by Gideon Marcus

Live from the Moon

Four days ago, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy's Pad 39A, destination: Moon.  KGJ, our affiliated TV station, will be simulcasting CBS coverage of the landing and Moonwalk starting at noon, Pacific time, and going all day from then.

Please join us for this once-in-a-lifetime event!

The issue at hand

As excited as I am about this historic day, we must remember that today's scientific triumphs owe much to our science fictional musings.  Let's crack open the latest issue of The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy and see what the good folks there have dreamed for us this month!

by Ronald Walotsky

An Adventure in the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness, by Vance Aandahl

Well, things don't start too good.

Big Foot is a girl, and she's in heat.  Lucky for her, an overtaxed young English teacher on sabbatical has just broken down in the backwoods near her lair.

My friend, Jean-Paul Garnier, who runs a science fiction bookstore out in Joshua Tree, describes the New Wave as:

Science fiction has always been concerned with technology and its repercussions.  The New Wave, at its best, includes in its speculation, the technology of language, both thematically and in praxis.

Aandahl's story is what happens when you combine the worst logorrhea of the New Wave with a per-word payment incentive mixed in with the latest craze for inserting sex into everything.  I think it's supposed to be satirical in its deadly earnest telling, or perhaps it just comes off as satirical because it's so ridiculous, its prose so contrived.  Like Zelazny passed out drunk and wrote a novelette before he woke up.

Two stars.

Books (F&SF, August 1969), by Joanna Russ

I have no comment on this column as I feel commentary on commentary is a bit superfluous.  I just note that Ms. Russ has graduated to full-time columnist, and that her views do not quite match up with mine (which is fine—no book reviewer's do, save for, in the main, P. Schuyler Miller and, of course, our own David Levinson).

The Shamblers of Misery, by Joseph Green

Alright, now we're talking.  This piece, by Britisher Joseph Green, is an example of one of my favorite science fiction subgenres: the evaluation of an alien race to determine its sentience (establishment of such generally meaning that the planet is marked off limits for exploitation).  The late H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy is a prime example.

The story: Allan Odegaard is a "Practical Philospher", one of a handful of humans qualified for the judge of alien sentience.  He is dispatched to the hot, humid planet of Misery, home to a race of extraterrestrials with a puzzling life cycle.  Their intelligence grows through childhood, but upon reaching puberty, their mental faculties slowly decay.  Eventually, they all succumb to trembling seizures that increase in severity until the final, fatal one.  Though capable of doing simple chores, like collection of a local and valuable spice, the adults fall short of true sapience.

The prime suspect for this malady is the addictive drug, made from the spice, that the human colonists give the alien workers.  But is that the true culprit?  Allan perseveres until he finds the truth.

This is a delightful story, straightforward and scientific, with a refreshing degree of sexual equality so often missing from modern science fiction.  Indeed, had I not read the byline, I might have guessed the story had been written by Paul Ash (actually Pauline Ashwell), who wrote the terrific The Wings of a Bat.

The only thing that knocks the story from five stars is I felt the solution was not quite set up sufficiently to be deduced by the reader, though in hindsight, perhaps it was.  But either way, it's a good, SFnal tale.

Four stars.

Next, by Gary Jennings

A tired, retired man, just turned 60, is driving along a one-lane road in the middle of Mexico when he has a terrible accident.  Miraculously, he survives and goes on to enjoy a streak of improbably good fortune that exposes the drabness of his life hitherto in stark relief.

I liked this story quite a bit, and the only reason I give it a high three rather than a low four stars is the ending.  Not that it's a bad one, but I recommend reading this piece and end at the bottom of page 61 (the penultimate page).  I thought the story had ended there, and I really liked the abrupt vividness of it, almost Ellisonesque.  The continuation on page 62 is superfluous.

by Gahan Wilson

Fraternity Brother, by Sterling E. Lanier

Brigadier Ffellowes is a character I'm always happy to see turn up.  He's the ruddy-cheeked ex-officer who frequents pubs and can always be relied upon to recount outlandish, fantastic tales of his earlier years.  This time, when asked which of the secret societies is the oldest, he responds with a story of his time in the Basque country during the Spanish Civil War.

What I love about the Brigadier is how unflappable he is, or at least the aplomb with which he imbues his former self (whether such is an accurate portrayal is, of course, a mystery).  And the telling of these tales is always pleasant. 

I'm not sure that I buy, as is asserted in the story, that the Basques can trace their ancestry all the way back, undiluted, to Cro-Magnon Man (my 1964 Collier's simply notes that the Euskara assert that they are pre-Celtic Iberians), but it is a pretty embellishment.

Four stars.

From the Darkness and the Depths, by Morgan Robertson

This ancient story was published in 1913, and it reads like something from the old copies of Weird Tales I've gotten my hands on.  With the framing device of a fellow discussing the possibility of an ultraviolet lantern as a way to penetrate fog to avoid a second Titanic disaster, this story is the recounting of an attack by an invisible creature from the deep.  The science-fictional element is the idea that a sea monster, transparent to visible light but apparent in UV, could evolve in the ocean depths.

Pleasant, if not outstanding, reading.  Three stars.

On Throwing a Ball, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A. offers up a derivation for the famous equation: f=ma (force equals mass times acceleration—provided you use metric units).  I suppose it's nothing one couldn't find in any good physics textbook, but it's nicely conveyed.

Four stars.

The Money Builder, by Paul Thielen

Lastly, this trivial piece about a grifter with a wild story.  Seems that he teamed up with an alien to build a gravity repulsor such that he could now tamper with any sports game.  On his way to riches, his extraterrestrial partner was apprehended by his fellows, leaving him in the lurch when the big match went the wrong way.  Now, said grifter needs just $5,000 to repair his gadget and once again rig his way to the pink.

I suppose how you rate the story is based on how you buy the grifter's tale: as science fiction, the piece is kaka.  As the seductive pitch of a con man, it's not so bad.  That said, I found the tale kind of dull and old-fashioned.

Two stars.

The Main Event

So, all in all, a reasonably palatable issue of F&SF, though nothing special.  Certainly nothing to distract from the greatest spectacle the human race has every known: our first landing on another world.  For the moment, revel in science fiction become fact.  Save the fantasy for next week, and join us this afternoon!

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