by David Levinson

The passing of a great

As I sat down to write this article, I heard the news of the death of Lise Meitner. If that name isn’t familiar to you, it should be. Einstein once called her “the German Marie Curie,” which might be understating things. She is arguably the most important woman physicist of the 20th century and possibly one of the most important theoretical physicists, period.

Born in Vienna in 1878, she became only the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1905. She later moved to Germany and worked at the University of Berlin. There, she and Otto Hahn discovered the most stable isotope of the element protactinium, which she dubbed protoactinium before dropping the second “o.” In 1939, she and Hahn, along with Otto Robert Frisch and Fritz Strassmann, discovered and explained nuclear fission. There are also at least two nuclear phenomena which bear her name.

Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner circa 1912.

Meitner was able to escape Nazi Germany in 1938 with the help of Niels Bohr. She settled in Sweden, where she spent the rest of her professional life. Her role in the discovery of nuclear fission garnered her a lot of celebrity after the end of the War; she was even interviewed by Eleanor Roosevelt on her radio show. She was a popular speaker and instructor and traveled extensively to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

She received numerous accolades throughout her career, and the institute that oversees Germany’s first research nuclear reactor bears her and Hahn’s names. But the Nobel eluded her. Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery of nuclear fission (ignoring not only Meitner, but also Frisch and Strassmann). The Nobel committee plays things pretty close to the vest, but word is that Lise Meitner was nominated many times in the fields of physicist and chemistry. In 1966, President Johnson honored her with the Enrico Fermi Award.

After retiring in 1960, she moved to the United Kingdom to be closer to family and continued giving lectures. She was in poor health in recent years, unable to attend the Fermi Award ceremony. She died in her sleep at the age of 89.

Lise Meitner in 1963.

Stereotypes

As Lise Meitner’s life shows, women play an active and important role in science, and ought to do so in science fiction as well. Unfortunately, there seem to be fewer women writing SF than there were a decade ago, and there don’t seem to be all that many as key characters in stories either. Two of the stories in this month’s IF don’t have any, two offer mothers, two more femmes fatale, and as far as the first story goes, the less said the better.

A previously unknown piece by the late Hannes Bok, probably the last new Bok cover ever.

The Holmes-Ginsbook Device, by Isaac Asimov

This absurd story is ostensibly about coming up with a better way than microfiche to present printed information (no one has ever heard of putting words on a page and stacking those pages into a book). The "message" is that staring into a microfiche reader keeps you from staring at women. It's patently offensive. And not in a way that challenges our acceptance of societal norms like something in Dangerous Visions. Women are here only the be ogled and groped.

He looks familiar. Art by Gaughan

One star and a guaranteed winner of the Queen Bee Award.

The Starman of Pritchard’s Creek, by Julian F. Grow

Young Widder Poplowski has set her cap for Dr. Hiram Pertwee. He might be inclined to encourage her, but her nine-year-old son is a hellion, and her motherly love is excessively fierce. While picnicking along Pritchard’s Creek, the three of them encounter a talking, self-propelled steam engine and a living trash heap. Getting kicked in the head by his horse may be the least of Pertwee’s problems.

Whatever it is, it ain’t natural. Art by Wood

This is our third encounter with Dr. Pertwee, and it’s a good bit better than the last. This one is well-suited to the western theme, and the doctor’s voice is very well done. I’d say the tone aims to imitate Twain, but doesn’t come close. Of course, not coming close in an attempted imitation of Twain leaves a lot of room to still be good.

Three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

This month, del Rey looks at couple of areas where science and science fiction keep overtaking each other: there’s too much free oxygen on Venus, the steady-state theory might not be dead yet, and quantum particles that move faster than light.

Three stars.

The Canals of Santa Claus, by Bram Hall

Three wildcat miners are forced to put down on an uncharted planet. They dub the planet Santa Claus for its black growths that resemble Christmas trees (Yule was taken), but can’t explain the regularity of their spacing or the canals of salty water that flow without any change in elevation.

Hall is this month’s new author, and it’s not bad for a freshman effort. There’s nothing really new or groundbreaking, but it’s well handled, and there’s a bit of a sting in the tail.

Three stars.

The Comsat Angels, by J.G. Ballard

Since 1948, the world has become aware of a boy genius roughly every other year. Invariably, they fade from public view after a year or two, never seeming to live up to the potential they showed. A television production team begins digging into the story, but are soon broken up and reassigned. What shadowy organization is pulling the strings?

I’ve never been a fan of Ballard’s work, which I generally find too avant-garde and over laden with allusion and symbolism. This story, however, has a beginning, a middle, and an end (in that order) and lacks the ennui and decadence of the Vermilion Sands stories. I enjoyed it, with two complaints. First, the boy genius discovered in 1965 is Robert Silverberg of Tampa, Florida. He would be a good deal younger than science fiction’s own Silverbob (who isn’t from Florida), and the name pulled me out of the story every time he’s mentioned. None of the others seem to have been given the name of someone else from the genre or elsewhere, so it struck me as odd. Secondly, the connection to comsats seems very strained. But otherwise an enjoyable story.

A high three stars from me; others might like it better.

The Tin Fishes, by A. Bertram Chandler

Continuing his tour of the planets he once opened and charted, Commodore John Grimes has arrived on the water world of Melisse. Giant, unkillable starfish are attacking the huge oysters the natives use to grow pearls, the planet’s only export. Since both of the major Rim officials are incompetents he had posted to a place he thought they could do no harm, he figures it’s his duty to investigate.

Chief Wunnaara may be the only reliable person on the planet. Art by Virgil Finlay

This is a fairly standard Grimes story, with a bit of mystery and spy thriller thrown in. Entertaining enough if you like this sort of thing. I was a bit put off by the ease with which Grimes went to bed with the prime suspect, considering he’s spent the last several stories missing his wife very much. I guess mores and morals are different out on the Rim.

Three stars.

The Pawob Division, by Harlan Ellison

I’m not even going to try to describe this story by Harlan Ellison. It’s full of silly, made-up words like phlenged and thrillip’d to describe the use of alien senses and whatnot. I suspect that if it had been sent in by an unknown, it would have been sent back, maybe with an encouraging letter to keep trying.

A low two stars.

The Computer Conspiracy (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Professor Paul Kosloff heads into Common Europe and Common Eur-Asia to try and find out who’s behind the plot to tamper with the computer records of the United States of the Americas. Somehow, the bad guys seem to know his every move.

More action exactly like the action in Part 1. Art by Gaughan

Part 1 of this serial was so heavy on (poorly delivered) exposition, I predicted this installment would have lots of story. I was wrong; there’s just as much exposition in this half. The action is also just as over detailed; I don’t know what an “Okinawa fist” is, nor does knowing what the protagonist shouts as he delivers a karate blow tell me anything. All in all, it winds up being a typical, if slightly subpar, Mack Reynolds adventure. But it might be worth revisiting in 50 years or so to see how well Mack did at prognosticating the effects of an increasingly interconnected world.

Three stars for this installment and the novel as a whole.

Summing up

Maybe the awful first story influenced my impression of the rest of the issue, and some of these stories deserve better ratings. On the other hand, this is the second issue in a row with a one-star story, and that’s a rating I very rarely give. With the two worst stories coming from the two biggest names in the issue, I’m starting to wonder at some of the editorial decisions being made. But Galaxy doesn’t seem to be doing quite this poorly. At least Fred has promised another Hugo winners issue next year, so we have something to look forward to.

There’s the Zelazny we were promised. This issue really needed it.

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