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Magazine, Serial

[September 30, 1965] Big and Little Bangs (October 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The Big One

Billions of years ago, the entire universe was smaller than the head of a pin.  For an endless eternity, or perhaps just an instant, it remained in this state – and then it exploded outward with the force of creation, ultimately becoming all that we see today.

Until this year, this "Big Bang" theory was as yet unconfirmed.  It had stiff competition in the "Steady State" hypothesis, which postulated that the universe is indeed expanding, but because of matter being constantly created.  This was fundamental to the plot of Pohl and Williamson's recent novels set in the reefs of space at the edges of our solar system.

But last year, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey noticed an excess of radio noise in the receiver they were building, an excess that closely resembled the Cosmic Microwave Background predicted by physicists Ralph Alpherin, Robert Herman, and George Gamow.  This extremely low level but pervasive energy is what's left of the heat of the primeval explosion, reduced to microwaves by the expansion of the universe.


The Murray Hill facility where the echoes of the Big Bang were discovered

Smaller Ones

Here on Earth, it seems our planet is anxious to imitate the violence of the universe at large.  On September 28, the Taan Volcano off the coast of the Philippine island of Luzon exploded, killing hundreds of Filipinos.

And less of a bang and more of a blaaat, we've just finished ringing in the Jewish new year with the traditional blowing of a ram's horn.

The Littlest One

Meanwhile, editor John W. Campbell, Jr. seems content to not rock the boat, providing a mixed bag of diverting fare and stale garbage in the latest issue of Analog, a combination that is unlikely to knock anyone off their feet.


by John Schoenherr

Overproof, by Johnathan Blake MacKenzie

On a planet two hundred light years from home, a husband and wife pair of anthropologists come across a horrifying discovery.  The native Darotha, an amphibian race resembling across between a cat and an octopus, are eating humans.  At least, it seems that way – the Yahoos, apelike herd animals on their planet, bear a striking resemblance to homo sapiens.  Are the Darothans really mass murderers?  Or are looks deceiving?


by John Schoenherr

This is an interesting piece that Randall Garrett (under a pseudonym) has offered up.  Unusually for an Analog story, the Darothans are a well-drawn alien race and not played for inferiority – indeed, they are treated with sensitivity not only by the author but by the Terran colonists on the planet, who see them as exciting as potential partners and as an example of non-human society.  In the end, the story is essentially an inverse of Piper's Fuzzy stories, where the question is not whether the humanoid Yahoos possess the spark of humanity, but whether they don't.

It's not a perfect story.  The conclusion is pretty obvious from the beginning, it meanders and repeats a bit, but it's more subtle than what I usually see in Analog, and it kept me interested.

Three stars.

The Veteran, by Robert Conquest

Humans from the future, who have forgotten the art of war, summon someone from the past to lead them in a war against alien nasties.  Unfortunately for them, the person they've found is a devout pacifist.  But luckily, the fellow discovers the battle lust within that he needs to fulfill his role.

Rather offensive, simplistic, and for some reason, the aliens conquer our solar system in reverse order of distance from the Sun even though it's unlikely that they'd all be lined up so obligingly.

Two stars.

Snakebite!, by Alexander W. Hulett, M.D. and William Hulett

For some reason, Campbell saw fit to include this high school science project discussing the use of snake venom to produce antivenom blood serum in rodents.  As an actual article, it might have been mildly interesting, but in its current form, it's pretty pointless.

Two stars.

The Mischief Maker, by Richard Olin


by John Schoenherr

A story told in epistolary, Maker describes how a crackpot professor with a grudge stumbles across the great power of the Law of Analogy, which he uses to destroy the leaders of America through various bits of voodoo and witchcraft.  Truth be told, my eyes glazed over when the author mentioned the Hieronymous Machine, that psychic amplifier requiring no power source that editor Campbell is so enamored of.

Two stars.

Space Pioneer (Part 2 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by John Schoenherr

Last but not least, we have the continuation of Reynolds' serial that began last month.  When last we'd seen the assassin impersonating Rog Bock, shareholder in the colonial venture on New Arizona, his masquerade had been discovered by at least one other shareholder.

Part 2 begins with the colony ship Titov landing on its virgin planet destination, so closely resembling Earth as to be a near twin.  The rapaciousness of the shareholders' goal becomes clear as the 2000 colonists find they have virtually no rights, that the shareholders plan to sell the valuable resource rights to outside entities almost immediately, and that the crew of the ship largely comprise ex-military personnel to make them a ready police force to keep the settlers in line.

Unrest threatens to boil over as the colony teeters on the brink of collapse, reeling from colonist indolence and sabotage by unknown persons – but by the end of this installment, they all have bigger concerns to worry about…

Again, Pioneer has only the barest trappings of science fiction.  Nevertheless, this is one of Reynolds' more deft tales, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Four stars for this bit.

Seismographic Data

Where does this leave us for the month?  Well, Analog clocks in at just 2.7 stars, below Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4), Science Fantasy (3.3), New Worlds (2.8), and Worlds of Tomorrow (2.8); it is just tied with the lackluster Galaxy.

It did manage to beat out the disappointing Amazing (2.6), IF (2.3), and the truly awful Gamma (1.5), however.

There were just two and a half pieces written by women (one was co-written) out of 58: 4.3%.  Surprisingly, the women-penned tales were all in the UK mags, which are usually all stag.  No women authors were included in either of the "All Star" Galaxy and F&SF issues this month, which is a real shame.  Where are Evelyn Smith and Margaret St. Clair?

Perhaps they are planning to return with a bang.  I certainly expect to herald their next stories with fireworks!

Looking for good science fiction by women?  Look no further than Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), the bestseller containing 14 of our favorite stories of the Journey era!




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Conventions/Performances, Magazine, Science / Space Race

December 1, 1963 Last stop (December 1963 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

LosCon in Los Angeles!

It's been an exciting November for the Journey.  After a sad interlude on the East Coast, which saw the untimely death of our President, we flew back to Los Angeles for a small science fiction convention put on by the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society.  It was great fun, a real class act.  Not only did we get to put on a show (in which the assassination, of course, featured prominently), but we also met Laura Freas, wife of Kelly Freas, the illustrator who painted Dr. Martha Dane.  As y'all know, Dr. Dane graced our masthead until very recently, and she remains the Journey's avatar.

And for those of you who missed the performance, we got it on video-tape.

At last, success for NASA

I read an article in Aviation Weekly that noted that 1963 just hasn't been a great year for NASA space shots.  There have only been eight successful missions thus far.  Unlike in the old days (you know, five years ago), when satellites didn't fly because of balky rockets, now missions are more likely to be delayed for lack of funding on the ground or for thorny technical issues as mechanisms get more complicated.

But successes do happen, and on November 27, Explorer 18 soared into orbit.  Also known as the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP), it is essentially a deep space explorer.  At the closest point in its orbit, it zooms at an atmosphere-scraping 160 kilometers in altitude, but at its furthest, it flies up to a quarter million kilometers out — more than halfway to the moon.

IMP is the first of seven satellites that will monitor the sun's output over a long period of time, measuring its ups and downs over the course of its 11 year activity cycle.  It will also measure interplanetary magnetic fields, the speed and composition of the solar wind, and the strength of the cosmic rays that shower the solar system from intergalactic space.

In many ways, Explorer 18 continues the missions of Explorers 10 and 12, spacecraft that made incredible discoveries about our local space environment.  What makes IMP so special is its size and endurance: it will be in space much longer than its predecessors, and its more advanced instruments are capable of more refined measurements. 

It is also hoped that IMP will be for interplanetary space what TIROS is for Earth — a weather satellite providing up to date information on the environment "up there."  Thus, Explorer 18 will not only expand our knowledge of interplanetary physics, it will also be an early warning system, alerting astronauts as to upcoming solar flares and other potentially dangerous events. 

Pretty neat!

Last magazine of the year

Every month, the Journey does its level best to review every science fiction magazine that gets published.  As far as I can tell, we cover all the regular American ones plus the British New Worlds (only Science Fantasy, also British, escapes our coverage).  By tradition, Analog is the covered last, and thus, the December 1963 Analog is the last magazine of the year.  Once this one is reviewed, we can finally get down to the fun business of determining the stats: which mag had the best stories, the most consistent quality, the most women published, and so on.  Call it SFnal baseball.

So how was this last issue?  Read on!

The Nature of the Electric Field, by John W. Campbell

In addition to a nonsensical editorial, Editor Campbell wastes several oversized pages with the reprint of a century-old treatise on electricity.  I guess it's to show how times change, and therefore, we shouldn't be so quick to denounce things like Dianetics, reactionless drives, psionics, dowsing, and other pseudo-sciences.

One star.

Cracking the Code, by Carl A. Larson

Larson's article is on DNA and scientists' attempts to understand how a sequence of amino acids can be the blueprint for all of life's manifestations.  It's a subject that would have been better handled by Asimov…or really, anyone else.  On the other hand, some of Larson's poetical turns of phrase are cute, like analogizing cells to an alien race whose environment is so utterly foreign to our ken, and that's why it's taken so long to decipher their language.

Two stars, I guess.

Dune World (Part 1 of 3), by Frank Herbert

I was mistaken when I called this new serial Herbert's first novel.  He had a serial back in 1956 called Under Pressure that I must have read some seven years ago, but I couldn't tell you what it was about if you put a gun to my head.

Anyway, this new one seems to be generating a lot of buzz, and I can see why.  It features Paul, 15 year-old scion to House of Atreides, whose father, the Duke of Atreides, has been granted the fiefdom of Arrakis.  Arrakis — desert planet — Dune.  This barren wasteland, where water is worth its weight in platinum, offers but one export: Melange, the geriatric spice that affords immortality, cures ailments, and tastes really good, too.  As Arrakis is the only source of melange, control of the planet is a sought plum, indeed.

Except, the Duke knows it is a trap set by the planet's former masters, the Barony of Harkonnen.  In collusion with the Padishar Emperor, Harkonnen has hatched a complicated plan to humiliate and discredit (and probably kill) the Duke, a scheme which whose intricacy might even give Machiaveli pause.

There is a lot to admire in this new work.  It's a fresh universe, highly developed, with a lot of attention to detail and inclusion of many foreign cultural influences.  Women play a prominent role, with the genders being apparently somewhat segregated, each having their own spheres of power.  There are at least two important female characters, something I'm always delighted to find in my science fiction.

One of the aspects of Herbert's world is the conscious disdain for, and even ban on, the use of computers.  Instead, human "mentats" have been bred for the ability of calculation.  This not only creates an interesting new class of person, it neatly relieves the author of predicting the development of electronic brains.

Dune Planet is not, however, an unalloyed success.  In the hands of Cordwainer Smith or even Mack Reynolds, folks who have a deep grounding in other cultures as well as the writing chops to convey them, it would be a masterpiece.  Herbert, on the other hand, is a pretty raw writer.  His stuff can be creaky and dull, the viewpoint shifts from paragraph to paragraph, and his use of ellipses dots is…exuberant (they say we hate most in others what we dislike about ourselves; Herbert writes a bit like I did not long ago before certain editors whipped me into shape).

So, three stars so far, but I'm still reading and look forward to more.

Conversation in Arcady, by Poul Anderson

In George Pal's The Time Machine, Rod Taylor arrives at the far future and discovers humanity living under (seemingly) idyllic circumstances.  They no longer need toil for food, shelter, or clothing.  They do not fight each other nor feel the need to rule.  At first impressed, the time traveler is dismayed to find that the desire to advance, the struggle to improve has been lost.  In perhaps the most effective scene of the movie (at least, it was for me), Taylor finds shelves of books that crumble to dust at the slightest touch.

Poul Anderson's latest is a note for note copy of this scene with the exceptions that 1) Anderson's Eloi are not so simple and childlike, 2) there are no Morlocks fattening up people for supper, and 3) the time traveler can see nothing positive about the situation whatsoever.

I think Anderson is trying to say something poignant, that our race is nothing without the need to better itself.  Or perhaps he's striving for a subtler point — that those who only find meaning in struggle can never find peace, and maybe peace isn't a bad thing.  Or maybe he's saying both things at the same time.

I think he was going for just the first, though.  Three stars.

The Right Time, by Walter Bupp (John Berryman)

John Berryman's series is set in the current world but where psionics are common (but secret).  It's a perfect fit for Analog what with Editor Campbell's peculiar pseudo-scientific beliefs, yet somehow Berryman's stories manage to be good.  This one, about a telekinetic precog with the ability to predict and potentially heal a fellow's heart attack, is my favorite yet.  Four stars.

Thin Edge, by Johnathan Blake MacKenzie

Author Randy Garrett is back under the pseudonym he prefers when he writes about life in the asteroid belt.  This latest piece is about a Belter who is killed by Earthers for the secret of the super strong cording used for rock towing, and about the other Belter who comes to Earth looking for revenge.

It's written with some facility, but the Belters are always too clever and the Earthers too dumb.  A low three or a high two, depending on your mood.

All right!  It's time to tabulate the data for December!

Analog finished in the middle of the pack with 2.8 stars, above F&SF (2.1) and Fantastic (2.2), but below Galaxy (3.2), Amazing (3.2), and New Worlds (3.2), not to mention last month's issue of Gamma, which I didn't get to until this month (3.3).

There were 44 pieces of fiction between the seven magazines, four of which were written by women.  9% is fairly standard these days, sadly.  I'm not sure what's causing the decline, though the numbers were never that much better.

Next up, we'll be covering the UK's newest SF TV show, and beyond that, 1963's Galactic Stars!

Stay tuned.

[The party's still going on at Portal 55.  Come join us for real-time conversation!]

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[October 27, 1962] Calm in the Storm (the November 1962 Analog)

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


by Gideon Marcus

What the papers are now calling the Cuban Missile Crisis is a blister ready to burst.  An American pilot has been shot down.  There are rumors of confrontations between American and Soviet warships.  Bomber take-offs have rattled windows in towns near Air Force bases around the nation.  Kennedy, Khruschev, and U Thant are all offering proposals to turn this thing off, but so far, there are no takers.

I find almost jarring the contrast between the lurid and constant news reports and the rather bland offerings found in the last American science fiction magazine I'm reviewing this month, namely the November 1962 Analog.  Perhaps you'll find its relative drabness a comfort. 

Space Viking (Part 1 of 4), by H. Beam Piper

Piper has written many stories set in what appears to be a coherent future history.  There are consistent references to planets such as Tanith and the Sword Worlds.  A Terran Imperium spans much of the galaxy.  Space Viking is both familiar and a departure, set as it is centuries after that Empire has collapsed.  Society and technology are on the regress, and the now-independent Sword Worlds have reverted to a kind of planetary feudalism.  These worlds grow rich on plundering the decaying carcass of the Empire; space piracy and raiding on a planetary scale are now respected endeavors.

This latest of Piper's works follows a noble of one of the Sword Worlds who contracts a famed but currently shipless captain to skipper a newly commissioned ship.  The mission of the cruiser Nemesis is not piracy, but revenge against a most egregious of pirates.

It's an interesting read, and planethopping tales are among my favorites.  I lament the lack of any real female characters though, particularly from the author who gave this column its avatar (Dr. Martha Dane of Omnilingual).  Three stars thus far.

Untechnological Employment, by E. M. Clinton, Jr.

An exceedingly short, juvenile piece.  I did note, however, the unorthodox use of the new term "Native American" for those typically called "Indians."  Two stars.

Solomon's Orbit, by William Carroll

Old coot shows up all those highfalutin eggheads by inventing an orbital drive out of space junk while all those rocket scientists can barely make a missile go.  A word of wisdom to the new author desperate to be published: this is the kind of tale Campbell loves.  Not me, though.  Two stars.

The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young

At first, one is led to believe that this will be another story about an eccentric non-scientist coming up with the invention of the ages.  Instead, as the canny reader will pick up on, it's far more.  That said, it's not a great story, and the end is as expositional as they come.  Nevertheless, Young is always readable, even when he's not brilliant.  Three stars.

The Educated Flatworms, by John Eric Holmes

Well, here's a welcome surprise.  Normally, the slick pages devoted to non-fiction end up ruined by the monthly pseudo-science Campbell favors (psionics, reactionless drives, etc.) This time around, we have an absolutely fascinating piece on the training of flatworms, the common ancestor to most animals.  Not only can you teach these squishy creatures, but they pass on their knowledge to others in most surprising ways.

Normally, I'd expect stuff like this to be typical Analog bunk, but I've looked up the researchers in question, and their results appear to be legitimate.  The article's only fault is a less than rigorous conveying of test scores; it's not exactly clear what the significance of some of the numbers is.  Four stars.

Anchorite, by Johnathan Blake MacKenzie

The harsh living of the mining Belter, securing asteroids for precious metals and oxygen, makes for a hardy, reliable breed.  But is the resulting culture of rugged individualism a designed-for result or a happy side effect?  MacKenzie gives us both sides of the story, from the points of view of the rock-dwellers and a pair of Earthers.  Not an entirely unbiased view — there is more than a little condescension in the space-dwellers' take, but there is also naivete, which I appreciated.

This should be a good story, but it's not.  For one thing, "MacKenzie," with his lurid descriptions of asteroids, flat attempts at puns, utter lack of women, and his begging the question like a highway mendicant, can be none other than Randall Garrett.  This is not a selling point (though, under his true identity, he has been doing the rather better, asteroid-based Ship Named MacGuire series.)

For another, the scenes of asteroid mining are tedious, and what passes for dialogue even more so.  This could have been a fascinating tale if told by, I don't know… Piper or Leinster or Reynolds.  In Garrett's hands, it's limp stuff.  Two stars.

Crucial Experiment #2, by Joseph F. Goodavage

Good gravy — Campbell had to include a three-page astrological weather forecast.  I guess we'll have to see if there be any accuracy to it next month.  My money's on "No."

—

And so ends another readable but not outstanding issue of Analog.  I'm sure its intended audience would give it more stars than I do, and I wasn't bored for much of it, but it's only fair to middlin' stuff right now.  Stay tuned for the last magazine of the month, this one from the other side of the Pond!

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[April 20, 1962] Boot Camp (May 1962 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Science fiction magazines are not created equal.

Every editor brings her/his own slant to their magazine's theme.  For instance, Cele Goldsmith strikes an old-fashioned chord, reviving classics from the Pulp Era in Amazing and Fantastic.  Fred Pohl keeps things reliable (if not exceptional) in Galaxy, but showcases new and innovative works in IF.  Before it went under, Fantastic Universe devoted much ink to flying saucer stories and articles.

And as you will soon see, Analog is preoccupied with psychic powers and pseudo-scientific quackery (a redundant phrase?).  Viz, the May 1962 issue:

Anything You Can Do! (Part 1 of 2), by Darrell T. Langart

As you might have guessed, Mr. "Langart"'s name is really an anagram for Analog perennial, Randall Garrett (this is another way magazines are differentiated – they each have a stable of regular authors).  Generally, when Garrett uses a pseudonym, it means he's got another piece in the magazine; more on that later.

Anything is a surprisingly (for Garrett) capable story about a single alien invader, and the man who is recruited and intensively trained to stop the extraterrestrial's acts of violence and theft.  It's the second time one of his stories has featured gifted identical twins, one of whom has a disability which turns out to be an asset (see The Foreign Hand-Tie.  It is also a story that very well could take place in the same universe as the recent "Ship Named MacGuire" series.  So far, it's shaping up to be a good short novel.  Four stars.

The Next Logical Step, by Ben Bova

Recent author Ben Bova (who prefers to describe a genius as "a regular Galileo" rather than "a regular Einstein") hasn't turned in anything particularly impressive to date.  Step is about a military wargaming computer that delivers a full-sensory experience, one that almost inevitably depicts even small brushfire wars ending in global conflagration.  Simulated Mutually Assured Destruction.  Nice concept, but heavy handed and perfunctorily executed.  Two stars.

Nor Iron Bars a Cage…, by Johnathan Blake MacKenzie

I'm not sure that this piece of crime fiction, in which an American and British team of detectives track down a child molester, really belongs here.  It starts promisingly enough, but then just sort of degenerates into mediocrity, particularly the eight pages of psychological exposition at the end.  I also did not appreciate the lumping of child rapists and gay people – according to the recent eye-opening television special on homosexuals, The Rejected, perhaps as much as 40% of the population is queer to some degree, and all of them are human beings with a normal distribution of traits (negative and positive).  Two stars.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Mr. "MacKenzie" is Randall Garrett in disguise.  The story has his fingerprints on it, and he's already appeared pseudonymously earlier in the issue.

The Fourth Law of Motion, by Dr. William O. Davis

Editor Campbell is always trying to prove that the "Dean Drive," a purportedly reactionless engine that would overturn the laws of physics as we know them, is a legitimate invention.  To that end, he's enlisted the aid of a Dr. Davis, the head of a Connecticut paper company.  At first, I dismissed the article as hot air, but I think it does make some interesting points (even if they probably don't support the efficacy of Dean's Drive).

Davis suggests that Newton's famous equation, F=ma, needs to be modified to reflect that, when an object is accelerated, it doesn't do so all at once.  The force pushes on the object's nearest components first, and the impact then ripples along the object in a wave until the whole thing is in motion.  Basically, physical bodies can respond to forces "out of phase" with each other.  This is not a revolutionary concept – there's even a name for it: "starting transient." 

That this jerk or change in acceleration could have other effects is interesting, and I'd like to know more about them.  But my college training was in physics.  For the rest of you, I suspect this dry explication on the third derivative of position will be must-skip material.  Two stars.

Sight Gag, by Larry M. Harris

Mr. Harris is really Laurence M. Janifer, who is not only a regular at Analog, but frequently writes in collaboration with Mr. Garrett.  I've liked some of his stuff very much, but this gimmick story about a vengeful fellow who goes after a psionic G-Man reads like something out of the early 50s.  Three stars, since it's decently told.  No more, because of the hoary format.

Look Before You Leap, by Donald E. Westlake

This one opens so well, with a terrified Air Force boot teleporting from a particularly harrowing episode of Basic Training and then, in equal fright, zapping right back.  He is the latest result (victim) of a controlled stress test conducted by a certain Colonel.  The officer's goal is to sieve out the psionically gifted by monitoring the most difficult situation a human can face this side of the battlefield.

Sadly, by about halfway through, the story ends up twice as padded as it needs to be, and the compounding of indignity and torture upon the recruit in an attempt to make him duplicate his initial feat is both unpleasant and unrealistically shrugged off at the story's end.  Two stars.

***

2.6 stars and a grinding slog.  I feel like I've just spent a week in Basic.  Well, there's always next month…

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