Tag Archives: henry kuttner

[March 12, 1967] Computerized Futures & Humanity (Out of the Unknown: Season Two)


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Computers seem to be appearing in everywhere these days, and now are coming into our schools.

Brentwood School IBM 1800

For the last few months, the Brentwood School in Palo Alto, California have been spending 30 minutes a day being taught by specially rigged up IBM 1800s.

One screen is setup to display images, whilst information is relayed over the headphones. The children will then answer simple questions using their “light pen” to write answers on another screen. If they answer correctly, it will move on to the next problem. If they do not, it will attempt to reexplain the problem in a new way, to see if it can help the child understand.

This kind of teaching appears to be effective, although it is likely to be a while before it is commonplace. The computers are still very expensive and there were issues with them breaking down (even, if the kids brought in a “get well soon card” to one of them). However, this kind of future is exactly the type that is being talked about in the latest series of Out of the Unknown.

Returning to the Unknown

Out of the Unknown Title Card

It feels to me that Irene Shubik was paying close attention to the response to last season. The most beloved stories of 1965’s series were probably Andover and the Android and The Midas Plague. As such the plays we have this season concentrate heavily on robotics, changes to the nature of humanity and scientific control of people’s lives.

Return of the Robots

Starting with our mechanical friends we get 4 tales of robots (although one I will address in a different section as not to spoil the twist occurring later in the episode). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Shubik’s friendship and his fame in this arena, two of these tales are from Asimov which round off the season.

I have seen them both classified as comedies, however I would not place them within that genre. They are certainly not as laugh out loud funny as The Midas Plague was. Rather they are satires of human nature.

Satisfaction Guaranteed
Yes…definitely a robot!

The first is Satisfaction Guaranteed (originally a Susan Calvin story but she has been removed, apparently so she could be used in the second tale’s frame without confusing the viewer) and concerns the creation of a humanoid servant to a housewife. At first, she is reticent about his presence but, as time goes on, she finds herself developing feelings. I had not been a fan of the original short story, but I found this one engaged me, particularly as I feel the ending is made more ambiguous and downbeat.

The Prophet
“There is no master but The Master, and QT1 is his Prophet”

The second is even more impressive, The Prophet, adapted from Reason in Asimov’s famed I, Robot collection. In this episode, Susan Calvin tells an interviewer the story of robots on a space station developing a belief that the power source of the station is their Master and humans are merely inferior earlier models. The design work and performances on this are excellent, and the additions of the Calvin frame and religious touches to the robots’ ceremonies make for an interesting and thought provoking spin on an already much lauded tale.

Fastest Draw
The Marshall approaches…finally!

Less successful is the adaptation of Larry Eisenberg’s Fastest Draw. It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy story to begin with (our John Boston gave it just two stars) and it doesn’t amount to much on screen either. Having a millionaire want to relive a western using automata doesn’t end up being much more than a stretched-out version of a plot you might see on Gunsmoke or The Virginian. There is so much talking and padding the appearance of The Marshall is not so much a great reveal as just relief that events are finally unfolding. I think Robots and Westerns are just not meant to mix, on screen at least.

Whilst robots are a major part of the series, we also have Frankenstein-esque tales of scientists changing what it means to be human.

Frankenstein Marks 2, 3, 4 and 5

Frankenstein Mark II
If the Radio Times can show an image of the creature, then so can I!

The most obvious example being Frankenstein Mark II, and not just in name. It follows Anna, whose ex-husband has seemingly vanished. After investigating she discovers he has been part of an experiment to change his body to be perfectly adapted to spaceflight. The unfolding mystery and horrific elements of this episode are well done but there just isn’t quite enough meat on this story as I would have hoped.

Too Many Cooks
Yes, that is indeed a lot of Cooks!

Watching Too Many Cooks, part of me wondered if Larry Eisenberg came up with the pun first and built a story around it. Humanity is in competition with a race called “The Sentients” from Alpha Centauri, to improve the position of the Solar System a plan is put in place to secretly duplicate their most successful scientist, Dr. Andrew Cook. As with some of these other pieces it starts out strong but by the end, I am left wondering what the point of it all was. It raises a number of interesting moral questions but then just lets them sit there without any real exploration. I still enjoyed it overall, just feels a little like a missed opportunity.

Second Childhood
Charles regains his youth, but at what cost?

From duplication of an individual to a rebirth. Second Childhood starts out in a very memorable fashion with a game show, where the rich can risk a million pounds to win a prize money cannot buy. When Charles wins the jackpot, he is able to undergo an experimental operation to regain his youth. It then becomes an interesting morality tale following Charles, in some ways reminding me of Wells’ Invisible Man. Unfortunately, the ending is the kind of obvious twist that reminds me of the forgettable joke stories we used to get during Avram Davidson’s tenure editing Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Walk's End
A not quite so restful rest home

The final of this class of tales, Walk’s End, starts promisingly enough, with the unusual setting of an old people’s home, where something strange is happening to the residents. With the exception of some apocalyptic novels like Aldiss’ Greybeard, we don’t get many stories of old age in science fiction, here we get two. Whilst Second Childhood approaches it from the perspective of trying to recapture youth, this is about continuing old age, a very interesting topic given the current trend of people living longer. However, I felt it didn’t really develop anywhere and the ending was also less impactful than I believe was intended.

One interesting feature to note about these plays is they are all new for Out of the Unknown, even Too Many Cooks by Larry Eisenberg is an unpublished piece he submitted for adaptation. As in the first season, these seemed to also be the weakest of the stories, perhaps due to the writers not having as much material to work from?

However, the largest selection of tales this season are those where people find themselves in computerized futures, where their lives are no longer their own.

Tomorrow’s World

The Machine Stops
If wonder if you can pick up KGJ on this?

The Machine Stops opened the season and has rightly been acclaimed as among the best productions the show has yet done. Following closely E. M. Forster’s tale, humans live inside an environment completely controlled by The Machine, no one has to leave their rooms at all, they can make calls, learn, be entertained, give lectures and more all without standing up from their chairs. Whilst Vashti is content in this world, her son Kuno wants to explore life outside The Machine. It is a strongly constructed play, with beautiful design work, and a stand-out performance of Yvonne Mitchell as Vashti.

Curiously, in the Radio Times preview for this episode, it is stated that the set design was inspired by the Edwardian era as they felt the concerns were of the period. I personally think the idea of human disconnection due to over-reliance on machines has become more prescient, not less, as we enter the computer age, and this makes it even more a powerful piece for that.

Level Seven
Nice and safe down in Level Seven, nothing could possibly go wrong…

Level Seven has an interesting history. This script was written by the much-acclaimed J. B. Priestley (famed for such works as The Good Companions, I Have Been Here Before and An Inspector Calls) for an unmade 1960 film adaptation of Mordecai Roshwald’s novel. This was purchased for the series, but it was too long and had a number of elements which would not work on TV. However, Priestley refused to make the edits, so it was up to Shubik to make the necessary changes in-between her producing work for the series.

In spite of this troubled genesis, it is an incredible and powerful play. It is a story of nuclear war, yet for much of the episode it is all kept at a safe tidy distance, as this is meant to be an impenetrable base for launching nuclear attacks from. The people live in this bubble as the realities of war are merely seen through screens and computer displays and they try to go on with their lives as the world above collapses.

One issue is that I could not help but compare it to The Machine Stops at times. Take these two sections of dialogue. First from The Machine Stops:

You talk as if God made The Machine. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men but men.

And then from Level 7:

We built the machine. We were very clever people, and the machines told us what to do and we did it.

I still think they are both strong and worthwhile plays, but it does highlight the limitations of choosing to concentrate on such similar themes in a single run of episodes

Tunnel Under The World
Travelling through the titular tunnel

Talking of stories that feel familiar, I imagine anyone watching the series would be unsurprised to learn Tunnel Under The World comes from the pen of Frederik Pohl, responsible for last year’s Midas Plague. Rather than an unhappy man struggling to cope in a world where he is forced to consume, here he is forced to endure endless advertising. What makes the play interesting, from our perspective, is that we see the day repeats in almost exactly the same manner, only the nature of adverts he experiences changes, even if it is for the same few products. Mr. Pohl clearly doesn’t like the advertising industry much, but he knows how to spin a fascinating yarn about it and this goes in an unexpected direction for those not familiar with the original story.

The World in Silence
Hopefully Sarah learnt more from the teaching machines than I did from the episode.

On the other hand, I don’t have much to say about The World in Silence. Set at a Further Education College, students are now being taught by teaching machines. But following a realignment the students seem to develop a kind of hive mind and take over the college as part of a computer system in themselves. Much like the story it is adapted from, Six Cubed Plus One by John Rankine, I felt there wasn’t enough there to build a tale around and I had trouble maintaining interest in it (in spite of the wonderful Deborah Watling in the lead).

The Eye
Who watches the watchmen? Us, apparently!

I did wonder if the same problems would plague The Eye (adapted from Private Eye by Henry Kuttner) with a story that is just discussing a possible murder case by watching it on a TV screen. The premise is that with someone’s life completely observed, the investigators can determine the guilt of anyone by simply watching through the events as they see them. But what they cannot know is what is truly in someone’s mind.

It did manage to use its format to its advantage and kept me more engaged than I expected, even if I felt the ending was a bit weak. It was not the strongest play Out of the Unknown has produced, but still very tightly constructed and well worth your time.

Lambda 1
Try walking next time, much healthier!

Lambda 1 I have saved reviewing until last as it is easily the strangest. Transport in the future is being performed by Tau, international journeys barely take any time by travelling directly through the Earth via atomic space. On its way between New York and London, the Tau ship Elektron, slips into the theoretical Omega phase and becomes stuck in atomic space The controllers in London attempt to find away to retrieve them, whilst the passengers find themselves in a realm of nightmares.

Lambda 1 was not a short story I had personally rated highly (although Mark Yon gave it 4 stars) but the uniqueness of this play from the others in 1966 makes it memorable and shocking. It is probably destined to be one of the most controversial of the series entries, where viewers will either love or hate it. Personally, I came down on the positive side, appreciating the attempt to do something different, even if I didn’t quite understand all of it.

Into the Known

Irene Shubik
Irene Shubik

So, a strong season overall; however, I do believe it could have benefited from more variety as we had in the first run. Robots and Orwellian fiction are a key part of SF, but we have seen this show can do space voyages, time travel or alien encounters just as well.

Another season has been already confirmed and it is planned to be broadcast in colour later this year. Whilst news has emerged that Shubik is moving on to running the BBC’s top anthology slot, The Wednesday Play, she has said she will not leave her current post until all the scripts are in place for a third series. This should hopefully avoid any delays and the future looks bright for Britain’s premiere science fiction television show.

Doctor Who
Sorry Doctor Who!



[June 10, 1966] Summer Reruns (July 1966 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Old Series Never Die, They Just Fade Away

Summertime is right around the corner, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and all patriotic Americans know what that means; reruns on television. Not only does this save the production companies money, it allows defunct programs to continue to appear on TV screens long after they're gone, like ghosts haunting a house. (Of course, they're easier to exorcise than traditional specters; just pull the plug.)

Two popular, critically acclaimed, and long-running series recently cast off this mortal coil, ready to enter the monochromatic afterlife of reruns.

Late last month, the courtroom drama Perry Mason slammed down the gavel for the last time with The Case of the Final Fade-Out. The story involved a television studio, so a large number of crew members made cameo appearances, pretty much as themselves. There was also a very special guest star.


That's executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson on the left and Hollywood columnist Norma Lee Browning on the right. The fellow in the middle? That's bestselling author Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, dressed up for his role as a judge in the final episode.

At the start of this month, The Dick Van Dyke Show came to a conclusion with the appropriately titled episode The Last Chapter. Van Dyke's character, television writer Rob Petrie, finishes the book he's been working on for five years, and looks back on his life.


Because The Last Chapter was really just an excuse to reuse sequences from previous episodes, I'm offering you this scene from the penultimate episode, The Gunslinger. Surrounding Van Dyke in this Western parody are cast regulars Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Deacon.

I'm sure that both of these hit series will be reincarnated in American living rooms for quite a while.

Not all summer television programming consists of reruns, to be sure. There are so-called summer replacement series as well. In a week or so, we'll enjoy (or avoid) the first episode of The Dean Martin Summer Show (not to be confused with The Dean Martin Show, which has been going on since last year. Are you still with me?) It will be hosted by the comedy team of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.


Rowan on the left and Martin on the right, in a scene from their 1958 Western spoof Once Upon a Horse. I wonder if they'll have any success as TV hosts.

A Home Run The First Time At Bat

Although it's not unknown for popular songs of yesteryear to return to the charts — auditory reruns, if you will — listeners are usually searching for something original. Newcomer Percy Sledge offers an notable example with his smash hit When a Man Loves a Woman. This passionate, soulful ballad, currently Number One in the USA, is not only the first song recorded by Sledge, it is the first song recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a city famous for its music studios, to reach that position.


Your fans mean it, Mister Sledge.

I've Seen This All Before

The reason I've been talking about reruns, before I get to the contents of the latest issue of Fantastic, isn't just the fact that they've been filling up the magazine with reprints for some time now. As we'll see, many of the old stories in this issue have reappeared several times before. Reruns of reruns, so to speak. Whether fans of imaginative literature will be willing to spend four bits for fiction they may have already read in collections or anthologies remains to be seen.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

Predictably, the front cover is also a rerun.


The back cover of the June 1943 issue of Amazing Stories. It looks better in the original version.

Before I get to the reruns, however, let's start with something new.

Just Like a Man, by Chad Oliver


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three men are in an aircraft, flying over the surface of an Earth-like planet. A sudden storm forces them to abandon the vehicle, stranding the trio in an area resembling an African savannah. Because the place is full of leonine predators, they hightail it to the relative safety of a nearby rainforest.


Climbing one of the planet's gigantic trees in order to get away from the hungry cats.

They wind up far above the ground, among an unsuspected community of highly intelligent primates. These mysterious creatures help them survive, and even offer the possibility of reaching their home base, located five hundred miles away across uncharted wilderness.


Among the primates, who are not as hostile as shown here.

This is a decent tale of adventure, and the enigmatic primates are interesting. The planet is so similar to Earth — the feline predators are pretty much just lions — that you might forget you're reading a science fiction story. Overall, it's worth reading, if not outstanding in any way.

Three stars.

The Trouble With Ants, by Clifford D. Simak


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

From the January 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures comes this final story in the author's famous City series. (By the way, the title of this work was changed to The Simple Way when it appeared in book form.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth. From this point on, all the illustrations are reruns from the original appearances of the stories.

In the far future, people are gone from Earth, with the exception of one fellow in suspended animation. Long ago, humans increased the intelligence of dogs, gave them the power of speech, and built robots to serve their needs. The canines, in turn, taught other animals to speak.

Complicating matters is the fact that a man caused ants to develop technology of their own, including robots the size of fleas. Now the ants are constructing a building, for an unknown purpose, which threatens to take over the planet.

An ancient robot returns from humanity's new home in a mysterious fashion. It seeks out the man in suspended animation as part of its quest to understand the ants.

Brought together as a fix-up novel in 1952, the City series won the International Fantasy Award the next year. It is usually considered a classic of science fiction, and has been reprinted many times.


One of the many editions of this work. Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

Highly imaginative, and with a sweeping vision of the immensity of time, Simak's tales also have a gentleness and intimacy that touches the reader's heart. The mood is one of quiet melancholy, and the acceptance of the fact that all things will pass away.

Although SF fans are likely to have read this story before, its quality makes it a welcome repeat. (One can rarely say the same thing about television reruns, or else viewers would stay glued to their screens.)

Five stars.

Where Is Roger Davis?, by David V. Reed


Cover art by Robert Fuqua.

Let's take a break from stuff that has already been reprinted multiple times, and take a look at the first reappearance of this yarn, taken from the yellowing pages of the May 1939 issue of Amazing Stories. (The author is unknown to me, but I have discovered that he also writes for comics, particularly Batman. Apparently a couple of episodes of the new television series are based on his scripts for the comic book.)


Illustrations by Julian S. Krupa.

Two young men working for a New York City tour bus encounter an invisible, telepathic Martian. One of them is seduced by the alien's plot to take over the world, and soon becomes a megalomaniac.


The fact that the Martian makes robbing a bank as easy as pie is another factor in his decision.

The other fellow has to figure out a way to keep the Martians from conquering Earth.

The mood of the story changes drastically from light comedy at the start to grim tragedy by the conclusion. Given the year it was written, I wonder if the dictatorial intentions of the first man were influenced by the rise of Fascism.

The author claims that this story is a true account, sent to him by the second man. There are also bits of imaginary news articles scattered throughout, in an attempt at verisimilitude. These don't work very well, particularly the long one at the end. The only thing I found mildly intriguing, if implausible, was the way the hero manages to plot against beings who can read his mind.

Two stars.

Almost Human, by Tarleton Fiske


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

The introductory blurb makes it clear that the author of this story, reprinted from the June 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures, is really Robert Bloch, using a rather absurd pseudonym. (As is common practice, this was done because he had another story in the same issue under his own name.)


Illustration by Rod Ruth.

A hoodlum makes his way into the secret laboratory of a brilliant scientist. His moll has been working for the guy, so the crook knows the genius has created a robot. The machine is being educated like a child. The gangster teaches it to be an invincible criminal, and to kill without mercy. As you'd expect, things don't work out very well.

This piece reads like hardboiled fiction from a crime pulp. The final scene is particularly gruesome, in typical Bloch style. The author shows a certain knack for the Hammett/Chandler mode, but that's about all I can say for it. Not that great a story, but somebody thought it was worth reviving for an anthology.


Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Two stars.

Satisfaction Guaranteed, by Isaac Asimov


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

Speaking of robots, here's one of several stories about the robopsychologist Susan Calvin by the Good Doctor, from the April 1951 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Enoch Sharp.

Calvin only plays a minor part in this story, which focuses on a rather mousy, insecure housewife. Her husband works for the same robotics firm as Calvin, so he brings home a test model of a new machine. It looks like a handsome young man, and is designed to be helpful around the house in many different ways. The husband goes off on a business trip, leaving his wife alone with the robot.

The housewife is frightened of it at first, but soon learns to accept it. It even helps her with home decorating, clothing, and makeup, so she learns self-confidence. A final, unexpected gesture on the part of the machine, seemingly out of character for a robot, wins her the envy of her snobbish acquaintances. Susan Calvin explains why the machine's action was a perfectly logical way of obeying the famous First Law of Robotics.


Anonymous cover art for a British edition.

The author must be fond of this tale, because he has already included it in two different collections of his work. The one shown above, as the title indicates, includes stories that take place on Earth rather than in space, despite the misleading illustration and blurb. The story also appears in an omnibus that brings together his two robot novels as well as several shorter works.


Cover art by Thomas Chibbaro.

Besides that, it is also included in the same Roger Elwood anthology as Bloch's story. My sources in the television industry tell me that it is being adapted for the British series Out of the Unknown, and should appear late this year. (Will there be American reruns? One can only hope.)

Is it worth all this attention? Well, it's not a bad yarn, if not the greatest robot story Asimov ever wrote. The housewife is something of a stereotype of an overly emotional female, dependent on a man for her happiness. (This is in sharp contrast to the highly intelligent and independent Doctor Susan Calvin.) At some point you may think that the author is violating his own rules about robot behavior, but it's all explained at the end.

Three stars.

A Portfolio – Virgil Finlay

I'm not sure if I should even discuss this tiny collection of illustrations by the great artist, but at least I can share them with you.


For The New Adam (1939) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The magazine calls it The New Atom, which is an egregious error.


For Mirrors of the Queen (1948) by Richard S. Shaver.


For The Silver Medusa (1948) by Alexander Blade (pseudonym for H. Hickey.)

What can I say? His work is stunning.

Five stars.

Satan Sends Flowers, by Henry Kuttner


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

The January/February 1953 issue of Fantastic is the source of this variation on an old theme.


Illustrations by Tom Beecham.

A man sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for immortality. (The premise is similar to that of the Twilight Zone episode Escape Clause, but the twist ending is different.) He ensures that he will remain young, healthy, and all that, so Satan can't play any tricks on him. Obviously, he figures he'll never have to pay up.

The Devil demands surety in the form of certain subconscious memories the fellow possesses. After assuring him that he won't even know he's lost anything, the man agrees. Unafraid of either earthly punishment or damnation, he lives a life of total depravity.


His first crime is the murder of his mother.

Eventually, he persuades the Devil to give him back what he lost, even though Satan warns him that he won't like it. This turns out to be a bad idea.

Like most other stories in this issue, this one has already appeared in a book. (It acquired the new title By These Presents.)


Back and front cover art by Richard Powers.

I should mention that the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore almost always collaborated, even if the resulting story appeared under only one name. Whoever might have been responsible for whatever parts of this work, it's a reasonably engaging tale. I'm not sure I really accept the explanation for what the man's unconscious memories represent, but I was willing to go along with it.

Three stars.

The Way Home, by Theodore Sturgeon


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

This quiet story comes from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustrations by David Stone.

A boy runs away from home. Along the way he meets a wealthy man and his glamourous female companion, in their fancy car; a man with an injured hand who has been all over the world; and a pilot in a beautiful airplane. Without giving too much away, it's clear from the start that these men represent possible future versions of himself.


Is this the road to the future, or to home?

Like Asimov's story, this piece has already appeared in two of the author's collections, but with a slight change in the title.


Cover art by Mel Hunter.

(I'm not sure if I should really count these as two different collections, because all the stories in Thunder and Roses already appeared, along with others, in A Way Home. Such are the vagaries of the publishing industry.)


Cover art by Peter Curl.

In any case, this is a beautifully written little story, subtle and evocative. To say much more would be to ruin the delicate mood it creates.

Five stars.

Worth Tuning In Again?


Cartoon by somebody called Frosty, from the same magazine as Satan Sends Flowers.

I wouldn't call this issue bad at all, although there were a couple of disappointing stories.  It's no big surprise that the Simak and the Sturgeon were excellent, and Finlay's art is always a delight.  It's enough to make you want to tear yourself away from all those reruns on television and turn to some literary reruns instead.


In the world of cuisine, reruns are known as leftovers.



Tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest and best hits!  Even the reruns are great!




[May 8, 1966] A Respite (June 1966 Amazing)


by John Boston

Hope Springs Eternal

. . . but, as Groucho Marx might put it, hope springs can get rusty, too.

The June Amazing on its face presents bad news and good news.  In the first category is the beginning of a new two-part serial by Murray Leinster, generically titled Stopover in Space.  One can only hope (that word again!) that there is more to it than the empty blather of Killer Ship from last year. 


by James B. Settles

All the shorter stories are reprints.  But two of them are by very reputable authors, Arthur C. Clarke and Henry Kuttner, taken from the magazine’s ambitious false spring of 1953-54 (the Renascence), and two others are from the immediately post-Ray Palmer times (the Liminal Period), by writers who later made pretty good names for themselves, Walter M. Miller, Jr., and Kris Neville.  The fifth is the last published story by G. Peyton Wertenbaker, who commendably learned to write after the fiascoes of The Man from the Atom and its sequel.

Of course the Clarke and Kuttner stories are not exactly rediscoveries.  Clarke’s Encounter in the Dawn, retitled Expedition to Earth, was the title story of the first collection of his stories, published by Ballantine in 1953 and pretty widely known.  Kuttner’s Or Else was the lead story in his collection Ahead of Time, also from Ballantine in 1953.  It was anthologized in the UK in Edmund Crispin’s first Best SF volume, and reprinted again in last year’s The Best of Kuttner from the UK’s Mayflower Books.  These stories will probably be familiar to those well read in SF.

The rest of the package is as usual: another inanely self-serving editorial by editor Ross and a few letters mostly praising the reprint policy, though one of the correspondents also says don’t overdo it with the reprints, it’s time for more Robert F. Young and Ensign De Ruyter.  He appears to be serious.  The cover, simultaneously dull and busy, is reprinted from the back cover of the July 1942 Amazing.  It’s called Satellite Space Ship Station, and artist James B. Settles provides a rather pedestrian view of space travel. 

Stopover in Space (Part 1 of 2), by Murray Leinster


by Gray Morrow

As is my habit, I will hold off reading or commenting on the serial until I have both installments.  I am struggling to reserve judgment, but can’t fail to notice that the same egregious padding that so distinguished, or extinguished, last year’s Killer Ship shows up in the first paragraph here: “Scott ran into the situation on a supposedly almost-routine tour of duty on Checkpoint Lambda.  It was to be his first actual independent command as a Space Patrol commissioned officer.  Otherwise the affairs of the galaxy seemed to be proceeding in a completely ordinary fashion.  On a large scale, suns burned in emptiness, novas flamed, and comets went bumbling around their highly elliptical orbits just as usual.”

If This Be Utopia, by Kris Neville

First after the serial is Kris Neville’s If This Be Utopia, from the May 1950 issue, a slightly heavy-handed satire about a regimented future in which everyone is assigned to a job and pressured mercilessly to perform, and those who don’t measure up—or are made examples of by their superiors—get demoted to worse fates.  Our hero is a middle manager who is cracking under the stress and taking it out on his underlings until his superiors take it out on him.  It’s a bit too obvious, but still decently done.  Three stars.

Encounter in the Dawn, by Arthur C. Clarke

Encounter in the Dawn, from the June-July 1953 issue, is fairly typical for Clarke, a sort of lecture-demonstration of the stuff of SF and his understanding of the cosmos, without too much in the way of plot.  But that’s OK.  Clarke’s writing skill and his restrained sentimentality about the vastness of the universe and the depths of time carry the reader along.  He’s the antithesis of Ray Palmer’s policy of “Gimme bang-bang.”

This one begins: “It was in the last days of the Empire,” which is threatened by an unspecified “shadow that lay across civilization.” Three regular guys of the Galactic Survey, continuing their quest for knowledge despite the doom overhanging their homes, arrive at a new solar system and land on what is obviously Earth.  They take a look around and befriend Yaan, a primitive human or proto-human, with gifts of game killed by their robot.  They get the call to come home for the Empire’s last stand, leave Yaan a few high-tech gifts like a flashlight, and take off.  Tragedy looms over them, but life and intelligence will go on.  Three stars.

Or Else, by Henry Kuttner

Kuttner’s Or Else (August-September 1953 issue) is well done also, as one would expect, but there’s not much to it.  A couple of Mexican subsistence farmers are shooting at each other, contesting the ownership of the only source of water in their valley.  An alien drops in by flying saucer, demonstrates various superpowers, says his race has appointed themselves peacekeepers of the solar system, and Miguel and Fernandez have to stop trying to kill each other because violence is wrong.  They agree and shake hands, the alien buzzes off, and they start shooting again because there’s still only one water hole in the valley.


by Dick Francis

Profound, huh?  While SF may occasionally contribute to the global dialogue on war and peace, this one is best described as chewing less than it purports to bite off.  It also relies on cartoony ethnic stereotyping—but then everything in the story is pretty cartoony, and Kuttner at least lends the viewpoint character, Miguel, some shrewdness.  Thinking the alien is really a norteamericano, he says, “First you will bring peace, and then you will take our oil and precious minerals.” Two stars for execution, not much for substance.

Secret of the Death Dome, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s first published SF story, Secret of the Death Dome (January 1951 issue), is another kettle of sweat altogether, the kind of thing you’d expect to find in a magazine whose cover depicts a hairy-chested guy wrestling with a crocodile. 

The Martians have landed, and how: they have plunked down a large and impervious dome in the desert (actually, a couple of feet above it), where they engage in cryptic communication, and snatch anyone who comes too near and vivisect them.  One guy came back without his legs.  The newly wed Barney came back without his genitals, falling off his horse and dying on arrival.  (The Martians are surveilled by the military on horseback.)


by B. Edmund Swiatek

This makes Jerry mad.  Barney was his best friend and Barney’s new wife was Jerry’s old flame.  So Jerry, who can’t sleep, saddles up and heads out, to do . . . what?  He has no idea.  The Martians scare his horse away, and he hears from base that when it came back riderless, Betty—the widowed Mrs. Barney—took it and is on her way.  So he heads toward the dome and crawls under it looking for a way in. 

You can guess the rest.  He’s captured, gets control of the situation through brains and guts, rescues the by then-captured Betty, sowing death and destruction among the Martians all the way, learns why they are here (the secret of the title, including what the Martians wanted with Barney's genitalia), and drives them away forever.  Whew!  The details don’t matter.  At the end, the just-bereaved Betty tells Jerry not to contact her—“. . . for a couple of months, anyway,” the back of her neck flushing as she turns away.

The style is consistent with the content, cynical tough-guy-isms all the way down.  For example, when the colonel gets the call that Barney has returned, he sends Jerry to check things out.  “Jerry was just a sergeant, but there wasn’t any need for brass.  Death is for privates.” And so on.  Two stars for this testosterone-soaked epic.

Elaine’s Tomb, by G. Peyton Wertenbaker

G. Peyton Wertenbaker’s Elaine’s Tomb, from the Winter 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly, is, in its quaint way, the best of this issue’s short fiction, and a vast improvement over his earlier work.  Alan, the narrator, teaches at a small college and falls in love with Elaine, one of his students.  Of course he doesn’t do anything about it, and hares off to Egypt with his colleague Weber who has a line on some ancient temples hardly anybody else knows about.  He confesses his romantic situation to Weber en route.  In a temple, there’s a preserved ancient Egyptian king, and a carved curse against anybody who molests him.  Alan touches the recumbent body, and shortly comes down with a fever that shows no sign of abating.  But Weber has found the secret of suspended animation, and promises to put Alan under at the moment of death, and revive him when he finds the secret of life, which must be around the temple somewhere, and unite him with Elaine.


by Leo Morey

Alan awakens, and it’s the far future, Wellsian variant, populated by people who have forgotten most of the know-how of civilization; the machines take care of them, and when one breaks down, they just put another one in its place.  They live pleasant lives and some of them even write books.  In one of these, Alan learns of Elaine’s Tomb, up north near what used to be called Chicago, in the frozen barbarian-populated wastes.  Turns out Weber couldn’t revive him, but he could suspend Elaine to wait for him.  Further adventures and reunion (or union, in this case) follow.

The story is archaic in attitude but modern in its plain style, well imagined and visualized without wasted verbiage, with enough plot to sustain its 40-page length, and altogether a pleasure to read.  Am I really going to give this antique four stars, as I did with another of Wertenbaker’s late stories, The Chamber of Life?  Guess so. 

Summing Up

So, hope fulfilled—admittedly, to expectations lowered by experience.  That's because editor Ross this time selected modern stories, plus an older one that is written in a modern style and not centered around the cranky crotchets of bygone decades, unlike some earlier selections I would prefer not to name.  The result is mostly pretty readable, with a couple of stories better than that, and nothing bloody awful.  But the specter of the Leinster serial still looms over the next issue.  We shall proceed with trepidation.



If you want to hear some great modern tunes, then tune in to KGJ, our radio station!  Nothing but the newest hits!




[September 13, 2017] GRAZING THE BAR (the October 1962 Amazing)

[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!]


by John Boston

Space!  Mankind’s dream!  Well, some people’s dream.  A lot of us seem to be more concerned with making a living, taking care of families, trying to keep a straight face at school, and other highly terrestrial activities.  But even in this small town in the boondocks, people mostly seem to take pride in the first human ventures off the planet, though you do hear the occasional grumble that all that money could be better spent right here on Earth.

I wasn’t so confident a couple of years ago, when I witnessed the second most remarkable thing I have seen here.  (First place is claimed by the man I saw walking a raccoon on a leash.  Raccoons do tend to have their own agendas.) I was downtown on a Saturday morning, which is when the farmers come into town to take care of their business.  The banks are open then, which I am told is not the case in larger cities.  The farmers come in their cars, their pickup trucks, and in some cases their horse-drawn wagons, all parked around the courthouse square.  On this Saturday, a man was preaching from the back of one of the wagons . . . against the evils of space travel.  “If Man reaches out to touch the face of God’s Moon,” he thundered, “God will BLAST HIM FROM THE EARTH!” But no one paid any attention, and I’ve heard nothing further about his prophecy.

I was reminded of this episode by the cover story of the October Amazing, Poul Anderson’s Escape from Orbit.  It’s another near-space epic like Third Stage from the February issue, also, like that one, illustrated by a Popular Mechanics-style cutaway depiction of guys in a space vehicle.  The situation: meteor destroys spacecraft, crew escapes in lifecraft without propulsion, now they’re stuck in Moon orbit with no one close enough to rescue them, and a solar flare due in 48 hours.  The only bright spot is that the ship’s big, heavy main air tank is nearby and retrievable, giving them enough to breathe until they get killed by the flare.  The air tank—that’s it!  In a paroxysm of arithmetic (work shown only at the end), the protagonist, second banana at Orbital Command on Earth, sees the solution. 

This five or six pages’ worth of story is stretched to 20 by extensive detail about our hero’s home and inner life, including his unsatisfactory wife, the woman he wishes he had married, his physical deterioration (he’s 34) and how he feels about it, his career anxieties, etc.  It takes five paragraphs to get from the early morning ringing phone to actually answering it, and several pages to get him out the door and on the road to Base.  Maybe somebody told Anderson he needed more human interest in his stories, or maybe he hoped to sell this one to Cosmopolitan (well, no, not with the complaints about the wife) or the Saturday Evening Post.  Whatever.  The whole thing is forced and clumsy.  Two stars.

This month’s “Classic Reprint” is The Young Old Man by Earl L. Bell, from the magazine’s September 1929 issue, which serves mainly to show how boring a story can be even if short.  Campers in the Ozarks encounter a storekeeper who looks about 45 but he’s obviously ancient, just look at his eyes.  The revelation is that immortality, which he received via thaumaturgist in the 11th Century, isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.  How fortunate we are that most SF writers these days at least try to develop their ideas, rather than just laying them out like a dead fish on ice.  One star.

Things look up a bit after that one.  Ben Bova has taken a break from his article series and contributed a short story, Answer, Please Answer , about a couple of guys wintering in Antarctica (draftees in a war with the Soviets), who by coincidence are both astronomers.  So in their considerable spare time, they look for extraterrestrial signals from variable stars, and boy do they find them and are they sobering.  This is as much a one-gimmick story as Anderson’s, but it’s much better done by this guy with a decade’s less experience writing fiction.  It builds up smoothly, dropping in just enough background on the characters to make them characters, comes to its revelation, then stops.  Three stars for unpretentious cleverness and competence.

Jeff Sutton’s After Ixmal is readable but silly: a super-computer develops consciousness, albeit the consciousness of a petulant child, tricks humanity into destroying itself, lords it over the dead Earth for eons until it discovers a rival consciousness, and goes to war with it, just because.  As SF it’s barely thought through at all, and as fable or myth or whatever it lacks the necessary sonority, gravitas, etc.  Two stars.

The versatile Robert F. Young, who knows so many ways of being entirely too cute, is back with Boy Meets Dyevitza.  Captain Andrews of the United States Space Force, who thinks he is the first Earth-person on Venus, encounters Major Mikhailovna of the USSR, who is washing her stockings in a stream, having beaten him there the previous day.  As for conditions on Venus, hey, this is science fiction, so: “The data supplied by the Venus probes during the early 60’s, while inconclusive with regard to her cloud-cover, had conclusively disproved former theories to the effect that she lacked a breathable atmosphere and possessed a surface temperature of more than 100 degrees Centigrade, and had prepared him for what he found—an atmosphere richer in oxygen content than Earth’s, a comfortable climate [etc.].” See?  Science!  Extrapolation!  [And complete bollocks — Young should know better.]

Then the human indigenes show up, wearing brass collars; shocked by the Earthfolks’ naked necks, they later kidnap them and put brass collars on them, which can’t be removed by human tools and prevent them from getting very far from each other.  They are married, Venusian style.  But they discover they don’t really mind, and (to summarize brutally) the folks back home say “Awwww,” and—never mind.  Two stars for Young’s usual professional execution, heavily discounted for cloy.

The fiction contents are rounded out by Pattern, the second story in the SF magazines by the very youthful Robert H. Rohrer, Jr. (b. 1946), less slick but more interesting than Young’s polished artifact: a life form consisting of organized electricity tries to take over and consume the energy flows of human spaceship pilot Captain Brenner.  This is not exactly an original plot—see, or remember, van Vogt’s The Voyage of the Space Beagle—but it’s much better worked out than, say, After Ixmal, with a nasty twist at the end.  Three stars and good if not great expectations for this new writer.

Sam Moskowitz’s SF Profile is The Secret Lives of Henry Kuttner—not one of his best.  Per his custom, he describes Kuttner’s early pulp stories in detail and gives very short shrift to his later and better work, emphasizing his pseudonyms and what Moskowitz thinks is his work’s derivative aspects (sometimes rightly and sometimes decidedly not), and summarizing his career: “Lured by opportunism, suffering from an acute sense of inadequacy, he refused to stand alone, but leaned for support upon a parade of greats: H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Stanley G. Weinbaum, A. Merritt, John Collier, A.E. van Vogt, and, of course, C.L. Moore.” This about the man who by the early ‘40s had become one of the most capable writers in the field, who produced a disproportionate number of the best-remembered stories of the ‘40s and early ‘50s, and whose work was pored over by the likes of Sturgeon and Bradbury.  Terrible analysis, terrible judgment.  Two stars, being generous.

Frank Tinsley, it turns out, isn’t gone.  He’s here with The Nuclear Putt-Putt, an article about Project Orion, a proposed gigantic spaceship to be powered by a succession of nuclear bombs.  Small ones, to be sure, but still.  Especially since this insane behemoth is apparently supposed to launch from Earth.  Can we say radiation?  Fallout?  Not a word about how these are to be contained.  Two stars for overlooking a rather obvious problem.

And Benedict Breadfruit . . . is gone as of this issue.  His last bow is actually reasonably clever . . . unlike most of its predecessors.

So the magazine bumbles along.  The wearying thing is not how bad its worst stories are, but that the top of its range is still readable competence and little more.




[June 16, 1962] Picking Up Charles Finney (The Circus of Dr. Lao)


by Victoria Lucas

I am so honored to be taking up space here!  The Traveler thought enough of my letters to the editor that he asked me to become a regular contributor.  In my letters I mentioned how I've just graduated from Stanford and am going back to my old job in the Drama Department at the University of Arizona, and my mother's home, where I'm typing on an old portable Smith-Corona that has seen far too many papers, dissertations, theses, and so on as I've struggled to work my way through college. 

Last fall I tacked up on my bulletin board (unfortunately in the sun) a short column of news about somebody with whom I sometimes work in Tucson little theatre–Bob Hammond, a French professor at the University of Arizona who once won a Fulbright to Paris and never recovered.  He writes his plays in French and English and translates from each language into the other.  The blurb introduced Hammond as one of four playwrights who formed a producing group for their work.  One of the other playwrights was a fellow by the name of Charles Finney who was supposed to produce a play of his this year. 

The article reminded me that I may have met Finney as I house-managed and assistant-directed Bob's plays.  Or I might have seen him in his workplace, the newspaper building downtown, where he has been editor of the Arizona Daily Star for 32 years (I spent my Saturdays at the Tucson Daily Citizen my senior year in high school helping to put out the "Teen Citizen," a section of the paper.) So when I ran across The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories I picked it up.  It's edited by Ray Bradbury and published by Bantam Books, first out 1956.

In the very first sentence of his introduction to this book of short and long stories, Bradbury asserts that the works in this book "are fantasies, not science-fiction." He goes on to list some adjectives and statements that contrast science fiction and fantasy as genres (or at least his idea of the genres).  Then, in two short, strident paragraphs, like trochees in a poem, he argues:

"Science-fiction balances you on the cliff.

Fantasy shoves you off."

This book of short stories (and one long one) conforms to that opinion.  At least the shoving-off-cliffs part.

Charles Finney's novella The Circus of Dr. Lao is on the cover and first in the book.  Finney uses figures of mythical people and animals to produce what seems like an almost metaphorical story of Abalone, Arizona, which apparently is what Charles Finney calls Tucson.  He began the story while he was in the US Army in China in 1929, and it has seen numerous editions since it was first in print in 1935. 

Lao Tzu (or Laozi, or Lao Tse or …) is a mythical/historical figure who is said to be the author of the Tao Te Ching, a book of philosophy, and the founder of Taoism (Daoism), variously a religion and a philosophy.  The presence of this part man part myth as the owner of a circus is better understood when you see who and what the circus animals and people are: a medusa, a sea serpent, Apollonius of Tyana (15 to 100 AD, a Christ-like figure who incongruously wears and uses a cross), a satyr, a Roc chick, Sphinx, Chimera, and so on.  The real venerable philosopher (Dr.) Lao did not preach withdrawal from the world but discernment and enjoyment of what is in it, apparently here containing the inventions of the human imagination that might include himself (does that tangle your nervous system?)

These animals and humanlike entities do not mix well, and they look strange marching through the town of Abalone as circuses used to do.  They are so bizarre that the people of Abalone do not know what to make of them, and they argue incessantly about whether one of the circus figures is a bear, a "Russian," or a man.  Finney doesn't even settle the matter in his ending "Catalogue" of characters, questions, and other matters at the end.

I cannot recommend this story enough.  Although Bradbury calls it fantasy, it fits in no genre, has no particular moral, steps in no one else's shoes.  I am only familiar with one other book of Finney's, The Unholy City, which seems to me again to be without identifiable genre, one that calls out human foibles but does not condemn them.  Both books are funny but not laugh-out-loud funny.  Their humor emanates quietly from human (and mythic) limitations and self-aggrandizement.

What I find most amusing is the way the good (or not-so-good) doctor can change in an instant back and forth from a stereotype of an ignorant and hysterical "heathen Chinee," misplaced letters "L" and all, to a calm, philosophical global traveller speaking perfect English. 

In one scene, he "came dashing up, 'Whatsah mattah Glod damn college punks come this place?' …'You no savvee nothing here.  Glet to hell out!  This my show, by Glod!'" Eventually he "glets" them out by shouting, "Hey, Lube!  (instead of the circus/carnival rallying cry, "Hey, Rube!").

A little later he expounds on his Hound of the Hedges (supposedly a living dog made out of vegetable matter).  He begins with "Epitomizing the fragrance of grassplots, lawns, and hedgy, thickset places, this behemoth of hounds stands unique in the mysterious lexicon of life."  Elsewhere he maintains his innocence of fraud by saying "You see: I no fool you.  This place no catchum fake." 

(In my experience, some clever people conceived in foreign lands or looking still foreign in this one use this ability to believably imitate their stereotypes in order to maintain their privacy and ward off unwelcome demands.)

As the show goes on, there are casualties, mainly from the Medusa's ability to turn people to stone, but Dr. Lao is almost killed himself.  He survives, though, and just as he came to town by no visible means (not by truck or train), he leaves with his menagerie the same way.

"I am a calm, intelligent girl." Miss Agnes Birdsong reassures herself.  "I am a calm, intelligent girl, and I have not seen Pan on Main Street." Circus of Dr. Lao

"When I let go of who I am, I become what I might be." Lao Tzu

The rest of the book consists of short stories of varying length.  The first, Nigel Kneale's story The Pond, seems to me to have congealed around a particular idea the way the white of a boiled egg encircles the yolk.  Anything I say about it will probably spoil the ending of this extremely short story, so I will just state that it is of frogs and men.

The Hour of Letdown by E. B. White pits men against an artificial brain.  One that likes to get drunk after a hard job well done.

So far humans aren't doing very well.  Let's see how things go with Roald Dahl's The Wish.  Hmmm.  Imagination 3, human beings 0. 

And "The Summer People"?  Well, I know Shirley Jackson's work, and her imagination tends to the … let's just say she's well known for The Haunting of Hill House, a ghost story.  A couple lucky enough to have a summer home decide to stay there after Labor Day, something they've never done before.  Be prepared for unending suspense.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of the next story, is taught in school as one of America's first, most celebrated authors.  He is probably best known for his book The Scarlet Letter (1850), about fictional events 200 years earlier in Puritan Boston, where an adulteress is forced to wear a red letter "A" on her dress.  This story, Earth's Holocaust, dates from 1844 and is strongly reminiscent of Jonathan Swift, whose work Hawthorne probably would have read.  Its moral: beware of reforms, because evil will spring forth anew.

Loren Eiseley is an anthropologist, not a writer of fiction, but this story (essay?) was published in 1948 in Harper's Magazine, when he was head of the Anthropology Department at the University of Pennsylvania.  "Bone hunters," he writes, "are listeners.  They have to be."  He hears about Buzby's Petrified Woman (the story title) while hunting for fossils, and he has to find out if it's "a bone."  Because it's in this collection I would think it's fantasy.  Because it's Eiseley I'm inclined to believe it's a memory.  You judge.

Oliver La Farge is also an anthropologist, but he wrote recognized fiction.  This story, The Resting Place, also became part of his collection A Pause in the Desert (1957) (Oh, I wish they hadn't misspelled "Chinle"–with an extra "e."  It's one of my favorite spots.) So I do understand "the old man's" obsession with Navajo country.  Its beauty is formidable, its mystery eternal.  This story does not challenge that view.

Threshold is by Henry Kuttner – an author with more pseudonyms than anyone else I know.  His most frequent one was Lewis Padgett, a name he used when he wrote with his wife C. L. Moore, but apparently Kuttner attributed this story to himself.  Kuttner is notable for his correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft, the inventor of the world of Cthulu.  If you have read or read about Lovecraft's work, you can guess the atmosphere and maybe one of the few characters in this story, which has been described elsewhere as "horror."  Apparently the husband-and-wife team of Kuttner and Moore did not have two egotists on it, because Kuttner writes here, "egotists cannot live together."  Beware: this is the second time a devil has appeared in this book.  Third time's a charm.

In James H. Schmitz's Greenface a barking dog begins to "churn up the night" as the owner of a fishing camp tries to decide how to deal with a green horror that has driven away his campers–and his girlfriend. 

The Limits of Walter Horton features this quote by author John Seymour Sharnik: "Even if one accepted Horton's rare talent as the purest sort of inspiration, that didn't explain what was happening." 

What if, while you are woolgathering, you are really not all there?  What if part of you is truly in the place and time you are thinking about, and the you in the present has somehow diminished?  Maybe this story, The Man Who Vanished by Robert M. Coates, would be the result.

For me, the stories in this book are uneven in quality and interest, but however you can get it, I absolutely recommend The Circus of Dr. Lao.  If you like Galactic Journey, you'll like Finney.