History is divided into eras: The Stone Age, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance. There are Golden Ages and Dark Ages. The Jazz Age. The Gilded Age. One is never quite sure of a period's exact delineations, the precise moments of its beginning or end, until the next one is well on its way. It is possible to tell when one is in an age, however, and also to feel keenly the wistful uncertain sense one gets in the doldrums between epochs. Who can't have felt that way in the year succeeding President Kennedy's assassination, when his civil rights program, American involvement in Indochina, even the character of government in general hung in the balance. And who can doubt that, for better or worse, the Johnson era has clearly begun?
I've lived through two sea changes in music. The first was in 1954, when the overripe swing and schmaltz on the radio was overrun with a wave of rock and roll, particularly if you tuned into the Black stations (luckily, a radio tuner cannot easily be segregated). By 1963, the winds of change had become muddled. With folk, pop, motown, surf, and country vying for our eardrums, it was quite impossible to know then where the next two years would take us. Then the Beatles spearheaded the biggest British invasion since 1812, and a new age was upon us.
Science fiction has its ages, too. When I got into SF in a big way, the genre was clearly plumb in the middle of one. It was 1954, four years after Galaxy's editor, Horace Gold, had thrown the gauntlet down at the feet of puerile pulp SF, five years after the new Fantasy and Science Fiction established a literary benchmark for the genre that has yet to be exceeded. Science fiction primarily came in digest sized magazines, and the market was aflood with them. Quality ranged from the penny-a-word mags which were little above the pulps that preceded them to stellar new fiction that burst beyond our solar system and ranged deep into our pysches.
As the 60s dawned, the genre had become anemic. Almost all of the monthly digests had gone out of print. The old stalwart, Astounding, had changed its name to Analog, but is fiction remained stolidly fixed in an older mode. Gold retired from Galaxy and Fred Pohl struggled to keep it and its sister mags fresh as its reliable stable of authors left for greener (as in the color of money) pastures. F&SF's helm passed on to Avram Davidson, whose whimsical style did the magazine few favors.
But the genre seems to have found its feet and is stomping off in a new direction. Propelled by a "New Wave," again largely based in Britain, the science fiction I've been reading these days no longer feels like retreads of familiar stories. They have the stamp of a modern era, an indisputable sense of 1960s. And no single issue of a single magazine has represented this renaissance in SF better than the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
A Fresh Breeze
by Gray Morrow (illustrating the many perils of … And Call Me Conrad (Part 2 of 2)
Come to Venus Melancholy, by Thomas M. Disch
Disch is one of the flagbearers of the new era. In just three years, this new author has produced more than 20 stories, some of them quite brilliant. In this one (set on an obviously pre-Mariner Venus), a lonely cyborg staffer of a trading post literally holds you captive while she tells the sad story of how she lost her love.
By turns horrifying and heartbreaking, it's a moving piece. Four stars.
Less effective though more experimental is this piece on the first successful hyperdrive jaunt. After four failures, it is determined that the transition to hyperspace bears similarities to drug-induced schizophrenia. One couple, so in love as to practically share a consciousness, is fed a regimen of psychoactives to prepare them for the trip.
Somewhat roughly written, and perhaps too short, it is nevertheless a fascinatingly "now" story delving into new territory.
Three stars.
Insect Attractant, by Theodore L. Thomas
This usually disappointing column of sf-story ideas masquerading as short science articles starts promisingly, discussing how insect pests could be eradicated through synthesis of female sex pheromones, which could then be sprayed to disrupt their breeding cycles. A fine alternative to DDT.
But then he goes on to suggest that human females have similar pheromones, and that distillation and application of same could be used by marriage counselors, as if love is purely a matter of chemical compatibility. Perhaps the author has never been in love, let alone gotten married. Of course, Mr. Thomas may have meant the piece in jest, though I also resented its casually sexist overtones. Either way, it's not worth the page it occupies.
Two stars — and let's please 86 this column, Mr. Ferman?
When last we left Konstantin Karaghiosis, Minister for Cultural Sites on an atomics-devastated Earth, he was giving a tour of Greece to a blue-skinned Vegan, name of Cort Vishtigo, and his human entourage. Ostensibly, the alien was on Earth to write a travelogue. His true purpose is unknown, but the members of the Radpol movement believe Vishtigo's trip is a real estate survey, prelude to the Vegans buying up the planet to plunder. An assassination attempt is in the offing, and Karaghiosis (virtually immortal and currently going by the name of Conrad) believes that the alien's bodyguard, Hassan, is the likely killer.
That's the context, but the tale Zelazny weaves reads like a modern interpretation of mythology, with Conrad's party encountering a host of radiation mutated beasts, humans, and everything in-between. Conrad is a tale of survival, of derring do, of proving worth. It's also a pretty good mystery with a satisfying, if a touch too pat, ending.
At first, I was leery of Zelazny's style, a first person macho that threatens to become precious. But there's enough self-deprecatory humor to make it work, and I found the pages flying. There's enough action to keep it moving, enough depth to keep you thinking.
Four stars for this segment, and the novel as a whole is elevated to this rank as well.
El Numero Uno, by Sasha Gilien
It used to be that Death attended to matters personally. Now, the business has boomed, and he requires field agents armed with legal contracts instead of scythes. This particular case involves a harried operative on the sports beat and a particularly recalcitrant matador scheduled for expiration.
Good stuff in the style of Ron Goulart. Four stars.
Cutting edge stuff, and it's the first time I learned of neutronium, a state of matter even more compressed than that found inside a white dwarf.
Four stars.
A Few Kindred Spirits, by John Christopher
Last up, the much heralded author of No Blade of Grass offers up a tale combining a queer (in both senses of the word) group of dogs, the concept of reincarnation, and the pursuit of literary laurels. A character study cum literal shaggy dog story, it's perhaps the most conventional piece of the issue — save for the rather daring (and refreshingly uncondemned) discussion of alternate sexual preferences.
Four stars.
The Sound of Shoes Dropping
It is clear that, after a long many-tacked jaunt in trackless seas, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has set a bold new course. I have high hopes and more than a little suspicion that this New Wave era has many more exciting years left to it.
After quite a few lean years, I'm finally getting my dessert again!
As I've been looking into news and literature sources away from the beaten path, I've run across several magazines that aren't likely to show up on your local newsrack: They're published by homophile organizations. They face tremendous prejudice and sometimes outright bigotry, despite their focus on nothing more objectionable than human relationships.
The term "homophile" was first proposed by Harry Hay, one of the founders of the Mattachine Society. It is widely used by gay rights groups to indicate that their identity is not centered around sex. However, the terms homophile, homosexual, gay, and lesbian are all used frequently throughout the periodicals.
ONE was created by members of the Mattachine Society and has been published since 1958. The Ladder is from the Daughters of Bilitiis, a lesbian organization; it's been around almost as long. Drum is the newcomer that began only last year, published by the Janus Society; it has a less serious approach, with more light-hearted content. All three have a letters section and book reviews, which I will cover at the end.
ONE: The Homosexual Viewpoint
One Incorporated is "A non-profit corporation formed to publish a magazine dealing primarily with homosexuality from the scientific, historical and critical point of view." A few years ago, it won a landmark lawsuit, establishing it as not obscene material, and therefore legal to send through the mail.
ONE has the highest production values of the three magazines I found. The text is neatly set in two columns for main articles and it has both photographs and line art. It has a mix of content types: interview article, fiction, poetry, news, and essays. It also has book reviews. All of them have news and book review sections, as any misunderstood and often-persecuted group needs both an awareness of how society treats them and an understanding of their own communities.
Interview with Elmer Gage, Mohave Indian
Mr. Gage is known as a homosexual in his local community, and they accept him. His photo, instead of showing him making the beaded belts he sells to tourists, or at home with his grandmother, is a publicity picture of him in his Bird Dancer outfit. He wears it for ceremonial dances and sometimes for lectures at universities, but it's not what he wears at home. (Of course not. Shakespearean actors may be portraying traditional British cultural entertainments, but nobody expects them to wear Renaissance-era garb all the time.) Despite the hardships he faces, he is at peace with himself; he says life is "too short to spend your time being something you don't want to be… I'm true to myself and my own nature."
Uncomfortable Fiction, Poetry
The short story, "Somebody Else All of a Sudden, Somebody New," by K. O. Neal, is short, and not an easy read. It involves Jeffy–probably a teenager–and a man called "Old Rocker," who pays him for sex: usually a silver dollar, but two dollars this time. (There are no prurient details in the story.) I'm left wondering if Old Rocker would seek other partners if doing so didn't risk arrest or even murder.
The poem that follows the story, "Lines for the almost gone," is not any less distressing. It's directed to either someone dying or someone on the edge of suicide. The other poem in this issue, "frankincense: three letters to c" by Abel Jones, reminds me of both e.e. cummings' style, with few capital letters and broken lines arranged carefully on the page, and Ginsberg's "Howl," with a mix of evocative imagery and coarse irreverence.
I'm sure this poem is deeply meaningful to someone, but that someone is not me.
Transvestites: Not the same as gay
The article "Silks and Satins" by Charles Elkins is a plea for understanding. Men who wear traditionally women's clothing are not a unified group, nor are they all either gay or straight. Some would prefer to wear dresses and heels in public and be accepted as women; others only want them for bedroom activities. They are often very lonely, rejected even by other fringe communities, and told by psychiatrists that they should repress their harmless interest in looking and feeling feminine. I say: if someone wants to wear a silk dress and heels in public, let them. As Jefferson said, "it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
This and That
It also has a "news and views" column, "Tangents," which is a roundup of short synposes: Homosexuals in the media (a British tv show about lesbians on January 7th, Macleans magazine planning an article about them in the future); cops falsely accusing political candidates of homosexuality in California; one of Freud's theories about Leonardo da Vinci's homosexuality has been debunked. (Whether da Vinci was homosexual is unknown, but if so, it wasn't proven by a childhood memory of a vulture.)
Is that Puss in Boots?
The Ladder: A Lesbian Review
The Daughters of Bilitis is "a women's organization for the purpose of promoting the integration of the homosexula into society" by education, participation in research, and promotion of changes to the penal code."
The Ladder's production quality is the lowest of the trio. Most of it is typed, and the text isn't always aligned evenly with the headings. There are no photographs and no line art. Still, it contains solid news articles (impressive, as it does not rely on a clippings service) and thoughtful essays.
Homophile Activists
This issue has several articles about public events. One called "After the Ball…" about the police raid on a New Year's Eve costume ball organized by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, comprised of members of six homophile organizations. The police harassed attendees and photographed most of the 600 guests, and when they were told they needed a warrant to enter, they arrested the four people trying to stop them.
While the police were attempting to intimidate, they did capture some amazing pictures. Picture from Lewd & Lascivious.
The other activism news was not as well covered in newspapers: Last December in New York, Dr. Paul R. Dince gave a lecture entitled "Homosexuality, A Disesase." Four picketers showed up to protest, handing out free homophile literature and holding signs saying "WE REQUEST 10 MINUTES REBUTTAL TIME." They made their request to the chairman of the forum – and it was granted!
After the lecture, during open questions, one of the picketers was allowed 10 minutes with a microphone. He pointed out that "experts" have contradictory theories about homosexulity. He mentioned they mostly study unhappy individuals, and they start with the assumption that homosexuality is a disease. (It's easy to "prove" something you already believe.) He also noted that most people in the "disease" camp say little against scams that charge ridiculous fees, claiming they will "cure" homosexuality. After the protesters received great applause, Dr. Dince conceded some of their points.
The E.C.H.O. (East Coast Homophile Organizations) report is five pages about the recent conference in Washington, D.C. This issue holds Part Four: "Act or Teach," based on recordings of the event. In this part, Dr. Franklin Kameny pointed out the flaws in approaching the public with information instead of demands for change. He said it is naive to assume information will overcome prejudice, but that when new laws establish civil rights, "public sentiment has then attempted to accommodate itself to the new situation."
Dr. Koneitzko disagreed with him, saying that acceptance from communities and churches is more important than technical legal rights. Kameny does not disagree, but he says that the acceptance will come after the laws change, not before.
Dr. Franklin Kameny, a WWII veteran who was fired from his post-war job in the Army Map Service because of his orientation. Photo circa 1956.
Essays and Poetry
"I Hate Women: A Diatribe by an Unreconstructed Feminist" is a rant about the repulsiveness of meek, timid, compliant femininity. The compelling title is rather tongue-in-cheek: The author, of course, does not hate women, since she is a lesbian. She hates, however, the notion that all women are destined to be servile wives and mothers, and decries that those who want a different path are often sent to a psychiatrist to "Find Out Why she Rejects the Feminine Role."
She goes on to talk about the risks of over-population, and quotes Arthur C. Clarke from the 1958 Harper's Magazine article, "Standing Room Only":
…the time may yet come when homosexuality is practically compulsory, and not merely fashionable. It will indeed be a piquant paradox if— in the long run and taking the survival of humanity as a whole as our criterion— this controversial instinct turns out to have a greater survival value than the urge to reproduce.
The other essay is considerably less angry. "To Tell or Not To Tell," by Vern Niven, is a short article about wrestling with secrecy, about the choice of whether homosexuals should tell their parents about who they love, or could love. The author says most parents can be accepting, but it may take some effort to prepare them for the truth. She encourages readers to be honest with their families. This can bring support and welcome for both themselves and partners, especially important when they consider their relationship a marriage.
The essays, while subjective, are directed to a broad audience. The four short poems seem more targeted in their appeal. Two have strong nature imagery; one is religious; one relates to music. None of them are overtly lesbian: they do not mention gender at all. But they are lyrical and intense, with hints of secrets being shared between the authors and readers.
And you, my subtle friend Come counterpoint, Offer me softly of your melodic Talents.
The tone of The Ladder is down-to-earth and almost wistful; the articles are laced with hope and perseverance. Not all of the homophile magazines are so sober.
Drum: Sex in Perspective
The name is inspired by a quote by Thoreau: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."
I saved the fun one for last. Drum has more lively content than the others: the longest article is the 12-page "Beginner's Guide to Cruising," which is as much playful as informative. Indeed, its very first news article includes a picture of Tony Sabella kissing Robert Kennedy.
The caption reads: "A group of New York lawyers is studing the possibility of having sodomy charges brought against Senator-elect Robert Kennedy for allegedly committing a public indecent act in the Fulton Fish Market to demonstrate the importance of Penal Law reform."
Is a public kiss between men acceptable as long as neither of them is believed to be gay?
Dating Guide
The feature article, "The Beginner's Guide to Cruising" by George Marshall, bypasses any question of inner speculation or the gay identity within a heterosexual community. It is focused on a single goal: sexual conquest. While the methods described border on predatory, it is clear that the purpose is great fun for both men involved; this is not a primer for seducing people who aren't interested.
It spends some time discussing which men should not be pursued: Those who are "superbly dressed," as they are more interested in themselves than you; those wearing very tight slacks, indicating bitterness and a lack of feeling; those with white shirts and pastel pants, who will take you to court if things go badly; those with political causes, who will involve you in their mania; those who are drunk or drug addicts, who are, at best, walking complications.
It gives several possible approaches to avoid clichés like, "Care for a coffee?" It then goes on to discuss socializing after an introduction at a party, how to convince him you are a clever conversationalist (mostly by agreeing with him), and the importance of setting a future meeting date. While the tips in the article are very much focused on gay men who are seeking other gay men, they are the same methods used by salesmen and politicians: know your target, make yourself interesting, follow through with more contact.
Spy Stories
"I Was a Homosexual for the FBI" (by P. Arody) is a short article crammed full of hilarious stereotypes. It is ostensibly by someone who saved the country from "the deadliest conspiracy ever to rock the United States": To convince straight people that gays are really no different from their neighbors. The author had access to the FBI's extensive resources, including the Homo-o-dors that smell "suspected perverts" and flash a lavender light on detection. His "training" included "how to talk with a lisp" and "how to swish when walking, drink like an alcoholic, and organize orgies." (If the FBI knows how to organize orgies, I demand it release that information to taxpayers!) The result of all that hard work: "we caught every homosexual in the entire country and now all twelve of them were on trial!"
In keeping with this month's unstated "super spy" theme, we have several pages of artwork showing Harry Chess, that man from A.U.N.T.I.E ("Agents' Undercover Network To Investigate Evil) and his team. This is an an obvious play on the new Man from U.N.C.L.E spy-thriller tv show.
Not shown here: his sidekick "Mickey Muscle," their informant Big Bennie, girl bartender, and villain Lewd Leather, the leader of M.U.C.K. (Maniacal Underworld Control Corp).
The puzzle is probably not connected to the spying, since one was included last month, and another will be shared next month. The "cryptogayme" cipher is a nice stretch-your-mind exercise in a magazine mostly devoted to casual enjoyment.
The solution will be in next month's issue.
Pretty as a Picture
Speaking of casual enjoyment… the "Portfolio" covers four pages of the magazine: Full-page photos of young men wearing very little clothing. The portfolio is accompanied by ads from the photographers: $6 sent to an address in Germany will get you 8 black and white photos of two models, or 6 color slides. Alternately, $1 sent to a post office box in Detroit will get you "samples," which presumably will contain information on how to order more.
"More like this" is a recurring theme in all three magazines. Each contains contact information, mentions of homophile organizations (Drum has a full page listing more than 20 of them), and letters from the community.
The letters columns are compelling. Over and over, they say: Thank you. Thank you for helping me understand myself, my community. Thank you for helping me understand the truth about my loved ones. Thank you for showing me we can fight for better acceptance, for the rights our heterosexual neighbors take for granted.
The book reviews, while useful enough on their own, showcase one of the problems all homosexuals face: There is so little representation of them in literature and movies that they must accept any depictions of their existence as other than "evil" or "perverted" as a benefit. Books that draw on stereotypes are approved if they are not too inaccurate. Those that are well-written, in which the only homosexuals are background characters, are still recommended. This is a community eager to see their reality in print, and each of the magazines provides that to its audience.
Not So Different
The real truth shown by these magazines is this: These people are not so different from everyone else. Some gay men, like some straight men, go "cruising" for casual partners. Some gay men, like some straight men, would rather find a single person for a long-term committed relationship. Lesbians, like straight women, chafe under legal and social constraints. Lesbians, like straight women, fall in love and hope their trust will not be betrayed. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, worry about what their families think of their career choices, their hobbies, and their partners.
With all these revelations of homophile lives and interests, the biggest discovery is that they are just people: some shallow, some passionate, some thoughtful, some clever, some angry, some shy. If they have an agenda, it's to be allowed to live and love in peace, just like their neighbors.
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
The cover of the May 1964 Amazing depicts an astronaut whose space helmet and surrounding objects are melting as the giant sun blazes in through his rather large porthole. This illustrates Lester del Rey’s story Boiling Point, or more likely the story rationalizes the cover; I suspect more strongly each month that a lot of Amazing’s cover stories are in fact written around an already purchased cover painting.
by Schelling
Boiling Point
The story starts out as routinely clever. Protagonist Stasek is a technician residing on Venus and studying “energy-eaters,” amorphous creatures who hang out near the sun and live on its energy. He is pressed into service to do maintenance on“the ring of satellites strung like beads between the orbit of Venus and the orbit of Mercury.” They are there to relay communications, observe sunspots, absorb energy and beam it to wherever it’s needed.
Stasek sets out and, of course, quickly comes across an energy-eater wrapped around a satellite he’s supposed to service. What an opportunity! He disregards regulations, gets close to it, and finds out why nobody who has done so has come back: it wraps itself around his little spaceship. Turns out it’s telepathic, and it’s hungry: it wants to go towards the sun, and when Stasek demurs, it takes control of the ship. Curtains! Except Stasek, before he cooks completely, figures out a better deal to offer it.
This would be a perfectly acceptable piece of hardware-opera yard goods except that it turns on the assumption that telepathic communication, if it exists at all, could work right off the bat between creatures of such utterly different background and experience. I read that some guy named Wittgenstein said, “If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.” Sounds right to me, and that goes at least double for a shape-shifting vacuum-dweller that feeds on pure energy. Sorry, too much to swallow, downgraded from yard goods to factory reject. Two stars.
As for the rest of the issue, I can’t say there’s anything especially good here—but at least some of it is bad in more interesting ways than usual. Also, as someone suggested to me, this seems to be the Special Bad-Mouthing Issue. Once past the del Rey story, every piece of fiction contains some derogatory stereotype or a character who is nasty to the point of caricature.
This issue concludes Phyllis Gotlieb’s serial Sunburst, which seems sincere and well-meaning, but ultimately inconclusive.
Premise (in case you haven't been reading along): years ago, in a small Midwestern city called Sorrel Park, a nuclear reactor accident resulted in the town’s being quarantined under martial law, and in the birth of a number of mutant children with very strong psionic powers. A few years later these feral superchildren ran rampant through the town destroying everything within reach, and were themselves quarantined behind a force field in a barren place called the Dump (hence, Dumplings).
The main character is Shandy Johnson, a 13-year-old orphaned girl who is an “imperv,” i.e., someone with no psi talent who is undetectable via psi, and who is trying to get by in depressed and police-dominated Sorrel Park. She is apprehended and taken to the authorities, who want to use her as a go-between with the Dumplings, though that doesn’t actually happen.
Instead the author launches a very busy plot full of escapes, pursuits, disappearances, captivities, disturbances, threats of massive sabotage of essential government functions, etc. Midway through, Shandy unspools her big idea: psi talents tend to develop in people who are psychopaths anyway—born juvenile delinquents! I.e., mesomorphs who have had trouble with the police starting early, who mostly “come from families without very strong morals—often immigrants who have trouble coping with a new country. . . . I’ve heard poverty is a cause of delinquency, but I think these kinds of shiftless, helpless people could be a cause of poverty too. . . .”
After this detour into discredited pseudo-science, the busy plot machine cranks up again, with the Dumplings mostly acting like the natural-born delinquents we’ve been told they are, and at the end most of those who are still alive are back in the Dump behind a more secure force field. That is, after all the hugger-mugger, the story’s basic problem, young people essentially sentenced to life imprisonment in a barren environment because nobody can control their dangerous talents, is unchanged. It is suggested that Shandy is the real mutant superperson here, though what that means is unclear.
Meanwhile, we have never seen the Dumplings and their outcast society—the most interesting part of the set-up—except second-hand, and in melodramatic bursts during their breakout. It’s all perfectly readable, if you can overlook Gotlieb’s frequently clumsy writing. (Sample: “She had come to a hard decision, and she silently awarded herself the razz for her sense of its altruism, without stopping the ache.”) It just never adds up to much despite the potentially interesting premise. Two stars.
Next up is The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal, by Cordwainer Smith, he of the suddenly soaring reputation. This one is told in high whimsical tall-tale style, about the eponymous Commander who is dispatched to probe the “outer reaches of our galaxy.” He encounters a colony planet where “femininity became carcinogenic,” so the women all died off and the only means of survival was to turn everyone medically into men, which of course had effects beyond the medical. Smith describes the results at some length. Here’s a sample:
“They, themselves, were bearded homosexuals, with rouged lips, ornate earrings, fine heads of hair, and very few old men among them. They killed off their men before they became old; the things they could not get from love or relaxation or comfort, they purchased with battle and death. They made up songs proclaiming themselves to be the last of the old men and the first of the new, and they sang their hate to mankind when they should meet, and they sang ‘Woe is earth that we should find it,’ and yet something inside them made them add to almost every song a refrain which troubled even them.
“And I mourn Man!”
One must ask whether this is a glimpse of the far future, or of the author’s insecurities. We don’t hear much about homosexuals here in this small Kentucky town, and what we do hear amounts to locker room talk. I wonder if Smith is just passing on the locker room talk of intellectuals. His extravagant fantasy about people I doubt he knows much about reminds me of some of the strange things people in this mostly segregated town say about Negroes. Anyway, two stars: a story that started out like a bravura performance, brought down by what reads like gross stereotyping.
Incidentally, the blurb to the story reads like the editor tried to get into the swing of Smith’s sometimes outlandish prose. I wonder if she just appropriated a piece of the story to serve as a blurb.
The Artist
by Schelling
Rosel George Brown contributes The Artist, a purposefully difficult and unpleasant story about an artist, a stupid and nasty jerk who has become successful by painting what his long-suffering wife sees (it’s not too clear how that works). Now she sees something strange and frightening in a corner of the room, and rather than have him paint what she sees, she provokes him into getting a stepladder and looking for himself, with unpleasant results (for him anyway). It’s sort of like that playwright of bad marriages, Edward Albee, meeting H.P. Lovecraft, to mutual dislike. For lagniappe, the action takes place at a party featuring caricatured secondary characters. Two stars for making the story seem interesting enough to persevere with it (including a second read) long enough to figure out what is going on.
According to His Abilities
by Schelling
Another nasty jerk is featured in Harry Harrison’s According to His Abilities, though this one isn’t so stupid, and is also rationalized at the end of the story. The refined milquetoast DeWitt and the boorish thug Briggs have been dispatched to rescue an Earthman from primitive aliens who are pretty boorish and thuggy themselves. Briggs’s belligerence wins the day, and there’s a facile revelation about him at the end, of an all too familiar sort. It’s dreary hackwork executed professionally. Two stars.
C.C. MacApp’s For Every Action starts with a mildly clever idea, spaceborne life forms around the orbit of Pluto that glom on to spaceships’ rocket exhausts so they can no longer steer accurately, then adds another such idea (a guy could move around in space using a bow and arrow!), and sets them in a silly frame of Cold War suspicion, concluding with a reference to Soviet spacemen (implicitly, drunk) floating in space singing Volga Boat Song (sic). It’s generically similar to Boiling Point but much weaker. Two stars, barely.
Planetary Engineering
And of course Ben Bova is back with the latest in his interminable series of fact articles though this one gets no farther than the Moon. It’s about what people will have to do to establish colonies there, and is frankly a rehash of what we’ve seen not only in dozens of SF stories but in plenty of articles in general-interest magazines, complete with platitudes (“Finally, carving out a human settlement in a literally new world will give man an opportunity to create a new society.” Etc.) and observations so mundane as to be suffocating (“Corridors will no doubt be painted in special color codes, to help travellers find their way.”). Two stars, largely for good intentions. Also, no one is insulted here.
The Verdict
So: not much here of much merit, but, as already suggested . . . if you can’t be good, at least find an interesting way to be bad.
by Schelling
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
25 years ago, a group of fen met in New York for the first World's Science Fiction Convention. Now, conclaves are springing up all over the nation (and internationally, too). Just this weekend, I attended a small event ambitiously titled San Diego Comic Fest. It was a kind of "Comics-in," where fans of the funny pages could discuss their peculiar interests: Is Superman better than Batman? Are the X-Men and the Doom Patrol related? Is Steve Ditko one of the best comics artists ever?
I was there as an invited guest to speak on the current state of comics and science fiction. I understand that the proceeding was filmed and may even be broadcast on local television. When that happens, I shall be sure to give you a heads up.
Slinging my new color camera, I took photos of some of the new friends I made. There was also excellent space-themed decor, which I had to capture for posterity. Many thanks to my friends with the private dark room who developed these prints so quickly for publication:
Posters lining the bar at the Lunar Lounge
Mercury meets Sputnik
The Young Traveler (initials L.E.M.) poses with a mock-up of the Apollo LEM
Alvin of the Chipmunks (his name really is Alvin!)
A beautiful, newly commissioned drawing of Dr. Martha Dane, the Journey's unofficial mascot
While the con possessed many superlative qualities, I think my fondest memories involved reading the latest issue of Galaxy, sitting in the lobby of the event hotel, listening to one of the fans play an endless medley of classic and new tunes on the piano. With that, I suppose it's appropriate I tell you about what I read…
The Issue at Hand
Cover by Sol Dember illustrating Final Contact
The Boy Who Bought Old Earth, by Cordwainer Smith
For years, Cordwainer Smith has teased us with views of his future tales of the Instrumentality, the rigid, computer-facilitated government of Old Earth. We've learned that there are the rich humans, whose every whim is catered to. Beneath them, literally, are the Underpeople — animals shaped into human guise (a la Dr. Moreau) who live in subterranean cities. A giant tower, miles high, launches spaceships to the heavens, spreading the Instrumentality to the hundreds of settled stars of the galaxy. All but one, the setting of Smith's newest book.
Old North Australia stands alone, an island in an Instrumentality-dominated sea of space. On that grey, dusty world, its inhabitants still pledge fealty to the Queen of the British Commonwealth (she and that confederation dead some 15,000 years). What enables this world, dubbed "Norstrilia," to stand alone? Like Frank Herbert's Arrakis, Norstrilia is the sole producer of the longevity drug, stroon. This has made Norstrilia fantastically wealthy, able to produce the most lethal of defenses (including Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons).
Our viewpoint in Boy is Rod McBan, a protagonist with a problem. The scion of one of Norstrilia's oldest and richest families, he has been barred from achieving adulthood for his inability to communicate telepathically with his peers. Four times the boy has lived to the age of sixteen; three times, he has had his memories erased in the hopes that Rod might develop the appropriate mental gifts to participate meaningfully in society. Failure to do so a fourth time means judgment by tribunal and possible sentence to death.
How Rod escapes this fate and turns around his fortune so entirely (figuratively and literally) such that he becomes possessor of the Manhome, Old Earth itself, is an interesting tale I shan't spoil. I can, however, share my thoughts on the story's execution.
Smith is one of the more unusual authors out there. Having been raised in pre-Communist China and then employed by intelligence agencies, Smith has much more experience with non-Western cultures. This shows up in his writing, with the Instrumentality and its denizens a fair bit further from the norm of SF societal depictions.
The author is hampered, however, by choosing Norstrilia as his setting. The planet is prosaic, deliberately so by choice of the inhabitants. Missing is that lucid dream-like quality Smith has imparted his other Instrumentality stories.
Moreover, the novel is very short, and it ends abruptly just as it's getting interesting. I suspect the piece has been cut for space. The result is just two thirds of a story arc.
For these reasons, I give Boy 3.5 stars and hope that a fuller rendition comes out in proper book form. Perhaps, like Heinlein's Starship Troopers, this will turn a flawed gem into a masterpiece.
Earth Eighteen, by Ernst Mason
After finishing the serious, humorless piece that was Boy, it was quite a jolt to be thrown into this comedy article, a tourguide for aliens visiting a ruined and mostly depopulated Earth. Thus, it took me a while to slow down and get into the thing, but once I did, I found moments of genuine cleverness. The Gaughan pictures are cute, too.
Three stars.
For Your Information, by Willy Ley
The non-fiction article this month deals with statistical bell curves: the phenomenon whereby any set of things (height of people, size of noses, width of beans) falls within boundaries with the most common incidence being right in the middle. It's not a bad piece, but it's short and ends abruptly.
Three stars.
The End of the Race, by Albert Bermel
If you've read the recent novel (soon to be movie) Fail-safe, then you know the ending to this story, a farcical piece about negotiated disarmament between the superpowers. It was better when it wasn't played for laughs, and not very good laughs at that.
Two stars.
Final Encounter, by Harry Harrison
Now here is the real gem of the book, and a real departure from the norm. Ship's captain Hautamaki, of the race of Men, takes aboard a married pair of more conventionally human anthropologists, Gulyas and Tjond. Their mission: to make first contact with aliens. The extraterrestrials have left tantalizing clues of their existence, beacons on various worlds pointing to one star in the galaxy. Friction quickly erupts amongst the crew. Tjond, the sole woman, finds Hautamaki's insistence on nudity disturbing. And she cannot comprehend at all the society of Men, which includes no women, involves marriage, love, and production of children by homosexual union alone.
Worse yet, Hautamaki insists on jettisoning all weaponry and adopting a completely peaceful posture when approaching the aliens. His reasoning is that the threat of violence could jeopardize the contact, and if the aliens prove hostile even in the face of no provocation, well, the next mission will be so alerted.
I absolutely loved this story. It possessed that well-executed strangeness that I'd sort of expected from the Smith. I appreciated that it was the Man who was the gentle pacifist. And, as in Evelyn Smith's They Also Serve, a homosexual man is key to a peaceful first contact. But unlike Smith's story, this is the first instance in SF (aside from Sturgeon's The World Well Lost from 1953) where the homosexuality is explicit — and completely unapologetic.
How times have changed. Five stars.
At the Feelies, by Jack Sharkey
At the con, I had a discussion with a fellow who mused on the future of movies. After silent films came talkies. Then color, 3-D, "Sens-o-rama," and so on. It was timely, then, that I read this piece right after. It's a (fictional) review of Gone with the Wind redone such that the audience can feel and smell from the point of view of the actors — a technology with mixed blessings, as you can imagine.
It's cute. Three stars.
Soft and Soupy Whispers, by Sydney Van Scyoc
Van Scyoc offers up a typically macabre piece about a mentally disturbed man whose insanity is kept under control through the installation of a mental companion. In essence, the fellow is made sane through schizophrenia. It's subtle and interesting, but a bit obtuse and more artful than plausible.
Three stars.
The Blasphemers, by Philip José Farmer
Last up is another piece from left field, this one dealing with a race of centaurs that possesses four sexes, all of which are necessary to produce (and capable of bearing) children. The aliens are an advanced, starfaring race. Highly religious, they venerate the spirits of their ancestors, holding sacred the statues of their elders. One iconoclast leads his mated quartet to a shrine and proceeds to make love amongst the monuments.
He is caught and brought before a judge, but instead of being sentenced to immolation, he is congratulated for his heresy and informed that the state religion is bunk, actually a tool to justify the conquest of planets: one of the faith's tenets is that an early ancestor left statues of himself on planets to be colonized by the race; such statues were actually carved recently by advance scouts.
Our protagonist is then made a ship's captain and dispatched to colonize as many worlds as he and his companions can, until common sense prevails over faith and the old order is toppled.
Particularly interesting about this piece is the assertion that religious faith is instilled by nature, not nurture. Like sexual preference, one can't help one's feelings on the subject, the story says.
Ambitious and laudable as Farmer's goals are in this piece, his execution is workmanlike. Ted Sturgeon once called Farmer an author who always almost gets it right, and that record continues with The Blasphemers. I suppose Harrison can't write all the iconoclastic tales.
Three stars.
Summing Up
With just one very short clunker in the mix, and despite the (relative) disappointment of the Smith novel, the April 1964 Galaxy is a welcome departure from the standard. I'm impressed. What wonders await us in two months?
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
Every so often, you get a perfect confluence of events that makes life absolutely rosy. In Birmingham, Alabama, the segregationist forces have caved in to the boycott and marching efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Two days ago, astronaut Gordo Cooper completed a day-and-a-half in orbit, putting America within spitting distance of the Russians in the Space Race. And this month, Avram Davidson has turned out their first superlative issue of F&SF since he took the editorial helm last year.
Centuries after The Bombs Fell, the North American continent has scratched its way back to the early 20th Century, technology-wise, but enlightened feudalism remains the order of the day. Kings begins on the eve of civil war in the Pacific States of America after a coup has placed an expansionist government in charge in San Francisco bent on reestablishing Manifest Destiny. Colonel McKenzie of the Sierra Military Command must fight to preserve the old confederacy in the face of superior forces as well as the belligerent "neutrality" of the Esps — communal mystics who seem to have developed terrible psychic weapons.
Don't worry — the story really does belong in this magazine, and not Analog!
Anderson, of course, has been a pleasure to read for many years (since his inexplicable dip in the late '50s.) Kings is a nuanced, character-driven war story filled with lurid descriptions of battles and strategic considerations. It's a bit like The High Crusade played straight, actually. Four stars for the general reader, five if combat is your bag.
Pushover Planet, by Con Pederson
This piece starts well enough, with a pair of dialect-employing space miners landing on an uncommonly idyllic world and meeting an uncommonly friendly alien. The ending, on the other hand, is pure ironic corn, and on the whole, the story feels like an idea Bob Sheckley rejected as not worth his time to write. I don't know who Pederson is any more than Davidson does (apparently, the Editor doesn't even know where to send payment for this story written nearly a decade ago). In any event, I don't think the magazine got its money's worth. Two stars.
Starlesque, by Walter H. Kerr
About an alien stripper who takes it all off. Not worth your time. Two stars.
Oh, but Vance's latest work absolutely is! Dig this: beyond our world lie the realms of White and Black magic, each featuring the powers and denizens you might expect. But beyond them, and possessing powers more abstract and strange are the realms of Purple and Green magic (and further still, those of the indescribable colors, rawn and pallow). One Howard Fair would follow in his Uncle Gerald's footsteps to become adept in the wonders of Green magic, no matter the warnings from a pair of its citizens.
A brilliant, unique piece that lasts just long enough and grips throughout. Five stars.
The Light That Failed!, by Isaac Asimov
The Good Doctor continues with his series on the luminiferous ether, this time discussing the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. This test was supposed to show Earth's "absolute speed" through the cosmic medium. Instead, it disproved the ether's existence and set the stage for Einstein's and Planck's modern conceptions of the universe. Vital stuff to know. Four stars.
The Weremartini, by Vance Aandahl
Young Vance Aandahl (no relation to Jack Vance) has produced his first readable story in a long time, about an epicurian English professor whose alternate form is exactly as it says on the tin. Weird, disturbing, but not bad. Three stars.
Bokko-Chan, by Hoshi Shinnichi
A barkeep builds the perfect assistant — a beautiful but empty-headed robot woman to occupy the attentions (and tabs) of the tavern's patrons. Billed as the first Japanese SF story to appear in English, it reads like a barbed children's story. I suspect it's better in the original language (and I'd love to get a copy, since I could read it — I actually was aware of Hoshi-san before he appeared in these pages), but it's not bad, even in translation. Three stars.
Only Matheson could successfully manage this tale of post-atomic, mutated hicks. Stupidly brilliant, or brilliantly stupid. You decide. Three stars.
Another Rib, by John J. Wells and Marion Zimmer Bradley
Just 16 men, the crew of humanity's first interstellar expedition, are all that remain of homo sapiens after catastrophe claims our mother star. All hope seems lost for our species…until a native of Proxima Centauri offers to surgically alter some of the spacemen, expressing their latent female reproductive organs.
Rib is an interesting exploration of what it means to be a man, and the varying degree of push required (if any!) for a person to transition from one gender to another. A bold piece. Four stars.
There Are No More Good Stories About Mars Because We Need No More Good Stories About Mars, by Brian Aldiss
Things wrap up with a bitter poem about how science has ruined Mars for SF, but who cares — we'll always have Barsoom. Three stars.
The resulting issue is a solid house made of the finest bricks albeit rather low quality mortar. Good G-d, even Davidson's editorial openings are decent now. Maybe he reads my column…
[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!]
by Gideon Marcus
Thirteen years ago this month, amidst the post-war boom of science fiction digests, Galaxy Science Fiction was born. Its editor, H.L. Gold, intended his brainchild to stand above and apart from the dozens of lesser mags (remember those days of abundance?) with progressive and smart strictly SF stories. He succeeded — Galaxy has showcased some of the best the genre has to offer, as well as a fine science fact column penned by Willy Ley. The consistency of quality has been remarkable.
Two years ago, Fred Pohl, a bright authorial light already, took the helm from the ailing Gold. If anything, he has improved on excellence, continuing to coax fine works from established authors and interesting pieces from new ones. It helps that he, himself, can fill the pages with good material and often does….though I have to wonder if he gets paid when he does that.
If you were to pick any single issue to turn someone on to Galaxy (or to science fiction in general), you could hardly do better than to give them the latest issue (October 1962) of Galaxy. Not only isn't there a clunker in the mix, not only does it feature a new Instrumentality story by the great Cordwainer Smith, but it includes part one of an incredible new novel by the editor.
Wow. I think I threw in more superlatives in the last three paragraphs than I have in the last three months. I guess it's time to show you what all the hubbub's about:
Many authors write in a consistent world. Some are developed following an individual through her/his life in a series of stories. Others might take place in a common setting but feature different protagonists. Smith has introduced his Instrumentality universe through oblique flashes. Each piece involves wildly different places and characters, each with a limited view of things. Only after reading several of them does one get an idea of the nature of Smith's creation.
Thousands of years from now, Earth has seen global empires rise and fall. The current ruling entity is the Instrumentality, a council of pure-humans ruling over the people-citizens and genetically altered animal-subcitizens. Technology caters to virtually every need; the world enjoys a purely service-based economy with the Underhumans providing the services. For humans, Earth is a beautiful, magical place filled with strange wonders. For the animal-people, enslaved to the pure humans, life is a struggle and punishments harsh. We are beyond the familiar subtext of racism/male-chauvinism that suffuses Western stories – the relationship between the races hearkens to the rigid castes of Asia. The animal-men may be cast in human mold, but their treatment is peremptory, inhumane. And the humans are blithely unaware that their creations have the capacity to rebel…
C'mell is the most straight-forward of Smith's Instrumentality stories, and it gives the sharpest insight, to date, of the world he's created (though it by no means reveals all of its secrets). As always, it displays Smith's mastery of the craft, mixing showing and telling, romance and austerity, far-future and relatability. Smith is an author who doesn't put pen to paper unless it's for a four or five-star story, and C'mell is no exception. Five stars.
We've seen the plot where intelligent fungus take over humanity through forced symbiosis in Aldiss' Hothouse stories. Bradbury gives us a much more conventional setup, where the evil mushrooms send spores of themselves via mail-order catalog to be grown and ingested. A nicely written but dumb story, and it has the same ending as All Summer in a Day, which is to say, Ray doesn't bother to end it. Three stars – about as good as Bradbury (not really an SF author) ever gets.
A competent if somewhat forgettable story of an arrogant, resurgent Terran star empire and the lost colony that promises to be more trouble than it's worth to conquer. There's pleasant satire here, particularly of the buffoonish Imperials, but nothing we haven't seen before. In fact, I rather expected to find this piece in Analog (you'll see why). Three stars.
For Your Information: End of the Jet Age, by Willy Ley
A generation ago, propeller planes were the way to travel. Now that they've been eclipsed by the jets, one has to wonder just how long our 707s and DC-8s will last before they are, in turn, replaced by the next mode of transportation. Ley gives us an excellent preview of rocketplane travel in the 1980s as well as a spotlight on a living fossil and answers to readers' questions. Four stars.
A City Near Centaurus, by Bill Doede
Speaking of series, Doede has a third story in his tale of teleporting humans , who have exiled themselves from Earth using subcutaneous matter transmitters that work at the speed of thought. This latest piece involves a dilettante archaeologist who'll brave offending the Gods and even risk death to dig an ancient, abandoned site on Alpha Centauri II. Another piece that shouldn't work (why does the native speak perfect English?), but Doede always pulls it off. Four stars.
How to Make Friends, by Jim Harmon
Resigned to an 18-year hitch, the solo operator of a Martian atmosphere seeder resorts to building his own companions to preserve his sanity. It's a little bit McIntosh's Hallucination Orbit (one wonders if the events of the story are really happening) tinged with Sheckley-esque satire and robotics. But Harmon is not quite as skilled as either of these authors, and so the story ends up like most of Harmon's work, never quite hitting the mark. Three stars.
Plague of Pythons (Part 1 of 2), by Frederik Pohl
How fragile our interconnected, technological world is. How easy it would be for a few malicious demons, selectively possessing our bodies at propitious times, to utterly disintegrate our society. Fast forward two years, after the world has reverted to feudal savagery. Communities larger than the village are impossible. Religion has revived in a last-ditch attempt to protect humanity from bodily appropriation. One ex-engineer, name of Chandler, is on trial for a heinous assault he most assuredly committed, but which wasn't his doing. What justice can he find in a world where the dispensers of justice can, at any time, cease being themselves?
Pythons is a brutal, uncomfortable story, crushingly bleak. It's not the sort of thing I would normally go for, and I definitely caution against it if mind control pushes unpleasant buttons. Yet Pohl executes the thing deftly, and he holds out the barest sliver of hope to keep you going. I have no idea how Pythons will conclude, but if the latter half is as good as the first, we'll have a minor masterpiece on our hands. Four stars (for now…)
Roberta, by Margaret St. Clair
Roberta explores the lengths one might go to erase the wrongness they feel exists in themselves – and the possibility that it is impossible to escape that wrongness. It is the first story I've read that explores the concept of transsexualism, and while it is not a positive story, it is an interesting one. Three stars.
Bimmie Says, by Sydney J. Van Scyoc
While we're on the subject of changing physical form, is it possible to be transCarnivorous? In other words, what if cats and dogs can be made mutually intermalleable? And if pets can be transformed, why not people? Van Scyoc's story is clearly inspired by Keyes' hit, Flowers for Algernon, whose excellence it does not quite reach. Still, it's not bad, and I'm glad to see Sydney's continuing her promising career. Three stars.
Who Dares a Bulbur Eat?, by Gordon R. Dickson
Last up is the second in the adventures of the interstellar ambassadorial couple, Tom and Lucy Reasoner — a sort of Hammett's Nick and Nora meets Laumer's Retief. In this installment, the Reasoners are tasked with attending a diplomatic banquet to find the weakness in the newly discovered Jacktal empire, a rapacious regime more powerful than the Terran Federation.
It's a bit of a muddle, and the title fairly spoils the piece, but the conclusion is great fun and worth the price of admission. Three stars.
All told, this comes out to a 3.5 star issue, none of it tiresome, much of it amazing. I am also happy to see that F&SF will not have the monopoly on woman writers this month. It's issues like this that buoy me through the lousy patches (like last month's Analog). I mean, suffering for art is all well and good, but sometimes it's nice to have nice things to say!
Next up, let's see how the October 1962 Amazing stacks up. See you then!
[if you’re new to the Journey, read this to see what we’re all about!]
by Gideon Marcus
90% of science fiction is crap. But then, 90% of everything is crap.
The author of that statement, which seems to be supported by overwhelming evidence, is Ted Sturgeon. This is a fellow who has been writing since 1939, so he knows whereof he speaks. Sturgeon has, in his dozens of published works, established a reputation for thoughtful excellence, marking the vanguard of our genre.
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has devoted nearly half of its pages this month to a new Sturgeon work and several biographical articles. This is fitting; Sturgeon's style of literary sf would seem most at home in the most literary of sf mags (though he has, in fact, appeared multiple times in most of the good ones). And given that much, if not 90%, of the latest issues of F&SF has not been very good, including a healthy dose of Sturgeon is a surefire way to being on the right side of Sturgeon's Law.
Without further ado, the September 1962 Fantasy and Science Fiction:
This fascinating tale involves the explication and intersection of a bloodline and the life of one of its adopted members. The bloodline is that of the Gamaliel Wyke, an 18th Century "rum trader" who secured for himself and his progeny a vast, ever-increasing, and utterly secret fortune. The individual is the cancer-stricken husband of Sylva Wyke: a woman who will stop at nothing to ensure the continuation of the essense, if not the life, of her love.
When you Care is gripping, emotional (though the science be suspect) and even bad Sturgeon is good reading. This is not bad Sturgeon. Four stars.
Theodore Sturgeon's Macrocosm, by James Blish; Theodore Sturgeon, by Judith Merril; Fantasy and Science Fiction by Theodore Sturgeon, by Sam Moskowitz, Martian Mouse, by Robin Sturgeon
We are then treated to some biographical snippets, more personal but less holistic than, say, Moskowitz's fine article in the February 1962 issue of Amazing. Blish picks one emblematic story to dissect. Merril discusses how Sturgeon nurtured her into the author she is today. And Moskowitz provides a valuable, if unadorned, full bibliography of Sturgeon's work. According to Sam, Ted cut his teeth publishing many stories to the late great Unknown. As luck would have it, I recently acquired a full set. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do!
The Sturgeon-related portion of the mag is rounded out with a short piece by Sturgeon's 10-year old son, which is about as good as a piece by someone of that age: cute but raw.
Four stars for the set.
They Also Serve, by Evelyn E. Smith
Two men of Earth's interstellar navy are dispatched on a suicide assignment: to establish a trading post on an alien world whose inhabitants have slaughtered every prior attempt at colonization. Both of the sailors were chosen because of an embarassing black mark on their record; Earth government has deemed that it would be no great loss if the two never returned. If they survive long enough to collect valuable "prozius stones," from the locals, so much the better.
Rather than plunge into parley with the aliens (which had always preceded the destruction of prior trade teams), the two decide to do nothing other than make a pleasant home on the otherwise idyllic world. And, ultimately, it is this non-intrusive strategy that leads to positive relations with the aliens, who are compelled to open conversations with the humans on their own terms.
What is most fascinating about this story is that, although it is never explicitly stated, it is made very clear that the cause for the pair's exile is that they are homosexuals — likely in a relationship even before they were dispatched to the alien planet. Indeed, the fact that the men are gay is part of what bridges the cultural barrier. The aliens also have two genders, and while the relationship between their males and females is unclear, it is firmly established that the males are always pair-bonded in some fashion.
Now, although the subject matter of Serve is quite progressive for this day and age, the story is told in a light matter, a bit broadly for my tastes. Nevertheless, it is the first science fiction piece I can recall that features homosexuality in a positive light — certainly in stark contrast to the denigration shown in Randy Garrett's Spatial Relationship just last issue!)
If the recent non-negative documentary on homosexuality, The Rejected is any indication, cultural perceptions of homosexuality are changing. Science fiction offers a lens on the future; I would not be surprised to see more stories featuring men and women in gay relationships. Perhaps someday, there may even be no negative stigma attached to them at all.
Three stars for the actual story, but Serve has a value beyond its strict literary merit.
Myrrha, by Gary Jennings
Through union with her father, King of Cyprus, the mythological Myrrha was the mother of Adonis. This legend seems to play little part in Jennings' Myrrha, about a haughty woman of noble Greek extraction who seduces and destroys the family of a Mrs. Shirley Makepeace. It is through Shirley's diary that we learn of the reacquaintance of Myrrha and Shirley a decade after high school, how Myrrha and her herd of prize horses come to lodge as Shirley's guests, how Myrrha ensares Shirley's husband and daughter with an intoxicating resinous wine, how both come to tragic "accidental" ends, how after Myrrha departs, Shirley goes mad when her horse gives birth to a man-shaped creature.
A dreamy, humorless, unpleasant story. I might have liked it more had I understood it. Perhaps a reader brighter than me (most of you fit the bill…) can explain it. Three stars
The Shape of Things, by Isaac Asimov
The Good Doctor's non-fiction article tells us how the Earth changed, in conception, from flat to spherical and from 15,000 miles in circumference to 25,000. There's nothing in there I didn't already know, but the telling was pleasant, and you may find it informative. Four stars.
The New You, by Kit Reed
You can always count on Kit, an F&SF regular, to give us an offbeat story. This one is a cautionary tale: if you ever have the chance to become your ideal image of a person, make sure that 1) your spouse shares your vision, and 2) the new you gets rid of the old.
It reads like Sheckley, but with a barbed, feminine touch, and I enjoyed it a lot. Four stars.
The Devil's God-daughter, by Suzanne Malaval (translated by Damon Knight)
This atmospheric vignette features a French Persephone and her outwitting of Old Nick. It's a clever little piece, worth it for the two riddles, which you may find yourself employing at your next party. Three stars.
These Are the Arts, by James H. Schmitz
Things end on a disappointing note. Pulp-era relic..er..veteran, Schmitz, writes of a crusty misanthrope who completely seals himself off from humanity when his television starts broadcasting subliminal, mind-controlling messages. The real problem with this story is the ending, which involves an utter betrayal of the protagonist's well-established paranoic nature. Simply put, the guy's been skeptical to the extreme the entire story, yet he lets his guard down right when he learns that the world really is out to get him.
A contrived conclusion, and written in a hoary fashion (though I did appreciate the "truth in advertising" laws, passed in 1990, which make it a crime to question the veracity of commercial claims!)
Two stars.
Thanks to the Sturgeon, the Reed, and Asimov, F&SF scores a respectable 3.3 stars. If only Editor Davidson, still finding his feet, could keep the quality consistent. And write better story openers. Well, if wishes were horses…they'd give birth to Adonis, apparently.
See you in three days when Ashley Pollard reports from Britain!
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![[February 10, 1965] A Gay Old Time (March 1965 <i>ONE</i>, February-March 1965 <i>The Ladder</i>, March 1965 <i>Drum</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/650210_Drum_Cover.png?resize=604%2C372)
![[April 14, 1964] COOKING WITH ASH (the May 1964 <i>Amazing</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/640414cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[March 9, 1964] Deviant from the Norm (April 1964 <i>Galaxy</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/640309cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
