Tag Archives: Goblin Reservation

[May 10, 1968] Horse race (June 1968 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

Three and Two make Two

I imagine Vegas bookies are tearing their hair out trying to predict the Presidential race this year.  On January 1, the hard money would have been on President Johnson beating Governor George Romney in a fairly easy race.  Then McCarthy and Nixon won in New Hampshire.  The former sent LBJ announcing his resignation and the latter gave the former Vice-President the first victory of his own since 1950.

Then Bobby Kennedy jumped in, trying to steal McCarthy's lunch.  Inevitably, Vice President Humphrey threw his hat in the ring, instantly commanding the loyalty of most democratic party bosses.  Meanwhile, Romney's dropped out, but Nelson Rockefeller, who said he wasn't going to play this year, has jumped in.

So, who will face each other come Labor Day?  It's anyone's guess, especially since both McCarthy and Kennedy just won recent primaries.  I guess we'll have to see if the New York Governor's campaign has legs, and if Humphrey's position translates to delegates at the convention.

Stay tuned…

Nine to Rule Them All

It's similarly a horse race with the latest issue of Galaxy, which presents a solid batch of stories.  Which one is the best?  That's a hard choice, too!


by Paul E. Wenzel

But first, the editorial.  Remember a few months ago F&SF ran competing ads from SF authors for and against the war in Vietnam?

Well, now Pohl's mags are doing it.

Pohl (Galaxy's editor) says it's not just enough to bitch about it.  Someone needs to come up with a solution.  He figures SF fans are about the smartest people around, so why don't we try our hand at it?

So now there's a contest, first prize $1,000, details at the bottom of this article.  Of course, given that you can't devote more than 100 words to the issue, and given that the war has been going on since 1945, in one way or another, and given that a lot of smart people have been trying to fix this thing…I somehow feel 100 words is not enough.

Or as my friend the divorce lawyer likes to say: "Imagine trying to fix a car.  Now try to imagine fixing that car while another party is actively trying to dismantle it."

Yeah.  Lots of luck, Pohl.

On to the stories!

The Beast That Shouted Love, by Harlan Ellison


by Jack Gaughan

Ever wonder why all people seem to go psycho all of sudden?  Why a race with countless religious texts devoted to peace, harmony, and brotherhood just goes buggy every so often?

What if some other planet, in order to preserve their peace, harmony, and brotherhood, is beaming all their psycho energy to us?  Sort of a bad emotions disposal process.

This is one of Ellison's lesser pieces.  It probably means a lot to him, but it's rather disjointed and vague and not as profound as he wants it to be.

Three stars.

How We Banned the Bombs, by Mack Reynolds


by Vaughn Bodé

Right now, the world population is 3.5 billion and rising.  Naturally, this has been the cause of concern and the topic of more than a few science fiction stories.  Bombs is one of the lesser efforts.

Reynolds posits a Reunited Nations government so powerful that, in response to the Population Explosion, it can enforce a ten-year ban on childbirth through mandatory provision of contraceptives to women.  At the end of the ban, it turns out that the contraceptive drug's effect was permanent, and all human women are completely sterile.

This, by the way, is the end of the story.  The rest of it involves characters talking to each other, telling tales they all know about how the world ended up in this predicament (which doesn't make for much of a story).

The whole premise is silly.  The population in this projected, not-too-distant future is 3.5 billion, same as it is now, yet resources are so scarce, they're banning the production of alcohol so as to husband their grain crops.  Somehow, the ReUN can sterilize EVERY woman on Earth, none slipping through the cracks.  And then, no one foresees or predetermines that the universal contraception has adverse effects.

In the words of Laugh-In's Joanne Worley: "Dummmmmb!"

One star.

Detour to Space, by Robin Scott Wilson


(uncredited artist)

Object 3574 is circling the Earth in a polar orbit.  Unannounced, the General is convinced it's a secret Russkie bomb.  NASA's long-hair thinks otherwise.  The majority decides to send up an Apollo to check it out.  The object is covered in green slime and pebbled with tektites, suggesting extraterrestrial origin…

There's a lot to like about this tale, especially the sting at the end of it.  Scott convincingly describes the apprehension with which we Americans greet the arrival of a new star in the heavens.  I know I scour the papers and call my Vandenberg buddies whenever anything goes up to get some insight into otherwise classified launches.

Where the story beggars credibility is the use of Apollo spacecraft, launched from Vandenberg, to intercept 3574.  You just can't do it–there's no way to get a Saturn there.  Much more likely would be to send up an Air Force Gemini (they're making them for the planned Manned Orbiting Laboratory).  But that would have killed the story.

This is what happens when you know too much about a subject, reviewing a story by someone who doesn't quite know enough… three stars.

Daisies Yet Ungrown, by Ross Rocklynne


Joe Wehrle, Jr.

After the big bombs created the time-space Rift, God told Rickert to jump through with Sears catalog robots and claim a new world 350,000 trillion light years from Earth.  But this is so far away that God's grace cannot reach, and Lucifer's tool, the newcomer Dorothy, has arrived to take his planet away from him.

This is an odd, poetic story that you, at first, think is going to be satirical, sort of a cross between Sheckley and Bunch.  Instead, it's kind of pretty and sweet, way different than I was expecting.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Jules Verne, Busy Lizzy and Hitler, by Willy Ley

This is a pretty interesting piece on attempts using a gun rather than a rocket to fire a projectile, if not into space, at least a terrific distance.  Essentially, it's like a rocket, but with the propellant on the outside.

Long story short: rockets are better.  Four stars.

Waiting Place, by Harry Harrison


(uncredited artist)

A man taking the matter transmitter home finds himself in the future version of Devil's Island, a colony for hardened criminals.  Surely, there has been some kind of malfunction, for he can remember no crime.  But the wheels of justice never make a mistake, or do they?

This would be a fairly slight tale if not for the execution.  Luckily, Harrison (who I understand has just retired from the editor helm of Fantastic and Amazing) is a master of execution.

Four stars.

The Garden of Ease, by Damon Knight


by Jack Gaughan

As expected, the first adventure of Thorinn, a human raised by trolls in a Nordic nightmare, has a sequel.  Last time, the resourceful Thorinn had been tossed into a deep well as an offering to the gods to end a ceaseless winter.  Making his way through the caves he found, Thorinn discovered a hatch that opened not onto but above a new world.  This story details what he finds below.

In an almost Oz-like setting, the people of the Vale enjoy a life of complete ease.  The grasshopper men and the doughwomen and the fancymen and the children, they eat the food that grows on trees and bushes, they frolic, they discuss, and when they want adventure, they seal themselves up in the pleasure pods for the night…or sometimes an eternity.

Thorinn is the snake in the garden, slowly poisoning the place with his foreignness and his willingness to kill.  Ultimately, he hatches an escape plan, but not before leaving his mark.

This is an interesting episode, but not as compelling or as clever as the first one.  Three stars.

Booth 13, by John Lutz

Here's a new author, or at least, new to me.  John paints a grim future in which populational ennui has settled in.  All that's left is war, the tranquilizer lysogene, and the death booths.  If life gets just a bit too monotonous, there's always a quick and easy exit–and now, people are taking it in ever-increasing numbers.

It's not badly done, but my biggest issue is not enough explanation is given as to why everyone is so melancholy.  Perhaps that's the point–if you give everyone an easy out, even the mildest inconveniences can trigger a snap decision.  Or maybe the author is simply extrapolating from the current, profound American despondency.

At the very least, I liked it better than Sales of a Deathman.

Three stars.

Goblin Reservation (Part 2 of 2), by Clifford D. Simak


by Gray Morrow

Last time, if you recall, Pete Maxwell has gone off to do research at the crystal planet, a world with the accumulated knowledge of two universes (it had lived through the last Big Crunch).  The fading intelligences of the planet offered all of its wisdom in exchange for The Artifact, a featureless black object dating back to the Jurassic period.  When Maxwell got back to Earth, he found that he'd already come back, duplicated by some quirk of matter transfer, and died.

This datum takes a back seat to bigger concerns–the Wheelers, bags of insect colonies bent on acquiring the lore of the crystal planet, have already purchased The Artifact, and once it is in their possession, plan to take over the universe.  It is up to Maxwell, his tentative ally Carol, her sabre-tooth tiger Sylvester, their Neanderthal pal Alley Oop, the Ghost, William Shakespeare, the librarian who sold The Artifact, the goblin O' Toole, and several bridge-dwelling trolls to somehow stop the transaction before it's too late.

I must say, Simak pulls off a large set of emotional tones very well.  You feel the sense of impending dread when it seems the Wheelers have clinched the deal.  The comedic scenes are genuinely amusing.  Yet, there is a grounding to the story that keeps it from being Laumerian or Anvilian lampoon.  The revelations of the true nature of the fairies, little people, banshees, and whatnot are pretty good, too, though a bit abrupt.  Perhaps they'll have more time to breathe in the novel version.

The only bit I had trouble with was The Wheelers, for whom I felt sympathy once I learned their motivation.  There's an undertone of unconscious racism where they're concerned–they're bad because they're icky, different.  When you learn what their status had been vis-à-vis the crystal planet, it all becomes a bit more unsettling.

Nevertheless, pleasant reading by a master.  Four stars.

Picking a Winner

Well.  It's obvious which story was the loser here (let's just call the Reynolds tale 'Harold Stassen').  But as to a winner, well that's a little harder.  Several of the three-stars are quite nice; my four-star to the Harrison may be arbitrary.  We can exclude the Simak because it's a serial, but it anchors this and the last issue well.

I suppose in an issue where (all but one of) the stories are good, the real winner is…us.

Happy reading!  And don't forget to write to Pohl…






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[March 6, 1968] Trend-setter (April 1968 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

Back in the saddle again

It's been a long time since the halcyon days of the early '50s, when Galaxy was setting the standard to beat, ushering in the Silver Age of Science Fiction (along with the more avante garde F&SF).  But now that editor Fred Pohl has collapsed his empire to just two mags, it seems he can afford to be more picky.  Indeed, IF is unusually good this month, and the April 1968 issue of Galaxy is by far the best I've read in a long time, and a strong contender for best magazine of March.


by Gray Morrow

Brave new worlds

Goblin Reservation (Part 1 of 2), by Clifford D. Simak

Simak is back with a odd brew of a story, perhaps in the same universe as Here Gather the Stars, as reference is made to a Wisconsin transit station.  Eschewing (for the most part) his usual pastoral motif, instead we get the first installment of the book-length adventure of Peter Maxwell, professor at the Time University in North America.  At least he was.  It seems that, while on the way to do fieldwork on the planet of Coonskin, Maxwell was duplicated.  One of him went on to his intended task.  The other ended up on a crystalline, roofed-over planet.  This world is some 50 billion years old, its inhabitants little more than ghosts, and they possess the knowledge of two universes since they lived through the last cosmological crunch and survived the most recent "Big Bang".

This latter Maxwell is the one we follow, since the other one died in a traffic accident upon arriving home.  Now, Maxwell is officially dead, out of work, and at loose ends.  Add to that there seems to be conspiracies, both human and alien, to get the secrets of the crystal planet from him, and things get very hot indeed.

That would be a twisty enough tale in and of itself.  Throw in the existence of fairies and ghosts (they've been around all along, but now they're acknowledged creatures who live on reservations) as well as working time travel (one of the main characters is Alley Oop, a brilliant Neanderthal), and things are complicated to the extreme!


by Gray Morrow

And yet, somehow Simak makes it all work.  It's an unusually humorous story, though the Morrow illustrations are perhaps too comic, and I tore through the half novel in short order.

I am looking forward to seeing where this all goes.  Four stars.

The Riches of Embarrassment, by H. L. Gold

Why does Miss McGiveney always seem to happen upon her neighbors at the most embarrassing moments?  It may just be her superpower.

This slight tale in particular feels like vintage Galaxy, perhaps because it's written by the magazine's first editor.  I hope Fred Pohl edited the story savagely…what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Three stars.

Brain Drain, by Joseph P. Martino


by Dan Adkins

Tom Harrison, a field agent of Intelligence Imports Incorporated, is in Thailand searching for a particular kind of student, and he thinks he has his target in high school graduate Manob Suravit.  It turns out that Triple-I is on the hunt for brilliant PhD candidates, and apparently there aren't enough in America (and/or perhaps there is value in recruiting from beyond our shores).

At first, I thought it would turn out Harrison was looking for folks with psi powers–I was glad to find the object of his search was more mundane.  Most of the story is excellent, redolent with such authentic color that I have to think Martino has spent time in Thailand.

The problem is the ending, where Harrison convinces the local schoolmaster to be happy about the loss of promising students.  Not so much the reasoning, but the near-polemic way the reasoning is delivered.  What could be a thoughtful piece, with shades of gray woven in (as the story appeared to promise earlier on) becomes something more suited for Analog.  Along the lines of "Hey, sure we take your smart kids, but you weren't using them, and you've still got plenty."

A missed opportunity.  Three stars.

Sword Game, by H. H. Hollis

A bored middle-aged topologist and a grubby would-be Gypsy team up with their tessaract-based circus show.  Said mathematician shoves his partner into a cylinder of fuzzy time and space and stabs her vividly, but harmlessly, with a sword while the audience marvels.

But said topologist bores of this, too, and the result is truly macabre (though ultimately happy).

Three stars, but I could see someone going to four.

For Your Information: The Devil's Apples, by Willy Ley

Willy Ley offers up a short, but interesting piece on potatoes.  Not much to say, really.  Three stars.

Touch of the Moon, by Ross Rocklynne


by Dan Adkins

What an odd piece this is, about a romance broken when one of the partners goes to the moon.  Gravity has an irrevocable effect not only on the body, but also the psyche.  But happily, loosing one's ties to Earth is ultimately good for the species if it ever wants to claim the stars.

This could have been a good story, but it's written far too amateurishly and with too implausible a premise.  The former is surprising given that Rocklynne dates back to the Golden Age.  On the other hand, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since I began reading SF regularly (1954), so perhaps he's out of practice.

Two stars.

The Deceivers, by Larry Niven


by Jack Gaughan

Our old pal Lucas Garner is back, this time with a shaggy dog story about the first fully automated restaurant that opened in 2025.

Niven has a real knack for creating whole worlds with a few strokes.  He also joins multiple time periods with ease: Lucas Garner was born in 1939, so he is our contemporary.  He lives in the 2100s, and he reminisces about the 2000s.  Thus, his stories have touches of the futuristic as well as the familiar.

Four stars.

Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

I don't often comment on Algis Budrys' column, but this time, he has some important things to say…and a friend named Brian Collins (who has his own commendable 'zine) did an excellent job of summing it up while adding his own observations:

Algis Budrys dedicates the whole review column to Dangerous Visions, giving us a review I'd say is about 1,500 to 2,000 words long. Budrys has shown us before that he's one of the more "literate" people in the field, but he has a unique challenge with Dangerous Visions, a book he both highly recommends but is highly mixed on as far as its content goes.

He argues pretty well as to why this is a major work in the field and why you should get yourself a copy, despite a lot of the stories therein not holding up to scrutiny. It helps that he and I mostly agree on what works and what doesn't (I'm admittedly one of the few people who liked the Farmer), and it pleases me in a morbid way to find that I'm not the only one who was incredibly disappointed by the Sturgeon. But Budrys notes that while the bloated pseudo-lecture from Sturgeon is a failure, and far under Sturgeon's caliber, it works as a sort of counter-piece to the Emshwiller, which, as Budrys says, feels more like a classic Sturgeon story than the Sturgeon we got. Taken together, these two contribute immensely to a narrative that Harlan Ellison is trying to put forth with the book.

Will Dangerous Visions kick off a new movement in SF? No. We had already seen stuff published in F&SF and New Worlds that would have made fine contributions to Dangerous Visions. This book does not present a brave new world like Ellison claims, but rather as Budrys argues it serves as an essential reminder that change is inevitable and that the field has been changing and will continue to change. No doubt 50 years from now Dangerous Visions will be remembered for the best stories between its covers, but also as a historical artifact—a portrait of a genre in the midst of change, and change is often violent and unpretty.

The World and Thorinn, by Damon Knight


by Jack Gaughan

Finally, Damon Knight begins what looks like the first part of serial in all but name.  Thorinn is a human raised by trolls in a primitive, Scandinavianesque, not-quite-fantasy world.  When calamity befalls his family, they throw him down a well to appease the god Snorri.  Thus begins the first of Thorinn's subterranean adventures.

The first few pages are a bit slow, particularly when scenes are repeated from two different viewpoints (I really dislike that style), but the rest makes for an excellent puzzle story, written in a fine, almost Vancean style.

Four stars, and the anticipated book may rate higher.

The Other Show

Between the Simak and the Knight (both fantasy-tinged pieces), we have a couple of open promises.  We also have something of a new style: there's a lot more sex in this issue than I've seen recently in Galaxy.  Is Pohl taking a page from F&SF's book?  Or has the New Wave simply caught up to the Guinn publishing enterprise?

Either way, I like it.  More, please!



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