has become traditional: steak and eggs.

By 5:20 AM, they were suited up and installed in their craft, take-off scheduled for 7 AM.  But the red rocket erector would not come down, and for more than an hour, the astronauts waited.  Would the flight be scrubbed?

Luckily, a reset of the structure freed things up, and at 7:40 AM, the Titan was clear, ready for launch.  And launch it did at 8:16 AM, guided for the first time from the brand new Mission Control in Houston, Texas.  The complex had been staffed for the previous two Gemini missions, but this was the first time control was formally transferred from Cape Com in Florida.

Once in orbit, the Gemini astronauts wasted no time.  By the time the spacecraft had twice circled the Earth, astronaut White was already planning his jaunt into history.  As Gemini 4 whizzed over North America, the co-pilot opened his hatch and stepped out into the vacuum of space.  For a good twenty minutes, as the blue of the Earth slowly unfolded beneath him, Ed White was the first American human satellite. 

Only a tether and a rather Buck Rogers-looking nitrogen gun for maneuvering kept him in the proximity of his mothership.  And like a recalcitrant child, White did not want to come back inside when called.  "This is the saddest moment of my life," he lamented.  But return he did, and safely.

Much to the relief of the astronauts' wives, coincidentally both named Patricia.

Anticlimax

What do you do to top that?  Well, while the rest of the flight might not have matched the drama of the main event, the remaining four days of the mission nevertheless were important, too.  Not just for what was accomplished, but for what failed to be mastered.

For instance, Gemini 4 was supposed to get some rendezvous practice in, using the spent second-stage of the Titan as a target.  Try as he might, McDivitt could not accomplish the task.  Future pilots will be aided by radar; orbital mechanics are tricky!

Also, on the second and third days of the mission, McDivitt reported spotting and snapping shots of two satellites, one of which was just 10 miles away and had "big arms sticking out of it."  However, the developed pictures do not show these mysterious craft.

On the other hand, the Gemini crew did take amazing photos of the Earth, offering a sneak preview of the kind of gorgeous albums we can expect once human presence in space is firmly established.  I will let the following sequence speak for itself.

Actually, I'll make a note on the following: the darkened area is rain that had recently fallen on Texas.  This kind of Earth monitoring from orbit will be invaluable to science and business.

Trouble at the End

Gemini 4 was the first American (and possibly human, period) spacecraft to carry an onboard computer.  This device was designed to provide a smooth and automatic landing.  But on June 6, the day before landing, the computer became balky after receiving a software update, eventually quitting entirely. 

A manual, Mercury-style reentry had to be done, which was begun around 9:45 AM on June 7.  McDivitt was about a second late on the start of the procedure, and Gemini 4 ended up about 50 miles off target.

But the recovery fleet was already on hand when the parachute of McDivitt and White's capsule appeared in the noon-day blue, and within an hour of splash down, the astronauts and their ship were already onboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp. 

The doomsday predictions that long-term exposure to orbital radiation and weightlessness proved largely unfounded.  The two astronauts were a little tired and wobbly, but on their own two feet, they marched below decks for a well-deserved shower.

Double is Something

In just a single flight, Gemini 4 more than doubled the accumulated American hours in space, quadrupled if you count them in human-hours.  Gemini has demonstrated that the U.S. can deploy free men into space for extended periods of time, both inside and outside a capsule.  And given the current flight schedule, with at least two, possibly three longer flights planned just for this year, there's no question that the American stride in the space race is lengthening.

Will the tortoise take the lead?  Or is a bunny in the shape of Voskhod 3 about to upset the contest once again?  Only time will tell.

Did you miss our stellar show on Gemini 4 and the Space Race? Tune into this rerun of The Journey Show!




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Science / Space Race

[May 30, 1965] Ticket to Ride (May space round-up)

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by Gideon Marcus

It's been another exciting month in the realm of spaceflight.  We're between crewed missions, what with Voskhod 2 and Gemini 3 having flown in March and the next Gemini due in a few days.  Nevertheless, it has been a field day for robotic spacecraft, with a number of civilian and military packages booking passage aboard a plethora of satellites.  Take a look:

The Shape of Things that Came

Yuri Gagarin soared into history in April 1961, becoming the first human space traveler.  His face became known worldwide. His spacecraft, on the other hand, remained shrouded in mystery. For four years, the shape of the Vostok capsule remained a secret, with only a few dubious artists' conceptions offering any clues to its configuration.

That changed suddenly last month when the Soviets displayed the complete Vostok spacecraft at an exhibition in Moscow.  Now we know that the fanciful cylinders and bullet-shaped craft were completely off the mark — Vostok was spherical.

This is significant.  A sphere is a simple shape, mathematically, and it is not hard to weight a ball such that one end always points down.  In the Vostok, that point is where its heat shield was mounted.  A similar concept was employed with America's Mercury capsule, but the back end of the Mercury is only a small arc of a circle.  That's because American rockets were too weak to loft a full sphere.  Vostok is clearly a much heavier spacecraft than Mercury, and this suggests that the Soviet Vostok rocket was much more powerful than the Atlas and certainly the Redstone that lofted the first astronauts.

The unveiling of Vostok affords us a look into a completely different space program, too.  Earlier in the year, American intelligence determined that the Vostok had been turned into a spy satellite.  Instead of cosmonauts, the new Vostok carries a camera.  After a week snapping pictures in orbit, the capsule parachutes to Earth, and the film is developed.  It's an elegant repurposing, though it has to be more expensive than the American analog, Discoverer.

While the Soviets do not announce their spy missions, it's not too hard to figure out which of their Kosmos "science satellites" are probably spy Vostoks.  Their orbits, sweeping them over Western targets of interest, and their short lifespans on the order of a week give them away.  In just the last two months, it's likely that Kosmoses 64, 65, and 66 were all spy satellites.  In a few days, we'll know if Kosmos 67, launched on May 25, is also a space shutterbug.

Softly, softly

Another probe about which the Soviets are being less than forthcoming is Luna 5.  Launched on May 9, the ton-and-a-half spacecraft was headed for the Moon.  Reportedly, it conducted a mid-course maneuver on May 10, directing it toward the Sea of Clouds — which it hit at 10:10 PM, Moscow time.  Per TASS, "During the flight and the approach of the station to the moon a great deal of information was obtained which is necessary for the further elaboration of a system for soft landing on the moon’s surface."

That might lead one to the conclusion that Luna 5 was the Soviet version of Ranger, a TV probe designed to take pictures until it crashed.  However, Western observers using telescopes saw the plume of dust that one would expect accompanying an attempt at a soft landing.  That such a landing did not occur suggests that Luna 5 was supposed to be an equivalent of our Surveyor, set to launch next year, and that things did not go as planned.  The lunar race thus remains neck and neck.

Exploring, Communicating

The last month saw two more entries into the Explorer series: Explorer 27, launched April 29, is a windmill-shaped little satellite that will measure irregularities in the Earth's shape; a secondary mission is probing the ionosphere.

Meanwhile, Explorer 28 was launched on May 28, and is the latest in the Interplanetary Monitoring Probe series, along with Explorers 18 and 21.  All three craft have high, eccentric orbits that allow them to thoroughly map Earth's magnetic field, though Explorer 18 went kaput earlier this month.

As we saw with last month's flight of Intelsat 1, space-based communications are now a fact of everyday life.  The USSR has now gotten in on the act, following up the flight of Early Bird with their own first satellite called Molniya, launched April 22, 1965.  It has a high, 12-hour orbit, not quite geosynchronous, designed to service the high latitude residents of the Soviet Union during the daytime.  European nations have already requested use of the Molniyas; they feel that the "international" Intelsat corporation too strongly favors the United States.


Finally, the Air Force's second "Lincoln Experimental Satellite," launched May 6, has been a success.  This next-generation communications satellite tests new technologies that will allow it to service hundreds of users at a time.  Its predecessor, LES-1 launched February 11, failed to fire its onboard engine that would kick it from its initial low orbit.  LES-2 had no such problems, and its orbit takes it more than 9000 miles above the surface of the Earth.

Of course, being a military satellite (as opposed to Telstar, Relay, and Syncom), it is possible that we civilians won't see immediate benefits, but I suspect they will trickle down in good time.

Another step Moonward

May 25 marked the ninth successful launch of the Saturn rocket, possibly the biggest rocket on Earth.  At its tip were boilerplates of the Apollo Command and Service Modules.  But these mock spacecraft weren't the stars of the show: inside the cylindrical Service Module was a giant satellite, the second Pegasus.  Appropriately adorned with a pair of enormous wings, Pegasus will stay in orbit for years measuring how many micrometeoroids our astronauts are likely to encounter on their way to the Moon.

The reliability of the Saturn is truly remarkable.  Remember the early days of the Space Race?  Chances were 50/50 then that any given rocket, Atlas, Juno, or Vanguard, would blow up on the launch pad, tilt off course, or otherwise fail.  We're now in an age of maturing space travel.  If Gemini's Titan rocket continues to do as well as the Saturn, I do believe that, by the 1970s, everyday citizens like you and me will be able to get tickets to ride into space. 

This week's Journey Show is a special Space Race episode!  Don't miss it!




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Magazine

[May 28, 1965] Heavyweight's Burden (June 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

How the Mighty have Fallen

Since 1953, Sonny Liston has been a big name in boxing.  Liston's spectacular career, marred by a prison hitch and rumored connections with organized crime, reached its pinnacle when he defeated Floyd Patterson in 1962 to become the world heavyweight champ.

He kept the title for two years, losing it in an upset to newcomer Cassius Clay.  In last week's rematch, Clay, now named Muhammad Ali, beat Liston even more handily.  Ali looks like he'll be keeping his title for a long time.

John W. Campbell Jr.'s Astounding was the heavyweight champion of science fiction magazines in the late 1930s, standing head and shoulders above its pulp competition.  It retained this title all through the Golden Age of SF, which lasted through the 1940s.

For the last fifteen years, Astounding (now called Analog) has maintained the highest circulation numbers, by far, of the science fiction digests.  It survived the mass extinctions of the late 1950s.  Campbell is still at the tiller.

But there are signs that the old champion could become easy pickings for a scrappy newcomer.  A recent flirtation with the "slick" format and dimensions was a dismal failure. The contents of the once-proud magazine have been staid for a long time.  Then, of course, there's Campbell's personal weirdness, his obsession with fringe sciences, his odious opinions on race relations.

That's not to say Analog is an unworthy magazine, but it's got its problems.  Exhibit A of Analog's vulnerability: the latest issue.

Handicapping the Reigning Champion


Did Campbell forget his is a science fiction magazine?

If I were a gambling house, I'd want to give my champion a thorough vetting, analyzing all of its strengths and weaknesses, and coming up with odds of victory accordingly.  Let's imagine the June 1965 issue as a kind of exhibition bout and see how it does.

The Muddle of the Woad, by Randall Garrett


by John Schoenherr

The bell rings, and our champion is looking good.  Randall Garrett is back with his third Lord Darcy story, a magical mystery series set in an alternate 20th Century in which England and France are united, Poland is the big adversary, and sorcery exists alongside technology.  The Lord Detective, along with his tubby Irish spell-casting sidekick, Sean, solve the murders of the Empire's most prestigious citizens.

In the deliciously pun-titled case, Lord Camberton of Kent is found dead in a coffin intended for someone else, his body dyed blue with woad.  Suspicion immediately falls on the Albion Society, a group of druids who reject Christianity.  But is this a red herring?  As with any good mystery, the cast of suspects is limited, and the ending involves the classic summoning of all to a room for a final deduction of the culprit.

Good stuff, as always.  A fine story and a rich universe.  Four stars.

Glimpses of the Moon, by Wallace West


by John Schoenherr

Oh, but now the champion is faltering.  Wallace West, who wrote the rather delightful River of Time offers up a clunker of a tale.  It is the late 1960s, and a three-way race to the Moon between American, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain has ended in something of a tie.  While the representative of the U.S.A. clearly landed first, the Soviets claim that the Moon is the property of whichever country whose skies it happens to be in at any given time.  Thus, ownership cycles with every day.  In the end, it turns out that a fourth power has a much earlier claim on the body.

It's all very silly, but not in a particularly fun way.  Two stars.

Hydrogen Fusion Reactor, by Edward C. Walterscheid

Last month, there was an article on magnetohydrodynamics — the use of magnetic bottles to contain thermonuclear reactions.  This month, the science fact article is exclusively on nuclear fusion.  Indeed, so proud is Campbell of this piece that he gave it the cover.

I was eager to learn about the state of development of this promising power source. Sadly, Walterscheid has not yet learned how to subdivide his points. Or write interesting prose. The result is an impenetrable wall.

Hmmm.  Perhaps the article could be repurposed to line the walls of tomorrow's fusion reactor…

Two stars.  Folks, the champion is staggering!

The GM Effect, by Frank Herbert


by Robert Swanson

Oh boy. Dune author Frank Herbert is back, and with another talking head story.  Unlike his last one, which involved a congressional hearing on a widely distributed superweapon, The GM Effect is about a drug that allows takes to experience former lives.  When it is discovered that this reveals all sorts of unsavory and forgotten tidbits of history (including that a Southern senator is one-quarter black), the drug's developers decide to cancel production.  Then the military comes in, shoots the drug creators, and appropriates their creation.

Not only is the story rather pointless, it's distasteful.  Herbert seems to be gleeful that Lincoln was personally no great lover of black Americans, and when the murdering general describes the erstwhile scientists as "N*gg*r lovers," I get less the sense that the utterer is supposed to be the bad guy and more that the author was delighted to be able to squeeze the word into a story.

One star…and our champion is down, folks!  He's down!

Duel to the Death, by Christopher Anvil


by John Schoenherr

Nearly 30 years ago, Analog's editor wrote Who Goes There.  One of the genre's seminal stories, it details the infiltration of an Antarctic base by a body-snatching alien, one that spreads via touch.  The result is that one cannot tell friend from foe anymore.  It's a chilling premise that has since been used to great effect, for instance by Robert Heinlein in The Puppet Masters..

Duel is a fairly straight entry in the genre.  A spacer on a new planet has his suit punctured by some sort of dart, and he quickly succumbs to alien control.  The purloined body becomes Ground Zero of an alien invasion that quickly takes over a nearby space fleet.  Thus ensues a race against time: can the Terran Navy defeat this scourge before it absorbs the whole of humanity?

Most of this story is quite good, with some very interesting story-telling, often from the point of view of inanimate objects: the space suit of the first victim, the ship's sensors of the investigating fleet, the communications devices employed by the humans.

But, to distinguish Duel from its predecessors, the author ends the piece with a twist that doesn't quite work.  I understand it, I think, but I don't quite buy it.

Three stars — good enough to bring our champion back to his feet, but flawed enough that he leaves the ring dazed.

Summing Up

Running our champion's performance through the Star-O-Vac, we come up with a rating of just 2.5.  That's pretty bad.  In a head-to-head against the other magazines of this month (and there was a bumper crop), how would Analog have fared?

Not well, it turns out.  Partly, it's because the competition was quite strong: Fantasy and Science Fiction ended up on top with an impressive 3.5 rating.  Worlds of Tomorrow garnered 3.2 stars and Galaxy got 3.1.  Both Amazing and New Worlds got three stars, while Fantastic and Science Fantasy finished at a sub-par 2.8.

Only If ranked lower than Analog, meriting just 2.2 stars (sorry David!)

So, a disappointing performance by Campbell's mag augurs poorly for it. Will there be a Muhammad Ali of science fiction publications?

(P.S. Women wrote six of the 55 fiction pieces this month; none appeared in Analog — connection?)




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 18, 1965] Rubber Ball (or Skip the End) (June 1965 Fantasy & Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Bouncin' Back to You

Cast your memories back to the distant past — about four years. Remember when Bobby Vee exploded on the scene with his first hit, Rubber Ball.

It's a song about a fellow who should know better than to stick with an untrue love but, like a rubber ball, keeps coming back to her anyhow.  The tune came to my mind more than once as I read this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction, a magazine that has plumbed depths often enough to tempt me to cancel my subscription, but on occasion (like this one) produces such an excellent issue that I remember the good times of the 1950s, and love is rekindled.

Is it the doing of new editor Joe Ferman?  Statistical variation?  Either way, it was a pleasure to read.  Come join me and see why:

Bounce my heart around


by James Roth

Admiralty, by Poul Anderson

We begin with an ending of sorts, the conclusion to the exploits of Gunnar Heim, late of the Federation Navy, now a privateer savaging the Aleriona patch of stars known as The Phoenix.  His goal, to prosecute an undeclared war to liberate the conquered human world of New Europe before its inhabitants run out of Vitamin C, is about to come to fruition.  But how can one ship achieve victory against a starfaring empire?  More personally, will an old flame of Heim's be waiting for him planetside when all is said and done?

Admiralty is Anderson near the top of his form, which, like a sine wave, has definite positive and negative amplitudes.  What makes the piece frustrating is its incompleteness.  This novella and the other two that have recently appeared in F&SF are about to be compiled into a book called The Star Fox, and I strongly suspect that there will be expansions above and beyond what has appeared in the magazines.  Indeed, some of the most exciting episodes in Admiralty, like the capture of the Aleriona prize, Meroeth, are dispatched in a paragraph or two of exposition.  What remains is something of a Readers Digest abridged version — entertaining but dissatisfying.

Also, I wish Anderson wouldn't assume that we all speak French; there are paragraphs and paragraphs of the stuff that go largely untranslated.  I'm going to start sending him letters in Japanese…

Anyway, four stars, for this and the whole sequence, and I suspect the book will be even better.  Certainly Hugo material.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, by Fredric Brown and Carl Onspaugh

Dooley Hanks, a clarinetist of modest talent but tremendous desire, scours the world looking (listening?) for The Sound.  When he finds it, in an obscure town in Germany, the temptation to claim it for his own becomes overpowering…and hazardous.

A powerful story, evocative and beautifully told, it's the kind of reworked fable Robert F. Young wishes he could write.

Five stars.


by Gahan Wilson — better than his previous ones

Books, by Judith Merril

Normally, I don't give inches to the book column, but Ms. Merril is cutting and insightful in a way I can only hope to approximate. Don't miss her take on the latest SF to cross her desk (many of which have been covered by the Journey).

Rake, by Ron Goulart

Ben Jolson, shape-changing agent of the Chameleon Corps, is back for another adventure.  This time, in the guise of a student, he's investigating the development of a super-weapon by an academic ensconced at a public college.

This tale is far more obviously slapstick than his previous one, which I had quite liked.  Rake is just too silly, too random to be very good, and there's no reason for such a short piece to begin in medias res followed by a flashback to How It All Began.

Two stars.

Phoenix (the Science Springboard), by Theodore L. Thomas

Normally, Thomas' non-fiction vignettes, more story seed than article, aren't worth the two pages they're printed on.  This time, I quite liked his postulation that at the center of every gas giant lies a terrestrial core.  I don't know if it's accurate; I don't know how we could verify the accuracy, but it is an exciting idea that the planets of the solar system all started out as roughly similar planetoids that grew atmospheres as time went on.  Only the inner ones lost theirs because it was too warm so close to the Sun.

Of course, it's easy to make models that fit the one set of data we have.

Four stars, anyway.

The Ancient Last, by Herb Lehrman

The first of two reader-submitted stories fulfilling the call for tales involving Univac and Unicorns.  This is the more poetic of the pair.  Interestingly, its poignant ending is somewhat marred by two additional paragraphs; because the offending superfluity occurs on a following page, I didn't originally see them, and I thought the ending was stronger than it ended up being.

Funny enough, I was recently rejected by F&SF, whose editor suggested I trim out my terminal line to give the ending more punch.  I did.  We'll see how it does.

Stand-In, by Greg Benford

Another first from a fellow San Diego native.  This Univac/Unicorn story is more swinging and fun, but not particularly consequential.

I give three stars to both.  I'm glad the authors got their breaks and I hope this sets them on their way to stardom.

Story of a Curse, by Doris Pitkin Buck

Earth spacers are forever restless in search of change, intolerant of stagnation.  But when Earth, itself, has changed, the astronauts see the folly of their wanderlust.

Long on emotion, short on coherence, Story is more prose-poem than science fiction.  I liked it well enough, though.  Three stars.

Nabonidus, by L. Sprague de Camp

Archaeologist meets a ghostly colleague of ancient vintage.  This poem has a strange meter, but again, it's appealing.  Three stars.

Future? Tense!, by Isaac Asimov

In a surprise disappointment, the science column is probably my least favorite piece of the issue.  The Good Doctor begins by relating how on-the-spot he feels when asked to predict the future, then says he'll do it anyway, and then doesn't really do it at all.

At a recent bookstore interview, I was asked if a science fiction story's value is based on its predictive accuracy.  I felt that the answer I gave ("No — its value is in how well it entertains; science fiction can't predict the future; it can only extrapolate current trends.") was better and more succinct than the one Dr. A offers.

Two stars.

Of Time and the Yan, by Roger Zelazny

The Last Man of Earth meets the Last Man of Mars; unfortunately, time is not on the side of humanity.

Zelazny increasingly makes his stories more affectedly "literate."  It may get his stories sold, but it's getting tedious.  Two stars.  (Your hue and cry tells me I'm a too-harsh boor.  I do not disagree.)

Jabez O'Brien and Davy Jones' Locker, by Robert Arthur

Lastly, here is the tale of a young New England fisherman who seeks to win fame, fortune, wisdom and happiness through the capture of a mermaid.  Instead, he winds up…well, best not to spoil this gem of a story.

It's an absolutely charming work, the best I've seen from Mr. Arthur, and made all the better for my imagining it being narrated by Fractured Fairy Tale's Edward Everett Horton (now you'll have his voice in your head, too!)

Five stars.

My heartstrings, they just snap

In the end, even this issue bounces around like a rubber ball, but the pages of quality far outnumber the momentary lapses.  The June 1965 issue of F&SF is a stand-out…and my love is rekindled.

Don't break my heart, Joe!

Don't forget to register for our show on May 23 at 1PM DT!  We really want to see you there and hear your questions.





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Science Fiction/Fantasy

The 1965 Hugo ballot is out!

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by Gideon Marcus

This year's Worldcon will be in London this year, and they've already released the names of the nominees for the 1965 Hugo Award (for the best science fiction of 1964):

Since the Journey has covered virtually everything on the list, we've created a little crib sheet so you can vote in an educated fashion.

Also, we'll be talking about this ballot on May 23rd at 1PM PDT on a special broadcast of KGJ Channel 9 — so please tune in and join us in the discussion!

Best Novel:

Davy — It made Honorable Mention last year (I've only read the two novelettes that comprise the bulk of the story).  Cora's reviewed it.

The Planet Buyer — Really just a slightly expanded version of The Boy Who Bought Old Earth, which really shouldn't be judged alone, finished as it is by The Store of Heart's Desire.  Anyway, it got the Star, and I reviewed both.

The Wanderer — It, pointedly, did not get a Star.  Jason reviewed it.

The Whole Man — It got honorable mention.  Victoria Silverwolf reviewed it.

Best short story:

Little Dog Gone — VS reviewed it.  She gave it 4 stars, and I think that's fair.  It's fine, but no one nominated it for a Star.

Once a Cop — I reviewed it and I did nominate this one for the Star.

Soldier, Ask Not — I reviewed it.  It got nominated for the Star (not by me, but enough others did, and it was good enough not to merit argument).

Best Pro Magazine:

Your mileage may vary! However, we did meticulously rank them when we awarded the Stars last year.

Best Fanzine:

Double Bill A quarterly of news, articles, fanzine reviews, some poetry (genzine), and some big names slumming.  Two years old.

Yandro A venerable monthly that has been nommed for the Hugo a zillion times.  Another genzine.

Zenith A new genzine, probably a monthly (I haven't read this one)

[I should probably read all of the genzines more regularly, but my — 'zine plate is full with the news 'zines: Science Fiction Times, Ratatosk, and Fecal Pint…er Focal Point.]

Best Artist:

Ed Emshwiller

Frank Frazetta — he's pretty much escaped my ken this year, but here's a recent book cover:

Jack Gaughan

John Schoenherr

Best Publisher:

Ace Plenty of good stuff there including Delany's Towers of Toron, a lot of Andre Norton, and Purdom's excellent I Want the Stars.

Ballantine They did Davy, Martian Time Slip, but also The Wanderer and The Reefs of Space (in itself not bad, but the sequel was awful).  Also, lots of Burroughs reprints.

Gollancz Not quite so busy as the first two, and no titles that got the Star, but some decent ones in there.

Pyramid The weakest of them, to my mind, and the one (aside from Ace) I read the most from last year.

Best Dramatic Presentation:

Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, reviewed by Vicki Lucas, nominated for the Star.

Dr. Strangelove, reviewed by Rosemary Benton, awarded the Star.

Y'all Come

We want your opinion at our upcoming show, so please register — it's free, and it'll ensure you are promptly notified of our upcoming shows.

See you there!





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Science / Space Race

[May 10, 1965] A Language for the Masses (Talking to a Machine, Part Three)

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This is part three of our series on programming in the modern computer age.  Last time, we discussed the rise of user-oriented languages.  We now report on the latest of them and why it's so exciting.


by Gideon Marcus

Revolution in Mathematics

The year was 1793, and the new Republic of France was keen to carry its revolution to the standardization of weights and measures.  The Bureau du cadastre (surveying) had been tasked to construct the most accurate tables of logarithms ever produced, based on the recently developed, more convenient decimal division of the angles.  Baron Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony was given the job of computing the natural logarithm of all integers from 1 to 200,000 — to more than 14 places of accuracy!

Recognizing that there were not enough mathematicians in all of France to complete this project in a reasonable amount of time, he turned to another revolutionary concept: the assembly line.  Borrowing inspiration from the innovation as described in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he divided the task into three tiers.  At the top level were the 5-6 of the most brilliant math wizards, including Adrien-Marie Legendre.  They selected the best formulas for computation of logarithms.  These formulas were then passed on to eight numerical analysts expert in calculus, who developed procedures for computation as well as error-check computations.  In today's parlance, those top mathematicians would be called "systems analysts" and the second tier folks would be "programmers."

Of course, back then, there were no digital machines to program.  Instead, de Prony assembled nearly a hundred (and perhaps more) human "computers." These men were not mathematicians; indeed, the only operations they had to conduct were addition and subtraction!  Thanks to this distributed labor system, the work was completed in just two years.

The Coming Revolution

These days, thanks to companies like IBM, Rand, and CDC, digital computers have become commonplace — more than 10,000 are currently in use!  While these machines have replaced de Prony's human calculators, they have created their own manpower shortage.  With computation so cheap and quick, and application of these computations so legion, the bottleneck is now in programmers.  What good does it do to have a hundred thousand computers in the world (a number being casually bandied about for near future years like 1972) if they sit idle with no one to feed them code?

As I showed in the first article of this series, communication between human and the first computers required rarefied skills and training.  For this reason, the first English-like programming languages were invented; they make coding more accessible and easier to learn. 

But developing programs in FORTRAN or COBOL or ALGOL is still challenging.  Each of these languages is specialized for their particular function: FORTRAN, ALGOL, and LISP are for mathematical formulas, COBOL for business and record keeping.  Moreover, all of these "higher-level" programming languages require an assembly program, a program that turns the relatively readable stuff produced by the programmer into the 1s and 0s a computer can understand.  It's an extra bit of work every time, and every code error that stalls the compiler is a wasted chunk of precious computer time.

By the early 1960s, there were folks working on both of these problems — the solution combined answers to both.

BASICally

In 1963 Dartmouth Professor John Kemeny got a grant from the National Science Foundation to implement a time-sharing system on a GE-225 computer.  Time-sharing, if you recall from Ida Moya's article last year, allows multiple users to access a computer at the same time, the machine running multiple processes simultaneously.


Photo Credit: Dartmouth College

Kemeny and his team, including Professor Thomas Kurtz and several undergrads, succeeded in completing the time-share project.  Moreover, in the interest of making computing available to everyone, they also developed a brand-new programming language. 

Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC, was the first language written specifically for novices.  In many ways, it feels similar to FORTRAN.  Here's an example of the "add two numbers" program I showed you last time:

5 PRINT "ADD TWO NUMBERS"
6 PRINT
10 READ A, B
20 LET C=A+B
30 PRINT "THE ANSWER IS", C
50 PRINT "ANOTHER? (1 FOR YES, 2 FOR NO)"
60 READ D
70 IF D = 1 THEN 6
80 IF D = 2 THEN 90
90 PRINT
100 PRINT "THANKS FOR ADDING!"
9999 END

Pretty easy to read, isn't it?

You might notice is that there's no initial declaration of variables.  You can code blithely along, and if you discover you need another variable (as I did at line 60), just go ahead and use one!  This can lead to sloppy structure, but again, the priority is ease of use without too many formal constraints. 

Indeed, there's really not much to the language — the documentation for BASIC comprises 23 pages, including sample programs.

So let me tell you the real earth-shaking thing about BASIC: the compiler is built in. 

On the Fly

Let's imagine that you are a student at Stuffy University.  Before time-sharing, if you wanted to run a program on the computer, you'd have to write the thing on paper, then punch it into cards using an off-line cardpunch, then humbly submit the cards to one of the gnomes tending the Big Machine.  He would load the FORTRAN (or whatever language) compiler into the Machine's memory.  Then he'd run your cards through the Machine's reader.  Assuming the compiler didn't choke, you might get a print-out of the program's results later that day or the next.

Now imagine that, through time-sharing, you have a terminal (a typewriter with a TV screen or printer) directly attached to the Machine.  That's a revolution in and of itself because it means you can type your code directly into a computer file.  Then you can type the commands to run the compiler program on your code, turning it into something the Machine can understand (provided the compiler doesn't choke on your bad code).

But what if, instead of that two-step process, you could enter code into a real-time compiler, one that can interpret as you code?  Then you could test individual statements, blocks of code, whole programs, without ever leaving the coding environment.  That's the revolution of BASIC.  The computer is always poised and ready to RUN the program without your having to save the code into a separate file and run a compiler on it. 


Kemeny watches his daughter, Jennifer, program — not having to bother with a compiler is particularly nice when you haven't got a screen!  Photo Credit: Dartmouth College

Moreover, you don't need to worry about arcane commands telling the program where to display output or where to find input (those numbers after every READ and WRITE command in FORTRAN.  It's all been preconfigured into the program language environment.

To be sure, making the computer keep all of these details in mind results in slower performance, but given the increased speed of machines these days and the relatively undemanding nature of BASIC programs, this is not too important. 

For the People

The goal of BASIC is to change the paradigm of computing.  If Kemeny has his way, programming will no longer be the exclusive province of the lab-coated corporate elites nor the young kooks at MIT who put together SPACEWARS!, the first computer game.  The folks at Dartmouth are trying to socialize computing, to introduce programming to people in all walks of life in anticipation of the day that there are 100,000 (or a million or a billion) computers available for use.

Vive la révolution!


Photo Credit: Dartmouth College

If you've read it this far, do me a favor and GOTO here — it's important!




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Book, Magazine

[May 8, 1965] Skip to the end (June 1965 Galaxy)

5 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Impatience

Normally, I'd open up with a discussion at length of the news of the day.  Like how the United States is still knee-deep in the Dominican Republic, losing soldiers to snipers every day despite the ceasefire between the current military-civilian junta government and the supporters of ousted President Bosch.

Or that Collie Wilkins Jr. was acquitted by a 10-2 hung jury in a trial for the murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, shot in her car after the Selma rallies.  Wilkins' defense attorney's statements included language so profane and racist that I cannot transcribe them here.

Or that the comedy/news show, That was the Week that Was, had its final show on May 4th.

And then, having given my report, I'd tie it pithily to the subject at hand, namely the June 1965 Galaxy science fiction digest.  But the fact is, there's lots to cover and I'm anxious to get it all down while it's still fresh in my mind.  So, you'll just have to pretend that I was clever and comprehensive in my introduction.  On to the important stuff:

Bob Sheckley and friends


by George Schelling

As is happening more and more often, the king-sized bi-monthly, Galaxy, is dominated by a short novel this month.  This time, it's by a fellow who probably was the best SF short story writer of the 1950s.  Bob Sheckley has turned to novels of late with something less than (to my mind) great success. The Journey of Joenes, The Status Civilization, Time Killer — none of them were triumphs, though some disagree.  Will this time be different?

Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley

Young Marvin Flynn is bored to death of living in the bucolic New York town of Stanhope, desperate enough to risk "mindswap."  And so, Marvin exchanges minds with the Martian, Aigeler Thrus.  Unfortunately, Thrus' body was currently occupied by the unscrupulous Ze Kraggash, who had taken residency to elude the police after a crime.  Thrus is entitled to his body; Kraggash has Flynn's.  This leaves Flynn six hours to find a body, any body, or be extinguished forever.


by George Schelling

An increasingly frantic Flynn ends up bopping across the galaxy, first as a collector of sentient ganzer-eggs on Melde, somewhere near Aldeberan; then on to Celsus for a stint as a professional victim wearing a ticking time bomb gift; and ultimately to a reality-bending place called The Twisted World.

It's complete fluff, vaguely satirical and fun-pointing, but for the most part, pointless.  I went along with it, mildly amused for about 60 pages, before my tolerance ran out and I skimmed the rest.  Unlike Harrison's brilliant and cutting Starsloggers, Mindswap is just self-indulgent…and far too long. 

Two stars.

Servant Problem, by Otis Kidwell Burger

On the dreary, sandstorm-plagued planet of Dexter, there's little for the married couples to do but drink and kvetch about their house-servants, a race of off-putting aliens that only look like middle-aged spinsters.  After an endless seven pages of this stuff, we learn that the servants are actually the masters, and the humans are being evaluated for their level of social development.  Turns out they're in the emotional equivalent of kindergarten.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.  Two stars.

Blue Fire, by Robert Silverberg

Nat Weiner, visitor from newly terraformed Mars, the "Sparta of space," arrives on Earth to sample the luxuries of an overcrowded, decadent world.  Assigned to escort him is Reynolds Kirby, a "major bureacrat who gets paid like a minor one."  Together, they attend a spiritual gathering of the devotees of Vorster, a pseudo-scientific cult that preaches the unity of humanity and worships at the altar of the cobalt reactor. 

Vorsterism is just one of many avenues of relief against the physical and mental crush of living amongst 10 billions; hallucinogens are also popular, and the upperclassmen, like Kirby, favor the sensory deprivation "Nothing Chambers".  Cosmetic replacement of external features with metal and plastic substitutes is popular. 


by Jack Gaughan

As the tour of the once-proud homeworld progresses, Weiner becomes increasingly belligerent, resolved to steal a Vorster nuke and put it to "worthwhile use" as an energy-generating reactor on Mars.  Through Kirby's interactions with Weiner, and with the Vanna, a Vorsterian with a face modifed to inhuman grotesqueness, Kirby comes to see his own life as a hollow shell of an existence and reconsiders all of his carefully created precepts.

Blue Fire is a day-in-the-life of a fellow on the edge of a midlife crisis in a tired world.  With deft writing and vivid imagery, Silverberg accomplishes in 25 pages what usually takes Philip K. Dick a full novel.

Five stars.

Think of a Man, by Karen Anderson

Poetess Anderson offers up a latter-day space shanty.  It might make a decent filk, but it will likely leave no great impression on you.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Observatory on the Moon, by Willy Ley

Observatory on the Moon, by Donald H. Menzel

An Eye For Selene, by R. S. Richardson

The idea that astronomy is better conducted on the Moon than Earth is an old one.  Not only is Earth's celestial neighbor airless, but its slow rotation makes it much easier to do long film exposures.

This should be a fascinating topic; instead, this is probably the least interesting article Ley's ever written.  A truly disappointing development for a column that was a major selling point when I first began my subscription to Galaxy 15 years ago. 

The short counterpoint following the main article is equally undistinguished.  Richardson's comments, on the other hand, are interesting. 

Barely three stars for the lot.

Devil Car, by Roger Zelazny

Sam Murdock speeds across the Great Central Plain of a post-apocalyptic United States in his sentient car, name of Jenny.  His monomaniacal mission: to destroy the black Devil Car and his minions, who have been savaging the continent.  Though Murdock's conviction never wavers, Jenny is torn between her programmed loyalty to her driver, and to the Devil Car's sirensong call to join his pack.

Plausible?  Not for a second.  Slick and enjoyable?  Absolutely.  Four stars, and I'll bet this gets optioned for a movie or episode of a Twilight Zone revival.

One Face, by Larry Niven


by Nodel

Last up is the third short story from this promising new writer, which may or may not take place in the same universe as his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs.  The passenger liner, Hogan's Goat, has an accident in hyperspace on the way to Earth.  It ends up at the right place but billions of years in the future.  The Sun is a burned out husk, and humanity's home is an airless world with one face permanently locked toward its star.  With no way home and nowhere to go, Verd Spacercaptain, his crew and passengers, and their increasingly debilitated computer Brain must find a way to survive.

I'm not entirely sold on the science of this piece, but Niven has a way of creating a very rich world in just a few pages.  It's also obvious that Niven is a new writer: his cohort has no problem with presenting women as equal partners and in roughly equal numbers to men; moreover, he displays no preference in terms of skin tone or ethnicity.

Four stars.

Satisfaction

How to judge the latest Galaxy?  It contains a full issue's worth of slag, but then again, it contains almost a full issue's worth of gold.  Perhaps it needs to be a regular length bi-monthly?

Especially since editor Pohl is crowing about how next month's novel will be even longer, and by Frank Herbert.

God help us all…

Our last three Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




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