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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 2, 1965] Revolution! (December 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

Americans have an odd relationship with revolution. They’re quite proud of their own, but extremely leery of anyone else’s. But revolution seems to be the natural order of things in the 20th century. Not all of them have been violent, nor have all of them been political. And no doubt we will see many more – political, scientific, economic, social and even sexual – before the decade, let alone the century is out.

Revolution turned upside-down

Since the end of the War, the major colonial powers of the 19th century have been gradually handing over control of their colonies to the native people. It hasn’t always been voluntary, nor has it always been smooth. But the British seem to be doing better than the others at handing over power. Most transitions have gone smoothly, though not perfectly. Until now.

Negotiations have been ongoing with Rhodesia since last year. The sticking point has been an improvement in the status of Black Rhodesians and an end to racial discrimination, insisted on by the United Kingdom. The white Rhodesian government led by Prime Minister Ian Smith is vigorously opposed the idea of equality for Blacks.

Talks broke down on October 8th over the issue of majority rule. With rumors circulating that Rhodesia will declare independence, the U. N. General Assembly voted 107-2 to call on the United Kingdom to use military force to prevent such an event. Ten days later, the Organization of African Unity passed a similar declaration. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson has gone to Rhodesia to continue negotiations, apparently without success. On the 30th, Wilson gave a press conference before returning home in which he stated that a unilateral declaration of independence would be treason, but that the United Kingdom would rely on trade sanctions and ruled out the use of military force against “kith and kin”. A peaceful resolution does not seem to be at hand.


Harold Wilson (l.) and Ian Smith (r.)

Revolutions start to finish

Americans may not like the idea of revolution in the real world, but as part of their national mythology it turns up frequently in fiction. This month’s IF is filled with revolution, both political and otherwise.


There’s no clue what this odd revolutionary slogan means. Fred Pohl promises an answer next month. Art by Morrow

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Part 1 of 5), by Robert A. Heinlein

In 2075, the Moon has been a penal colony for nearly a century. A prison without walls or guards, because there’s nowhere to run, and after just a few months, permanent physiological changes caused by the low gravity mean no one can go back to Earth. That means that many people living there are free men and women descended from former prisoners, but still subject to the Lunar Authority.

One such is Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis. Mannie, who lost his left arm in a mining accident and has several interesting prosthetics, is a computer repairman. One of his jobs is maintaining the Lunar Authority’s central computer, a High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluation Supervisor, Mark IV – a HOLMES FOUR. Somewhere along the way, so many different modules were added to the computer it gained consciousness. Only Mannie has noticed and dubbed this new “person” Mycroft, Mike for short, after Sherlock Holmes’s smarter brother. Mike is quite the joker, with a fondness for practical jokes and puns, but he’s lonely, since everyone else is too stupid to have figured out that he’s alive.

At Mike’s request, Mannie attends a political meeting where he is introduced to Wyoming Knott, a rabble-rouser from Hong Kong Luna, and runs into his old teacher, Professor Bernardo de la Paz. After Wyoh (as she prefers to be called) gives a stirring speech encouraging revolution against the Authority and the Prof agrees with her goals but pokes holes in her methods, the meeting is broken up by the Warden’s goons and turns deadly.

Mannie helps Wyoh escape and, while they’re hiding out, introduces her to Mike, who eventually creates a feminine personality called Michelle to talk to Wyoh. The next day, they meet with the Prof and have a discussion about revolution. Mannie and Wyoh exchange a knowing look when the Prof points out the importance of communications; that’s one of Mike’s bailiwicks. After the Prof expounds on the idea of revolutionary cells, Mannie suggests a few improvements and suddenly finds himself nominated to head the revolution. To be continued.


Mannie wearing his Number Three arm. Art by Morrow

All but the most rabid Heinlein fans will agree that his last few novels have been uneven at best. But this is Heinlein at his best. We have the standard Heinlein characters here: Mannie, the competent man who mostly goes along to get along until pushed to do more by circumstance; Wyoh, the strong, beautiful, brilliant woman who does the pushing (though not a love interest so far); and the Prof, the older man who loves teaching and the sound of his own voice. Mike is a bit different. He obviously has a role to play, but we need to see more.

Not much really happens in these 50 pages, but Heinlein keeps you reading, even through long discussions of Lunar marriage customs and revolutionary organization. And once again, Heinlein has slipped a minority protagonist into his work. Mannie is not only Latin as his name suggests, but he probably counts as Black, with a grandfather deported from South Africa. When he first sees her, Mannie notes that pale, blonde Wyoh is clearly first generation since the genes tend to get all mixed up pretty quickly, so most of the people we meet are probably of mixed race.

Four stars and I’m eager to see more.

Security Syndrome, by Gerald Pearce

Professor James Brown has arrived at the regional headquarters of the Society to report someone as politically unreliable: himself. Despite his double-A rating, he feels that his sensitive position and his exposure to older texts full of “unescoism” have rendered him unfit. To say more would give the whole story away.

The United States has clearly undergone a revolution prior to the time of this story. The unnamed Society merely advises the government on the political reliability of citizens, and we hear of a second Bill of Rights, which includes a guarantee of “freedom from seditious, false and heretical doctrines”. It also seems that Brown’s actions are going to trigger another revolution.

This is a good story, though not without problems. I had some difficulty keeping the various Society members straight, and the story sagged in places. Still, a solid three stars.

Toys for Debbie, by David A. Kyle

Six-year-old Debbie Curtis likes to play with toys for both girls and boys, but she does have a tendency to break them. Insurance salesman Mr. Black has offered her father some excellent terms and occasionally drops by with a present for Debbie. What could be the harm?

I often complain that an author has attempted a “Twilight Zone ending”, an ironic twist that hasn’t really been set up. Long-time fan David Kyle (who most recently appeared in these pages as an artist) has written what would be an excellent episode of The Twilight Zone. It’s easy to imagine Rod Serling popping up at the end to offer a terse epilogue. Every moment is earned, and it ends not with a twist, but a shudder. Three stars.

St. George and the Dragonmotive, by Robert F. Young

Lieutenant George St. George of the International Pastpolice has gone to sixth century England to investigate an anachronism. There he meets a few knights, including one from Camelot, hunting for a dragon which has devoured a fair maiden and several peasants, who miraculously remain “on live”. The dragon proves to be a train, resembling the Stourbridge Lion, driven by a young woman he dubs Cassiana Jones. Train-lover George must work his way into her favor to track down the source of this industrial revolution.


An unusual comic style for Gray Morrow, but the best thing about this story. Art by Morrow

Typically for Young, the protagonist is an addlepated twerp. Worse, though he falls in love with the engineer, it’s clear he’s more in love with the idea of driving a train. Worse than that, she doesn’t get a name in her own right until the very end. It’s also far too long for such a thin story. Two stars.

The Girls on USSF 193, by Stephen Goldin

Astronauts are coming back from their tours of duty in space with weakened hearts, because they won’t do the cardiac exercises prescribed by the National Space Agency. Director Jess Hawkins came up with a plan that is dubious to say the least, morally questionable and probably illegal.

You sometimes hear the phrase “sexual revolution” about changing attitudes towards sex. In the past it’s sometimes meant being open about what people are doing anyway, and sometimes it’s about real changes in sexual attitudes. This story dabbles in the latter, but is highly implausible. It hinges on a career bureaucrat making a move that puts his job on the line, a job he knows others are gunning for.

Goldin is this month’s first time author. The writing here is decent, despite the implausible plot, but the attitudes towards women are deeply questionable. Two stars.

LONCON II or Through a Monocle? Darkly, by Robert Bloch

Bloch’s report on this year’s Worldcon was allegedly written on a hotel typewriter between the end of the con and his departure for home. I believe it. This rambling nonsense reads like it was written by a man short of sleep with his brain in a different time zone. You’ll learn much more about the con from our colleague Kris Vyas-Myall’s report. One star.

Mercury, by J. M. McFadden

Mercury is an alien predator with an unusual hunting style. She is captured by an expedition and brought to an Earth zoo. There will be consequences.

The story is quite obvious and depends on some rather stupid behavior, but it’s short and not a bad read despite all that. This is McFadden’s second sale, and I’m not averse to seeing more from him. Three stars.

Retief’s War (Part 3 of 3), by Keith Laumer

Retief continues his search for Fifi. Unable to find his army, he joins forces with the remaining Terries and prepares for a last stand against the Voion hordes. Rescue arrives at the last minute in the form of the Federated Quoppina army led by Fifi, who is none other than Retief’s cousin Princess Fianna Glorian Deliciosa Hermione Arianne de Retief et du Lille. A typical Retief plan is put together to save the rest of the CDT mission, knock Ikk and his Voions out of power, quash Groaci schemes and get Retief mostly out of trouble.


Tief-Tief rides to the rescue. Art by Gaughan

What a disappointing ending. A number of things happen that make little or no sense, but happen to move plot forward. Back in the first part, I noted that there was more room for things to develop, but Laumer seems to have run out of room anyway and it all rushes to a slam-bang ending. Two stars for this part and a very low three for the novel as a whole.

Summing up

There’s lots of revolution in these pages, political, industrial and sexual. But there’s nothing revolutionary. IF is by no means mired in the past like Analog and the outward forms often acknowledge the changes happening to the genre, but the bones are still those of a decade ago or more. IF is still worth reading, and Fred Pohl has never struck me as averse to change, but he really needs to pick one of his three magazines to at least experiment with bringing them into the 1960s and beyond.


Nothing here looks terribly new either.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 2, 1965] Gimmickry (November 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

When I was a boy, a gimmick was either much the same thing as a gadget or the sort of device a crooked casino owner would use to make sure the roulette wheel comes up 22. These days, of course, it means an ingenious new angle or a trick to draw attention in advertising. It can also be the sort of thing that makes a story work or at least that the author hopes will make the story interesting.

America’s Pastime

Baseball is no stranger to gimmicks. From sending midgets up to bat to exploding scoreboards, owners and general managers will do anything to get fans to come out to the park. After starting the season by losing 21 of their first 26 games, the Kansas City Athletics have been mired in the cellar all season. Desperate to get people into the stands as the season winds down, owner Charlie Finley came up with a couple of gimmicks in the last month. September 8th, was Campy Camp Night and regular shortstop Bert “Campy” Campaneris played all nine positions in a single game. Up against the Los Angeles Angels (or I guess California by that time, speaking of gimmicks), Campy started at shortstop and moved from position to position each inning. In the eighth, he took the mound and even switch pitched, throwing right-handed to right-handed batters and left-handed to left-handed batters. Alas, while catching in the ninth, Campy was injured in collision at the plate and had to sit out a few games.

On the 25th, Finley invited several old player from the Negro Leagues to be present when Satchel Paige took the mound against the Boston Red Sox. At 59, he’s the oldest person ever to play in the big leagues (and at 34 Athletics’ manager Haywood Sullivan is the youngest manager). Satch sat in a rocking chair in the bullpen between innings, being served coffee by a “nurse”. He pitched three innings, giving up only one hit. He came out to the mound to start the fourth, but as planned he was removed. The lights were dimmed, and the crowd held up lighters and lit matches and sang “The Old Gray Mare” as Paige walked off.


Left: Bert Campaneris. Right: Satchel Paige, with “nurse”

Baseball also saw a couple of milestones. On September 9th, Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched a perfect game against the Chicago Cubs. (For non-baseball fans, that means Koufax and the Dodgers did not allow a single opposing player to get on base through any means.) Pity Cubs pitcher Bob Hendley, who gave up only one hit in the game. Four days later, on the 13th, San Francisco Giants player Willie Mays became the fifth player and first Black player to hit 500 career home runs. Congratulations to both men, whose teams, at the time of writing, are still vying to see which will make it to the World Series. Good luck to both (though I’m rooting for the Dodgers).


Left: Sandy Koufax. Right: Willie Mays

Gimmicks good and bad

This month’s IF is not without its gimmicks. Let’s get to it.


In orbit around a collapsed star. Art by Morrow

Tiger Green, by Gordon R. Dickson

Exploration Team Five-Twenty-Nine has run into more than they can handle on the second planet of Star 83476. There are communication problems with the natives, the jungle is trying to digest their ship and eight of the twelve men in the team have gone violently insane. Navigator Jerry McWhin can feel a berserk rage building in him. As tempers flare among the remaining crew, Jerry locks the others in sick bay and heads for the native village in a bid to resolve the situation.


Jerry and the natives attempt to cure his madness. Their ideas of what either of those terms means may differ. Art by Adkins

Despite its flaws, this is a pretty solid story. There was probably room for some cuts in the first third or so to improve the pacing, and the need for several pages of expository dialog to explain what happened is a real weakness. All of which have cost the story a fourth star. Nevertheless, Dickson seems to have matured into a very good writer. He does still need to work on his female characters (of whom there are none in this story), but otherwise I look forward to a lot more from him. Three stars.

Time of War, by Mack Reynolds

Atomic war has devastated the Earth. Handfuls of civilians struggle to survive in the few areas where the radiation isn’t lethal. Alex remotely operates a “beetle” from a base on the Moon, hunting and killing civilians who may or may not be from the other side. The enemy, the Comics, do the same, flying their manned buzz-fighters from a super-sputnik in orbit.

A rather bleak tale. I rather wonder if the two sides really would attempt to utterly wipe out enemy civilians, eventually not caring if their victims were on the other side or not. I also question if it would be possible to remotely operate an aerial vehicle on Earth from the Moon, let alone engage in dogfights. The time delay of over a second each way ought to make that virtually impossible. In any case, the gimmick here lies solely on the nature of the Comics. It’s clear what Reynolds was trying to do, but that’s not enough for this piece. It either needs a lot more plot or a lot fewer words. A high two stars.

Masque of the Red Shift, by Fred Saberhagen

Seven years after the Battle of Stone Place, Felipe Nogara, the ruler of Esteel and arguably the most powerful man in the galaxy, has brought his flagship Nirvana outside the galaxy to examine a collapsed star (sometimes called a black hole). The body of his half-brother Johann Karlsen, the hero of Stone Place, who recently put down a rebellion on Flammland has arrived in cryogenic suspension. Most believe Karlsen the victim of a plague, but Nogara has had him frozen, because he feared his brother’s growing popularity.

Meanwhile, a second courier – carrying Janda, the leader of the rebellion, brain-damaged by his treatment since his arrest, and his sister Lucinda – is captured by a new form of Berserker. The Berserkers will use Janda’s body to sneak a killing machine aboard the Nirvana to make sure that Karlsen is dead.


”We willingly bring in the semblance of the terror outside!” Art by Gaughan

Saberhagen continues to impress. The Berserkers could easily have become a simple gimmick for stories about space battles. Instead, he uses them as a backdrop to write stories about people. Another author might also have paralleled the Poe story which inspired this much more closely. It’s quite good, though not quite enough for four stars; a very high three stars.

Retief’s War (Part 2 of 3), by Keith Laumer

We left Retief crashed in the jungle and threatened with becoming dinner. Naturally, he manages to talk his way out of that and instead begins uniting diverse tribes of Quoppina to fight the Voion. An emissary sent out to parlay with “Tief-Tief” proves to be Groaci General Hish, disguised, like Retief, as a native. Upon learning that the human women who also crashed in the jungle have been captured, Retief allows himself to be taken prisoner. It turns out the women have escaped, so he does as well and trails them through the wilderness, making new allies along the way. He finally catches up with them, but the mysterious Fifi has left to try and reach the army forming to fight the Voion. To be concluded.


Retief makes a friend. Art by Gaughan

There’s really not much to this installment, just Retief bantering with various natives and General Hish. There’s a hint of humor in his escape, but it could have been a lot funnier. A low three stars.

The Lonely Hours, by W. I. McLaughlin

George Rock is fleeing through space from a creature that lives in the dark between galaxies. He has a plan to set a psychic trap for it using the corpse of a creature composed of ion sheets. This somehow involves visions of Ahab and burning witches.

McLaughlin is this month’s new writer. Fred must be desperate for stories from unpublished writers, because this is awful. None of it makes any sense, and the protagonist is unpleasant. One star.

The Doomsday Men, by Kenneth Bulmer

Robin Carver is a member of ridforce. If his team can get to the body of someone who died violently within 3 minutes of death, he can explore that person’s memories to find out how they died. He was once an agent of the Americas, but was declared unstable when his wife abandoned him and their infant daughter. While investigating the death of a “gaiety girl”, he thinks he sees his now teenage daughter at a wild party in the victim’s memory.

Carol Bursham is a scientist working for Whitcliffe, the man who invented the process that allows the investigation of the minds of the recently dead. They are trying to come up with a way of recording those minds, so that there will be less pressure on the few people who can handle immersing themselves in someone else’s mind. She and Carver discover a plot which threatens the Shield which seals the Americas off from the threat of atomic attack and the rest of the world. A plot which reaches into the upper echelons of society.


Carver makes a disturbing discovery in the mind of a murder victim. Art by Morrow

Line by line, the writing is sound and there are some interesting pieces here, but they fit together poorly. The ending also involves both a rather abrupt shift in attitudes that isn’t earned and an implication that doesn’t make much sense. Points for having a couple of female characters who actually do things and aren’t there just to be rescued. On the other hand, the way Carol thinks about men is very clearly written by a man. Still, it’s a reasonably decent read. Three stars.

Summing Up

Another issue that just sort of meanders around, deviating for the most part only slightly from average. The real problem here is the story from the first-timer. The IF First program is a seemingly good idea, but it could very easily turn into just a gimmick if the editors start sacrificing quality just to run a story from a new author. There’ve been some good stories to come out of the policy, but so far I think the only real success has been Larry Niven. Well, while there’s life, there’s hope.




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Book, Magazine, Serial

[September 6, 1965] War and Peace (October 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

War is something of a constant in human history, with nearly every generation facing at least one. Fifty years ago, the great powers of Europe – with a late assist from the United States – fought the “war to end war” (a phrase probably coined by H. G. Wells). Twenty years later, we got to do it all again. And ever since, brushfire wars have flared up around the globe almost continually. War permeates our language and culture even in times of peace. In his State of the Union address last year, President Johnson referred to his Great Society program as a “war on poverty”. It even shows up in our entertainment: war movies are popular; there must be half a dozen TV shows in the new fall line-up set during the War or with military themes (more if you count spy shows); and one of the current best selling novels is a barely fictional account of the U. S. Army’s special forces, The Green Berets. Sometimes it’s enough to make you believe we really are on the Eve of Destruction.


The rawness of the recording makes it that much more powerful

The War in Viet Nam

On August 5th, America got a rather shocking look at the war in Viet Nam. CBS reporter Morley Safer accompanied a Marine unit to the village of Cam Ne, where they came under sporadic fire from the Viet Cong. Communist forces soon withdrew as the Marines advanced. As they entered the village, the Americans found a number of entrenchments and a few booby traps. Their orders were to destroy any village from which they received fire, so the villagers were herded into the nearby fields, and the Marines set fire to the homes with flamethrowers and cigarette lighters. Despite the villagers’ pleas to be allowed to remove their personal belongings, everything, including all the rice stores, was destroyed. Four old men who couldn’t understand the soldiers’ English were arrested. The public is understandably outraged. Alas, most of the ire seems to be directed at CBS and Mr. Safer. President Johnson is also said to be livid.


A Marine uses his lighter to set fire to a peasant hut

War at the foot of the Roof of the World

On August 5th, several thousand Pakistani soldiers crossed into Indian-controlled Kashmir disguised as civilian locals. The belief was that the local Muslim population would rise up and welcome their coreligionists. Instead they reported the intruders to the Indian authorities. Ten days later, the Indian army crossed the ceasefire line. Thus far, both sides have made progress. As this is written, India has captured the Haji Pir pass, roughly 5 miles inside Pakistani territory, though there are also reports of a massive push by Pakistani forces. Hopefully, another ceasefire can be brought into effect and a long-term peaceful solution can be found.


Indian forces in the Haji Pir pass

War across time and space

War is also a prominent feature of this month’s IF. As one war ends, another begins, along with a couple more and a very uneasy peace negotiation.


There are three living being depicted here. Art by Gaughan

Retief’s War (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

The natives of the planet Quopp are part insect, part machine and come in a variety of forms, each making up their own tribe. There has also been a sizable human presence for a century or so, to the point that there are human farmers and traders who have lived their whole lives on the planet. Now the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne has decided it is time for a native government to be established and, in the person of Ambassador Longspoon, has chosen the Voions to form the government and the Federal police force. Unfortunately, all the other tribes on the planet see the Voions as bandits and thugs.

As usual, Second Secretary and Consul Jame Retief has learned several of the local dialects and made friends with many of the common folk. There follow a number of adventures. He discovers crates of weapons labeled as educational material, which he manages to divert. Despite severe restrictions on tourism, a shipload of young women is requesting emergency permission to land. Their captain, by the name of Fifi, seems to know Retief, but he has no idea who she is. Defying orders, Retief grants them permission to land, but the ship crashes out in the jungle. Then there’s an attack on the embassy using smoke bombs which appear to be of Groaci manufacture.

Prime Minister Ikk has Retief arrested, hoping to find out where his guns are. He declares he is executing a coup, after which Retief makes his escape. Retief manages to disguise himself as a native with some help, and steals a barely flight worthy spaceship. He crashes in the jungle and is captured by some Ween, who call him Meat-fall-from-sky. As the situation goes from bad to worse, some more Ween drag in a Voion, loudly pointing out that he is a member of the Planetary Police. To be continued.


Meet the bad guys. While other Quoppians like colors, the Voions prefer basic black. Art by Gaughan

I’ve noted over the last few months that Retief is getting stale, as if Laumer is just going through the motions. This time around, he’s writing with more verve. It feels like Laumer is enjoying himself again. Maybe it’s because there’s more room. Retief pulls off at least three escapades here that would normally have had to resolve the whole situation in a shorter piece. So even though we’re getting all the usual story beats, there’s more flavor to it all.

That said, I’m hoping for a bit more depth as the story progresses. Laumer has set things up for some solid satire on colonialism as well as the sort of Cold War proxy conflicts that are really just colonialism in different clothing. The colonial powers frequently set one tribe over all the others, and it was often the least liked tribe, even before they wound up in charge, just as the CDT has done here with the Voions. We’ll have to wait and see if Laumer makes use of the situation he’s created. Three stars for now.

A Leader for Yesteryear, by Mack Reynolds

When his time capsule materializes above deep water, Lucius Rostock is barely able to escape it before it sinks. He is rescued by some very surprised fishermen and brought to shore. The local people take him in, and Lucius discovers that he is neither where nor when he expected to be. Rather than the future, he is in the distant past. Gradually, he learns the language and finds out where fate has brought him, though he is rather taken aback at how unwarlike the people are.

To say more would give the whole story away. I figured out where and when Lucius found himself quite a while before he did, though I suspect Reynolds expected the reader to do that. I also figured out who the text implies Lucius will become, although that is never spelled out. What I didn’t see coming was who Lucius is. The end really caught me by surprise. I do have a couple of quibbles with this otherwise very good story. There’s an odd gap in the languages that Lucius knows, which would have allowed him to communicate much sooner (but not without some difficulty, nevertheless). Also, the final paragraphs – even though the reveal did catch me by surprise – are a bit stilted and clumsy. Still, a solid three stars.

The Smiling Future, by Miriam Allen deFord

In an overpopulated world where nearly everyone works at producing enough food to keep the human race alive, an intelligent dolphin appears on the California coast and summons the world government to a summit meeting. Five hundred years of dumping radioactive waste into the oceans has resulted in highly intelligent, technologically advanced dolphins. In need of more room, they are planning to flood the world, but one faction has an offer to help preserve the human race.

What bleak, bleak story. It’s made worse by the plodding narrative style, too. Mrs. deFord has been in the writing business for well over 40 years, and up until recently her work has been generally very good. She does spend most of her time writing mysteries, even winning an Edgar a few years ago, and I admit I don’t read all that much in the genre, so perhaps her level of quality there has held steady. But her work in science fiction and fantasy has really fallen off in quality. Two stars.

Origin of Species, by Robert F. Young

Alan Farrell has traveled to the Upper Paleolithic in search of an anthropology professor and his secretary, who have gone missing. Exiting his own mammothmobile (regular readers may remember a similar concept with dinosaurs in Young’s “When Time Was New”), he finds first the professor’s “paleethnologivehicle” and then the professor’s body, apparently killed by Neanderthals. Farrell presses on, searching for the secretary, Miss Larkin, on whom he is developing a crush based solely on her picture and very wholesome résumé.

Eventually, he discovers a cave guarded by a force field, some Neanderthals who shoot blue sparks out of their mouths, and Miss Larkin. As the two make their escape, Farrell is shocked to learn first that the Neanderthals are bringing in what appear to be Cro-Magnon people as prisoners through some sort of portal, and second that Miss Larkin is not the wholesome girl she seemed to be, but rather an ecdysiast attempting to better her lot in life. Will the pair be able to stop aliens from using Earth as a prison? Will Farrell learn that exotic dancers can be nice girls, too? It’s Young. What do you think?


Honestly, this picture tells you everything you need to know about this story. Those gorillas are supposed to be Neanderthals. Art by Morrow

The good news is that Young hasn’t written another modern take on a myth or fairy tale, nor has he written one of his overly sentimental romances. The bad news is that he attempted to write a sex farce (I think). Without the sex. Farrell is a dope, who took forever to figure out the mystery of the spark-shooting Neanderthals, and a hypocrite. He developed his low opinion of strippers by… visiting strip clubs. Two stars.

Purpose, by Edward V. Dong

All life on Earth has been destroyed by an interstellar nucleonic storm. All that is left is the Machine. It was created to save the human race, but failed. In the last moments, technician John Michelson reprogrammed the Machine to be a monument to Man and to wait for new life to appear in the solar system. Eventually, the Machine is freed of its programming and seeks fulfillment.

Dong is this month’s first time author, and I suspect this story was written for F&SF’s Univac/unicorn contest. I’m not terribly impressed. It really felt like I’d read this before. Indeed for most of its three pages I was expecting something along the lines of Asimov’s “The Last Question”. That’s not quite where the author went with his story, but he didn’t get where he was trying to go either. Two stars.

An Ounce of Emotion, by Gordon R. Dickson

Tyrone Ross and Arthur Mial are the Earth delegation on their way to attempt to broker a peace between the Laburti and Chedal using a computer known as a statistical analysis instrument, or Annie. Earth is in Laburti space and, if war breaks out, could be devastated. Unfortunately, the two men hate each other with an inexplicable passion and have from the moment they met. Ross, the viewpoint character, is the technician who can run Annie, while Mial is a diplomat and ostensibly in charge.

Tempers flare between the two as Mial grows ever more high-handed and seems to be making a corrupt deal with the Chedal. Ross goes so far as to attempt to kill Mial, though he fails. Can Ross keep Mial from wrecking the negotiations? And why would Earth send two people who are so incapable of getting along?


I’m not sure why Annie is blowing up here. That didn’t happen. Art by Giunta

The situation Dickson has created feels rather implausible, even given the explanation at the end. Nevertheless, it’s a decent story, if you can get past the tense atmosphere between the two human characters. Gordy has really settled in as a solid writer who rarely wastes his readers’ time. Three stars.

Short Trip to Nowhere, by Robert Moore Williams

Jim Eiler comes home late. His wife Marta is already asleep, as is his three-year-old daughter Nelda. As he slides into his anti-gravity bed and plugs in the cords of the sleep machine, a voice in his head cheerily greets him. There’s a nasty fight with his wife, and eventually he agrees to call in their friend Harold, a psychiatrist. Eventually, it turns out the voice is coming from Nelda’s imaginary friend, who isn’t so imaginary after all. Then Nelda disappears.

This is another one I felt I had already read in better form. Williams is clearly using Peter Pan as his basis, but there were other resonances. Though different, I was strongly reminded of both Henry Kuttner’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” and Mark Clifton’s “Star, Bright”. The bitter relationship between the Eilers makes for an unpleasant read and serves no real purpose, when it could have prompted Nelda’s search for something happier. Instead it’s just bickering. Two stars.

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 5 of 5), by E. E. Smith

Sigh. This story does not deserve a detailed summary. In a nutshell, using Ray-See-Nee magic the Skylarkers and friends come up with a new way to combine mind power. They devise a whole bunch of new science and use it to solve the Chloran problem for good. A final solution, you might say. They take the stars from one galaxy and smash them into the stars of planets the Chlorans live on, while taking all the planets with humans living on them and moving them to a third galaxy. And they called Edmond Hamilton the planet killer.

Midway through this attack, the Chlorans counterattack, leaving Seaton and Crane unconscious. DuQuesne leaps into the breach and finishes the job. Afterwards, he proposes to Hunkie de Marigny and the two go off to conquer a galaxy on the rim of the universe. The end. At last.


Dick Seaton gets what’s coming to him. Art by Morrow

Let’s start with the slightly less egregious denouement. From the title of this novel, one would expect that we would witness the redemption of Blackie DuQuesne. He does decide that there is room enough in the universe for both him and Dick Seaton and he does open up his shell just a little bit to let someone else in. But that’s as far as it goes. He still plans to make himself the emperor of a galaxy. Worse, he openly states that he’s planning a program of eugenics, one based not just on sterilization, but extermination. Marc C. “Blackie” DuQuesne remains an evil man to the end.

And then there’s Dick Seaton. In my review of Part 1, I declared Seaton to be a war criminal, based on his destruction of the Fenachrone homeworld in an earlier novel. Here, after general discussion of what to do about the Chlorans – including a proposal to convert them – he compares the Chlorans to a cancer that must be rooted out (a disgustingly familiar argument) and comes up with a plan to kill every single Chloran before they spread to other galaxies. There are nearly 150 million Chloran planets. We’re talking about the deaths of trillions at the very least. War criminal doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Zero stars for genocide and an ending that completely poisons an otherwise mediocre novel whose only redeeming feature is excessive nostalgia.

Summing up

Well, a bleak issue for a bleak month. It got off to a decent start, though the Reynolds story does have a dark tone to it. The Dickson was unpleasant, but in a good way. It was intended to be so and to make readers think. Other than that, poor efforts topped off by a steaming pile of genocide and eugenics. But at long last, it’s over. Do we have anything to look forward to? Let’s hope so.


A wraparound cover this month, so here it is in all its glory. Art, as before, by Gaughan




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