Tag Archives: Gordon R. Dickson

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 12, 1969] A New Venture (May 1969 Venture)

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by David Levinson

History lesson

Way back in 1956, Joseph Ferman was the owner of Mercury Publishing, which produced several magazines, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He believed there was a place in the crowded SF market for a new magazine. The genre was changing; space opera was out, problem stories and stories with a narrower focus were in. The closure of Planet Stories the previous year meant no one was running SF with a hint of adventure and excitement. Joe decided to fill that gap, and a new magazine was born.

The first issue of Venture Science Fiction was dated January 1957 (which means it hit the stands in November or December of 1956). The editor was Robert P. Mills, who was the managing editor over at F&SF under Tony Boucher, with Boucher listed as the advisory editor. The cover by Ed Emshwiller went to a Poul Anderson Psychotechnic League story, Virgin Planet, later expanded to a novel of the same name. Other stories included a science fiction mystery by Isaac Asimov (The Dust of Death) and a controversial Ted Sturgeon tale (The Girl Had Guts), which allegedly made some readers physically ill.

The issue also had a note from the publisher, explaining what he hoped the magazine would be. Every story would have to be well told, and every story had to have “pace, power, and excitement.” But those things also wouldn’t take the place of character and sense.

Venture came out regularly every other month for 10 issues, but it never stood out in a crowded market. There were plenty of big-name authors, and you might recognize a story or two, but none were big stories that will be remembered as classics. This is where Asimov’s science essays ran before moving to F&SF. The magazine may be best remembered as the place that Sturgeon’s Law was first proposed in full: “Ninety percent of everything is crud,” along with its two corollaries.

The first and last covers for the first run of Venture. Art in both by Ed Emshwiller

What happened? It’s hard to say, but it has been suggested some of the content was too much for the times. There was more gore and sex than was considered acceptable, but which would fit right in today. As a result, new readers may have been put off, and old readers may have decided to go elsewhere. The chaos in the magazine market following the collapse of American News Distribution, which held a near monopoly on magazine distribution, in mid-1957 can’t have helped matters. In any case, the final issue was dated July 1958.

“Wait,” I hear our British and Australian readers say, “wasn’t there a magazine by that name in the early ’60s?” There was! The British version of Venture ran from September 1963 to December 1965. It carried reprints from the American edition of F&SF, even though that magazine also had a British version. The Australian edition was identical, just dated two months later, folding in February 1966.

Another try at the brass ring

The Fermans père et fils have decided to give Venture another try. Maybe they should have told someone. Galaxy Publishing has launched a few new magazines in the last few years, and they always made a big deal of it in their other mags several months in advance. Beyond a very small notice in last month’s F&SF, I haven’t heard a thing about it. Seems like a questionable marketing strategy.

Ed Ferman will be editing Venture as well as F&SF, but since it’s going to be quarterly, it shouldn’t be too much extra work. Along with stories, there’s a book review column by Ron Goulart. A particularly biting review column; Ron doesn’t seem to like much. Presumably, this will be a regular feature.

Another apparent recurring feature (it is, at least, listed as a “department” along with the book reviews) is the return of Ferdinand Feghoot. Feghoots, for the uninitiated, are very short – usually around half a page – stories ending in a pun. They ran in F&SF for a time, up until a few years ago, and the Traveler generally left them out of his reviews. Since puns may be the most subjective form of humor and it will be nearly impossible to cover them without giving away the joke, I will maintain this policy. Should they disappear, I will mention it. At the very least, they tend to be considerably better than the atrocious Benedict Breadfruit stories that appeared in Amazing several years ago.

Let’s take a look at this maiden issue.

This singularly unattractive cover is by Bert Tanner.

Before we get to the stories, we need to talk about this cover. At first glance, I thought this was a coffin and a bat, so I assumed it was a horror mag and moved on. It was only when I went back a second time that I realized it was what I was looking for. Cover art should grab the eye and make you want to pick it up. That’s especially true for a new magazine that’s had essentially no advertising. This does none of that. I do like the logo, though.

Hour of the Horde, by Gordon R. Dickson

One day, the sun turns red, and a spaceship the size of Rhode Island appears in orbit around the Earth. Two apparently human beings appear, claiming to be from the center of the galaxy. They bear warning of the approach of a threat which will wipe the galaxy almost clean of life. Earth will be allowed to provide one person to aid in the defense against the threat. The person they choose is graduate art student Miles Vander.

Vander is searching for the creative equivalent of “hysterical strength,” the sort of thing that allows a small woman to lift a car to rescue her trapped child. He is changed by the aliens so that he can draw on the rest of humanity for a poorly explained resource and perhaps pass it on to the Center Aliens. What he finds when he reaches the Battle Line is less than encouraging.

I have no idea what’s going on here, but it’s almost the only art in the issue. Art by Bert Tanner

If I’d been handed this without a byline, I’d have said it was by Dickson once I got to the military stuff, so if you’re familiar with his work, you should have some idea what you’ll think of this. Much as in the recent Wolfling, the story goes on too long after the climax in order for Dickson to wax philosophic for a while. Otherwise, it was pretty good.

According to my sources, this “complete novel” has actually been condensed. It hasn’t suffered too much from the Reader’s Digest treatment. A few things might make a bit more sense, but they’re not really necessary to enjoy the story.

Three stars.

July 24, 1970, by K.M. O’Donnell

It’s no secret that K.M. O’Donnell is Barry Malzberg, who was briefly the editor of Amazing and Fantastic. This story was probably inspired by his time there. It’s in the form of a letter from an editor to a writer, gently trying to dissuade the author from submitting the story without rejecting it outright. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, which the story actually calls attention to, and doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s told pretty well.

Three stars.

The New Science, by Don Thompson

Four grad students attempt to use the university computer to tease out the valid aspects of witchcraft, in the same way that alchemy led to chemistry. There are unintended consequences. Like the previous story, there’s nothing new here, but it’s told reasonably well.

Three stars.

Troubling of a Star, by Bryce Walton

After searching 10,000 worlds without finding a trace of life, an expedition plans to go home. The captain is reluctant, but has little choice. With the rest of the crew already in suspended animation, he makes a discovery.

This story is far too long and is overwrought. I have no idea what the author wanted to say, and much of it doesn’t make sense.

Two stars.

The Topic for the Evening, by Daphne Castell

A married couple discuss local events and some of the women in town. The husband oversteps his bounds.

Yet another tale covering well-trod ground, but told well enough. I liked this better, though, when it was Gladys’s Gregory or Conjure Wife.

A low three stars.

Nine P.M., Pacific Daylight Time, by Ronald S. Bonn

Maybe the reason no time traveler has ever appeared is that no one has built a receiver. A “Mad Scientist” has now done so and invites a prominent science writer to be there when he powers it up. He may not have thought this through all the way.

Old ground again, but quite well told.

A high three stars.

Hold Your Fire!, by Larry Eisenberg

Eisenberg came up with brilliant and obnoxious chemist Emmett Duckworth back in 1967 and probably should have left him there. But with a story both here and in Galaxy this month, it looks like we’re in for more not very funny stories. In this one, Duckworth is annoyed by the sounds of a rifle competition on campus.

Two stars.

Summing up

Is there room for another SF magazine in the current market? Maybe, though the failure of Worlds of Tomorrow and the intermittent at best appearances of International Science Fiction and Worlds of Fantasy argue against it. If Venture is going to be successful in its second incarnation, it’s going to need a couple of things.

The first is promotion. An easily missed, three line announcement in F&SF isn’t going to cut it. The three magazines I mentioned in the previous paragraph were all heavily promoted in IF and Galaxy in both editorials and half-page ads for several months before they hit the newsstands. Another aspect of promotion is an eye-catching cover. The art on this issue is terrible. As I said, I was looking for this magazine and almost missed it. F&SF doesn’t have interior illustrations, but the covers are usually quite good.

The other important aspect is standing out. Especially for a quarterly, you need people talking about your magazine. Running a (condensed) novel might work if it’s really good. Hour of the Horde is decent, but it’s not going to generate word of mouth. A really outstanding story (or a really controversial one) would also work. The retreads in this issue, no matter how well-told, don’t cut the mustard.

We’ll see how things look this summer when the next issue is due.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[March 1, 1969] Beyond this Horizon (March 1969 Analog and Mariner 6)

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photo of the face of a long haired man with glasses
by Gideon Marcus

On to Mars!

black and white photo of Mariner 6, a round probe with four rectangular solar panels jutting from it at right angles

Four years ago (has it been that long?) Mariner 4 became the first space probe to sail by Mars.  This event instantly destroyed a thousand dreams.  The 21 grainy, black and white pictures returned by the spacecraft's TV cameras showed a cratered, lunar-type surface.  The Martian atmosphere was found to be less than 1% as dense at the surface as that of Earth.  Gone was the romantic Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Leigh Brackett.

These findings should not have come as such a surprise—the abundance of craters and the thin atmosphere had already been suspected before Mariner 4 ever got there.  But the photographic evidence was the final nail in the coffin.  Mars is dead.

Or is it?

Mariner 4 was a rather limited spacecraft.  We only got 21 pictures, after all.  And while 7 millibars may not seem like much, that's a veritable atmospheric blanket compared to the Moon or Mercury.  We need more data.

This is why a second generation of spacecraft, Mariners 6 and 7, are being sent to Mars.  These are heavier spacecraft with more sophisticated equipment: infrared and ultraviolet radiometers (measuring Martian energy output in those wavelengths), a better TV camera, and the ability to reprogram the spacecraft in flight, as needed.

color photo of an Atlas Centaur rocket taking off from a red launch complex at night

Mariner 6 took off last week on the 24th, and Mariner 7 will blast off March 21st.  We've yet to have both members of a Mariner pair make it to its destination (Mariner 1 and Mariner 3 both had mishaps), but hope springs eternal.  Come this summer, perhaps around the same time a man sets foot on the Moon, we will unveil more mysteries of the fourth planet.

illustration of a blue-furred humanoid, stripped to the waist, looking at a viewscreen with crocodile-head humanoids waving primitive weapons furiously
by Kelly Freas

On to the stars!

Trap, by Christopher Anvil

line drawing of crocodile-headed alien holding a mouse trap clamped around the tale of a furry humanoid stripped to the waist
by Kelly Freas

I have a private joke that every Chris Anvil story for Analog begins (Mad Lib style):

[Military Rank] [WASPy male name] of [military organization] [verbed] down the [corridor/hall/base] lightly touching his [weapon] clipped to his [clippable article of clothing].

"Trap" did nothing but reinforce this cliché, and I hunkered down for a slog of a novella.

Instead, I got a reasonably interesting, technical tale about peaceably dealing with implacable aliens, who possess an unbeatable weapon.  In this case, the planet is a swampy wasteland, the aliens have the ability to teleport anywhere they've been before, and the humans and Centrans (in an alliance since the 1956 story, "Paradise Planet") must find a way to make peace before the aliens find a way to teleport onto every ship and planet in both empires.

It starts a bit slow, but I found myself compelled.  Certainly better than the fare Anvil usually offers us in Analog.  Three stars.

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, by R. E. Allen

How does Mannie supply all the movies and music producers with the top talent?  Why, by dowsing over each of the actor's/musician's headshots with a divining rod, of course!

Not much of a story.  Not much science fiction.  Two stars.

They're Trying to Tell Us Something (part 1 of 2), by Thomas R. McDonough

diagram of four pulsar graphs with amplitude of signal versus time

This month's science article is on those enigmatic, recently discovered interstellar radio beacons known as pulsars.  Beeping on the radio dial on the average of once a second (some are faster, some are slower), they are significant for their unwaveringly precise timing and for their enormous power output—some one billion times the power output of all of Earth's civilizations!

There is a lot of interesting information in this article, but what annoys me is that McDonough seems convinced that pulsars are the work of "Little Green Men" (LGM), and presents his article accordingly.  Nowhere in the piece is the general accepted wisdom that the regularity of the signals and the fact that they seem to carry no information (not to mention their tremendous power) indicates that pulsars are rapidly rotating stars, and likely rapidly rotating, collapsed dead stars called "neutron stars".

This isn't esoteric knowledge I gleaned from The Astrophysical Journal—it's from the Sunday Supplement of Escondido's rag of a paper, The Times-Advocate.  So, its exclusion from McDonough's piece must be conscious, and that makes his arguments suspect.  Perhaps he'll discuss neutron stars in the next piece, but they really should have been front and center.

Three stars.

Minitalent, by Tak Hallus

line drawing of a courtroom setting with an older judge with glasses, a steno clerk woman behind him, and a gallery of seal-like aliens, looking at a worksuited human with a gallery of humans behind him
by Leo Summers

Alice Culligan, third mate and computer officer on the space ship Iphigenia, witnessed a crime: gun runners had smuggled cruel "nervers" to a race of aborigines.  They were caught, but the company they're working for looks to get away scott free.  They will do anything to ensure that verdict—including silencing Miss Culligan forever.

But Alice has an ace up her sleeve: a minor talent for telekinetics.  And in a computerized world, sometimes a little push is all that's needed…

Similarly premised as Larry Niven's sublime "The Organleggers", this tale (Tak Hallus' first) is not as deftly told.  That said, it is pretty good, and I liked the heroine very much.  It's clearly in the vein of, say, James H. Schmitz, so if you like him, you'll like this.

By the way, Tak Hallus is simply Arabic for "pseudonym", so who knows?  Maybe it really is Schmitz!

Four stars.

From Fanaticism, or for Reward, by Harry Harrison

line drawing of a man with a beam rifle shooting at a robot that looks like a suit of armor
by Leo Summers

An assassin named Jagen performs a job and, with the help of a teleportation system, escapes The Great Despot's justice.  But is there any ultimate evasion the efficient robot machines of the Despot's police force?

The well-written piece is really a setup for the philosophical question posed at the end.  The answer is surprising for such a libertarian mag as editor Campbell's.

Five stars.

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

line drawing of two stylized men in tunics dueling with glowing rods, a woman crouched over a body in the background
by Kelly Freas

And now, the conclusion of Wolfling.  By Gordy Dickson.

Jim Weil, archaeologist and Ace of All Trades (the term "bannou" (万能) is even more appropriate), had infiltrated the High-Born empire he was sent to detachedly examine, becoming a general in its armies.  Having discovered a plot to destroy the imperial warrior race of Starkiens, Jim quickly returned to the throne world to thwart a plot on the Emperor, himself.  He is successful in defeating the pretender, the Emperor's cousin, but now he must return to Earth and face treason charges for possibly incurring the imperial wrath on humanity.

In a dramatic courtroom scene, Jim explains his actions, how they saved the Earth, and the true origin of humanity vis. a vis. the High-Born.  Did we come from them, or did they come from us?

The answer is rather disappointing, more along the lines of something I'd expect written in the pulp era than modern times.  In addition, all of the energy-saber dueling seemed unnecessary; when everyone can teleport at whim, how do you keep your foe in the same room long enough to dispatch him?  Or keep your foe from materializing behind you?

But most of all, I had expected a statement against eugenics, but instead got something of a defense of it.  If not for the skilled writing, I might rate it more poorly.

Three stars for the serial as a whole.

On to the numbers!

black and white photo of a plump Black woman leaning over an eighth-grade white girl seated at a computer, a eight-grade black boy behind her, mathematical equations on the blackboard behind them all

You know, it's been quite a month!  With Analog clocking in at 3.4 stars, it's near the top of the heap rather than taking its usual place in the middle.  Ahead of it were Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4) and IF (3.5).  The good news is, the spread was pretty narrow: Galaxy scored 3.3, New Worlds 3.2, New Writings 14 3.  Only Amazing scored below the three-line (2.7), and it was still better than usual.

In other vital statistics, women produced 11% of the new fictional content.  The superior stuff this month would fill three full-sized magazines.  Given that there were seven published this month, that's a good ratio.

Stay tuned for the end of next month when we find out how April's magazines do…and how Mariner 7 flies!




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 18, 1969] (February Galactoscope)

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Is ten books a record for the Galactoscope?  Lucky we have so many folks reading furiously for the Journey.  And it's a good thing, because amidst the dross and mediocrity, there's a couple of gems…


by Tonya R. Moore

Let the Fire Fall by Kate Wilhelm

Kate Wilhelm is perhaps better known for her debut short story, "The Mile-Long Spaceship" (1963) and Clone (1965), the Hugo Award nominated novel written in collaboration with Theodore L. Thomas. Perhaps you've read her work in Orbit, edited by her husband, Damon Knight.

The ominous title of this book, Let the Fire Fall, promises fire, brimstone, and a violent alien invasion—but the bad guys in this story aren't the extraterrestrials. The plot: A spaceship inhabited by pregnant alien women lands in small town America. The aliens are friendly, and clearly hope to be welcome on this new planet they’ve discovered. One vile and opportunistic man named Obie Cox– under normal circumstances, a small-town philanderer of no account, blessed with uncommon charisma–manages to worm his way to the pulpit. One there, he takes advantage of humanity’s rampant xenophobia and the ineffectuality of Earth’s bureaucracy through flat-out lies, hate, and fear mongering. What he wants is control and he achieves that by weaponizing humanity’s worst traits and using them to brainwash the populace and plunging the world into dystopian chaos.

At first, Wilhelm’s strangely familiar-feeling and deliberately matter-of-fact writing style, peppered with many clever twists of phrase, seems to capture the spirit of Ray Bradbury or an episode of the Twilight Zone. What we get, instead, is a riveting and decidedly tragic tale of First Contact gone awry in a world populated by an almost irredeemable cast of humans.

Wilhelm’s courage and ambitiousness in attempting to capture the vile side of human nature is admirable. Still, even a forward thinking and imaginative author such as herself cannot seem to escape the discriminatory views of our time. Let the Fire Fall perpetuates the sexist view that women must be submissive to men and even the women important to the plot are given no initiative to steer their own destinies. While Wilhelm is progressive enough to acknowledge the existence of homosexuals, the way she characterizes homosexuality as one of the “vices” permitted by the villainous Obie Cox’s vaunted religion suggests a personal disapproval of such individuals. (To be fair, what her characters feel, even the "good" ones, doesn't necessarily reflect Wilhelm's feelings on a subject.)

In any wise, Let the Fire Fall is an excellently written novel. The author’s insight and ability to imagine a dark future, all too possible, are incredible. I love this book but I hated reading it. The way it mirrors our current reality where opportunistic charlatans have risen to political power by preying on the gullibility of the American populace fills me with trepidation. Let the Fire Fall is an insidiously horrifying and damning condemnation of the human race. This book will make you squirm and fret about the world as we know it, and the future of our species. You will not feel comfortable reading this book. You should not.

4 out of 5 stars.


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier 1969 hardback cover from 1969
cover by Flavia Tower

Daphne du Maurier has been a favourite of mine for a long while. I read Rebecca in my teens and have slowly been building up a collection of her writings. However, she has only had one truly SFnal release to date, the marvellous collection The Apple Tree, most notable for containing the original short story of The Birds.

That was until this year, when she followed in the footsteps of fellow literary darlings Naomi Mitchison and Virginia Woolf and put out a book on a mainstay of science fiction, time travel.

Dick Young goes down to visit his old university friend Professor Magnus Lane in Cornwall. Dick agrees to be the test subject of the Professor’s new alchemical invention and finds himself transported back in time to the era of Edward III’s infancy. The story follows Dick and Magnus’ trips back and forth between the 14th and 20th centuries.

What Du Maurier always does well is give a real sense of atmosphere to her tales. As is usual in her books Cornwall takes on the mysterious atmosphere of Bronte’s Yorkshire and Doyle’s Dartmoor: a strange wild place where anything can happen. She also illustrates well the sense of dislocation Dick feels moving between the periods, making him feel like an outsider in both.

Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce cover from 1958.
Cover by Susan Einzig

And yet, I don’t feel like it did anything particularly new or interesting here. The children’s book Tom’s Midnight Garden explores similar themes better for me. Also, in spite of the period being underserved in historical narratives, I didn’t feel like I gained much more insight or understanding of it than I would have done from an encyclopedia summary.

This almost reads like one of those historical stories that had a touch of added SFnal content to get into the magazines. Of course, that is not the case here (DuMaurier could release her shopping list and it would be a best seller) and this is still a good read, but I did not feel like it is doing anything exceptional nor is it destined to be one of my favourites.

Three Stars

New Writings in S-F 14 ed. By John Carnell

Cover for hardback edition of New Writings in SF-14 ed. by John Carnell

As John Carnell has now edited as many editions of New Writings as Ian Flemming wrote James Bond novels, he is entitled to enjoy himself. As such, he says this volume is entirely composed of stories he personally loved, rather than mixing in some he knew were good but not to his taste. But how much do my feelings ally with his?

Blood Brother by James White
We start with the always reliable James White with another tale of Sector General.

Following on from Vertigo, a team is returning with Surreshun to “Meatball” to assess the species' medical needs and to locate the manufacturers of their responsive organic tools. Unfortunately, the native entities of the planet believe that Surreshun was kidnapped by the crew of the Descartes and are not keen to let this happen again.

This once again is a fascinating exercise from White, trying to imagine a wholly alien species from our understanding and the problems it could cause. The natives of “Meatball” have an inbuilt dislike of anything similar to themselves and have no central form of government but exist in a deep layer of animal life. How to communicate ideas like friendship to a species like that is a true challenge.

What White is always great at is giving us a sense of how diverse the species in the Galactic Federation are, whilst still making it seem like an everyday occurrence at the hospital. For example:

Despite the fact that one species was covered in thick silver fur and crawled like a giant caterpillar and the other resembled a six-legged elephant, they were fairly easy to deal with because they had the same atmosphere and gravity requirements as Conway. But he was also responsible for a small ward of Hudlars, beings with hide like flexible armour plate whose artificial gravity system was set at five Gs and whose atmosphere was a dense high-pressure fog – and the odd-ball TLTU classification entity hailing from he knew not where who breathed superheated steam. It took more than a few hours to tidy up such a collection of loose ends…

He continues to know what he does well and produces the most consistently strong series currently ongoing in Science Fiction.

Four Stars

If You're So Smart by Paul Corey

Ibby has a mental disability and suffers from regular seizures, so lives permanently at a mental hospital. He also helps out in the animal testing lab. However, he may be able to understand the animals better than the scientists.

A pedestrian tale, poorly told. Whilst I have heard that Corey is an American writer and journalist of some renown, I am only familiar with him from his awful appearance in New Worlds earlier in the decade. Apparently he has an SF novel out from Robert Hale but this isn’t inspiring me to pick it up.

A low Two Stars

The Ballad of Luna Lil by Sydney J. Bounds
Gerard The Rhymer wrote The Ballad of Luna Lil many centuries ago. This work analyses the historical accuracy of the tale to the real life of Captain Bartholomew “Black Bart” Sparrow, a space free trader, and Lily La Lune, singing star of the videos.

I am a great lover of analyses of fictional works and this one doesn’t disappoint. It turns what could be a standard pulpy adventure into an exploration of a fictional universe, containing fascinating ideas and raising questions about the power of art.

A high Four Stars

The Eternity Game by Vincent King
In a tale told from four perspectives (A, G, P & Z), two different species find themselves in the Place, attempting to survive in their collapsing galaxy.

We learn from the introduction that Vincent King is also a visual artist and Carnell describes this work as being like an abstract painting. I am not sure I agree with that, it is certainly not as obscure as some of the writings of Ballard, Burroughs, or Farmer. Rather, you have a puzzle that fits together by the end.

I don’t think it is quite as effective as his usual Medieval Futurism, but still a worthy piece.

Four Stars

Tilt Angle by R. W. Mackelworth
The Earth has entered a new Ice Age, and Tomas and Donna are sent on a mission from the City to find food stores. But is this parasitic existence right or sustainable?

Another one of these Frozen Earth tales that have been popping up a lot recently in the UK (we do like to moan about the weather). Whilst evocatively told, it feels abrupt and incomplete. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw further stories in this world.

Three Stars

The Song of Infinity by Domingo Santos
Once again we have a work in translation, this time from a Spanish author. He is apparently well known in his own country but I am not aware of any prior translations into English. This one was selected and translated by the late great Arthur Sellings.

We get the internal monologue of an astronaut who finds himself accidentally floating through space without any hope of rescue.

This is a well told and melancholic tale but one that nevertheless didn’t really affect me as much as I felt it was trying to.

Three Stars

Green Five Renegade by M. John Harrison
Astronaut of the Green 5, Chad Redeem, encounters alien life forms. Discovering them to be naïve and peaceful compared to the human race, he goes on the run rather than risk his knowledge of them becoming known to the authorities.

Oh dear, I am not sure what happened here. Even putting aside some weird printing errors, it is overwritten, cliché driven and full of creepy descriptions of women. I know Harrison can do a lot better so I am surprised to see this come from his pen.

One Star

So, the good ship New Writings continues steadily on its course. Some good works, some poorer, still generally very much in Carnell’s usual mode. Much the same crew manning the rigging with nary a woman in sight*. Whilst it may not always be the most exciting voyage, it shows little signs of leakage. Onward!

*I believe it has now been over 5 years since Carnell published a story by a woman, the last being Dial SCH 1828 by Gweneth Penn-Bull in December ‘63’s Science Fantasy.


by Gideon Marcus

Ace Double 72400

The High Hex, by Laurence M. Janifer and S. J. Treibich

Here is the sequel to Target: Terra that nobody asked for.  In this one, the African space station has begun broadcasting a menacing message, all chants and tribal drums, that seems to presage a heating up of the White/Black cold war.  The crew of Space Station 1 are recalled to duty and tasked with infiltrating the second station.  The plot is thickened with robots and destructive aliens, and the Africans aren't the bad guys after all.

If you enjoyed the gaggish and frivolous tone of the first book, you'll like this one.  Otherwise…you won't.

Two stars.

The Rim Gods, by A. Bertram Chandler

If you read and enjoyed the four stories of John Grimes, a space captain running the rim of galactic space, then this is an opportunity to get all of them in one convenient package.  In this fix-up, they are unchanged, with only short concluding scenes added to each piece to link them together.

They all appeared in IF, where David gave them three stars apiece.  I see no reason to change his assessment.


by Victoria Silverwolf

War And No Peace

Two new novels deal with armed conflict, international or domestic.  One takes place in the very recent past, but not the one with which we're familiar.  The other is set in the near future, one we'd like to avoid.  Let's start with something that didn't happen less than two years ago. 

If Israel Lost the War, by Richard Z. Chesnoff, Edward Klein, and Robert Littell


Uncredited cover art.

In the tradition of Bring the Jubilee (1953) by Ward Moore (the Confederacy wins the American Civil War) and The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick (the Axis wins the Second World War), this book reverses the result of a war. 

The title makes that obvious, of course.  We're talking about the so-called Six Day War (June 5 through 10, 1967), in which Israel triumphed over a coalition of Arab nations.

I know less about military stuff than almost anybody, so I won't try to analyze the war.  However, there seems to be general agreement that Israel's preemptive strike, devastating the Egyptian Air Force and giving Israel complete control over the skies, was a key factor in the victory.

What if Israel didn't attack first?  What if Arab forces destroyed most of Israel's air power instead?

That's the premise of the novel.  The result is overwhelming victory for the Arab nations, with Israel's territory soon being divided up among them.


The book's map, showing the progress of the imagined conflict.

The occupying forces initiate a reign of terror.  As in many wars, looting, rape, and murder follow the victory.  The big winner is Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who dominates his allies and intends to create a new, bigger United Arab Republic.

(The UAR was the name given to the union of Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961.  The United Arab Republic is still the official name of the nation better known as Egypt.)

As I said, I'm no expert on war, so I don't know how plausible this scenario might be.  It assumes closely coordinated action among the Arab states, which is questionable.  It also presumes that Arab aircraft would be able to bypass Israel's early warning defense system.  (There are even some lines in the book that indicate that this is unlikely.)

So how is the book as a work of fiction?  Well, given the fact that the three authors are journalists (all working for Newsweek), it's no surprise that it reads like nonfiction.  There are a few minor fictional characters, but all the major ones are real people.  We follow politicians and military leaders from Israel, the Arab nations, the USA, and the USSR. 

The work is obviously very pro-Israel.  (Richard Z. Chesnoff is married to an Israeli woman, and used to live on a kibbutz.) Whether one sees the book as reasoned justification for Israel's preemptive strike, or as anti-Arab propaganda, it is sure to stir up controversy.  Judged strictly on its literary merits, I'd have to say that it's readable enough.  The authors are definitely more interested in getting their message across than in creating a work of art.

Three stars.

The Jagged Orbit, by John Brunner

Let's turn from an imaginary past to a speculative future.


Cover art by Diane and Leo Dillion.

The race problem in the United States is much worse in the year 2014 than it was in our own time.  Some cities (Detroit, Washington, etc.) are under the control of kneeblanks, while others are still firmly dominated by blanks.

Oh, you're not familiar with those terms?  Maybe it'll help if I point out that blank is derived from the Afrikaans word blanc (white) and that kneeblank (often just knee) comes from nieblanc (not white.)

This is a sample of the book's futuristic terminology, which takes some time to get used to.  It's not as difficult as the slang in A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess, but it requires a little effort.

Anyway, ordinary citizens are forced to defend themselves with serious weapons, supplied by arms dealers.  The dominant supplier of deadly devices is a family-run corporation that resembles the Mafia.

That's the background.  What about the story?  Well, it's complicated.  There are a lot of important characters and a lot of plot threads.  Let me try to come up with a greatly oversimplified synopsis.

There's a psychiatric institute under the direction of a megalomaniac who treats his patients with extreme isolation from society.  One of the inmates is a kneeblank soldier who suffered a breakdown in war, but who now seems perfectly sane.  In fact, he's an electronics genius.

A woman who produces enigmatic prophecies while under the influence of drugs (as in ancient times, she's called a pythoness) performs at the institute.  A fellow who exposes scandals on television (the book calls him a spoolpigeon) records her act.  He also happens to be married to one of the patients.

Meanwhile, a kneeblank spoolpigeon gets kicked out of Detroit by the city's kneeblank mayor, at the instigation of a blank South African.  (The tragic situation of apartheid is still going strong in 2014.)

In addition to that, a kneeblank revolutionary who put kneeblanks in control of much of the United Kingdom is on his way to the United States.  Even though US officials are terrified of him, he easily gets through customs.

What does this all have to do with a secret project of the arms dealers?  Suffice to say that the kneeblank soldier I mentioned above isn't what he seems to be.

I've only given you a vague hint of what the novel is like.  In addition to the convoluted plot, there's the narrative style.  The first two chapters, for example, consist of a single word split into two parts.  Many of the chapter titles are very long and often satiric.  In the middle of the book, Brunner provides quotes from real newspaper articles about the American race problem.

The climax involves science fiction themes that are more speculative than those found earlier in the book.  These may strain the reader's suspension of disbelief.

This novel isn't as groundbreaking as the author's stunning masterwork Stand on Zanzibar, but it's pretty close in quality.

Four stars.


by David Levinson

A Familiar Refrain

In music, it’s common for artists to cover an old standard or just something someone else has already done. Usually, they have a different approach that may be about the same, worse, or better. Once in a while, they’ll take an old song and make entirely their own (Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra have a singular talent for this).

There’s a similar phenomenon in science fiction. Someone comes up with an interesting idea—time travel, alien invasion, what have you—and eventually almost everybody tries to see what they can do with the concept. Harry Harrison’s latest novel is just such a work. How well did he do?

Captive Universe, by Harry Harrison

Art by Paul Lehr

Two Aztec villages lie on either side of a river in a valley long isolated from the outside world. We soon learn that things are not as they seem. The serpent-headed goddess Coatlicue is a physical presence that stalks the river bank at night, and typical Aztec features include blonde hair and blue eyes.

Into this world is born Chimal, a young man with a penchant for asking uncomfortable questions. When he inadvertently causes the death of the high priest (and the sun fails to rise, because there is no one to say the necessary prayer), Chimal must flee the valley. The society he finds outside the valley is no less hidebound and no fonder of questions with uncomfortable answers.

Although I’ve talked around it for the benefit of those who would like to experience the surprise on their own, I suspect many of you have figured out what’s going on. Although Harrison adds one or two interesting flourishes, the novel follows the expected course to one of the standard endings. Indeed, the story follows such a predictable course, I found myself more interested in what happened centuries earlier to create the situation or what is going to happen a few decades after the end.

Is it worth your time? Maybe. Is it worth your money? Definitely not, especially not at hardback prices.

Three stars, but not recommended.


by Brian Collins

Spacepaw, by Gordon R. Dickson


Cover art by Leon Gregori.

Dickson has been busy as of late, with his serial Wolfling currently running in Analog, and with a new paperback original alongside it. Spacepaw is a less serious novel and seems to be aimed at a younger readership, which is fine by me. It takes place on Dilbia, the same planet featured in Dickson's 1961 novel Special Delivery. Like that earlier novel it features the Dilbians, a race of nine-foot-tall bear-like aliens who are not exactly hostile but who certainly have a curious way of going about things.

Bill Waltham is an agriculture scientist sent to Dilbia, supposedly to meet up with Lafe Greentree, his on-site superior, and Anita Lyme, a "trainee assistant" working under Greentree. The problem (actually two problems) is that Greentree is not here: he had sustained an injury whose severity the off-planet hospital is strangely vague about disclosing, and Anita has been taken captive by a pack of Dilbian outlaws. The only possible help Waltham can get are the mischievous Dilbian the Hill Bluffer (that's his name, the Hill Bluffer) and a Hemnoid named Mula-ay (italics not mine). The Hill Bluffer is not terribly useful and Mula-ay seems to be working for a third party—in Waltham's favor or not remains to be seen.

This novel is basically a comedy of manners. To rescue Lyme and convince the Dilbians to pick up agricultural skills (the race is a rural lot that lives off the fat o' the land), Waltham will have to adapt to Dilbian customs. The black-furred giants are a comical lot, with silly names like More Jam, Perfectly Delightful, and Grandpa Squeaky; they even give Waltham a Dilbian name, "Pick-and-Shovel," which the serious-minded human does not appreciate. The leader of the outlaws, Bone Breaker, is pretty affable despite his name and occupation. The stakes are kept somewhat low, even when Waltham is duped into accepting a duel to the death, which is fitting for a comedy, even if doesn't leave the reader with much to think about.

Dickson's brand of humor is unlikely to spark laughter, but it's effective at often invoking a smirk. Waltham himself is a bit of a wet blanket, but the comedy mostly stems from this straight-laced hero type being forced to deal with some deeply unserious aliens. Lyme is a bit of a shrew, but Dickson does write her as competent and independent-minded, even if I suspect he does not think very highly of her.

A solid three out of five stars, possibly four for young readers.

The Tormented, by Dorothy Daniels


Cover art by Jerome Podwil.

A good deal less enjoyable is a new Gothic horror novel I picked up, by an author I've never heard of before. Despite having been published this year, The Tormented reads like a fossilized dinosaur, but not one of the interesting ones. It's a pastiche of late-19th century supernatural horror. I'm sure Daniels likes Henry James and Arthur Conan Doyle, but unfortunately she is not remotely as good a wordsmith as James or even Doyle.

Sharon Aldrich lived on a New Orleans plantation called The Pillars until both her parents died, and it turns out all the money had dried up. After a stint or two abroad she returns to The Pillars as governess for a new family that's moved in, the Beaumonts. Craig Beaumont and his wife Emily are stuck in a loveless marriage while Emily's sister, Sarah, tags along as a third wheel. Cassie, Craig's daughter, is a reasonably well-adjusted child despite the fact that she had witnessed a horrific death in the family not long ago. And there seems to be a ghost problem on the plantation. The place is most certainly haunted (it takes all of about five minutes upon Sharon's arriving for a ghost to start whispering in her ear), and worse yet, Sharon must now deal with a dysfunctional upper-class family.

You would think that at only 160 pages this would be a densely packed narrative, but it's not. There's quite a bit of padding. Most of the wordage is dialogue, with characters often getting into arguments with each other and then almost immediately apologizing for causing a fuss. Emily and Sarah are major shrews, and Sharon is not much better. It soon becomes clear Sharon and Craig like each other but are hesitant to take action, what with the whole marriage thing. Even the ghost does not pose much of a threat. No wonder the Confederacy lost. The Tormented is probably a few thousand words longer than James's The Turn of the Screw, but feels shorter because it spins its wheels so often. Not much actually happens, and despite the New Orleans setting Daniels injects practically no atmosphere into her writing.

The most damning part is that this is 1969, not 1889. I kept thinking, "Why play such an old and tired genre straight? What point is Daniels trying to make by doing this?" After having read the whole thing, I still don't know.

Two out of five stars.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

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by Gideon Marcus

Mudslides

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

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

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

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

Ups and Downs

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

Analog cover featuring drawing of woman holding a baby swathed in christmas light glows data-recalc-dims=
by Kelly Freas

A Womanly Talent, by Anne McCaffrey


by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

Two stars.

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

Illustration for You'll Love the Past with a bunch of heads of the characters in the story
by Leo Summers

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

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

Three stars.

The Man Who Makes Planets, by G. Harry Stine

picture of Ken Fag holding a globe of Mars he has painted in front of a large globe of Saturn he painted. data-recalc-dims=
Photos by G. Harry Stine

A nifty piece by Analog's resident rocket enthusiast about a fellow who makes model planets for a living.  I'd get one for my house, but they're a bit pricey—a quarter of a hundred large!

Four stars.

Extortion, Inc., by Mack Reynolds

Illustration of a man in a suit holding a bottle of whiskey looking like he's being exploded toward the viewer
by Leo Summers

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

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

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

Three stars.

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

illustration of the main character teleporting into a space, wearing a beret and tartan, surprising two alien soldiers and their leader
by Kelly Freas

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

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

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

Four stars.

A Chair of Comparative Leisure, by Robin Scott

illustration of a suit-vested professor and little bubbles surrounding him illustrating seens from history
by Leo Summers

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

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

Calculating the damage

Japanese ad for a Hitachi computer with a Japanese woman leaning over a machine

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

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

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




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[December 31, 1968] Auld Lang Syne (January 1969 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

We made it

And so, 1968 ends with a bang, not a whimper.  After a miserable year that saw the loss of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the capture of the Pueblo, the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam, the riots at the Democratic Convention, the election of Richard Nixon, and many other tragedies, we finally have some good news to end the year.

First, there was the stirring flight of Apollo 8, a bit of unmitigated good that gave the holiday season additional poignancy.  And then, just last week, the crew of the Pueblo were finally released.  Vietnam peace talks appear to be stumbling forward.

On a more personal level, I got to prepare the Galactic Stars for the year, which involves reading all of the four and five star stories recommended by my colleagues.  For one month, everything I read is terrific.

It is in this euphoric mode that I get ready for tonight's New Year's celebration…and present to you the last of this month's magazines, the January 1969 Analog.

We read it


by Kelly Freas

Wolfling (Part 1 of 3), by Gordon R. Dickson

A galaxy-spanning empire makes contact with Earth.  Amazingly, the denizens of the sprawling star-society appear to be humans, though the ruling caste is distinctive due to selective breeding—onyx white, seven feet tall, and brilliant.  Because of the clear relation between the species, the prevailing belief is that Earth is some kind of lost colony.


by Kelly Freas

James Keil, bullfighter extraordinaire, is adopted by the High-born for display at the Throne World.  Keil is also a trojan horse, dispatched by the United Nations to gather information about the non-alien aliens. 

The hidebound High-born possess tremendous powers, from teleportation to matter conversion, but they are also just as petty and Machiavelian as any Earthers.  Keil's only ally is Ro, a (comparatively) dark-skinned High-born tasked with caring for the High-born queen's menagerie.

Dickson spins an interesting tale, detailing how the "Wolfling", Keil, walks the diplomatic tightrope, navigating a literal lion's den all through his FTL journey to the heart of the galaxy.  Though the story featueres eugenics, it is clear that the tale is an indictment rather than an endorsement.  Of course, the message might have been more strongly made were Keil's surname "Chang" or "Ojukwu".

Four stars so far.

The Hidden Ears, by Lawrence A. Perkins


by Leo Summers

A renegade UFO on the lam breaks through the cordon placed around Earth by the interstellar fuzz, taking refuge in the barn of a rural homestead.  The cops scratch their carapaced heads for a while, until they figure out a way to locate the hidden fugitive.  The genuinely amusing conclusion is the one bright spot in an otherwise frivolous story.

Two stars.

The Other Culture, by Ted Thomas


by Kelly Freas

If ever the word "pedestrian" described a story, it's now.  Thomas strings the most colorless sentences together, most of which are superfluous, and none of which are more than adequate.

The plot?  The Weather Council has to decide who will be prioritized for the increasingly demanded amount of world rainfall.  Because, as we all know, that's the kind of minor issue that is solved at a single conference.

That would be silly enough, except for the bombshell dropped about a quarter-way into the story: continental drift is suddenly speeding up, and all land masses will reunite as Pangaea in half a century.

Turns out this (ludicrous) plan is the work of BROW, the Brotherhood of the World, a rival underground (no pun intended) society.  But this potentially disastrous plan also, fortuitously, contains the solution to the water problem.

"Culture" is a talky, ridiculous story with no merits whatsoever.  It makes no scientific sense—moving continents around like bumper cars will produce a million 1906 San Franciscos—and the prose is dull as dishwater, as are all of the "characters".

One star.

"On a Gold Vesta … ", by Robert S. Richardson

This is a pretty neat piece about how we measure the density, size, and albedo (reflectiveness) of the myriad minor planets in the solar system.  All of these values are related, and without a firm grasp of at least one of them, it's virtually impossible to estimate the others.  A little short, but valuable.

Four stars.

Classicism, by Murray Yaco


by Kelly Freas

It's been eight years since we last heard from Mr. Yaco, and quite frankly, he might as well have stayed in hiding.  This is the "funny" tale of a young engineer from the last planet that believes in "classical economics".  He is sent to the big universe to become a cog in the command economy—specifically, to manage planet-wide garbage operations.  In his spare time, he works on perfecting a teleportation system, which he hopes to sell at great profit.

Too silly to be truly offensive; too lightweight to be worth your time.  Two stars.

Krishna, by Guy McCord


by Kelly Freas

Last year, Mack Reynolds…er… "Guy McCord" wrote a tale about Caledonia, a strange planet that was an odd combination of Scots and American Indian societies.  Krishna is a direct sequel, and a much better (though incomplete) story.

John of the Hawks is now a man, Raid Cacique for his clan, in fact, when Outworlders return.  The villain of the last piece, Mr. Harmon, is now wearing the black cloak of an acolyte of Krisha.  His ship, the Revelation, houses a bunch of missionaries who offer cures to all diseases if only they will partake of soma, a powerful hallucinogen.  Those who ingest soma become peaceful, one with Krishna…but also sterile and apathetic.  Obviously, such is anathema to the hardscrabble, lusty Caledonians.

"McCord" balances the clan politics with the Outplanet menace much better this time around, and John's endeavor to "steal" Alice Thompson for a bride is pretty gripping.  I don't mind that this novella is obviously the first (second?) installment in a novel, and I look forward to the next one.

Four stars.

We rate it

The word for this month is "vicissitudes".  On the face of it, none of the magazines did very well—Analog finished at 2.9 stars, well above Amazing (2.4 stars), but below New Worlds (3 stars), Galaxy (3.1 stars), IF (3.2 stars), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.3 stars).

Yet, every mag save Amazing had at least one four-star story in it.  Several had more than one.  If you took all the good stuff this month, you could fill two magazines with it and have some quite good reading ahead of you.  Women contributed 12% of the new fiction published, which is on the high end.

So, a foreboding or auspicious sign for the New Year, depending on whether you fill your scotch half full or half empty with soda.  Either way, here's looking forward to a lovely 1969 with you all.  May your holiday season be bright!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 8, 1968] Probing the future (November 1968 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Professional opinion

Fred Pohl opens up this month's issue of Galaxy with a summary of the letters he's received from readers on how they would, in 100 words or fewer, successfully resolve the war in Vietnam.  He has great faith in the power of harnessing a bunch of smart folks to spit out solutions to problems.  I honestly don't know how useful someone's cursory stab at peace in Southeast Asia can be, even if it's from the pen of a clearly clever person like Judith Merril or Larry Niven.

He did, however, talk about a different kind of brain-tapping, one that has me very excited.  There's something called Sigma, which is a scientific way of presenting scenarios to people and assessing their likelihood, feasability, and desirability.  A consensus can then be reached and a mass-mind prediction derived. 

And as it turns out, I recently was sent a copy of Probe a 14-volume compilation of technological predictions made by the folks at TRW's Space Technology Laboratories—the folks who gave us Pioneers 0, 1 and 2, Explorer 6, Atlas Able, Pioneer 5, the Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, and parts of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module.  I've only just started perusing it, but it makes for fascinating reading.  Of course, only time will tell if their predictions are accurate, or if they're even asking the right questions.

Of course, science fictioneers have been predicting the future in their own way for half a century.  And while the stories in this issue may not depict situations that ever come to pass, I have to say that are, at least, quite entertaining!


by Sol Dember, illustrating Building on the Line

Perris Way, by Robert Silverberg


by Jack Gaughan

I had not expected a continuation of the story, "Nightwing," but "Perris Way" is a direct sequel.  The tale picks up with our nameless Watcher, whose profession of scanning the skies for alien invasion, is no longer relevant as the invasion has come and succeeded, heading toward Perris (Paris) with his companion, the former Prince of Roum.  That latter, a member of the Dominator caste, was blinded during the invasion by the alien-in-disguise Gormon for forcing himself upon the Flier, Avluela, whom Gormon loved.  The two arrived at France's former capital to become members of the guild of Rememberers.

The erstwhile Watcher becomes an apprentice, and during his training discovers the true history of Earth and the hubristic crime that warranted the alien invasion.  His halcyon half-year with the Rememberers is abruptly terminated when the Prince shames the guild with a tactless act.  The Watcher, caught on the horns of a dilemma comprising the remedy to a Rememberer's anger versus (perhaps misplaced) loyalty to the Prince, comes up with a solution that ultimately pleases no one.  It also leaves room for a Part 3, which, if a novelization be forthcoming, is probably necessary to reach the appropriate length.

Silverbob's language is exquisite.  His poetic SFnal prose is probably even better than Zelazny's, and more approachable than Delany's.  His history of Earth is as fascinating as any that has been drawn.  On the other hand, he never treats his women well, and they are always sex objects, one way or another.  Contrast that with James Schmitz's Dr. Nile Etland, showcased just last month in Analog, lest someone want to lecture me on how "this is just the way things are."  Women do not exist just to be scenery, as much as those who hum "I'm a Girl Watcher" and hound the bosomy New Yorker Francine Gottfried on the way to work might like to think so.

It's still terrific stuff, but I can't give it more than four stars.

Keep Moving, by Miriam Allen deFord

Science fiction stories often play with the premise, "If this goes on…"  DeFord, one of the genre's most venerable authors, offers up a 22nd Century in which freeways pave virtually every square inch of the planet, and commuter culture has become the norm.  People don't even have homes anymore—they simply live in their cars, driving constantly to obtain food, entertainment, and presumably working while moving.

One man decides he's had enough and founds the "Live-In" movement, boldly staying put in one place over night.  This crazy idea wins the casual endorsement of dozens and the fervent support of one particular woman, a rather famous poet.  The ensuing partnership proves unstoppable.

Absolutely silly, but also quite charming.  Three stars.

Building on the Line, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Gray Morrow

Clancy and Plotchin are mismatched, feuding workers on the Line, a galaxy-spanning set of teleporter stations.  The two are building a set of Starlinks on the hostile world of XN-4010 when its incorporeal, gibbering race of "hobgoblins" unleashes a meteorite storm upon them.  Plotchin is incapacitated, maybe dead, but there is hope that an experimental cryogenic unit in the man's suit might be sustaining him.

Clancy decides that staying put and waiting for rescue is less desirable than making the 36-mile trek back to the main exploration ship.  And so, with Plotchin in his arms, he begins the brutal trek through the ice and near-vacuum of XN-4010, the hobgoblins nibbling at his psyche the entire way.  This bit is truly thrilling, reminiscent of the middle section of Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel when our heroes are making a similar journey across the frozen wastes of Pluto.

The denouement, however, is a rather windy extolling of the virtues of heroic men expanding the horizons of mankind.  It all felt a little hollow, especially as it is intimated that the hobgoblins may not be malicious but simply trying to defend their world from an onslaught of human tourists.  That, to me, was the more important point, and it was tossed aside.  Framed differently, Line's premise could have made an excellent novel, with themes similar to those explored brilliantly in Silverberg's The Man in the Maze.  Alas.

Still, it's beautifully written, and the first two thirds are a wild ride.

Four stars.

For Your Information: My Friend, the Nautilus, by Willy Ley

This is quite a neat piece, definitely a throwback to Willy's better days.  It's really the evolutionary history of mollusks, with an eventual focus on nautiloids and their relatives, the ammonites.  No, this is not a Pennsylvania religious sect but a prolific family of shelled mollusks that thrived during the Age of Dinosaurs.

Given that octopuses (Ley calls the plural 'octopi', tsk tsk) are shockingly intelligent, and ammonites were advanced nautiloids, I think stories about sapient Mesozoic shellfish would be fascinating.  Be sure to credit me with the idea if you use it.

Four stars.

The Market in Aliens, by K. M. O'Donnell

An unscrupulous fellow runs a brisk trade in sapient aliens.  He has occasional twinges of guilt, but he perseveres, nevertheless.

This is a dark, ugly story.  Looking back on it, I think I have to give it four stars.  It says a lot with a little.

Locust Years, by Douglas R. Mason


by Brock

In the not too far future, universities literally recreate the past, casting lines through time to reel in prehistorical happenings for student viewing.  But when a construction accident summons a wounded mastodon and opens up a time vortex, no one is safe—up to and including humans from other time frames!

This is an interesting story, if initially difficult to apprehend.  Probably the best thing the author has written to date.  Three stars.

The Tell-Tale Heart-Machine, by Brian W. Aldiss

This one's about bitter, middle-aged man, reeling from the recent loss of his wife and his ejection from the board of the company that made his fortune.  Said company has discovered the secret of synthetic life, starting with the recreation of dinosaurs, and with the aim of creating complete humans.  Ostensibly, the man hates his father-in-law, erstwhile partner in the endeavor, for his lack of morality, and for the coldness he has hitherto shown his family.  In fact, there is something deeper going on, and a rift that may not be mendable, even as the father-in-law attempts to attone.

I found myself moved by this one.  Definitely one of Aldiss' better efforts of late.

Four stars.

Eeeetz Ch, by H. H. Hollis


by Dan Adkins

I had gone into this one expecting from the title some sort of joke story.  It's not.

Dolphins are hot news this decade.  From Flipper to People of the Sea to World of Ptavvs, the idea of porpoises being partner sapients is catching on in a big way.  Hollis' story details the visit of the junior Senator from Hawaii, Ramon Coatl (presumably of Filipino ancestry), to a Caribbean research center.  There, the dolphin called Andy but really named Eeeetz Ch is being fitted with artificial hands and tested on advanced machinery.  But the tests go both ways—the two scientists working with him (a man and a woman, the woman being the senior engineer; Silverbob, take notes) are fitted with artificial gills that plug into a plate surgically embedded in their sternums.

There's doesn't exactly seem to be a plot to the whole thing, until it's done, and you understand the stakes of Coatl's visit.  Hollis says a lot about intelligence and handicaps, about technology and ethics, without spelling it out too heavy-handedly.  Most impressively, all of the characters are extremely well realized.  Andy the dolphin, in particular, is an alien.  A likeable, sympathetic one, but not human.

This is my favorite story of the issue.  It's both conventional and new, prosaic and profound.  It made me laugh a couple of times.  It kept me riveted.

Five stars.

Like, wow!

What a contrast, huh?  Last month, Galaxy finished at a dismal 2.4.  This month, we're at 3.9, probaby the best mag of the year.  It reminds me of the old Gold days of the early '50s.  Of course with a spread like that, it's hard to make any solid predictions, but at least there's always a chance every month that Galaxy will knock it out of the park like it did this month.

That's something to look forward to!

(oh, and dig the cool offer on the back of the mag—Trek is everywhere!)




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[April 14, 1967] Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (April 1967 Galactoscope)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Two new science fiction novels take readers from the dry land to the depths of the sea, and down from the sky in a burst of flames. Will they make proper use of the traditional four elements of ancient times, and reach the exalted level of the aether, that fabled quintessence that was of a more refined nature than the others? Let's find out.

Canada's Gift to American Science Fiction

Alberta-born writer Gordon Rupert Dickson, now living in the USA, has been publishing fiction since 1950. It's hard to say that there's a particular kind of Dickson story. He's written light comedy, such as the Hoka series with fellow Minnesotan Poul Anderson (currently a resident of the San Francisco region), all about aliens who look like teddy bears and cause trouble by imitating human beings. He's written entertaining adventure stories, some for a juvenile audience. In recent years, he's gained notice for more serious and thoughtful works.

His novella Soldier, Ask Not (Galaxy, October 1964), part of the Dorsai series, won the Hugo award, and the novelette Call Him Lord (Analog, May 1966) won the Nebula award less than a month ago. Will his latest novel add to his reputation?

The Past is Prologue


Cover art by Richard Powers.

It's something of a challenge to jump into The Space Swimmers without any preparation. The author throws a complex background at you in bits and pieces, and it's obvious that a lot has gone on before the novel begins. That's because it's a direct sequel to the novelette Home from the Shore (Galaxy, February 1963).


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Surf 'n' Turf

In brief, humanity has split into land dwellers and ocean dwellers. The sea people have developed abilities that make them valuable space explorers. Humans encounter the so-called space swimmers, beings that are gigantic in size but tiny in mass, beyond Mars. They die every time people try to capture them. This causes the sea folk to rebel, and withdraw their services from the space vessels of the land folk. The result is war, with the land dwellers destroying the underwater communities of the ocean dwellers.

This is where the novel begins. The war has cooled off slightly, although the land folk sometimes hunt the sea folk for sport, in the tradition of Richard Connell's famous story The Most Dangerous Game.

Our hero is Johnny Joya, who more-or-less instigated the rebellion of the sea folk in the novelette. He lives in isolation in the frigid waters of the Arctic with his young son Tomi after the death of his wife during the war. Tomi has even greater abilities than his father. The sea people can communicate with dolphins, but Tomi can also communicate with killer whales. Father and son become involved in an attempt to reconcile the two branches of humanity.

It seems the space swimmers can teleport instantaneously from one place in space to another. If Tomi can communicate with one of the mysterious creatures, he may be able to discover the secret of interstellar travel. Complicating matters is the fact that both sides have developed doomsday weapons that could wipe out the other.

I've only scratched the surface of a novel that has a heck of a lot going on in only one hundred and sixty pages. I haven't mentioned major characters or important subplots. Suffice to say that Dickson keeps things moving at a brisk pace.

There's a certain vagueness in some of the book's concepts that leads to confusion at times. We're told more than once that the ability of the sea people to communicate with dolphins is not telepathy, but this is left unexplained. Johnny works on problems by making use of so-called analogs (a nod to the magazine of the same name?) but I didn't understand how this was supposed to work.

It may seem unlikely that the sea people are willing to completely destroy life on land through a series of devastating earthquakes, and that the land people are willing to destroy all life in the ocean through modified disease organisms. The way each of these terrifying weapons is described, it seems as if either one would completely wipe out both sides. The fact that we live in an age of Mutually Assured Destruction (to make use of a term coined by Hudson Institute researcher Donald Brennan, appropriately known as MAD) may add some plausibility to this part of the book.

Worth reading, but I don't think it will win any awards. Three stars.

Sterling Silver

Native New Yorker Robert Silverberg has been an extremely prolific author in multiple fields since 1954. Not all of his work has been notable for its quality, it must be admitted, but he won a Hugo award in 1956 as the Most Promising New Author, beating out Harlan Ellison, Frank Herbert, and Henry Still. (Who? He hasn't published anything since 1961. Sic transit gloria mundi.)

I won't mention the many sex novels he's published under multiple pseudonyms, except to say that eroticism plays an important role in Those Who Watch, his latest novel (unless another one comes out while I'm writing this, given his speed at the typewriter.)

Three Times Two Equals Six


Anonymous cover art.

Aliens have been monitoring Earth for centuries, cruising the skies in flying saucers hidden from human eyes by a screening device.  One of the hundreds of saucers filling the atmosphere has a disastrous failure, causing it to explode over New Mexico.  The three crewmembers bail out, landing in separate areas and sustaining serious injuries.

The trio consists of two males and a female, all part of a mating group.  (We'll find out later that such a triad is normal for the aliens, although sometimes it's two females and a male.) Although not described in any detail, the extraterrestrials are small beings, each one wearing an artificially created human body.  Their real bodies are intimately connected with their external disguises, so they experience the pain of their damaged human bodies and other sensations.

At this point, the narrative alternates among the three aliens and the human being each one encounters. 

One extraterrestrial appears to be an ordinary man of middle years.  A young American Indian boy, living in a pueblo that keeps its traditional ways only to attract tourist dollars, brings him food and water while he recovers from a spine injury that renders him paralyzed.  In exchange, the highly intelligent lad, who figures out very quickly that he's dealing with an alien, learns about the other's native world.  He also acquires a piece of advanced technology that could be deadly.

Another alien takes the form of an extraordinarily handsome young man.  He gets aid from a young widow with a small child.  The two fall in love, in the first of two human/alien couplings we'll see.

Paralleling this is the mating between the female alien, disguised as a voluptuous woman, and a military man, bitter because a medical problem kept him from becoming an astronaut.  He and the widow eventually come together, after their alien lovers leave Earth.

Meanwhile, rival aliens, who also have hundreds of unseen flying saucers orbiting the planet, try to track down the three, in order to charge them with violating an agreement not to land on Earth.  (There seems to be a sort of Cold War going on between the two species.  Neither one is supposed to be on the surface of the planet, but they both have secret agents on Earth.)

This is a leisurely novel, despite the attempt to create suspense in the form of the enemy aliens.  Much of it consists of conversations between each of the three aliens and the human being that renders aid.  The two sexual encounters between a lonely human being and a benign extraterrestrial may be too much of a good thing. 

The sections of the novel about the American Indian boy are probably the best.  The author avoids stereotyping Indians, and shows a great deal of empathy for their situation in modern society.  Silverberg displays a gift for characterization in his intimate portraits of the three humans; perhaps not quite so much for the aliens.

He's still a promising, if not quite so new, author.  Three stars.


by Gideon Marcus

Ring in the Old

If Silverberg is a new old hand (or an old new hand), and Dickson is a plain old hand, then Murray Leinster is the oldest of hands.  In fact, Will Jenkins (Leinster's real name) has been a pubished author of scientifiction since 1919–before the genre even had a name.  Suffusing his work with a patina of scientific accuracy, up through the '50s, his name was a welcome one on the masthead of any magazine.  I particularly enjoyed his Med Series tales of Dr. Lincoln Calhoun and his pet/assistant, Murgatroyd.

Those happy days are years in the past, and as John Boston and I can tell ya, his latest works have been phoned in…from a booth in Duluth that hasn't been serviced in decades.  Thus, it was with trepidation that I picked up Leinster's latest, Miners in the Sky.

It's actually not bad.

Set in the lawless rings of the planet Thutmose, a Saturn analog in a star system far from Earth, it details the perils faced by a space miner named Donne.  He's no sooner set foot on the trade asteroid of Outlook, a sizable rock within Thutmose's rings, when his little "donkeyship" explodes.  He quickly deduces that word has (mistakenly) gotten out that he has discovered the Big Rock Candy Mountain, a bonanza rock laden with the "abyssal crystals" that facilitate solar system travel.  Donne must get off Outlook as soon as possible: his partner, Keene, is stuck on the ringlet they are mining.  He may run out of air, or worse, already have also been the target of an assassination.  Complicating things is the arrival of Keene's sister, Nike, who insists on coming with Donne.  So begins a long chase through the rings of Thutmose, with a murder-inclined criminal on Donne and Nike's heels.

I had worried that the story would be simply a gussied up Western, but there's a bit of physics and a lot of pretty description of the Thutmosian locale that makes Miners reasonably SFNal.  To be sure, it is written in Leinster's current mode: all short sentences, lots of exclamation marks, and characterization as shallow as a kiddie pool.  Add to that the several times Leinster points out that, as a woman, Nike "instinctively" looks to a man for help. 

Miners in the Sky will definitely win no awards.  It is yet another in a long line of stories cranked out on autopilot to pay the bills.  Still, I don't regret the time I took reading the book.  Sometimes, all you need is a little adventure.

Three stars.




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[January 14, 1967] First batch (January Galactoscope)

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Big, But . . .


by John Boston

No matter if you don’t believe in Santa Claus. Judith Merril is back with another volume of her annual anthology, 11th Annual Edition the Year’s Best S-F (sic), from Delacorte Press just in time for the Christmas trade. If you missed the boat on Christmas, surely you can make it work for Valentine’s Day.


by Ziel

The overall package is familiar: 384 pages thick, a crowded contents page, a short introduction, but lots of running commentary between items, sometimes about the stories or authors and sometimes, it seems, about whatever crosses Merril’s mind as she assembles the book. There is the usual Summation at the end, but the extensive Honorable Mentions listing is gone, though she mentions some items that didn’t make the cut in the Summation and commentary.

The contents are eclectic as usual, but let Merril tell it: “The stories and poems and essays here have been selected from as wide a range as I could cover of books and periodicals published here and in England last year. About half the entries are from the genre magazines. The rest are from books and from such diverse sources as Mademoiselle and Escapade, The Colorado Quarterly and the Washington Post, Playboy and the Saturday Review (and Ambit and King in England).” “Of the year” in the title is notional at best. This volume includes a story by Jorge Luis Borges, The Circular Ruins, which dates from 1940, and an . . . item . . . by Alfred Jarry, who died in 1907.

The usual disclaimer is here, too. From the Introduction:

“This is not a collection of science-fiction stories.

“It does have some science fiction in it—I think. (It gets a little more difficult each year to decide which ones are really science fiction—and frankly I don’t much try any more.)”

Unfortunately this year’s book falls short of most of its predecessors to my taste. Unusually, some of the selections by the biggest-name authors are strikingly lackluster. Isaac Asimov’s Eyes Do More than See, from F&SF, is a short piece of annoying pseudo-profundity about the down side of becoming a disembodied energy being. Gordon R. Dickson’s Warrior (from Analog), part of his militaristic Dorsai series, gives us a protagonist who is such a comprehensive superman that his enemies are rendered helpless by his mere presence, and the story turns quickly into self-parody. J.G. Ballard is represented by one very fine story, The Drowned Giant, from Playboy, and another, The Volcano Dances, which reads like a parody of his recurrent theme of humans happily pursuing self-destructive obsessions: his protagonist takes up residence near a volcano that’s about to blow, refuses all entreaties to leave, and at the end is apparently heading towards it as the volcano’s rumbling becomes more ominous.

There is a decided swerve this year towards the British magazines New Worlds and Science Fantasy, with four stories from each here. The best of this lot is David I. Masson’s Traveler’s Rest (New Worlds), which depicts a world where the passage of time varies with latitude, much faster at the North Pole where a furious high-tech war is ongoing, and more slowly towards the equator where people live more or less normal lives. In some of the others, it is quite unclear what is going on, and purposefully: two of them are (or seem to be) narrated by mental patients (David Rome’s There’s a Starman in Ward 7 and Peter Redgrove’s long poem The Case (both from New Worlds)). Josephine Saxton’s The Wall (Science Fantasy) is a strange, haunting, allegorical-seeming story of lovers who never meet except through a small hole in a wall dividing a world that seems like some sort of artificial construct that they don’t understand and is unexplained to the reader.

As always, Merril has harvested some stories from non-genre sources, most sublimely Jorge Luis Borges’s The Circular Ruins, from 1940. It’s a metaphysical fantasy about a man who travels in a canoe to a ruined temple to carry out a mission: “He wanted to dream a man: he wanted to dream him with minute integrity and insert him into reality.” This story, resonantly translated from the Spanish, is the find of the book. Also noteworth is Game, by Donald Barthelme, from the New Yorker, about two guys locked in an underground bunker charged with dispatching nuclear missiles as ordered. They have gone months without relief and are pretty much nuts; it is strongly hinted that the war has happened and they’re never getting relieved. Gerald Kersh’s Somewhere Not Far from Here, from Playboy, is about some ragged revolutionaries against an unidentified tyranny; its portrayal of men struggling in extremity in mud and blood, in a seemingly hopeless cause, may be hokey but it contrasts sharply and favorably with Dickson’s absurd power fantasy of an effortlessly irresistible conqueror, discussed above. But there are also a number of less meritorious, and sometimes outright distasteful items from the non-SF press, including a remarkably sexist story by Harvey Jacobs, The Girl Who Drew the Gods, from Mademoiselle, of all places.

Summing Up

There’s a lot in this big book that’s perfectly adequate, but not so much that made me seriously glad to have read it, and a fair amount that seems silly, trivial, or distasteful. The best of the lot to my taste are mostly mentioned above; others include Arthur C. Clarke’s Maelstrom II, R.A. Lafferty’s Slow Tuesday Night, Johnny Byrne’s Yesterday’s Gardens, and Walter F. Moudy’s The Survivor. The other two-thirds of the book’s contents are things I don’t imagine I will ever think of again.

Interestingly, Merril herself expresses dissatisfaction with the current state of American SF, which she attributes to the lack of a “combining force” or “focal center”: “We have the writers; we have the markets; we have the readers. But nothing is happening to bring them together.” She compares this situation unfavorably to that in the UK. I don’t find this explanation very convincing. I am convinced that Merril would have a better book if she included a few longer stories and accepted a shorter contents page, and dropped a few of the less substantial items from prestigious sources.

As the Los Angeles Dodgers might say—wait ‘til next year.


by Gideon Marcus

The Quy Effect, by Arthur Sellings

This latest book by short story veteran, Arthur Sellings, starts with a literal bang. A factory has blown up, and Adolphe Quy, an eccentric inventor is the culprit. Seems he was doing experiments with an organic room-temperature superconductor, which got overloaded. But in the process, something even bigger was discovered: practical antigravity.

With a setup like that, you'd think this short novel would be about the effect such an invention would have on humanity. Indeed, for the first forty pages or so, Sellings seems to be taking forever to start the plot. Then you realize you've been anticipating the wrong book. The Quy Effect is about the trials and tribulations of a discredited inventor doing his best to bring to light a technology only he believes in.

Which means, of course, that there were two ways the book could have gone that would have been deeply dissatisfying. One is the John Campbell route, in which it is made obvious that everyone but Quy (pronounced 'kwe') is a moron, and the whole book is a satire of our stupid society that quells the inspirations of unsung geniuses. The other is the British route, which would have Quy end up in an insane asylum, the work being sold as "darkly humourous."

Thankfully, despite Sellings actually being British, he avoids both of these potentialities. Instead, The Quy Effect is a quite interesting set of character studies, one that kept me glued to the pages. It really is not certain throughout the entire book whether or not Quy will succeed. Nor does it seem that the odds are artificially stacked against him. Quy, in many ways, made the bed he's stuck in. Now he has to find his way out.

And while science, for the most part, takes a backseat in this book, I did appreciate the bit where Quy dismisses rocket-powered spaceflight as an economic dead end:

Rockets have got as much future as the dirigible airship had. A certain beauty, a kind of glamour, but too damn dangerous and cumbersome and expensive. Riding space in a pint-sized canister on top of a thousand tons of high explosive—that's not the way. We've got all the energy we want, if we can only use it. We shouldn't have to rely, in this day and age, on crude chemical reaction. Subject a man to ruinous accelerations because we have to carry a giant-size gas tank a minimum distance. What we need is more like a nuclear-powered submarine. Point its noise in the air and float up.

Only time will tell if he is right, but I've made similar assertions since Sputnik. I'm delighted to see the latest results from Explorer satellites, to watch the Olympics live from Tokyo (at 3 A.M., Pacific), and I thrill at grainy videos of spacewalking astronauts. But for the kind of mass space exodus so much of our science fiction is based on, I suspect Sellings' mouthpiece is right—rockets won't do the trick.

Anyway, going by the Budrys yardstick of quality (if one enjoys reading the book, it's good), The Quy Effect is very good, once one accepts it for what it is.

And what it is garners a full four stars.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics; Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Entropy


by Victoria Silverwolf

Agent of Chaos, by Norman Spinrad

It wasn't very long ago that I reviewed this young author's first novel. It's obvious that he keeps banging away at the typewriter steadily, because here comes another one.


Anonymous cover art, and a misleading blurb. Ending the human race isn't the goal of anybody in the story. And I don't think that calling a novel agonizing is a way to help sales.

I don't know about you, but when I pick up a book I like to look at the stuff that surrounds the text first. Front and back cover, dedication, preface or introduction, afterword, whatever. Let's flip this paperback over and see if we can learn anything.


Is it really possible for a new book to be a classic?

This blurb isn't much more accurate. The Brotherhood of Assassins isn't the dictatorship; that's the Hegemony. Allow me to explain.

Several centuries in the future, long after the two sides of the Cold War got together to avoid total destruction, the combined government known as the Hegemony rules the solar system. The oligarchy in charge controls every detail in the lives of their subjects, known as Wards. Any violation of the rules is punishable by death. The sheep-like Wards mostly accept this, because the Hegemony offers them peace and prosperity.

The Democratic League is an underground organization, literally and metaphorically. It opposes the Hegemony, and is willing to use violence to overthrow it. The novel begins on Mars, where Boris Johnson, a member of the Democratic League, is part of an elaborate plot to assassinate one of the oligarchs. The motive is to convince the Wards that the Democratic League is a serious threat to the Hegemony.

The third player in this deadly game is the Brotherhood of Assassins. Despite the name, the first thing this bunch does is prevent the killing of the oligarch. Like other things they've done in the past, this action seems completely random. Both the Hegemony and the Democratic League think of the Brotherhood of Assassins as deranged fanatics, dedicated to the philosophical writings of the fictional author Gregor Markowitz. Quotations from this fellow's books, which have titles like The Theory of Social Entropy and Chaos and Culture, introduce each chapter in the novel.

The story jumps around the solar system, with plenty of plots and counterplots, ranging from political intrigue within the oligarchy to mass violence. At times, the book reads like a cross between Ian Fleming and Keith Laumer. But Spinrad is trying to say something more profound, I think.

The Hegemony represents any established Order. The Democratic League represents the opposition to that Order. Ironically, that very opposition becomes part of a new Order. The Brotherhood of Assassins represents Chaos, working against both of the other groups. (In another touch of irony, this often means working with one or the other. Such paradoxes, we're told, are part of Chaos.)

There's a major plot twist about halfway through the novel that I won't reveal here. Suffice to say that something found in a lot of science fiction stories changes the situation drastically, leading to a dramatic ending involving the Ultimate Chaotic Act.

The book certainly held my interest. I'm not sure what to think about all the discussion of Order and Chaos, but it was intriguing. At times the novel is melodramatic. Overly familiar science fiction elements appear frequently, from moving sidewalks to laser guns.

One peculiar thing is that there are no female characters in the book, not even a minor one playing the typical role of the Girl. The closest we get to acknowledging that two sexes exist is a line describing a crowd of Wards as placid, indifferent-looking men and women. The Wards are just cannon fodder, casually slaughtered by the three competing forces, so they remain pretty much faceless.

That reminds me of the fact that there are no Good Guys in this novel. All sides are willing to kill to achieve their goals, including wiping out innocent bystanders. The author's sympathies seem to be with the forces of Chaos, but they definitely have as much blood on their hands as the forces of Order. (Why else would they call themselves the Brotherhood of Assassins?)

Overall, a provocative but frustrating book.

Three stars.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 2, 1966] On the Edge (October 1966 IF)

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by David Levinson

Big Trouble in China

Back in May, I wrote about the political maneuvering going on in China, and I predicted purges would follow. Rarely have I been so sorry to be right. On August 13th, Mao Tse-tung announced a purge of Party officials as part of the Cutural Revolution. And he has a frightening new tool to carry out his will.

At the end of May, a group of high school and university students calling themselves Red Guards embraced the principles of the Cultural Revolution and hung up posters criticizing university administrators. Originally condemned as counterrevolutionaries and radicals, they were officially endorsed by Mao early in August. On the 18th, a mass rally was held in T’ien-an-min Square in Peking. A reported one million students listened to speeches by various Party officials. Mao appeared in military fatigues for the first time in years, a look favored by the Red Guards.

On the 22nd, they began putting up posters “advising” people to abandon bourgeois habits such as Western clothing and warned shopkeepers against selling foreign goods. They gave people a week before they would “take action”. Since then, the Red Guards have run amok. On the 26th, they gave foreigners and bourgeois Chinese to the end of the day to leave Peking. They poured into the Tibetan capital Lhasa, destroying ancient relics, vandalizing shrines and abusing monks. Now, word has come out that they are beating and killing people in the Ta-hsing and Ch’ang-p’ing districts of Peking, and the police have been ordered to look the other way. This is likely to get worse before it gets better, and however it ends won’t be pretty.


Soong P’in-p’in, a Red Guard leader, pins an armband on Mao Tse-tung.

Life on the edge

This month’s IF features not one, but two stories set on the edge of the galaxy, and just about everyone else is on the edge in some way or another.


Amazingly well done for Dan Adkins. Art by Adkins

TV by the Numbers, by Fred Pohl

We rarely mention editorials, but this one’s interesting. A recent discussion with Murray Leinster about one of his patents that lets TV studios use a photograph of a set backdrop in place of the physical thing got Fred to thinking. A single line on a black-and-white TV screen consists of around 420 phosphor dots that are either on or off. With 525 lines to a frame, it would take a string of 220,000 ones and zeros to describe one frame. A 25 billion digit number would be enough for a one hour show; 600 billion for 24 hours. But you probably need a lot less. In the thirtieth of a second between frames, most of those dots don’t change, so it should be possible to find a way to tell the TV to only change certain spots from the last frame. Could there come a day when not only the stage sets, but even the actors aren’t real?

Neutron Star, by Larry Niven

Out-of-work space pilot Beowulf Shaeffer is facing debtor’s prison when an alien blackmails him into taking on a suicide mission. The puppeteers (something like a headless, three-legged centaur with Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppets for arms) have a near-monopoly on spaceship hulls, which are supposed to be impervious to everything except visible light. But something reached through one of their hulls and reduced two scientists studying a neutron star to bloody smears. Now Shaeffer finds himself following the exact same course, and he has to figure things out before he meets the same end.


Beowulf Shaeffer aboard his invisible starship. Art by Adkins

A nice little problem story. While the answer may seem obvious to the reader, that answer is incomplete. There’s a subtle bit more to it that the puppeteers can’t see, and the reason they can’t see it means a sizeable bonus for Shaeffer. Another detail has Shaeffer recording everything happening, so there is some record if he’s killed. In an interesting coincidence, a voice recording is being analyzed for the first time in the investigation of a plane crash in Nebraska last month.

Three stars.

Your Soldier Unto Death, by Michael Walker

The centuries-long war with the Kreekal has ground to an end. With their hive-like society, the alien soldiers were specially bred to fight. Ultimately, humanity began raising soldiers from birth to do two things: to hate Kreekan soldiers and to be good at killing them. Now that the war is over, what do you do with 5 billion soldiers who are barely human?

While there’s some apparent skill in the writing, Walker is this month’s new writer — and you can tell. The pieces don’t quite fit together, and most of the story consists of people sitting around talking about things. The germ of a good story is here, but the author just isn’t up to it.

A high two stars.

Snow White and the Giants (Part 1 of 4), by J. T. McIntosh

In the quite English country town of Shuteley, sweltering under the hottest summer on record, Val Mathers wishes something would happen. His marriage to Sheila is in a rough situation, partly because of a difference over whether to have children, partly because of his mentally handicapped sister Dina, who lives with them, and partly because his old school friend Jota seems to have tried to force himself on Sheila three years earlier. Now Jota is on his way back from his job in Cologne, Dina is worried about the fairies in the garden, and a strange group of young tourists has appeared in town.

With one exception, these tourists are all very tall and very fit. The women wear dresses that seem to disappear occasionally, causing a commotion. The exception, whom Val dubs Snow White for her fair skin and dark hair, differs from the others only in her size. They all behave a bit oddly and when asked where they’re from, they reply “Here.” Even stranger, they all seem to know Val and are expecting Jota. After Jota arrives in town, he and Val decide to investigate where the strangers are camping. To be continued.


Val and Sheila investigate strange lights at the bottom of the garden. Art by Gaughan

It’s difficult to judge where this is going, since this installment is almost all McIntosh setting the scene. None of the characters are terribly appealing. Val is passive, Sheila short-tempered, and Jota obnoxious. Honestly, it feels like McIntosh could have moved the story forward a lot more quickly.

McIntosh tends to be hit or miss, and his biggest weakness is his female characters. That’s on display here with the childlike Dina and the mysterious Miranda (Snow White’s real name). Worst of all is Sheila, who is snappish and unpleasant toward Val and his sister – but the narrative ignores her reasons for being that way. The biggest would seem to be Jota’s assault, and Val’s attitude seems to be “he shouldn’t have done it, he’s promised not to do it again and he’s going away, so let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.” Awful.

Two stars for now.

Handy Phrase Book in Fannish, by Lin Carter

Any in-group tends to develop its own lingo. This month Our Man in Fandom takes a look at the slang commonly used by science fiction fans. He starts off with a look at various fanacs (fan activities) and the different types of fans, from the sercon (serious, conservative fan) to the faaan (the obnoxious kid in a propellor beanie). Then he looks at the various names given to and taken by prominent fans, such as Forrest J. Ackerman (4e, 4SJ, etc.) or OMF himself (LinC). He wraps things up with the fannish (or fenly) fondness for nonsense words that serve as catch-alls, like vombic and fout. LinC is clearly having fun, but it’s all a bit breathless and shallow.

A low three stars.

Tunnel Warrior, by Joseph P. Martino

World War III has somehow managed to keep the exchange of atomic weapons to East and West Germany. The fighting is still ongoing, but the front is now in tunnels deep underground. Sergeant Alvin Hodge has been ordered to accompany a group of military geologists to the front lines so they can test out a new method of determining where the Russians are digging.


Sgt. Hodge examines what’s left of the city of Kassel. Art by Gray Morrow

The military action bits are fair, but the overall premise is just ridiculous. Even if the nuclear exchange were confined to the German border, there’s just no way the fighting would be limited to such a small area. This story would be much better served by setting it on the Moon or some alien planet with a more believable reason for the combat to be underground.

A high two stars.

On the Edge of the Galaxy, by Ernest Hill

Colonel Geoff Carruthers and his exploratory team have spent 5 years on planet VX91/6 supposedly looking for titanium and zirconium, but achieving nothing. Now they face a military inspection.


The inspecting general meets Rastus. Art by Virgil Finlay

I have no idea what was going on in this story, and I’m not sure any of the characters do either. What a confused mess.

Barely two stars.

The Spy Game, by Rachel Cosgrove Payes

A letter of complaint from an angry parent to the makers of the Interstellar Secret Agent Kit.

Humor is subjective, but I doubt many people will find this funny. Much of it is clearly attempting to satirize aspects of modern society, but it rather fails at that, too.

Two stars.

Edge of Night, by A. Bertram Chandler

In the first installment, Commodore John Grimes led a volunteer group to a parallel universe to investigate the origins of a mysterious spaceship. There, they found humanity on the Rim of the galaxy enslaved by intelligent rats and vowed revenge. The rats are mobilizing against Grimes and his crew, but the one place they aren’t contacting is the planet Stree. In his universe, Grimes was the first human to land on that planet and make contact with the psychic philosopher lizards who live there, a peaceful and positive contact. Reaching Stree with subterfuge and a bit of luck, Grimes finds himself expected and recognized.

It seems that the Wise Ones of the Streen know their lives in every universe. They have also come up with a plan to stop the rats by “killing the egg before it hatches.” To do so, one of them will take Grimes and his ship centuries into the past to keep the ship bearing the mutated ancestors of the rat people from reaching Port Forlorn.


Serressor and Mayhew pilot the ship backwards in time. Art by Gaughan

One thing really stood out to me here. As they’re getting ready to stop the ancestors of the rats, Grimes contemplates the fact that he’s about to commit genocide, and it bothers him. Not a lot, but it’s far more than Dick Seaton can say. Once again, I thought it was a four-star story while I read it, but cooled on it later. It’s a big airy dessert, delicious but a bit lacking once it’s finished.

A high three stars for this installment and the novel as a whole.

In the Bone, by Gordon R. Dickson

Harry Brennan sets out on humanity’s first interstellar journey aboard the John Paul Jones, a ship so small it’s almost an extension of himself. On the fifth Earth-like world he finds, he enounters an intelligent alien. The alien strips him of his ship, telling him to go and be a beast. Harry goes mad and becomes little more than an animal, but gradually his humanness returns.


Still more beast than man, Harry makes his way into the alien’s ship. Art by Virgil Finlay

The plot is so Campbellian, I wonder what it’s doing here. Dickson can usually handle this sort of story, but he’s not at his best. He’s too direct in telling us the point at the beginning and end, and the style holds the reader at a distance.

A low three stars.

Summing up

Well, that was a mediocre issue. One exciting read that isn’t as good when you think about it, two fair works from authors who can do better, and a whole lot of filler, including a poor start to a long serial. Fingers crossed that next month turns out better.


Every one of those could go either way. All four are going to have to come up heads to counterbalance McIntosh.

And if you are in Cleveland (physically or in spirit) this weekend, be certain to join us for the showing of the first Star Trek pilot at 7pm Eastern (4pm Pacific!).




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Magazine

[April 30, 1966] Ormazd and Ahriman (May 1966 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Good News and Bad News

The ancient Persians believed in two roughly co-equal deities: Ormazd, the God of Creation and Light, and Ahriman, the God of Destruction and Darkness.  Unlike, say, the dual concept of the Chinese Yin and Yang, one was decidedly good and the other bad.  Indeed, these twin deities may have inspired the near parity of the Christian God and Satan.

Apparently, these forces hold sway even today.  This month's Analog started off so well, it bid fair to be a contender for best magazine of the month.  Then about half way, the influence of Ahriman took ascendance, and the issue faded away to a truly dreadful ending.  Ah well.  I come not to bury John Campbell but to review him.  At least we start with the good stuff…

Mixed Bag


by John Schoenherr

The Wings of a Bat, by Paul Ash

Anyone who's anyone knows that Paul Ash is really Pauline Ashwell, one of 1958's Hugo nominated Best New Writers — and boy, she's still just great.

Her latest tale stars a middle-aged doctor cum veterinarian stationed at Indication One on the shores of Lake Possible.  Cycads and dinosaurs dominate the landscape, and with good reason: Indication One is based sometime in the Cretaceous!  Against all of his instincts and inclinations, said doctor is tasked with raising a baby pteranadon named Fiona. 

Part country vet story, part mining camp adventure, this tale is by turns and sometimes simultaneously witty and exciting.  I loved it so much, I immediately read it a gain, this time aloud to the family as their bedtime story on two consecutive nights.

If this doesn't get nominated for the Hugo and/or the new SFWA Nebula awards, there's something wrong with the universe.  Five stars!

Call Him Lord, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Kelly Freas

Centuries from now, when Earth is just one of many hundreds of human planets, the crown prince of the Empire is dispatched to humanity's cradle for a tour.  One man is tasked to be his bodyguard, escorting the arrogant man-child as he rides, wenches, and bullies his way across the countryside.  But is this a mere sight-seeing tour…or a test?

While the story is slightly overdrenched in testerone and stoic manliness, Dickson is an excellent writer and his tale compels.  I dug it.  Four stars.

The Meteorite Miners , by Ralph A. Hall, M.D.

Earth has been the site of countless meteor impacts, many of them secondary strikes of ejecta loosed from prior events.  What we learn from the mineral concentrations at these craters can tell us a lot about the primordial history of our planet…and even the universe.

It's a fascinating topic, and it should have gripped me, but the presentation was a bit too abstruse and disjointed to hold my attention.  It took me several sessions to finish.

Three stars.

Titanium – The Wonder Metal (uncredited, but probably John W. Campbell, jr.

The piece is followed by another non-fiction article, this time a more lay-oriented essay on titanium, what makes it great, and what made it so hard to use economically. 

It's fine.  Three stars.

Two-Way Communication, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

When an inventor develops a universal receiver that allows the owner to transmit right into an announcer's microphone, chaos ensues.  Is it the ultimate democracy or a recipe for anarchy?

In this cute story, Anvil argues the former.  With constant and immediate input (and censure) the vast wastelands of radio and television are made verdant with quality programming.  The author forgets two important factors: 1) most TV and much radio isn't live these days, so interruptions at the source wouldn't have as much effect as depicted — this isn't 1951 after all; 2) people are jerks — interruptions would be constant and annoying.

Still, it was not unpleasant reading.  Call it a low 3 stars.  Ormazd and Ahriman are wrestling, but neither has ascendance.  Yet.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky…, by Joe Poyer


by Leo Summers

In this edge-of-the-future story (indeed, the depicted Gemini 9 mission is scheduled to occur less than three weeks from now), one astronaut is lost during an extravehicular jaunt.  His partner must use all of his wits to rescue him before their oxygen and fuel run out.

Joe Poyer has written a couple of other stories for Analog, both of which showed a fair ability when it came to depicting technology but little talent for characterization or detailed plot.  Starry Sky plays to the author's strengths, presenting a nice little Marooned-esque tale in a vivid fashion.  It ends quickly enough that you don't mind where it's undeveloped.

Three stars.  There are stars of light among the black sky.

The Alchemist, by Charles L. Harness


by Kelly Freas

Ah, here's where it all goes to Hell.  This long, flip, utterly unengaging tale manages to combine alchemy, psionics, making the Russians look stupid, and making scientists look stupid, all in one sure-to-please-the-editor package. 

This is truly an example of Ahrimanic possession as the last story by the author was one I liked very much.  But The Alchemist?  One star.  Feh.

Doing the math


Geraldine "Gerry" Myers, mathematician at the Mission Planning and Analysis Division at the Manned Space Craft Center in Houston

As might be expected from such a violent collision of positive and negative forces, the whole thing ends up about a wash: 3.1 stars.  This puts it above IF and New Worlds (3 stars) as well as Worlds of Tomorrow (2.6)

The May 1966 Analog finishes below Impulse (3.2), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.5), and the astonishing, but mostly reprints, Fantastic (4).  Thus, Analog is the dead median for this month!

Nevertheless, it has contributed two stories to one of the best months for 4 and 5 star material since the Journey began.  You could fill three big magazines with nothing but excellent stuff.

Women did so-so in April, only writing ~6% of new material, though Judy Merril had a good reprint in Impulse.

And so, the battle between good and bad (quality) continues.  Will Ormazd be ascendant next month?  Or will Ahriman have the final laugh?  Stay tuned…

[Don't miss the next (and FINAL) episode of The Journey Show:

1966 and the Law — smut, marriage, voting rights, justice, and more. With Erica Frank and Ethan Marcus! With special musical guest, Nanami!

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