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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 14, 1968] Half a Loaf is Better Than None (October 1968 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

You don't have to be a sociologist to realize that the past few years have been one of cultural upheaval. The hippies, the struggle for civil rights, protests against the war in Vietnam; I could go on and on.

An example happened one week ago, when hundreds of women protested at the Miss America pageant. They asked to be treated as human beings, not as stereotyped images of artificial standards of beauty.


Members of the emerging Women's Liberation movement toss things like stiletto heels, makeup, and copies of Playboy magazine into a symbolic garbage can.

A recurring theme of these social changes is the desire for freedom. It can even be seen in popular culture. For nearly a month, for example, the number one song in the USA has been People Got to be Free by the Rascals.


They seem very serious about it.

This is a laudable goal, of course, and there's a long way to go before we can truly say that oppressed groups are liberated. An optimist might say we're halfway there.

Speaking of halfway . . .

Four of One, Half an Octad of the Other

I've been griping for quite a while about Fantastic filling its pages with reprints, along with one or two new stories per issue. Maybe somebody at the magazine heard me. Of the eight stories in the latest issue, only half are reprinted. That's progress!


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

You can see the cover screaming New at you. Ironically, the cover art is old. It served as the back cover of the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories.


As you can see, they reversed it, covered up a pretty big part of it, and just generally made it look worse.

Did I say halfway? The four new stories take up somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the magazine. They're all clustered together at the front.

The Sound of Space, by Ross Rocklynne

A spaceman returns from a two-year voyage to Alpha Centauri. He shows up at Triton, a moon of Neptune, where his fiancée is waiting for him.


Illustration by Jeff Jones.

She's upset because he hasn't aged at all. (This is supposedly an effect of weightlessness, which seems unlikely to me.) She also doesn't like the fact that space travelers are notorious for being irreligious. She takes him to church, and tells him that she's going to marry the pastor unless he goes back to Earth and ages in its gravity. The spaceman comes up with a wild scheme to show the woman and the pastor what deep space is really like.

The premise of gravity being the cause of aging isn't exactly plausible, to say the least. The story is written in an odd style, with verbal quirks. The woman inserts a fair amount of French into her speech. People often talk in flowery language that doesn't sound like anything anybody would really say. Folks are often referred to as Sir So-and-So (such as Sir Preacher); the spaceman even calls mortality Sir Death.

Two stars.

The Dragons of Telsa, by Arthur Porges

As an example of the care with which the magazine is put together, the cover and the table of contents call this yarn The Dragons of Tesla (note the change in spelling.)

Anyway, this is the latest in a series of science lessons disguised as fiction featuring the clever Ensign De Ruyter. In this tale, he and his captain explore the planet Telsa (not Tesla). It's hot and has an atmosphere without oxygen. There are a huge number of dangerous reptilian predators around.

(Herds of hundreds and hundreds of predators? That seems unlikely, given the typical predator-to-prey ratio you'd expect.)

After wiping out a whole bunch of the beasts with their ray guns, the unlucky pair run out of the energy that powers their weapons. They go hide in a cave, which just happens to have exactly the stuff that De Ruyter needs to save the day.

As I may have suggested above, the plot depends on a pretty outrageous coincidence. (Gosh, the cave has a pool of liquid rubidium and an object that's shaped like a shallow bowl! Just what we need to play Mister Wizard!)

It's like minor league Hal Clement.

Two stars.

Oaten, by K. M. O'Donnell

It's not a big secret that K. M. O'Donnell is actually Barry Malzberg, the magazine's new assistant editor. He's had a few New Wave stories published here and there.

This epistolary tale relates the misadventures of a sort of social psychologist, for lack of a better term, among aliens. He goes through a ritual, not understanding what's going on, leading to a bizarre climax.

I've supplied a pretty bad synopsis, because it's not easy to figure out what's going on. The nature of the so-called Oaten, for example, is particularly puzzling. Then there's that ending . . .

I really don't know what to make of this thing.

Two stars.

Where Is Mrs. Malcolmn?, by Susan A. Lewin

The magazine proudly announces that this is a first publication. That's not always a good sign. In another example of careful editing, the table of contents spells the character's name Malcolm, which looks more normal to me. The text makes it clear that it's really the less likely Malcolmn.


Uncredited photograph, one of three accompanying the story that pretty much all show the same thing.

A woman recovering from a heart attack investigates what she thinks is a water tower that appears out of nowhere. If you've ever read any science fiction before, you'll know exactly what happens.

There's not really much to say about this extremely predictable first story. Was it written just to go with the photographs? Lots of room for improvement, I suppose.

One star.

So much for new stuff. On to the reprints.

Lords of the Underworld, by L. Taylor Hansen

The April 1941 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this yarn.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

Three guys are fooling around in the California desert, doing archeological stuff. One of them very casually mentions that he's built a time machine. The main character (the other two disappear from the story quickly) sends himself back thousands of years.


Illustration by St. John also.

This leads to a rip-roaring adventure, as the hero defeats an evil empire nearly by himself. There's a beautiful princess to help him, a sinister cultist to destroy, vampire bats, a saber-toothed tiger, and, yes, a dinosaur. Lots of stuff goes on.

It's all nonsense, of course. There are some nice descriptions, but the whole thing is pretty darn goofy. The open-ended conclusion suggests a sequel, but I don't think there was one.

Two stars.

Between Two Worlds, by Milton Lesser

The December 1955 issue of the magazine is the source of this fantasy story.


Cover art by Edward Valigursky.

A meek fellow has dreams about being Jason from mythology. Of course, he really is living as the legendary hero. He falls in love with the warrior maiden Atalanta, fights with Hercules, wins the golden fleece, and so forth. If you've seen the nifty movie Jason and the Argonauts, you know what to expect. There's a surprise ending that's not surprising.


Illustration by Louis Priscilla.

This piece comes from a brief, odd period in the history of Fantastic when it was dedicated to wish fulfillment stories. Or, as you can tell from the cover, male fantasies. It's not as openly voyeuristic as the other stories seem to be, judging by their descriptions, although Atalanta is stark naked at one point.

As a retelling of an old story, it's OK. Otherwise, there's not much to it.

Two stars.

Bandits of Time, by Ray Cummings

This wild and wooly adventure comes from the December 1941 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Rod Ruth.

A mysterious fellow approaches a reporter and his blind girlfriend. He promises them a wonderful life if they'll meet him at a certain place in the middle of the night. He also says he'll restore the woman's sight.


Illustration by Ruth as well.

Understandably, the reporter is suspicious. He takes his girlfriend home and shows up at the designated place with a fellow newsman, hoping for a big story. Instead, he discovers that the woman has been kidnapped. She and the two reporters are sent two million years into the future.

The weird man who approached them has a mad scheme to set up his own private empire in a distant future when humanity has devolved to a primitive state. He takes along male criminals from all periods of history, as well as kidnapped women to mate with them.

Can the two heroes escape being executed by the insane dictator? Will the woman regain her sight? Will the seductive would-be empress prove to be an enemy or a friend?

Two time travel yarns from 1941, both of them full of nonstop action. This one isn't quite as wacky as the first one, although there's a revelation about the madman's identity that comes out of nowhere.

Two stars.

The Monument, by Henry Slesar

We finish up with a mood piece from the July 1956 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

A small group of tourists are on a spaceship headed for the Moon. A couple of them complain a lot. The captain opens the observation window to show them something.


Illustration by William Llewellyn.

The plot is very simple. The story accomplishes what it sets out to do. Maybe that's enough.

Three stars.

Half Empty or Half Full?

Either I'm in a bad mood or this was a very weak issue. Maybe I should have given out some three star ratings to some of the stories, maybe not. My time might have been better spent making a sandwich.


A full loaf of diet bread counts as half a loaf of regular bread, doesn't it?




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 8, 1967] Distant Signals (September 1967 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Rock Around the Clock

If any more proof is needed that rock 'n' roll now dominates the American popular music scene, here it is: a couple of days ago, radio station KMPX in San Francisco (106.9 on your FM dial, for those of you near the city by the bay) started playing a wide variety of rock music (as opposed to the usual Top Forty hits) twenty-four hours a day. As far as I know, it's the first station in the USA to do so.


Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue, programming director for KMPX.

I live a very long way from Frisco, so I won't be able to pick up their signal.

Appropriately, the lead story in the latest issue of Fantastic features the inability to establish contact over a vast distance as a major plot point. As we'll see, other stories in the magazine also deal with difficulties in communication.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul.

As usual, the image on the front is taken from an old magazine. In this case, it's the back cover of the January 1941 issue of Amazing Stories.


The reprinted version omits the pink flamingo in the bottom right corner.

The Longest Voyage, by Richard C. Meredith


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Three spaceships carry the first astronauts to Jupiter. Incredibly bad luck strikes the mission. Freak accidents destroy two of the vessels and badly damage the third, leaving only one person alive. Seriously injured, the fellow faces a slow and lonely death.

It seems the crippled ship is now in orbit around Jupiter. The sole survivor has enough food, water, and air to last many years, but no way to contact Earth. (As I've indicated above, he's as far out of range as I am with KMPX.) Can our intrepid hero find a way to make his way back?


He also grows a beard.

This technological problem-solving story would be right at home in the pages of Analog. The protagonist makes use of some basic science and a lot of tinkering to overcome a seemingly impossible dilemma.

It's pretty well written for this kind of thing. The author really made me feel the character's suffering and desperation. I'm not sure I believe that a future society advanced enough to send spaceships to the far reaches of the solar system wouldn't figure out a way to talk to them. Without that plot point, the story would boil down to the hero sending out an SOS and waiting for rescue.

Three stars.

Same Autumn in a Different Park, by Peter Tate


Illustration also by Gray Morrow; he seems to be the only artist doing new work for the magazine.

Remarkably, this issue actually has two new stories. This one comes from a Welsh author usually seen in New Worlds. As you might expect, it has more than a little flavor of New Wave SF to it.

In another example of limited communication, a mother and father only talk to each other via teletype. In this grim future, the authorities have decided that the way to prevent violence is to have children raised apart from their parents. For that matter, the boy and girl in the story don't have any contact with anyone except each other and the machines that watch over them.

The devices give the children dolls representing the victims of nuclear war and a sample weapon, in an attempt to warn them about the horrors of violence. It's no surprise that this idea doesn't work out very well.

Typical of the New Wave, this story isn't as clear or linear as I may have made it sound. You have to read carefully and be patient to understand it. The premise is more effective as dark satire than as plausible speculation.

There's a strange scene in which the girl turns into a bird made from a hedge, through some kind of technological miracle. This weird transformation doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story, unless I'm missing something. It's a striking image, anyway.

This is an intriguing work, but one more to be admired than loved, I believe.

Three stars.

The Green Splotches, by T. S. Stribling

From the January 3, 1920 issue of Adventure comes this early example of interplanetary science fiction.


I'm guessing the cover artist's name is H. Tidlie, but maybe somebody with sharper eyes can make out the signature better than I can.

It was reprinted in the March 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Frank R. Paul, of course.

The magazine is careful to tell me twice that Stribling went on to win a Pulitzer Prize after he lifted himself out of the pulps. For the record, it was for his 1932 work The Store, a novel about the southern United States after the time of Reconstruction.


Illustration by somebody called Gambee, about whom I have no other information.

A scientific expedition heads for a remote area of Peru. The place has a very bad reputation. So much so, in fact, that the only locals willing to guide them there are two condemned criminals who would otherwise face execution.

The first eerie sign that something strange is going on comes when they find a series of carefully articulated skeletons of various animals, including a human being. Pretty soon, one of the two criminals shoots at and chases after somebody, disappearing in the process.

The others receive a visit from a strange person, who treats them as inferior beings. You'll figure things out, from the illustration if nothing else, although the human characters never do.

Although it's a little old-fashioned (this is one of those stories where radium is pretty much a synonym for magic), this is a very readable yarn. What most distinguishes it is a subtle note of satire. Although not comic, and sometimes even horrific, there's a sardonic tone throughout. There's a running joke, of sorts, about the expedition's reporter and his self-published book about reindeer.

Three stars.

The Ivy War, by David H. Keller, M.D.

The May 1930 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this Kelleryarn.


Cover art by Leo Morey.

An aggressive, swift-moving, deadly form of ivy emerges from a pit and overwhelms a small town. Soon the seemingly intelligent plant invades larger cities, moving from place to place via water. Can anything stop it?


Illustration by Leo Morey also.

This reads like a science fiction monster movie of the last decade, with ivy taking the place of a giant bug or some such. It's even got one of those endings where Science discovers the only thing that will stop the menace. There's not much to it other than the premise. For what it is, it's adequate.

Three stars.

Beware the Fury, by Theodore Sturgeon

From the April 1954 issue of the magazine comes this work from one of the masters of imaginative fiction.


Cover art by Augusto Marin.

An astronaut seems to have betrayed Earth to invading aliens, making him the most hated human being in existence. A military type has the unenviable task of interviewing the traitor's wife, in an attempt to understand his actions. He learns of the man's unusual personality quirks, and of the couple's very strange marriage. With this knowledge, he tracks down the fellow when he returns to Earth and goes into hiding.


Illustration by Louis Priscilla.

I may have made this sound like a space war yarn, and there's certainly that aspect to the plot. However, the psychology of the characters is of much greater importance than the melodramatic aspects of the story. Sturgeon excels at this sort of thing, of course.

Four stars.

No Charge for Alterations, by H. L. Gold

The former editor of Galaxy offers this work from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

A doctor arrives on a colony world to study under a local physician. Medical technology exists that can change the patient not only physically, but mentally.


Interior illustrations by Henry Sharp.

He's shocked to see his mentor use the device to alter the mind of a young woman so she'll give up her dream of moving to Earth and becoming an entertainer, and instead be happy to do farm labor and raise children.


The After, in contrast to the above Before.

The new arrival decides to escape what he sees as an insane perversion of medicine and go back to Earth.  The local doctor contacts the retired physician under whom he studied, in an attempt to keep the new guy from leaving.  He learns something about his own time as a student.

I suppose this is supposed to be an ironic tale, maybe even humorous.  I found the premise distasteful.  The way in which the young woman at the start of the story is brainwashed to be a content farm wife is rationalized as being necessary to support the colony, but it gave me the creeps.

Two stars.

Signal to Noise Ratio

Well, that was a middle-of-the-road issue, rising above and sinking below average in a couple of places, but otherwise mediocre.  It's notable not only for having two new stories, but for having only science fiction and no fantasy.  The whole thing is like a radio station subject to bits of static now and then; worth tuning in for a while, but tempting you to turn the dial to something else.  Something like a corny pun, that may amuse you for a while, but otherwise forgettable.


Like this one, from the same issue as the Sturgeon story, by somebody known only as Frosty.

Still, while I may not be able to tune in to KMPX, I can at least turn the dial to the similarly formatted KGJ. That's some comfort!




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