by Victoria Silverwolf

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Ring Out the Old

Is it 1964 yet?

The caption says Happy New Year, Kids!

These happy young cosmonauts seem to think so.  That's a Vostok rocket they're carrying.  You remember Vostok, don't you?  The Soviet space program that sent the first man and the first woman into orbit?  No wonder they look so happy.

Here in the good old USA we do things a little differently.

It's not even Christmas yet, but this guy is ready.

No matter how you celebrate the holiday season, this is the time to remember the old and look forward to the new.  For Americans, of course, the most important change was the loss of a martyred President and the inauguration of a new one.  We are not likely to forget 1963 for a very long time.

Norman Rockwell pays tribute to the late JFK.

When it comes to space travel, yesteryear's new ideas turn old very quickly.  The X-20 program was cancelled this month, after seven years of development.  There goes $660,000,000 down the drain.  Looks like the proposed Dyna-Soar reusable spacecraft is now as dead as a dinosaur.

Now that's what I call a real spaceship!

The old British Empire continues to evolve into new, independent nations.  As of December 12, Zanzibar and Kenya are the newest members of the United Nations.

In the world of popular music, a new artist paid tribute to a man who lived more than seven hundred years ago.  Belgian singer-songwriter Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers, better known in the United States as the Singing Nun, holds the top position on the American music charts with her original composition Dominique. 

Deckers is a member of the Missionary Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Fichermont, where she took the name Sister Luc-Gabrielle.  In her native land she is called Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile.) The song pays tribute to Saint Dominic (1170-1221), for whom the order is named.  You don't have to be Catholic, or understand French, to appreciate the Singing Nun's pleasant voice, or the cheerful melody of her song.

The second foreign language song to reach Number One in the USA this year.  At least the Americans didn't give it a silly name, the way they changed Kyu Sakamoto's lovely tune Ue o Muite Arukō into Sukiyaki.

Ring In the New

Fittingly, the latest issue of Fantastic (and the first dated in the coming year) features the first half of a new novel, but one that was born twenty-five years ago.

(cover by EMSH)

The Lords of Quarmall, by Fritz Leiber and Harry Fischer

You may not know the name Harry Fischer.  A new writer, perhaps?  Well, not exactly.  In fact, Fischer created the famous characters Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in a letter to his friend Leiber nearly three decades ago.  Since then, of course, the great fantasist has made the pair of adventurers his own.  In 1937, Fischer wrote about ten thousand words of a novel.  Leiber completed it, and it appears here for the first time.

Quarmall is a strange kingdom.  Its ruler lives in a keep above ground, but the rest of his realm lies deep down below.  He has two adult sons.  One reigns over the upper half of this underground land, the other the lower half.  The brothers are bitter rivals, each trying to destroy the other through treachery and magic.  They also plot against their father.  He, in turn, hopes to eliminate his sons and leave his kingdom to the unborn child of a concubine. 

Unknown to each other, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are each hired as a swordsman by one of the brothers.  When the king's archmage announces the death of his master, the conflict between the siblings explodes into open warfare.

As you would expect from Leiber, this tale of derring-do is full of vivid, exotic details.  The plot moves slowly, with much of the story taken up with the bored frustration of the two heroes.  Fafhrd's rescue of a lovely young slave doomed to be tortured provides some excitement.  No doubt the second half will provide plenty of sorcery and swordplay.  It's not a bad yarn, but hardly up to Leiber's usual standard.

Three stars.

Minnesota Gothic, by Dobbin Thorpe

Another new author?  Hardly.  Thomas M. Disch, who appears later in the magazine, hides behind this peculiar pseudonym.  The story is about a little girl named Gretel, but don't expect an old-fashioned fairy tale.  The time is now.  Gretel's mother leaves her in the care of a very old woman and her strange, bedridden brother.  Black magic is involved, but not the way you might expect.  This is a well-written, chilling little story.  I wouldn't advise reading it on a dark and stormy night.

Four stars.

The Word of Unbinding, by Ursula K. LeGuin

With four or five stories to her credit, LeGuin is still a relatively new voice in fantasy fiction, but her skill makes her seem like an old pro.  Her latest tale of enchantment begins with a wizard trapped in a prison made of darkness.  An evil sorcerer robbed him of his magic staff and locked him away.  Although the loss of his staff greatly diminishes his power, he still possesses the ability to transform himself.  He attempts to escape in many ways, only to be recaptured and made even weaker.  In order to defeat his enemy, he must pay the ultimate price. 

The author creates a dark fantasy of great imagination and vividness.  The reader is sure to empathize with the despair and heroism of the protagonist.

Four stars.

Last Order, by Gordon Walters

Like LeGuin, Walters is a writer with few published works. Sadly, he doesn't share her talent.  The story begins on an asteroid.  An undescribed being tries to protect its master from an attack by police robots.  When the master dies, it seeks revenge on all those who resemble the robots.  The scene shifts to Earth.  A detective with a fear of space travel receives an invitation to investigate the asteroid with his old partner, who left for space long ago.  It turns out that the vengeful being kills anyone who arrives on the asteroid.  After a dangerous encounter with the being, the truth comes out.

The characters frequently speculate about the possibility of a disembodied alien lifeform joining with spacemen in symbiosis.  This turns out to be a complete red herring.  The reader quickly learns that the spacesuits of the future are intimately connected to the bodies of their wearers, so the climax of the story is no surprise.  There's much too little plot for a novelette.

Two stars.

A Thesis On Social Forms and Social Controls in the U. S. A.,by Thomas M. Disch

The secret identity of Dobbin Thorpe emerges from disguise with this fictional essay.  It describes a nightmarish world of the future.  In the Twenty-First Century, China and the Soviet Union destroy each other in an atomic war.  Africa collapses into a state of permanent crisis.  Europe is under the control of the Vatican.  (Most Protestants move to the United States, which now includes Canada.) Only Australia emerges unchanged.

Disch begins with the famous dictums of George Orwell.  War is Peace.  Ignorance is Strength.  Freedom is Slavery.  To these, he adds two more.  Life is Death.  Love is Hate.  One by one, he describes how these principles apply to American society.  All adult males serve one year out of every five as a brutalized slave.  The other four years they indulge in unrestrained orgies of pleasure.  Women must care for the children they bear from multiple mates, or else serve as laborers or prostitutes. 

The author paints a terrifying portrait of a culture that deliberately chooses to be schizophrenic.  The essay's cold logic convinces the reader that such an insane world might truly exist.  The stories by Thorpe and Disch could not be more different, except for the fact that they both induce a strong sense of foreboding.

Four stars.

Summing Up, and a Bonus Review

The new year begins with a very pessimistic issue of the magazine.  From the sadistic Lords of Quarmall, to the insane world of the future, hardly a hint of hope appears in its pages.  Even the book review by S. E. Cotts deals with a novel haunted by doom.  I have read The Sundial by Shirley Jackson, discussed in the column.  It's a very strange book.  A group of eccentric people waits for the end of the world inside a weird house.  Like everything I have read by Jackson, it is unique.  I recommend it for reading by the fireplace on a dark night, waiting for the old year to fade away.

Five stars.