by Victoria Silverwolf
In recent days the eyes of the world were focused on the most important event yet during the administration of President Kennedy. No, not Scott Carpenter’s successful, if suspenseful, orbiting of the Earth, so ably reported by our host. I’m talking about Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday to the leader of the free world in a skintight beaded dress that drew at least as much attention as her little girl's voice.
In other musical news, after three weeks at the top of the Billboard's Hot 100 with their smash hit Soldier Boy, the Shirelles, pioneers of the girl group sound, have yielded the position to British clarinetist Mr. Acker Bilk with his performance of Stranger on the Shore. (Bilk is only the second artist from across the pond to make it to Number One on the American pop charts. The first was just slightly less than a decade ago, when Vera Lynn reached that position with Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart. I suppose we'll have to wait another ten years before the British invade the Yankee airwaves again.)
Bilk's haunting, melancholy melody could easily serve as background music for the cover story in the June 1962 issue of Fantastic.
Another beautiful painting from young artist George Barr graces the latest offering from editor Cele Goldsmith. It perfectly suits – and, I imagine, provided the inspiration for – Robert F. Young's lead novelette The Star Fisherman.
The protagonist's profession takes him deep into interstellar space, where he uses nets to capture small meteors which are used as jewels to be worn in women's hair. Already the reader can tell that this is a romantic and poetic tale with the mood of a legend. I was reminded, to some extent, of the work of Cordwainer Smith. The fisherman captures the body of an old man in a spacesuit and a photograph of a young woman in the severe clothing of a religious cult. He instantly falls obsessively in love with her and uses the clue of her attire to track her down.
The author takes many risks here. He deliberately offers us a science fiction story which has the mood of fantasy. He walks a very thin line between heartfelt emotion and sentimentality. He creates a character with whom one must empathize, but who sometimes does terrible things. I believe that he succeeds, as well as constructing an intricately designed plot which leads to an inevitable conclusion. For all these reasons I must award a full five stars.
I wish I could say the same about Ended by David R. Bunch, since I have generally been a defender of his unique style. Unfortunately, this story begins in such an opaque manner that I had no idea what was happening. Eventually it becomes clear that two very strange characters who were about to fight each other instead dig down to a region where they are offered the opportunity to pay for hedonistic pleasures. Apparently the author intends a satire of the modern world ignoring the possibility of universal destruction and instead wasting time in pursuit of escapism. With a character named Glob Gloul the Gloul and a place called the Hall of Hedo-and-a-Ho-ho, it's hard to take the allegory seriously. Two stars.
A step up is the first half of Poul Anderson's short novel Shield. It's a fast-moving, action-packed adventure story set in a thoughtfully worked out future which is only revealed slowly as the plot progresses, much in the manner of Robert A. Heinlein. The protagonist has just returned to Earth from one of several missions to Mars, which is inhabited by intelligent life. (The author is wise enough to provide only a glimpse of these aliens, leaving the rest to the reader's imagination.) With the help of a Martian friend, he has invented a device which creates a force field around the wearer. Anderson provides a plausible explanation for this technology, and describes its abilities and limitations in realistic detail.
Although the hero is intelligent and capable, he is young and somewhat naïve about political realities. Not realizing the full importance of his invention, he is soon pursued by American Military Security agents, who are the most powerful force in a world where the United States, after a nuclear war, has forced all other nations to disarm. He is also the target of Chinese spies. (The Soviet Union is not mentioned, and the reader may presume that it was the loser of the war.) As if that were not enough, he has to fight off low level crooks as well as a sinister crime lord and his beautiful assistant. It all reads like a futuristic version of one of Ian Fleming's bestselling spy novels. The author writes in a vivid, clear style and draws the reader into the story right from the beginning. Although the crime boss is a bit of a stereotype, his female aide is a complex, fully realized character. Four stars.
This issue's so-called Fantasy Classic is less than a decade old. The Past Master by Robert Bloch is reprinted from the January 1955 issue of Bluebook. Three different viewpoint characters are used to tell the tale of a mysterious man who arrives out of nowhere with immense amounts of money. He attempts to purchase many great works of art. When legitimate methods fail, he hires criminals to obtain them. The man's motive may not come as a great surprise to readers of science fiction, but the story is effectively told. The author's ability to write in a trio of distinct voices is a nice plus. Three stars.
By coincidence, both Fantastic and this month's issue of Analog offer stories about weather control. "Rain, Rain, Go Away" by James A. Cox deals with the political effects of such technology as well as its unintended consequences. It's fairly predictable and not very engaging. Two stars.
***
Robert F. Young's tragic love story alone is worth paying a dime and a quarter for the magazine. Whether Poul Anderson is able to maintain the suspense of his novel remains to be seen.
