Tag Archives: james bell

[August 8, 1963] Great Escapes (September 1963 IF)


by Gideon Marcus

In the United States, the Fourth of July is perhaps our biggest holiday, celebrating our declaration of independence from our former motherland, Great Britain.  It was our escape from taxation without representation, from capricious colonial government, and from forced tea-drinking. 

This latest Independence Day saw the premiere of one of the biggest and best summer blockbusters ever made, the appropriately themed The Great Escape.  Directed by John Sturges, and starring James Garner, Richard Attenborough, and Steve McQueen, it is the vaguely true-to-life story of a prison break from a Nazi Stalag.  Exciting, moving, and beautifully done, it's sure to be a contender for an Oscar or three.  Watch it.

The September 1963 Worlds of IF Science Fiction continues the escape motif.  Not just in the normal sense in that it provides an escape from reality, but rather, each of its stories involves an escape of some kind. 

Was this a deliberate editorial choice by Fred Pohl or simply a happy circumstance?  Either way, it makes for an enjoyable issue that is better than the sum of its parts.

The Expendables, by A. E. van Vogt

Van Vogt, one of space opera's most prominent lights, has been away from the SF scene for fourteen years.  So it's quite a scoop for Pohl to have gotten this latest piece, depicting the final stages of a generation ship's journey.  A mutiny against the authoritarian captaincy is brewing as the ship nears its destination, and when it turns out the planet intended for colonization is already inhabited, all-out rebellion ensues.

This is a tale that combines two of my favorite topics, first contact and generation ships, and I'm a big fan of Van Vogt.  However, I am disappointed to report that Expendables just doesn't hang well together.  The science is shaky, the dialogue rather implausible, and the characters a bit too gullible.  There is also a queer, slapdash quality to the writing.  I suspect this was written in a hurry; a do-over could turn it into a fine story, indeed.  Two stars as is.

The Time of Cold, by Mary Carlson

Curt, a spacewrecked man trapped without water on a parched world has little hope of surviving long enough to be rescued.  Xen is an amorphous hot-blooded being, native to the planet, desperate for more warmth.  Both are menaced by liquid scorpions, beasts who kill in an instant and don't care what world you come from.  Are the two aliens the key to each other's survival?

There is an art to telling a story from alternating perspectives such that each scene moves the story forward without repetition.  Mary Carlson, a young lady from South Dakota, mastered that art in her first published piece.  It's a beautiful, uplifting tale.  Bravo.  Five stars.

Manners and Customs of the Thrid, by Murray Leinster

In Thrid culture, the Governor can never be wrong, and woe be to one who disputes him.  Jorgenson, a representative of the Rim Star Trading Corp., dares to stand up for his native business partner, Ganti, whose wife the Governor would have for his own.  Both are exiled for life to a barren rock in the middle of the ocean, escape from which would daunt even the fellows who broke out of Alcatraz. 

But, escape they do, and the method is quite ingenious — and logical given the central tenet of Thrid society.  Writing-wise, it's a rather workmanlike piece, but the thrilling bits more than compensate.  Three stars.

Science on a Shoestring – Or Less , by Theodore Sturgeon

In this month's science column, Sturgeon extols the merits of UNESCO's book, Sourcebook for Science Teaching.  I love Ted Sturgeon, don't get me wrong, but sometimes his article topics just don't merit the space they take up.  Two stars.

The Reefs of Space (Part 2 of 3), by Jack Williamson, and Frederik Pohl

In the future, Earth is a dystopia under the stifling computerized control of the Machine and its inscrutable Plan.  Those who resist the Plan, or for whom the Machine can make no use, are condemned to the Body Bank for reclamation.  The last installment, in which state criminal Steve Ryeland was forced by the Machine to develop a reactionless drive, only mentioned the Body Banks in passing.  Part 2 deals almost exclusively with them.

In the midst of his work, Ryeland, accused of plotting a wave of disasters around the world, is exiled to Cuba.  The tropical paradise has been turned into a kind of leper colony, except limbs and organs are not lost to disease, but instead, according to the demands of the citizens for whom parts are harvested.  Over time, the residents lose more and more of themselves until there is not enough to sustain life.  One might survive as long as six years, if you can call a limbless, mouthless existence survival.  Of course, the tranquilizing drugs they put in the food and water keep you from minding too much…

Fred Pohl already proved he could write compelling horror in A Plague of Pythons.  This latest installment of The Reefs of Space would do fine as a stand-alone story (and I have to wonder if it was originally intended as such).  The tale of Ryeland's attempt to escape an escape-proof prison is gripping, even if the trappings of the greater story aren't so much.  Four stars.

The Course of Logic, by Lester del Rey

A mated pair of parasitic aliens, who use other creatures as their hosts, have been trapped on a bleak world for eons.  Their home galaxy has been destroyed, and the only compatible beasts they've found lack the fine motor skills to construct spaceships for escape — or any other kind of technology.  So they are delighted when they come across a pair of humans, for our form is absolutely perfect for their needs.  Will these puppet masters, once ensconced in our guise, escape their planetary prison and become unstoppable conquerors?

Lester has been too long from our ranks, but it looks like he's back to stay, given his recent record of publication.  This is a grim piece but with a splendid sting in its tail.  I also particularly enjoyed this bit of evolutionary teleology, said by the dominant female to her mate:

"The larger, stronger and more intelligent form is always female.  How else could it care for its young?  It needs ability for a whole family, while the male needs only enough for itself.  The laws of evolution are logical or we wouldn't have evolved at all."

And before you scoff, recall the hyenas and the bees.  Four stars.

The Customs Lounge, by E. A. Proulx

This vignette appears to be a Tale from the White Hart, but it's really a story of human cleverness under alien domination.  It is apparently the first piece by Proulx, "a folk singing star-gazing man from upstate New York," and while it's nothing special, it's also not bad.  Three stars.

Threlkeld's Daughter, by James Bell

Last up, we have a tale not of escape, but of entrapment.  A six-legged, tailed tree-creature from Alpha Centauri takes on comely human female form and travels to Earth to secure a male homo sapiens specimen for study.  But with the human body comes human hormones and emotions, and love creates its own entrapments. 

It's a cute little piece, more like something I'd find in F&SF.  Three stars.

Thus ends a fine issue of an improving magazine.  If you ever find yourself imprisoned, in gaol real or virtual, one of these stories might give you the inspiration to break out.  Or, at the very least, make a few hours of your sentence more pleasant.




[April 21, 1960] Roads not taken (May 1960 IF)

If there's anything this month's IF, Science Fiction proves, it's that you get what you pay for.

Last year, Galaxy editor, H. L. Gold, cut story rates in half to 2 cents a word.  Shortly thereafter, he took over the helm of the promising but unsuccessful digest, IF.  Its quality has been in steady decline ever since, and I can only imagine that he pays IF writers even less.

IF's name is ironic.  Under the stewardship of Damon Knight, it had a short-lived renaissance culminating in the February 1959 issue.  Had this continued, IF might be the leader of the current, heavily winnowed, crop of science fiction digests.  Alas, such a history can only be contemplated, never directly perceived.

Why all the doom and gloom?  The May 1960 IF is definitely the worst issue I've read to date.  While not unmitigatedly bad, it never rises above the passable.  In detail:

Chris Anvil's lead novella, The Tourist Named Death is a bland and amateurishly written interplanetary spy romp with lots of action but little depth.  It is written in a style I like to call sequential: "Bob did this.  Then he did that.  He saw this and reacted like this.  Then he did that."  I'd think that, by now, Mr. Anvil would have matured past this level of ability.  But, perhaps for a penny a word, he doesn't much care to apply himself.

James Bell is a brand-new author whose Freshman effort, Thirty Degrees Cattywonkus, is barely passable.  A fellow, upon exploring his new house,discovers that a parallel dimension is impinging on his, but not quite orthogonally.  The promising premise degenerates quickly.  Maybe next time.

Then you've got When Day is Done by part-time minor-leaguer, Arnold Castle.  The story, about businessmen who engage in simulated big-game hunting after work, would be an interesting first chapter to a longer tale, but as a stand-alone, there just isn't enough there.

C.C. MacApp is another greenhorn whose first-ever story is A Pride of Islands.  I had trouble following this story, perhaps because it failed to ever engage me, but I believe it is about the descendants of a wrecked spaceship crew who have reverted to savagery.

Now, to leaven my harshness, I will say that it's great that Gold (and his executive officer for IF, Fred Pohl) are giving new authors a chance.  With the folding of so many science fiction digests in the last decade, the authors of tomorrow have had precious few venues in which to hone their craft. 

I just wish they'd hurry up and get better…

The first solid story of the issue comes from the reasonably consistent Philip Jose FarmerHEEL is basically Homer's Illiad with a science fiction twist: the Gods are really interstellar television producers filming a decade-long epic.  The Greeks and Trojans are just hapless pawns dancing to the tune of a Director they know only as Zeus.


by Virgil Finlay

It's a cute concept, and as I'm currently rereading the plays of Aeschylus, I'm particularly receptive to classically themed works.  On the other hand, there is a dashed-off feeling to the story.  I don't think Farmer strained himself putting this one together.

Back to the crop of new authors, A.M.Lightner's (Alice Martha) first story (I believe) is A Good Day for the Irish.  A Terran entomologist (refreshingly, a female protagonist) emigrates to a paradisical colony only to find it in the midst of a terrible blight.  Could the cure be the very infestations she had been enlisted to prevent?  This is another story that might have benefited from greater length. 

Finally, we have Charles Fontenay's novelette, Matchmaker.  It is an engaging, if unremarkable, piece about the extreme measures to which a government will resort to ensure the computer-ordered union of two otherwise unfated individuals.  On a side note, I liked the vacuum-powered letter delivery systems.  I can imagine such systems being commonplace in the near future.

Thus, the May 1960 IF ends on a stronger note than it began, but all told, it's a pretty unimpressive magazine.  I'll keep my subscription, of course.  There is precious little out there right now, and perhaps things will get better.  Hope springs eternal.

See you soon, and if you have any opinions on these pieces, whether or not they are in line with mine, please drop me a line.  I welcome all comments.