Tag Archives: robert sheckley

[July 10, 1969] Sex! Now That I Have Your Attention . . . (August 1969 Fantastic)

July 10, 2024 Victoria Silverwolf 4 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

A few days ago, folks in the Soviet Union must have been surprised to see nudity on their television sets. Nude scenes from the controversial new play Oh, Calcutta! and photographs of sex magazines appeared on one of the Soviet Central Television networks.

The intent was not to titillate the audience (although that may have been an accidental side effect) but to point out the decadence of American culture.

The Soviet station's logo. You didn't expect me to show you the nudity, did you?

What does this have to do with the latest issue of Fantastic? Keep your hat (and other clothing) on and you'll find out.

Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

As usual, the cover is (ahem) borrowed from a German publication.

The original always looks better.

Editorial, by Ted White

The new editor introduces himself. He relates how he failed to produce a fancy, expensive magazine called STELLAR Stories of Imagination. Some of the stories intended for that stillborn publication will appear in Fantastic and Amazing. He also promises to provide what he calls different stories in the magazines. We'll see.

No rating.

What's Your Excuse, by Alexis Panshin

Here's a tale that was supposed to appear in STELLAR. A professor plays a trick on a graduate student who is in his late twenties, but who appears to be in his teens. The student has his own secret up his sleeve.

It's hard to say too much about this brief yarn, which depends entirely on its premise. Is it different? Yeah, I guess so. Is it good? Well, maybe not. A trivial oddity.

Two stars.

The Briefing, by Randall Garrett

Another very short story. The narrator is aboard a spaceship. He's about to be sent down to a planet in disguise, in order to shorten an impending Dark Ages.

Without giving away anything, let's just say that you may be able to predict the twist ending. Extra points for being a bit of a dangerous vision, at least.

Three stars.

Emphyrio (Part Two of Two), by Jack Vance

Taking up half the magazine is the conclusion to this new novel.

Illustrations by Bruce Jones (obviously.)

We first met our hero, Ghyl Tarvoke, with his head literally cut open. His brain controlled by those holding him prisoner, he was forced to tell the truth.

This led us into a long flashback, from Ghyl's childhood until he decided to run for mayor under the pseudonym of Emphyrio, the name of a semi-legendary hero.

Part Two begins with Ghyl losing the election, but coming in third. That's enough to draw the attention of the authorities. Ghyl's father was already in trouble with them, and the situation only gets worse.

After the death of his father, Ghyl agrees to join his friends in a plot to steal a starship from the Lords and Ladies who rule his world. He makes them promise not to do any killing or kidnapping or pillaging after this single crime. Don't expect any honor among thieves.

Ghyl winds up leading a group of Lords and Ladies through the wilderness of another planet. The place is full of dangerous animals and people.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

He is eventually captured (leading back to our opening scene of interrogation) and sentenced to exile. However, there are a lot more adventures ahead, as he discovers the truth about the Lords and Ladies, and about the real Emphyrio.

Last time I said that the novel was very good, but maybe a bit leisurely and episodic. It turns out that incidents I thought were of little importance have great significance. I underestimated the intricacy of the author's tightly woven plot. At least I acknowledged his ability to create complex, imaginative worlds and cultures.

Five stars.

On to the reprints! They all come from old issues of Fantastic. Apparently the new editor prefers to avoid taking things from Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, which may be a good thing.

Let's Do It For Love, by Robert Bloch

The November/December 1953 issue is the source of this farce.

Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

A guy invents some stuff that makes folks love everybody. The narrator is a public relations agent who tries to promote the wonderful chemical. Too bad nobody wants universal siblinghood.

Anonymous illustration.

There's a touch of satire, of course, but this is mostly just a silly romp, full of wacky jokes and tomfoolery. If that's your thing, fine. The way the story deals with the inventor's shrewish wife may not please too many readers.

Two stars.

To Fit the Crime, by Richard Matheson

This ironic tale comes from the November/December 1952 issue.

Cover art by Barye Phillips.

A curmudgeonly poet insults his relations in creative ways as he lies dying. In the afterlife, he faces an appropriate fate.

Illustration by David Stone.

There's not much to this except for the poet's way with words. The unpleasant fellow's version of perdition may cause some amusement.

Two stars.

The Star Dummy, by Anthony Boucher

The Fall 1952 issue provides this lighthearted story.

Cover art by Leo Summers.

A ventriloquist imagines that his dummy talks to him. Oddly, that's not really what the story is about. It actually deals with a goofy-looking alien, newly arrived on Earth, looking for his vanished mate. The extraterrestrial and the ventriloquist wind up helping each other.

Illustration by Tom Beecham.

This is mostly a comedy, of a very gentle sort. One unusual aspect of the story is that it also deals with the ventriloquist's religious faith. There's some discussion of science fiction itself as well.

Slightly eccentric, moderately entertaining.

Three stars.

Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber and Ted White

Leiber discusses three new novels that add explicit sex to science fiction plots. (I told you I'd get to that!) For the record, the trio consists of The Image of the Beast by Philip Jose Farmer, The Endless Orgy by Richard E. Geis, and Season of the Witch by Hank Stine. Leiber gives them mixed reviews, but welcomes the new frankness with which they describe sexual behavior.

The editor offers a long, glowing review of Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny. I liked it, too.

No rating.

The Hungry, by Robert Sheckley

Back to reprints. This one comes from June 1954 issue.

Cover art by Ernest Schroeder.

A malevolent thing preys upon the negative emotions and physical suffering of a young married couple. Only the baby of the family and the pet cat can see it. The infant does what it can to help.

Illustration by Sanford Kossin.

Told from the viewpoint of the baby, this is an offbeat little story. Minor, but nicely done.

Three stars.

The Worth of a Man,by Henry Slesar

The June 1959 issue supplies this grim tale.

Cover art by Ed Valigursky.

A veteran of a future war has much of his body replaced with metal parts. He talks to a psychiatrist about his sense that somebody is out to hurt him.

Of course, his supposed paranoia is more than a delusion. What happens to him is disturbing, which is apparently the author's intent. I found it to be a powerful and all-too-plausible chiller.

Four stars.

Fantasy Fandom, by Ted White and Bill Meyers

I wasn't even going to discuss, let alone rate, this new column from the editor, in which he intends to reprint writings from fanzines. However, the first one knocked me out.

First published in Void, White's own fanzine, the essay by Meyers relates the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien to the author's childhood. It's a thoughtful, elegantly written piece, not so much about Tolkien as it is about the way that our early years influence how we react to literature.

I may be prejudiced in its favor, because Meyers grew up in the Chattanooga area, where I currently reside.

Five stars.

The Naked Truth

That was a very mixed bag of an issue. One excellent novel, one excellent essay, stories old and new ranging from below average to above average. You might want to skip some of the lesser pieces and go see a play instead.

The cast of Oh, Calcutta! You didn't expect me to show you the nudity, did you?

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[April 2, 1969] A New Beginning? (Out of the Unknown: Season Three)

April 2, 2024 Kris Vyas-Myall 1 Comment

By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory may have discovered clues to the origins of life in space. Looking at interstellar clouds, believed to be where planets and stars are formed, traces of formaldehyde have been detected.

140’ Radio Telescope at Green Bank, responsible for this discovery

The reason this is important is that it is a sign of the presence of methane, formaldehyde occurring in the oxidation process. From the Miller-Urey experiments, it is widely believed that for primitive life to occur, you need a reducing atmosphere to allow complex molecules to form. Along with already detected ammonia and water, these appear to show the elements needed for a reducing atmosphere are already present in these clouds.

If this is found to hold up, we may be a step closer to understanding the birth of life on Earth.

On British television, we are also seeing a kind of rebirth. Of Out of the Unknown without the driving force of Irene Shubik.

Out of the Unknown

With Shubik’s departure for The Wednesday Play, following the commissioning of scripts, it has been up to new producer Alan Bromly to make them a reality.

In many ways Bromly is the opposite of Shubik, an old hand at directing and TV production back to the early 50s, but with little experience in Science Fiction. Rather he has made a name for himself across a range of different productions, most notably the anthology slot BBC Sunday Night Theatre, soap opera Compact and films such as The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp.

So how did it turn out?

(I would like to take a brief moment to thank my colleague Fiona for using her contacts at the BBC to provide us with colour publicity photos. I am still using a Black & White set at home).

Big Prophets, Short Returns

The hunt for good science fiction begins.

This series of plays opens with a well-known novel, Robert Sheckley’s Immortality Inc. Even though this does a reasonable job of condensing the story into a 50-minute slot, and it bounces along quite nicely, I find both versions a bit soulless. I just find I am not really invested in who gets the body, which is a big problem for the central conflict.

Whilst it has some notable fans, our editor gave the original story three stars and I think that is about right for this production.

“Why, yes I do look a lot younger than Cushing did, let’s not go on about it…”

Different issues plague the other novel adaptation of the season, Asimov’s The Naked Sun.

The script makes an effort to place this as a sequel to the 1964 production of The Caves of Steel, with Bailey opening the story talking about “Caves of Steel”, his delight at being partnered again with Daneel, and Secretary Minim referencing the previous case in Brooklyn. Even if Paul Maxwell (Fireball XL-5’s Steve Zodiac) is no Peter Cushing, he still does well paired-off against relative newcomer David Collings.

As people know of the original novel, the case is pretty interesting and, even if at times it feels a bit overwrought with all the yelling, the twists and turns of the story kept me engaged. The problem stems from the conversations largely being communicated through viewscreens. Unfortunately, whilst Rudolph Cartier is an experienced director (and did a great job on Level Seven), he fails to give it flair Saville did in The Machine Stops.

Herbie awakes to find himself in yet another Asimov adaptation

Of course, Shubik could never choose just one Asimov script, so our second is Liar! Robot romantic comedies seem to have become a regular feature of Out of the Unknown (see also Andover and the Android, Satisfaction Guaranteed) but this one missed the mark for me somewhat.

This has never been my favourite of Asimov’s Robot stories and the teleplay has similar issues. I find the psychic robot too contrived and I really don’t enjoy how much of it is built around Calvin’s attraction to her colleague.

It is well-made and Gifford gives a great performance as the robot psychologist (now her third on-screen depiction), so it will probably appeal more to others. But it is not entirely to my tastes.

“I am no longer just Captain Blue, I am now also Captains Lilac, Pink, Fuschia, Green and Khaki”

The third big name writer to be adapted in this run is Clifford Simak and his stories are the ones that tread into the most traditionally SFnal territory, starting with the first contact tale of Beach Head.

I will concede that it looks excellent, with the unusual design of the robots and the aliens being particularly noteworthy. However, this was the weakest installment for me, with three different problems.

Firstly, not all of the performances are pitched right, particularly Ed Bishop playing the lead role very broadly. This is more important in this story where neither the robots nor the aliens speak or emote. As such we rely on the human actors to carry the weight.

Secondly, the action in the first half is divided between robots outside and humans inside, making the pacing glacial until the aliens arrive.

Finally and most significantly, as Victoria said in her review of the original tale, this is not a particularly good example of a puzzle story and it doesn’t add up to much. So, however much it is nice to look at, you spend your time going through a lot of dull content for a rather empty ending.

Set course for planetfall…again!

The other Simak marks another first for Out of the Unknown, Shubik electing to remake a script already done for Out of this World, Target Generation.

Even those SF fans who did not catch its first use will find the tale a familiar one. It is not that it is not a good exploration of the standard themes about blind faith and static thinking leading to our doom, just not one with many surprises. Possibly one for the casual viewer not so aware of science fiction cliches.

Medical Marvels

Channeling his inner Timothy Leary to find the truth in a pill

The Yellow Pill is also a script reused from Out of This World, actually being the first episode of that series, yet I felt its restaging works better than the Simak. This is because it is somewhat more unusual in its content.

Whilst its staging could feel a bit old fashioned, largely only utilising a single set, this play-like feeling adds to the sense of unreality we are meant to experience. Add into this a strong script, great performances and the questioning of what is real, and it still feels fresh.

The most important use of futuristic medical devices, removing bags under the eyes

The Yellow Pill is only one of several scripts that concentrate on the medical aspects of technological progress. Kornbluth’s The Little Black Bag looks at what might happen if future medical equipment ends up in the past.

Even though I feel this has a solid idea at its core, the episode could have done with a bit of a reworking. It does have some great moments (particularly in the last ten minutes), however the pacing goes back and forth too much for my tastes. I also found that parts are over-explained, whilst other vital questions are left hanging.

The generation gap on show

Michael Ashe’s The Fosters (an original for OOTU) seems at first like it might be a piece of domestic drama about the conflict between respectable middle-class families and rebellious youth. But it unfolds nicely in little moments, with the titular couple’s unusual knowledge and strange eating habits bringing with it unease and tension. Even though the end reveal is a bit of a letdown, the journey is a strong one.

Pregnancy screening has come a long way from HIT

Even though the UK’s fertility rate has been steadily declining for the last few years, overpopulation is still a major topic among SF writers. Brian Hayles (of Ice Warrior fame) continues that discussion in 1+1=1.5, an original where the wife of a population control officer becomes pregnant for the second time.

The result is a bit of a mixed bag. It has interesting elements with the catchy jingles on population control, reminiscent of The Year of the Sex Olympics, and it has in its lead roles the great pairing of Bernard Horsfall and Julia Lockwood.

However, I found the mystery of how Mary got pregnant was overemphasized, resulting in a rather dull conclusion, when I would have preferred a focus on the more interesting human side.

The Human Element

“I wonder if I can get the cricket on this?”

This human element can be seen in the final of the original productions, Donald Bull’s Something in the Cellar. This is a Nigel Kneale-esque production, putting a science fictional twist on the gothic haunted house story.

I will concede it does stretch out a bit, but it is still spooky and character driven, with the voice of the “mum” being particularly unsettling.

Two Worlds, how to choose between them?

This kind of character-driven storytelling is also present in John Wyndham’s Random Quest, a story of dual time-scales.

Whilst I was never as much of a fan of this Wyndham as some of his other works, and found the script a bit drawn out, I cannot fault the production overall. The design of the parallel universe England is well realized, with the Edwardian touches being very clever. It would also be easy to find the whole conceit rather confusing, but the crew did a great job of helping the audience understand the split in the narrative.

Apparently, this has gone down extremely well and there has even been interest floated in adapting it for the big screen.

An inebriated Hale doesn’t realise the trouble coming to him

After the great production of Some Lapse of Time back in the programme’s first run, I was pleased to see another Brunner for this series with The Last Lonely Man.

Even though the original story, as Mark noted, is nothing special, this is a largely straight adaptation raised up by a number good choices:
• The casting of George Cole and Peter Halliday as Hale and Wilson respectively.
• Jeremy Paul expands the wider implications of the tale, making mentions of problems of inflation, sexuality and psychological breakdown.
• Making the death of Wilson the mid-point of the story, rather than the ending.
• Douglas Camfield’s direction making it a creepy tale of paranoia instead of a farce.
I do find it curious Shubik chose it for the same season as the conceptually similar Immortality Inc., but this one shines rather than dulls in comparison.

“It is all quite simple. You are actually a science fiction writer, in a dream, that is drawing from SF cliches, that is part of a teleplay on BBC2, which is adapted from a novelette, originally published in Astounding Magazine.”

The series is finished with one of its finest ever productions, Get Off Of My Cloud.

Adapted from the excellent story Dreams are Sacred by Peter Phillips (well known to British readers due to its inclusion in the highly regarded Spectrum III anthology) it is a comical take on the cliches of pulp science fiction whilst also asking questions about the nature of fantasy versus reality.

As well as transferring the setting to the UK and adding in some wonderful Britishisms (Raymond Cusick did the design work for this episode and his incorporation of Daleks and the TARDIS are marvelous) it also builds on the idea of our childhood fears and looks at how we conquer them.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King

Just a few of the excellent SF anthologies currently available at your local bookshop

Whilst there have been teething troubles in a few of the stories, overall, I have enjoyed this season. It continues to show the value of the science fiction anthology series which, just like its paperback equivalent, offers a great way to explore a multitude of themes and ideas.

Whatever mysteries are unlocked by scientists, I have no doubt that SF writers will continue to find interesting questions to explore and there will be a place for this kind of television.

Long may it continue.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 18, 1968] Sweet and Sour (July 1968 Galactoscope)

July 18, 2023 Kris Vyas-Myall Leave a comment

by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

I occasionally like to check out the authors I hear are very hip right now. It meant I read the excellent Last Exit to Brooklyn and the less great Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.

Richard Brautigan is one I have heard praise heaped on over Trout Fishing in America but the title put me off (my father talks enough about it!) When I heard he had a more fantastical novel coming out this year I made sure to get a copy.

I am not sure what I was expecting but this book is weird!

It is set in a world that appears to have emerged after some kind of great disaster destroyed the prior civilisation. The people live around iDEATH where the main material for production is “watermelon sugar”. As well as apparently being very versatile in and of itself, the day of the week the watermelons are planted on dictates the type that grow and the different properties they will have.

People used to be hunted and eaten by “Tigers” (it is unclear if these are felines raised up to consciousness or humans that have descended to cannibalism) a fact people of iDEATH seemed to have accepted as a natural part of life. However, these have all been hunted now and what remains are statues to the fallen.

In addition, the narrator lacks a regular name and instead:

Just call me whatever is in your mind. If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago, somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer, that is my name. Perhaps it was raining very hard, that is my name. Or somebody wanted you to do something, you did it and they told you what you did is wrong, sorry for the mistake, and you had to do something else, that is my name.

Thankfully this fellow (who I will call Idle Thought) is the only one without a regular name.

Idle Thought is writing the first book in 35 years (the one we are reading) which starts off just recording little notes about his life or small events, similar to The Pillow Book by Sei Shônagon. This is disrupted by InBOIL who declares that he knows the truth of iDEATH and departs to live in the forgotten works, the large remnants of the past world.

Margaret begins to go to the forgotten works to forage for her collection and talks with InBOIL about his finds. A few weeks later, InBOIL and his gang return to show everyone the true meaning of iDEATH.

What does this all add up to? Honestly I am unsure. This is no “polytropic paramyth”, it has all the features of a regular short novel and Brautigan has a great narrative voice. You do not doubt that a land could exist where people have discovered how to spin fruit sugar of watermelons into a wide range of products.

The question is how literally are we meant to take the text? Is this meant to be a far future story where the new technology is beyond our understanding? A far-fetched satire of our current society? A fable about the nature of power and belief? Or something else? Are we even meant to consider Idle Thought a reliable narrator?

I don’t have any answers and can’t help but feel nonplussed by the ending. As a case of literary experimentation, it works better than many authors that attempt similar things (just check out some issues of New Worlds) but I am not sure about how to grade it as SF.

However, it is an experience I would recommend others try for themselves; I will give it four stars.

When Women Rule

by Victoria Silverwolf

Apologies to science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz for stealing the title of his essay, which appeared in the August issue of If last year.

No doubt Mister Moskowitz will add the novel I'm about to review to his list of future worlds dominated by females. Is it a worthy example? Let's find out.

Five to Twelve, by Edmund Cooper

Cover photograph by Reg Perkes.

We jump right into things with our protagonist, a fellow named Dion Quern, sneaking into a luxury apartment with burglary in mind. The place happens to be occupied by a female peace officer named Juno Locke aiming a laser pistol at him.

Futuristic crime novel? Well, not really.

After this opening scene, the author goes into full expository mode. It seems that birth control pills not only freed women from unwanted pregnancy, but it made them bigger, stronger, and smarter. (There's an implication here that, until this happened, they weren't as smart as men. I'll ignore that for now.)

Besides that, it also resulted in fewer boys being born and more girls being born. Now, in the late twenty-first century, men are outnumbered by women (you guessed it) five to twelve.

About three-quarters of women are powerful figures known as Doms. The rest, who have remained feminine (sic) are pretty much just baby machines, impregnated multiple times by artificial insemination. The Doms hire them to bear their adopted children.

Men who are fortunate to be partnered with Doms are known as Squires. Those who aren't are called Sports.

Dion is a Sport, making a living through petty crime and writing poetry on the side. He hates this woman-ruled world; however, as we'll see, he's a very mixed-up and contradictory character.

We last left him facing a cop with a pistol. Does she send him to jail? (Actually, a sort of mind-erasing facility.) Nope. She invites him to share a meal and then to bed.

There's an odd kind of love/hate relationship between these two throughout the book. Dion willingly becomes Juno's Squire. Sometimes they're passionate about each other, sometimes they're ready to kill each other.

Dion gets involved, more or less against his will (as I said, he's a very ambiguous character), in a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria II, as a symbolic act by rebellious men. Let's just say that it all leads up to a bittersweet ending for what has been, up to that point, a satiric novel.

The author's style is quirky. Everybody speaks in a weirdly affected way, full of puns and literary allusions. (The sole exception is one of the women who serve as baby machines, who plays an important part in the last part of the book.)

The big question, of course, is how sexist is it? Quite a bit, I'd say. There's a fair amount of complaining about the fact that this future world has lost its spirit of daring and adventure. (Of course, it has also eliminated war and poverty.) The baby machine is a nearly mindless character, interested only in love, sex, and reproduction, and the author seems to approve of her.

On the other hand, Dion is pretty much a jerk, even if we're supposed to sympathize with him at the end. Maybe the author is more of a misanthrope than a misogynist.

Not a great book. Two stars. Go see a movie instead.

Maybe not this one. It's pretty bad.

by Gideon Marcus

Assignment: Moon Girl, by Edward S. Aarons

I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. Well, that's not quite true. I had expected a silly story, maybe with lots of lurid bits. Instead I got…

Trapped in a pit, menaced by a tiger, cosmonaut Tanya Ouspanaya is nude and defenseless. She knows not why she is there–only that she has somehow returned from the moon, where she had been for days if not weeks. When escape seems impossible, and on the verge of losing all hope, a strange man speaking bad Russian arrives to rescue her.

Meet Sam Durrell, a CIA Agent on Tanya's trail. The story then rewinds to Durrell's assignment on the case, to his arrival in the allied (but dangerously independent) country of Iran, to his entanglement not only in international affairs, but a budding revolution. Tanya is the teaser, but the mysterious revolutionary General Har-Buri, with fingers of corruption in every government pie, is the key to the tale. And, of course, the evil Madame Hung and her comrade, the Chinese spy mastermind, Ta-Po, figure prominently, along with comrades of Durrell, both Western and Persian. It's all very complex, but ultimately quite manageable, and the solution to the mystery of Tanya's sudden appearance back on Earth less SFnal, and more cutting-edge plausible.

What I didn't realize, going into this book is that the Assignment books constitute a series, of which this one is number twenty six! Sam Durrell is a recurring hero, refreshingly not cut from the James Bond mold. He is intelligent, compassionate, resourceful. And Aarons is an equal opportunity author–if Tanya's introduction sounds like a bit of cheesecake, you'll be comforted to know that Durrell gets his naked time in the pit, too. In fact, Tanya is a strong character, never the prize, the damsel, nor the love interest. All of the characters are strong, actually, and vividly portrayed. But the real stand-out is the terrain of Iran, with which Aarons must have some conversance (or at least a long National Geographic subscription). The land of the Shahs is as real as any landscape in Dune.

It's a potboiler, but it's a good one, one I couldn't put it down. I may have to find more in the series…

Four stars.

Dimension of Miracles, by Robert Sheckley

Back in the 1950s, Robert Sheckley blazed a trail with the funniest, by turns dark and hopeful, short science fiction stories one could find. His main pad was Galaxy, but he made his mark elsewhere, too. Then came the 1960s, and Bob turned his energies to novel-length works. I'm sure it was lucrative–The 10th Victim got turned into a movie–but I wasn't really impressed by any of them.

Until now.

I brought Dimension of Miracles with me on the flight to Japan, and I had devoured the whole thing before we were far past Hawaii. Only the fact that I couldn't pound the keys on my typewriter without waking up the first class cabin kept me from dashing off a review right then and there.

Here's how it goes: Tom Carmody is a bland man, blandly handsome, blandly successful, blandly urbane. His bland life is made infinitely more colorful when an alien visitor appears in his home, announcing that he has won the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. What could Carmody do but accept the invitation to go to Galactic Central to collect his winnings? The Prize, it turns out, is a sentient box, purpose unknown. It soon turns out that Carmody was picked by accident, and the real winner is determined to secure the Prize for himself. The smiling faces of the clerks and awarders of Central are quickly shown to hide uncaring souls. Carmody is on his own against his rival. Worse than that, even should he withstand the challenge, Carmody has no idea how to get home, and no one is willing to help him.

Ultimately, going back to Earth requires not just knowing where it is, but also when it is (relativity is complicated), and also for Carmody to pick the right Earth, as there are an infinite number. Each succeeding section of the book details his misadventures as he tries to find his way home. Along the way, he treats with an omnipotent but marooned God, a family of intelligent dinosaurs, and a predator tailor-made just for Carmody who trails him across the galaxy and the eons.

It's all very farcical and stream-of-conscious-y, generally the sort of stuff I don't dig. This time around, however, Sheckley deploys his mastery of the short form to make every vignette absolutely delicious, while serving the greater whole along the way. Indeed, two bits of the story were released as short stories in and of themselves, virtually unchanged: Budget Planet, which was pleasant-enough in isolation, but better here, and ditto for Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay.

All along the way are some fascinating philosophical discussions, delivered better than Heinlein ever could. If there's any fault with the story, it's that things wrap up just a bit too quickly. Nevertheless, it's a great yarn, a story that will likely inspire other future tales of galactic hitchhikers. I imagine they won't be as well rendered as this one, however…

4.5 stars.

by Jason Sacks

Rite of Passage, by Alexei Panshin

As my friend John Boston chronicled last week, the prolific science fiction fan and analyst Alexei Panshin is an expert in the fiction of Robert Heinlein. John does an excellent job in his article of analyzing the complex relationship between Heinlein and Panshin, and he does a great job of digging into the approach Panshin takes to his analysis. If you haven't read John's piece, I recommend you give it a read.

Alexei Panshin's new novel, Rite of Passage, often reads as if Panshin tuned elements of Heinlein's juvenile fiction to reflect Panshin's view of the world, thereby taking the energy and thoughtfulness of Heinlein and giving it a specifically Panshinian spin .

Cover by Leo and Diane Dillon

Heinlein is, of course, known for featuring teen and preteen protagonists in his juvenile space adventures. Panshin follows that element closely, but with an essential twist. Nearly all Heinlein's protagonists are boys. The main character of Rite of Passage is a pubescent girl named Mia Havero, who lives aboard a space ship which is composed of descendents of survivors of Earth's destruction. See, at the time we humans discovered we were going to destroy our world, a generational starship was launched. Mia is part of an undefined generation who only know of Earth from legends shared on the ship.

Over the years the ship has been used to colonize far-flung colonial worlds, with an uneasy and sometimes contentious trade policy existing between the colonies and the spaceship. This contentiousness is exacerbated by the fact that every ship-bound kid is expected to perform a rite of passage around their fourteenth birthday, taking a forced month-long trip to a colony world in order to experience life away from the ship and formally grow into adulthood.

When Mia and some friends are transported to a world that's both highly conservative and highly resentful of the ship, they end up experiencing an adventure that's more than a simple rite. Instead the young adults face real life and death situations. And those life and death situations help trigger the brilliantly nihilistic climax of the book, an epiphany of deep emotional angst which I predict will cause fans to debate this book quite a bit in fanzines this year.

A photo of Mr. Panshin from last September at Nycon.

As I've suggested, Mia Havero is a wonderfully perceptive lead character. Her energy and spirit are as strong as the greatest Heinlein heroes, but what really makes Mia stand out are her intelligence and insights. Panshin cannily has Mia be a student of philosophy, and that philosophic approach informs her actions. Her thoughts on stoicism, for instance, are charming, and, well, here are a few other thoughts which you might enjoy…

I can think of nothing sadder than to know that you might be more than you are, but be unwilling to make the effort.

If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it.

or

Maturity is the ability to sort the portions of truth from the accepted lies and self-deceptions that you have grown up with.

I emerged from this book deeply impressed by the way Panshin brings his main character and her friends to life. Mia Havero and her friends are unique people, full of dreams, ambitions and intelligent thoughts. They have complicated relationships with each other, with their parents and with their larger society. The characters fairly pop off the page and I know a few girls who remind me of Mia.

Mia is similar to Heinlein's heroes, but only somewhat similar. For instance, she's a highly competent hero who must go on a quest and who is alienated from planet-siders. Readers frequently see those elements in Heinlein's juveniles. But they don't often see characters who have sex, as Mia does. They don't often see the level of empathy Mia shows herself, her friends and the planet-siders. And perhaps most importantly, characters like Mia are seldom on the outside of their societies in Heinlein's fiction.

In fact, I was also deeply impressed by how well Panshin builds both the shipboard society and the planetside society. Both are complex and intriguing, quite well sketched out for the terse length of this novel. The sclerotic approach to governing the ship, for instance, feels a bit like the sclerotic authorities in many of Heinlein's novels, while the backwards approach of the colonists feels like something out of Pennsylvania Dutch country crossed with fascist war-mongering.

Mr. Panshin accepting his 1967 Hugo Award.

Mr. Panshin has shown that his analysis of Robert Heinlein isn't the only insightful writing he can do. This book is a definite candidate for Galactic Star for the year, and I won't be surprised if Mr. Panshin wins back-to-back Hugo Awards in '67 and '68.

4½ stars.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 20, 1968] Dying, deflating, and deorbiting (June 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

May 20, 2023 Gideon Marcus 6 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Fading Echoes

It sometimes astounds me how long Galactic Journey has been around. Eight years ago, we covered the launch of Echo 1, a big balloon shot into orbit so that NASA eggheads could use it as a cosmic message relay. More importantly, it was an artificial beacon, proof at a time when the Americans were losing the Space Race, that we had established a visible presence in outer space.

In just a few days, Echo 1 will be no more. Though the air at Echo's altitude is, to terrestrial standards, a fine vacuum, there is enough there to pull at the satellite. For the past eight years, the tug has slowed down Echo, and this month, it will fall out of orbit, plunging into the atmosphere, where it will burn up.

All things must pass, and Echo had a good run, but still, it's a little sad.

Which brings us to this month's issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Last month, we lost Anthony Boucher, who helmed F&SF for much of the '50s. His term was excellent, and he also wrote some great stories, too, my favorite being The Quest for St. Aquin He was only 56.

Since Boucher's tenure, F&SF has been an inconsistent magazine. There have been good issues of F&SF, and there have been less than good ones. The latest is one of the latter kind, and its underwhelming quality serves only to make us pine all the more for what we've lost.

by Ronald Walotsky

The Consciousness Machine, by Josephine Saxton

Zona Gambier is a mental technician, proficient in the usage of WAWWAR, a device that has revolutionized psychotherapy. It dredges the animus of one's mental dysfunction, bares it to the possessor, and in doing so, cures the ailing person of any psychological malady. It is thus a matter of great consternation when she finds that her patient, Thurston Maxwell's, animus does not seem to correspond to his condition–namely a predilection for sexual assault.

The imagery WAWWAR produces is the story of a teenage boy living ferally, hiding from all of humanity, until he comes across a newborn, still attached to her just-dead mother. He raises the child, somehow providing for it, until she is old enough to be an adoptive sister. Later, as an adult, they become lovers. Finally, they have a child together, completing a kind of circle.

Ultimately, we find out what this story means, and whose animus it actually is. The writing is rather nice, but the explanation at the end is ad hoc, and I certainly wouldn't call the piece science fiction. Science-esque, perhaps.

Three stars.

Of Time and Us, by David R. Bunch

Better poetry than some, worse than others. I'm not sure I care for the sentiment, espousing the futility of humanity against the infinity of chronology.

Three stars.

by Gahan Wilson

The People Trap, by Robert Sheckley

Overpopulation stories have been de rigeur for more than a decade now, to the point where the genre is a bit overripe. Especially given that, according to articles I've been reading lately, the population growth rate has been steadily declining in the First World for most of the '60s. Now, will that continue? There are an awful lot of Baby Boomers coming of age, and perhaps the trend will reverse itself. But it does seem that large families, at least in the West and other developed areas, are falling out of fashion.

Which is why Sheckley's satire of overpopulation stories, in which a mild-mannered father, tired of sharing his one-room flat with five others (with five more on the way), enters a deadly competition, is a breath of fresh air. Along with 60 other participants, he must complete a foot-race through the wilds of New York City, populated by the lowest forms of humanity. His prize: one of the last free-standing acres of land on the continent.

Very quickly, you see that the thing is a lampoon, and as such, it's quite tolerable. Indeed, it's the closest thing to an old-style Sheckley story I've read in a long time, and old-style Sheckley is one of my favorites.

Four stars.

Settle, by Ann MacLeod

A couple buys a fixer-upper. Soon, the man of the house starts losing pieces of himself. First a toe, then a foot, onto his leg and torso, until he is just a head. Still, he goes on repairing elements of the home, determined to make it livable. Eventually, he is just a set of teeth and a bit of brain, mowing the lawn by mouth, until he is crushed under the knee of his toddler son. The end.

Per the editor's preface, this story is about how a money pit takes its toll in flesh from its owners. I'm glad that was explained to me, because otherwise, I'd have no idea.

One star.

Backtracked, by Burt Filer

Author Burt Filer is apparently married to Settle's author, Ann MacLeod. His tale is the superior of the two.

A man in his mid-30s wakes up to find his body ten years older. Apparently, he has "backtracked"–a decade from then, he swapped physical forms with his younger self (which apparently destroys the future incarnation so as to prevent paradoxes). He has no memory of the next ten years, nor why he chose this particular date to come back to.

All he knows is that his polio-crippled leg is now reasonably robust, and that his wife is not altogether happy with his new, somewhat weathered, appearance.

Eventually we do find out what would motivate a man to give up a decade of life, and it's a reasonable justification.

Three stars.

At the Heart of It, by Michael Harrison

This is both an old tale and an old-fashioned tale. It details the tragic story of a bookseller who discovers a profane book, one that teaches the reader the art of transferring one's soul into an inanimate object.

There are no surprises, and the kicker comes at the end, like all its Weird Tales brethren. I imagine this would have been humdrum in the 30s and it certainly doesn't cut the mustard now.

Two stars.

Counting Chromosomes, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor explains the relatively new science of genetics and the role chromosomes, which are essentially punch cards that govern cell reproduction, have in them. He spends a good deal of time on sex chromosomes, and the effects that mutated sex chromosomes have on human beings.

Fascinating stuff, but there is an air of eugenics about his discussion, particularly in calling chromosomally abnormal human beings "defectives" and describing the recent exclusion of Ewa Klobukowska from women's sports on the basis of an extra Y chromosome as a positive development, ensuring competitions remain "sportsmanlike", rubbed me the wrong way.

Three stars.

The Secret of Stonehenge, by Harry Harrison

In this vignette, archaeologists armed with a time-traveling camera send it back to find out why and when Stonehenge was created. Turns out that the camera leaves chronological echoes, afterimages that last long after the camera has departed. Of course, it is these images, that, to primitive Britons, could only have been a sign of the gods, that spurred the creation of Stonehenge.

Harry should know better. We've known since 1963 that Stonehenge was an astronomical calculator, able to predict eclipses and solstices. It was built where it was because it needed to be to function properly.

In any event, the far more exciting (and dangerous) discovery is that long-range time travel can be used to communicate with the past, but this was not touched upon.

Two stars.

Sea Home, by William M. Lee

The first long-term permanent underwater residence has been completed. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Sea Home has a problem: its five long-term crew, already at depth, are undergoing physiological changes. It appears to be linked to the special air mixture they're breathing to alleviate pressure issues; their blend includes oxygen, helium, and sodium hexaflouride–the latter two ingredients serving as a kind of buffer, one very light, and one very heavy.

There's a lot wrong with this story. For one, it's a novelette for a one-gimmick story. Lee tries to add color and reasonably competent writing to hide the fact, but there are simply no mysteries to keep you intrigued beyond the central one.

And the central one is stupid. The premise is that the absence of nitrogen triggers all sorts of biological miracles. Free from the shackles of nitrogen, our bodies become more efficient, our brains get smarter, our skin sprouts tiny fields of gills fer Chrissakes. It reminds me of the early stories about long-term weightlessness, when, because we had no data, sf writers filled in the blanks any way they wanted.

Except we do have data. Gemini 7 was in space for 14 days, its crew breathing a pure, 5psi oxygen atmosphere. None of them got any smarter or developed vacuum-breathing gills or what-have-you.

Dumb. Two stars.

Cithaeronion farewell

As you can see, this issue is sort of like the work of a taxidermist. It looks like F&SF, many of its contents are familiar, but the breath of life is missing. Would that someone new could come along and instill the esteemed publication with the vigor it enjoyed under its past master.

Lest all we have left is fading echoes…

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 20, 1968] 1-2-3 What are we fighting for? (March 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

February 20, 2023 Gideon Marcus 19 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Sock it to me

In the middle of this month's issue of F&SF is this ad:

In short, 68 members of the science fiction community (most of them authors, but some I only know of from fandom) have paid lucre to support staying the course in Vietnam. Some of the names on the list surprised me: Biggle, Buck, De Vet, Galouye… I should have thought they'd be less belligerent. And, of course, Bradley's name just makes me sick.

But, as David pointed out, the language is "weasel-worded. It's perfectly possible to be opposed to the war, but feel that the US has an obligation to South Vietnam."

I'll also note that, for this ad to have come out in this issue, it must have been prepped last year. This is before the recent offensive, when it could be said with a straight face (albeit with decreasing credibility) that we were slowly but surely "winning" in Vietnam.

I was rather surprised to find this ad in F&SF, to be sure. It's the most liberal of the SF mags–this felt like it would be more at home in Analog. But then, flipping to the back of the issue, I found this:

That's right–half again as many authors and fans are against staying in Vietnam (they use the older spelling, "Viet Nam"). One wonders which ad came first, and did the two campaigns know about each other?

Does this kind of political posturing belong in our science fiction magazines? I was already seeing buzz about this in the fanzines even before the ad was printed (I somehow ended up out of the loop, but San Diego is a bit of a fandom backwater). One fan opined that fans had no business politicizing our sacred pages.

I just think it's a mark of how polarizing and important this debate is that it now has spilled over into our sanctum sanctorum, the monthly escapist literature. I can only imagine the war of ads will become more bitter now that the actual fight has escalated.

Doo-whackadoo

by Gahan Wilson

Aside from the shots traded in the dueling ads, the rest of the issue is actually surprisingly pleasant, if not entirely placid. A number of these stories could have been played for horror, but instead, deliberately eschew it. Intentional? Or just a happy coincidence? (I prefer my stories with happy endings.)

The Egg of the Glak, by Harvey Jacobs

Harold North is an unprepossessing campus cop, whose life is irrevocably changed when he meets and befriends the eccentric Professor Hickhoff. In addition to being obssessed with the monopthongization of the English language (as well as with Harold North), the rotund professor also has a secret of the zoological kind. Upon his untimely passing, his dying request is that North procure the egg of the last Glak, a Labradorian avian, from a local pet store owner. After hatching it, North must release it in its home wilds.

Thus ensues a lusty, mildly hazardous, and rather droll journey in which North procures the egg and keeps it from the clutches of Nagle, an anthropologist who would make his reputation on the discovery. Along the way, North finds romance, of a sort, but mostly haplesses his way through the endeavor.

What makes this tale is the telling. It threads the line between light and serious, literary and earthy, bawdy and chaste. It's something Goulart or Lafferty might have come up with on one of their better days.

Interestingly, Harvey Jacobs has only appeared on Galactic Journey twice before, and both were unfavorable outings. This one, on the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed.

Five stars.

by Gahan Wilson

The Ajeri Diary, by Miriam Allen deFord

DeFord, on the other hand, is a name that needs no introduction; she's as grizzled (in her ladylike fashion) as they come. This tale is of an anthropologist who visites the rigidly segregated planet of Ajeri. divided along sexual lines into "eskons" and "orgs", the researcher gradually learns that those terms do not precisely align with male and female.

Knowing deFord's penchant for horrific stings in the tail, I was on tenter hooks for much of the piece, especially when the anthropologists finds himself having more and more in common with the neuter "eskons". But in the end, what we really have is a thoroughly logical state of societal affairs–indeed, something of an utopia…

For some values of utopia, in any event!

Four stars, and the Anti-Queen Bee Award for the month.

Whose Short Happy Life?, by Sterling Lanier

Two hundred years after the Atomic Apocalypse, a hunting party invades the Reserve in search of the most deadly game–the preserved tribes of The Enemy. About halfway through, you'll figure out that something is amiss, but it's worth the ride to the end to figure out what it is.

Four stars.

Dinosaurs in Today's World, by L. Sprague de Camp

Unusually, we have two science fact articles this issue. This is the weaker of the two, a piece on whether dinosaurs could yet live somewhere on the globe. It's sort of a poor man's version of a Ley piece I'm sure I read several years ago.

Three stars.

Budget Planet, by Robert Sheckley

Here is an excerpt from an upcoming book, Dimension of Miracles, that (sort of) stands on its own. It's the account of a planet builder who cuts corners every chance he gets, and his personal reminiscence of his contract with a certain Jehovah.

It's a lot of fluff, but kind of fun. Three stars.

The Shapes, by J. H. Rosny aîné

This piece is a contender for the "oldest reprint" award. A Damon Knight translation from the French (he's quite good at those), it is the story of an extraterrestrial invasion in a pre-Sumerian (but more advanced) Mesopotamia.

Not bad, though the "scientific account" portion in the middle both drags and feels strongly out of flavor with the beginning and end.

Three stars.

The Seventh Planet, by Isaac Asimov

This is a good, but somehow hollow account of the discovery and nature of the planet Mercury, one of the harder planets to observe as it never is very far from the Sun (I had little difficulty finding it when I lived in the desert — the horizons are very low there).

Four stars, I suppose.

That High-Up Blue Day That Saw the Black Sky-Train Come Spinning, by David R. Bunch

Finally, the most forgettable story is this piece of frivolity about two drunks who concoct an alien menace as a prank–but was one of them actually serious?

Two stars.

Who cares? I don't give damn!

However one may feel about the expanding war in Southeast Asia, I think we must remain united on this one matter: the March 1968 issue of F&SF is pretty darned good. And if we be not united, well, I'd like to hear where you agree or disagree.

You won't even have to pay me to take out an ad…

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 16, 1968] Worthy programming (February 1968 Galaxy)

January 16, 2023 Gideon Marcus 13 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

On the small screen

A few weeks ago, President Johnson signed into effect the Public Broadcasting Act. Its purpose, among other things, is to turn a decentralized constellation of educational stations and program producers into a government-funded network. It's basically socialism vs. the vast wasteland.

Given the quality of programming I've seen produced by National Education Television, particularly on independent station KQED-San Francisco (e.g. "Jazz Casual" and "The Rejected"), I am all for this move. Indeed, I've recently come across a show that has really sold me on public television.

NET Journal is a series on political matters of the day. In December, they had a program that showed the results of a week-long workshop in which 12 affluent young men and women of a multitude of ethnicities lived together and discussed their prejudices. What they determined was surprising to them, and maybe to us. As we saw in the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, even in the most bleeding heart liberal, there is prejudice; and it's not just directed from whites to minorities.

This week, we caught an interview with four journalists in Saigon. Recently, LBJ and General Westmoreland have been cheerleading the effort in Vietnam, saying that the three-year commitment of half a million troops is bearing fruit. The South Vietnam-based journalists dispute this rosy view. They say progress has been slow, that the South Vietnamese army is hopelessly corrupt and must be reformed from the head down if it is to operate effectively without American support, and that we are not engaged in "nation-building" because there is currently no nation. The elections are meaningless so long as there be no real choices to be made, so long as bribes and payoffs accomplish more than the rule of law.

Withering stuff. Next week, the program will be on draft-dodgers.

On the small page

Galaxy Science Fiction is also an exellent, long-running source of information and entertainment. This month's issue is a particularly good example.

by Jack Gaughan

A Tragedy of Errors, by Poul Anderson

Anderson has established a reputation for producing some of the "hardest" SF around, laden with astrophysical tidbits. On the other hand, his quality varies from sublime to threadbare. Luckily, his latest novella lies far closer to the former end of the scale.

Tragedy takes place in what appears to be the far future of his Polysotechnic League history. The loose interstellar confederation of planets became an empire and subsequently went into decline a la the worlds in H. Beam Piper's Space Viking universe and Asimov's Foundation setting. I really like these "after the fall" stories of folks trying to patch a polity back together, maybe better than it was before.

by Gray Morrow

This particular story is the tale of Roan Tom, Dagny, and Yasmin, the crew of the merchant-pirate Firedrake. Their ship is in desperate need of repairs, and the only planet within range of the married trio is a Mars-sized world around a swollen orange sun. Luckily, said world was once a human colony of the Empire and thus may have the resources needed to fix a starship.

Unluckily, the planet has been recently plundered by pirates, and the inhabitants do not take kindly to strangers–especially ones that call themselves "friends."

There's a lot to like about this riproaring tale of aerial maneuvers, overland evasion, and fast-talking diplomacy. For one, two of the main characters are women, and highly competent ones at that. Moreover, it is an ensemble cast, with each of the three coming into the spotlight for extended periods of time.

There is also a mystery of sorts, here…or several, really, all woven together: how does this undersized planet have an atmosphere? Indications are that this is a young world, but why, then, does the dense planet have so little surface metal? And why is the star so unstable, prone to devastating solar storms that play hell with the planet's weather? Solving this astronomical puzzle proves key to addressing the Firedrake crew's more immediate problems.

Of course, you have to like detailed explanations of stellar and planetary parameters and phenomena. I personally love this sort of thing, but others may find their eyes glazing. On the other hand, there's plenty to enjoy even if you decide to let the science wash over you. The sanguine antics of Roan Tom, the determined toughness of Dagny, the more refined and tentative brilliance of Yasmin. These are great characters, and I'd like to see more of them.

Four stars.

The Planet Slummers, by Terry Carr and Alexei Panshin

A pair of young thrift store bargain hunters are, in turn, scooped up by a pair of alien specimen collectors. I think the story is supposed to be ironic, or symbolic, or something.

Forgettable. Two stars.

Crazy Annaoj, by Fritz Leiber

by Jack Gaughan

Ah, but then we have the story of a different couple: a superannuated trillionaire and a dewy (but flinty) eyed young starlet. There's is a love fated for the ages, but not the way you might think.

Just a terrific tale told the way only Leiber (or maybe Cordwainer Smith) could tell it.

Five stars.

Street of Dreams, Feet of Clay, by Robert Sheckley

by Vaughn Bodé

Imagine moving to the city of the future: clean, architecturally pleasing, smog-free, crammed with creature comforts. Now imagine the city is run by a computer brain…with the personality of a Jewish mother.

Bob Sheckley is Jewish, so I suspect he didn't have to strain his imagination much for this one. Droll, but a little too painful and one-note to be great.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Epitaph for a Lonely Olm, by Willy Ley

This is a pretty dandy story about a sightless cave salamander that lives its whole life in the water, thus eschewing the amphibian portion of its nature. Thanks to this creature, we have the concept of "neoteny"–the retention of juvenile traits for evolutionary advantage. The blind, pale beast also ensured the fame of Marie von Chauvin, a 19th Century zoologist.

Four stars.

Sales of a Deathman, by Robert Bloch

by Jack Gaughan

How do we combat the exploding birth rate? By making suicide sexy, thus exploding the death rate!

Bloch's modest proposal would be better suited to a three line comedy routine than a several-page vignette. Three stars.

Total Environment, by Brian W. Aldiss

by Jack Gaughan

Crammed into a ten-story self-contained habitat, 75,000 persons of Indian descent live a life of increasing desperation and squalor. At first, we are given to believe that the settlement is a natural response to the crushing pressure of overpopulation. As it turns out, the Ultra-High Density Research Establishment (UHDRE) is actually a deliberate experiment in inducing psychic abilities through exposure to unique pressures. Just 25 years ago, the site had a population of only 1500. Now, teeming to bursting, the hoped-for psionic adepts are appearing–and an empire in a teapot is arising on UHDRE's Top Deck to take advantage of them.

Aldiss writes a compelling story. One thinks it's just the second coming of Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! until it isn't. In some ways, this actually hurts the story, causing it to lose focus. On the other hand, the setting is so well-drawn, and the situation suspenseful enough, that it still engages and entertains.

Four stars.

How They Gave It Back, by R. A. Lafferty

by Gray Morrow

The last mayor of Manhattan finds The Big Apple isn't worth the bother, now that it's degenerated into a ruined, gangland state run by a quintet of bandits. Thankfully, the original owners will buy it back–for its original fee.

Again, this might have made a humorous short bit. As is, you see the punchline from the first words (the title and illo help), and the slog isn't worth the ending.

Two stars.

The Big Show, by Keith Laumer

by Wallace Wood

Last up, a frothy adventure featuring a TV star recruited to infilitrate the last cannibal island in the South Pacific to thwart a nefarious Soviet scheme. This is yet another in the recent spate of stories involving total sensory television in which hundreds of millions viscerally experience the lives of actors.

Unlike Kate Wilhelm's or George Collyn's spin on the subject, Laumer doesn't do very much with the gimmick. Instead, it's another of his midly amusing but eminently forgettable yarns.

Two stars.

Summing up

Despite a sprinkling of clunkers, the latest Galaxy delivers the goods. Two good novellas, a fine nonfiction piece, and an excellent Lieber short would have filled F&SF nicely. So just pretend that the other stories don't exist and enjoy the good stuff.

And then tune in to NET Journal the next few weeks while you wait for the next issue!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 2, 1968] The consequences of success (February 1968 IF)

January 2, 2023 David Levinson 4 Comments

by David Levinson

A major medical advancement

On December 2nd, in Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa, a young woman named Denise Darvall was struck by a drunk driver. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but doctors could do nothing for her and abandoned resuscitation attempts at 9:00 p. m. The doctors approached her father, informed him of his daughter’s death, and told him that it might be possible to save someone else’s life by transplanting her heart. After a few minutes of consideration, Mr. Darvall gave his permission.

The patient in question was 55-year-old grocer Louis Washkansky, whose own heart was giving out. Surgery began shortly after 1:00 in the morning of December 3rd under the leadership of Dr. Christiaan Barnard. Mr. Washkansky began his recovery in good spirits, and Dr. Barnard declared the operation a success, because the heart was doing its job without external assistance. Unfortunately, Mr. Washkansky contracted pneumonia – possibly as a result of the drugs he was given to suppress his immune system to prevent rejection of the new heart – and died of complications from that illness on December 21st.

Louis Washkansky talks to Dr. Barnard in the days following the surgery.

Nevertheless, this was a strong first step (I cannot accept the attempt a few years ago in Mississippi to transplant a chimpanzee heart into a human as serious), and we can add the heart to corneas and kidneys as a transplantable organ. Lung, liver, and pancreas transplants have all been attempted, but can still only be considered experimental at this point. However, it’s clear that great strides are being made, and one day in the not too distant future one person’s untimely death may allow many others to live full lives. Let’s just hope this doesn’t take us down the dark road Larry Niven imagines.

Considering the consequences

Larry Niven starts a new novel in this month’s IF in which he offers a warning about where successful organ transplants could take us. The characters in a couple other stories also have to ask themselves just where their actions might lead.

This dreamscape doesn’t appear in Robert Sheckley’s new story, but it could. Art by Vaughn Bodé

Slowboat Cargo (Part 1 of 3), by Larry Niven

Three hundred years after the colonization of Plateau, society is divided into crew, who enjoy all the privileges and leisure, and colonists, who do all the work and whose bodies go into the organ banks to keep the crew healthy. A new discovery delivered by automated spaceship from Earth may change all that. The story follows colonist Matt Keller, head of Implementation Jesus Pietro Castro, and occasionally Millard Parlette, the 190-year-old head of the government. Matt finds himself at a party that is cover for a meeting of the rebel group Sons of Earth, where they hope to discuss the delivery from Earth, which is then raided by Implementation under the lead of dread Castro himself. Matt is the only person to escape, because he has the strange psychic ability of making people forget he exists in moments of stress. Feeling guilty about the capture of his new friends, Matt decides he must break into the Hospital and free them. As this installment ends, he has managed to get in without being arrested. To be continued.

Implementation guards? To call this style “comic book” would insult fine artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. “Art” by Adkins

Niven continues to flesh out the universe in which he sets his stories, and not just at a single point in time. We’ve visited Plateau before, but that was obviously long after the events here, since society is very different. He’s also covering some of the same ground as his story in Dangerous Visions. This novel is probably part of how we get from there to the world of Beowulf Schaeffer.

I was particularly taken with Niven’s handling of exposition. While there are expository passages explaining things like the history of Plateau, they’re handled by the narrative. But it’s his use of little details that tell us a lot about the society in which his characters live, the things they take for granted, that impressed me. Very much a case of showing, not telling.

Originally, I was going to give this installment four stars, but on reflection I have to lower that score slightly. Matt’s power is just a little too over the top. I can see it working in social situations, such as we’re shown early on, but getting arrested and then having the guards just forget he’s there is too much.

A very high three stars.

The Petrified World, by Robert Sheckley

Lanigan suffers from a recurring nightmare. Maybe a visit with his therapist will help.

Does Lanigan wake or dream? Art uncredited, but Bodé’s signature is visible.

What a disappointment. It was obvious from the get-go and concludes with faux profundity. Sheckley may have written this under the influence of LSD. At least it was short.

A high two stars, only because Sheckley writes well.

Star Bike, by B. K. Filer

Ed Lamb is a mechanic and occasional motorcycle racer who loves nothing more than tearing up the backroads of Nova Scotia on his old Norton. He encounters a couple of strange men who say they’re American astronauts and their ship needs a quick repair. Ed helps them out and they reward him with some motor oil. That might not have been a good idea.

Ed on his beloved Norton. Art by Gaughan

I’m not one for motorcycles, and the story’s nothing special, but I quite enjoyed this one. Ed is a big improvement as a character over any in Filer’s first two stories. Third time’s the charm–or maybe it’s because he wasn’t trying to be funny this time.

Three stars.

The Courteous of Ghoor, by Robert Lory

Archie Pholpher has been chosen by the people of Ghoor to save Earth from the sun going nova by moving the planet to inside the Veil of the Federation. His only contact is the Courteous, who trains him in teleporting things and keeps the Federation from finding out.

This nothing of a story has a plot right out of the Pulp Era, modernized to fit the post-War era. It’s still 25 years out of date. Right on the line between two and three stars, but really not good enough to cross it.

A high two stars.

The Selchey Kids, by Laurence Yep

Duke (short for Deucalion) Gunnar is a survivor of the great earthquake and tidal wave that drowned San Francisco. After several years inland, he returned to the City, where he met Pryn, daughter of oceanographer Noe Selchey, who once worked with Duke’s parents. Together with a pair of trained dolphins, Duke and Pryn are sent to look for some data that should still be in the underwater wreckage of Selchey’s Institute. Duke will learn a lot about his past.

The Selchey Kids encounter danger in the ruins of San Francisco. Art by Gaughan

Yep is this month’s new author, and this is an impressive debut, especially for a 19-year-old college sophomore. Some of the character names are a little too apt, and the climax felt a bit rushed, but there’s a lot to like. The writing is otherwise strong, and I found the characters well-drawn. This is a solid foundation for the author to build on.

A high three stars.

All Judgment Fled (Part 3 of 3), by James White

After a mysterious object entered the solar system from interstellar space and took up orbit between Mars and Jupiter, an expedition was hastily cobbled together to investigate. The six men discover life aboard the alien ship, but the aliens may not be intelligent. After several hostile encounters, the commander is dead, and there are only two functional spacesuits for the four men aboard the alien ship. As the last installment ended, the ship’s engines were warming up to leave the solar system.

The astronauts manage to disable one of the engines, preventing the ship from leaving. Things gradually go from bad to worse, thanks to the ineffectual leadership of the new commander and interference from Earth based on incomplete information and political concerns. Eventually, the men disregard orders from Earth and launch a war of extermination against the starfish-like aliens. More will die, but with any luck they’ll attract the attention of the intelligent alien they believe is aboard.

Has first contact finally been made? Art by Gray Morrow

A thrilling conclusion to a novel that started out cramped and tense. I’m not sure I can really accept Earth command coming to some of the conclusions they do or the decisions they make, and some of White’s descriptions of places could be clearer, but this was a fine ending. I’d also be interested in what happens next.

Four stars for this installment and a high three for the novel as a whole.

Summing up

A good start to a new serial and a strong finish to the old. Too bad about the stuff in the middle. Maybe that’s too harsh. “The Selchey Kids” is an impressive debut, and “Star Bike” was decent. But, oh, that Sheckley story was disappointing.

Last month, editor Fred Pohl promised some new features coming this year. This issue gives us the SF Calendar, offering dates and details of upcoming science fiction events (mostly conventions). Half a page of information that looks like an ad isn’t really something to blow your horn about, even if it is a good idea. Conspicuous by its absence is Our Man in Fandom (with a promised report on last year’s World Con). Maybe it gave way to make room for the long beginning to Niven’s serial, or maybe it’s on its way out. It has felt like Carter was running out of things to say. Time will tell.

New Ellison is always welcome, and Redd has been interesting. Fingers crossed.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 20, 1967] Smut! (January 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

December 20, 2022 Gideon Marcus 10 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

It's a dirty business

Ever since Harlan Ellison started flapping his gums about how dangerous his new anthology Dangerous Visions is, it seems a seal has been broken.

First, Michael Moorcock started putting nudes on the covers of his newly taken-over New Worlds. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction started using the word "shit" liberally. And this month, every other story features sex in varying degrees of luridity.

I'm not complaining, mind you. These things have existed in books and in avante-garde publications like Playboy for years. But it's always a bit startling to find the words you hear commonly on the street suddenly appearing in previously staid venues. Sort of like how Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf shocked everyone. As fellow traveller John Boston noted, with books and girlie mags, one knows what one is getting into. But with media that enjoys wider distribution, which could be viewed or read by the the little old lady from Peoria as much as the hippie in San Francisco, editorial tends toward the conservative.

Does an influx of liberality mean the content is improved? Let's read the latest issue of F&SF and find out!

The issue at hand

by Ed Emshwiller

They Are Not Robbed, by Richard McKenna

Richard McKenna died three years ago, but his rate of publication has, if anything, increased. His latest story maintains the quality of work that made his loss so much mourned.

The setup: about 15 years from now, aliens arrive and solve our energy crisis. They also set up cultural exchanges, but the the transactions have a seemingly sinister component. Folks with a certain prerequisite are able to go inside, disappearing for a while before returning with a large check in hand. Aldous Huxley is one of the more famous transactees, but their numbers grow and grow.

Over time, it is determined that each of the selected humans has a certain "tau factor" that has an unknown effect on their behavior and powers. It is only known that the tau factor is measurable…and that it is gone once the humans come back.

Normal humans (those without the tau factor) become jealous, enforcing increasingly rigid restrictions on the tau-enabled humans, with ghettos a foreseeable future. Meanwhile, exchange after exchange begins to disappear.

Amidst this backdrop, we are introduced to our hero, Christopher Lane. Already half dropped out from society, he learns that he is blessed with the tau factor, and upon entering an exchange, learns that it enables him to step out of phase with time. This gives him access to a fairyland world divided into little islands of time. There he meets his true love and hatches a plan to sever his ties with the old Earth before the last exchange closes forever.

As for the sex content, much is made of pulchritude of Christopher's vapid and Earthbound girlfriend (we even learn the color of her pubic hair: black). In this case, the focus on mechanical, unsatisfactory love-making is contrasted with the more elevated relations Chris enjoys out of time.

Only barely science fiction, it is nevertheless a good read. Four stars.

The Turned-off Heads, by Fritz Leiber

The issue takes a bit of a tumble with the next short-short. This exploration of pop culture and the evolving relation of mankind to machinekind is affectedly outré and rather pointless. At least it's short, and I suppose Leiber gets points for forecasting fashion.

Two stars.

by Ed Emshwiller

I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg, by Harlan Ellison and Robert Sheckley

Here's a piece that reads like it could have been in Dangerous Visions. I'm not sure how much was written by Ellison and how much by Sheckley, but it definitely reads like a fusion of their styles.

Our "star" is Joe Pareti, a man whose prime distinction from the rest of the Earth's teeming, over-educated billions is his ability to harvest "goo." This gray, mucousy sludge has choked the planet's oceans and now provides humanity's main source of food. It also has an alarming tendency to writhe, occasionally forming itself into grotesque parodies of animal life.

The goo also, on rare occasion, infects its harvesters. In an act of carelessness, Pareti succumbs, losing all of his hair overnight. His doctor warns that greater changes may be in store, but given that only six cases preceded Joe's, all of them wildly different in their courses, nothing more can be determined.

It doesn't take long for Joe to find out. In short order, every woman finds him irresistible. A life of increasingly exotic sexual escapades is frustrated when inanimate objects also start to make advances on the former goo farmer. Will he succumb to their inorganic advances? What happens if he says no?

This is a weird piece. But, like most things by Ellison and Sheckley, it's a good piece. Four stars.

Light On Cader, by Josephine Saxton

A young undertaker, bade by his mother's dying wish, climbs Cader Idris in Wales on a raw, misty morning. At the summit, he encounters his life's desire…or maybe an unearthly trap.

That's it. There's really not much to this story–except flavor and texture, which is competently done.

Three star.

Crack in the Shield, by Arthur Sellings

This UK author offers up a glimpse of life in the 22nd Century. The development of the personal shield, and (for the less wealthy) shields for structures, causes society to fracture into a myriad of animal-totemed clans. Each has laid claim to a province of the economy: Bees make food, Peacocks are in advertising, etc. Assured immortality by falling in line within this strict societal structure, imagination largely disappears.

The only hope for the race lies with those who voluntarily give up their shields. Crack is the story of Philip Tawn, Peacock, who is driven to do just that.

I found this an implausibly optimistic piece, but Sellings writes it well enough. It's also a bit more fuddy-duddy than the rest of the mag, but I suppose balance has its place.

Three stars.

The Seventh Metal, by Isaac Asimov

Last issue, I praised Doc A.'s article on the ancient discovery and use of the first seven metals (what a kitschy store in Borrego Springs, where I spent the weekend, described as "the seven mystic metals"). Left undiscussed in that piece was mercury, remarkable among the first seven for being the only one that is a liquid at usual temperatures.

Asimov does a fine job talking about element Hg (and why it has that abbreviation). Four stars.

Lunatic Assignment, by Sonya Dorman

Sonya Dorman's tale is of "Four men, dressed in limp white shirts and slacks," each with his own madness. Keepsy, a pervert who sleeps with his hand on his crotch, has a maelstrom of a mind, betrayed all the more by his frustrated desire to project normalcy. Arrigott, having no sense of ego, has trouble with the word "I". Fomer is a schizoid, an empty vessel. And Braun, their leader, has barely suppressed desires to rape and ravage.

But the world is an asylum, and someone has to run it.

I can't say I quite understood this piece, but it is memorable. Three stars.

In His Own Image, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

by Ed Emshwiller

Lastly, we have the tale of Gordon Effro, a spacewrecked sinner who ends up at a lifeboat station at the edge of space. He washes up at a station inhabited by a mad proselytizer with a coterie of robotic disciples. All Effro wants to do is drink himself blind until the rescue ship arrives, but the wild-eyed Christian has other plans.

I liked this story quite a lot up to its conclusion. There are a number of ways this story could have ended. Biggle chose perhaps the least satisfying, the most conventional.

Thus, three stars.

Can I open my eyes?

As it turns out, the stories with smut were my favorites. However, I don't think their salacious content was what sold me; rather, they were just the most interesting of the pieces. On the other hand, perhaps McKenna and Ellison/Sheckley were able to write so effectively because they felt less fettered when they produced these pieces.

I guess only time will tell if 1967 marked an experimental flirtation with sex in science fiction…or if it presaged an SFnal revolution!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 16, 1967] The Generation Gap (May 1967 Fantastic)

April 16, 2022 Victoria Silverwolf 3 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

Youth is Wasted on the Young

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
— attributed to Socrates

It's no secret that young people are rejecting many of the opinions of their elders these days. That's always been true to some extent, of course. However, with the hippie culture, the civil rights movement, and antiwar protests, all of which mostly involve young adults, the gap between the generations seems wider than ever.

In particular, once heavy bombing of North Vietnam began a couple of years ago (Operation Rolling Thunder, still going on intermittently), college students, led by such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society, started demonstrating against the war. On April 17, 1965, somewhere between fifteen thousand and twenty-five thousand people showed up at the nation's capital, in the largest protest to date.

SDS members and others during the March on Washington, almost exactly two years ago.

There have been many other protests since then, both in the United States and other nations. I don't mean to imply that these demonstrations consist entirely of young people, but they do seem to make up the majority of peace activists.

Just yesterday, thousands appeared at massive protests against the conflict in Vietnam in major cities across the United States. In New York City, well over one hundred young men burned their draft cards, followed by a speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., at the United Nations.

The crowd fills Kazar stadium in San Francisco.

What does the parallel escalation of America's involvement in the war and the rejection of it by many young adults and their elders mean for the immediate future of the United States? It's hard to say, but things look dark. Just as the struggle for civil rights sometimes looks like a second Civil War, complete with bloodshed, the battle between Hawks and Doves threatens to tear the country apart along political lines. Let's hope the nation is never as divided as it seems to be now.

Music to Argue With Your Parents or Children By

The tension between generations shows up in popular culture as well. A fine example of this happened recently. From late March until the middle of April, a cheerful little tune from the young folks who call themselves The Turtles was at the top of the American music charts. Happy Together is a great favorite of teenagers, I believe.

I like the part near the end, when the frequently repeated title changes to How is the weather.

Mom and Dad are likely to prefer the song that replaced it as Number One this week. Veteran crooner Frank Sinatra, assisted by daughter Nancy, currently has the nation's biggest hit with the much more traditional number Somethin' Stupid.

I'll refrain from commenting on the propriety of having father and daughter sing a love song together.

Catch a Wave

Not even speculative fiction escapes the conflict between generations. The so-called New Wave movement within the field, primarily in the United Kingdom, offers experimental, controversial, and sometimes incomprehensible stories to readers. The latest issue of Fantastic, a magazine which has been rather stodgy since it went to a policy of containing mostly reprints, mixes a bit of New Wave with plenty of Old Wave stuff.

Cover art by Malcolm Smith.

As usual, the cover reprints art from an old magazine. In this case, it's from the back cover of the July 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

The original looks a lot better.

The Ant with the Human Soul (Part One of Two), by Bob Olsen

Cover art by Leo Morey.

The whole of this Old Wave, pre-Campbell novella appeared in full in the Spring-Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly. I guess Fantastic didn't want to devote most of the magazine to it.

Illustrations by Morey also.

The narrator tries to kill himself by jumping into the ocean, but a scientist rescues him. The scientist suggests a bizarre scheme. He has a gizmo that can increase or decrease the size of anything, even living creatures. He combines that with neurosurgery in order to perform a weird experiment.

First, he'll increase an ant to the size of a human being. After that, he'll put a part of the narrator's brain into the ant's head. When he shrinks the ant back down to normal size, the narrator will experience everything the ant does, and will be able to control the ant's actions. In essence, he will become the ant.

After the strange transformation takes place, the narrator takes us on a guided tour of life in an ant colony. This first part ends with a cliffhanger, promising the reader that a violent event is about to occur.

Mad Science!

This is an odd story, not only because of the outrageous premise. The mood varies wildly. Some sections deal with the narrator's loss of religious faith, which drove him to attempt suicide. Others are very lighthearted, with playful banter between the two characters. The best part of it is the description of life as an ant, which is depicted in vivid, accurate detail.

Three stars, mostly for taking me into the ant colony.

The Thinking Seat, by Peter Tate

Cover art by Keith Roberts, better known to me as a writer.

The magazine calls this a new novelette, which is a half-truth. It's new to American readers, but it appeared in the November 1966 issue of the British publication New Worlds. My esteemed colleague Mark Yon reviewed it at that time, but let's take another look.

Illustration by Gray Morrow, which is the only truly new thing in the magazine.

The setting is the seacoast of California in the near future. The rugged shore has been replaced with artificial beaches of a tamer nature. The water is warmer, due to the discharge from a nuclear power plant. (I also got the impression that it made the water thicker, almost gelatinous, but I may be wrong about that. This New Wave story isn't always clear.)

A man and a woman with a strange relationship show up at a beatnik colony. She'd like to be more intimate with the fellow, but he doesn't seem interested. Instead, he becomes fascinated by a charismatic poet, who openly announces that he's going to take the woman away from the other man. Things come to a climax during an attempt to sabotage the nuclear power plant, as a way of protesting what it's done to the coast.

I have probably greatly simplified and distorted the plot, because this isn't the easiest story to understand. The narrative often stops to offer examples of obscure poetry, which adds more ambiguity. (Apparently the poet steals phrases from the Beat poets, but I don't know enough about their work to confirm that.)

I got the impression that this example of the Eternal Triangle, which ends badly, was really a case of repressed homosexuality. That's a theme you won't find in most Old Wave science fiction, to be sure. The whole thing works better as a study of the psychology of the three main characters rather than as science fiction.

Three stars, mostly for keeping me wondering about things.

A Way of Thinking, by Theodore Sturgeon

Cover art by Art Sussman.

The October-November 1953 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this supernatural chiller from the pen of one of the field's greatest stylists.

Illustration by Ernest Schroeder.

The narrator is a writer of science fiction and fantasy, who even mentions his work appearing in Amazing, so I assume it's a fictional version of the author. He tells us about an acquaintance who reacts to problems in unusual ways, often by thinking about things backwards. The fellow's brother is dying a slow, horrible death. The suggestion arises that it might have something to do a doll owned by the dying man's vengeful ex-girlfriend. The brother deals with the situation in his usual unorthodox manner.

This synopsis makes the story sound like a typical tale of voodoo, but that's misleading. I don't want to give too much away, but the plot goes in unexpected directions, and the climax is truly disturbing. Of course, given the author, it's very well written. It's not his most ambitious work, to be sure, but it succeeds as a horror story.

Three stars, mostly for the shocking conclusion.

The Pin, by Robert Bloch

Cover art by Mel Hunter.

From the December-January 1953-1954 issue of Amazing Stories comes another tale of terror.

Illustration by Lee Teaford.

An artist looking for a cheap studio comes across an abandoned loft. It's supposed to be empty, but there's a guy inside, surrounded by a huge pile of telephone books, directories, and so forth. The fellow stabs at random names in the books with a pin.

You may have already figured out that the pin causes the death of those whose names are selected. (The premise reminds me of Ray Bradbury's 1943 story The Scythe, as well as the 1958 movie I Bury the Living.) There aren't a lot of surprises in the plot, but it's an effective little thriller.

Three stars, mostly for creating an eerie mood.

Cold Green Eye, by Jack Williamson

Cover art by Richard Powers.

The March-April 1953 issue of the magazine offers yet another spooky tale. In its original appearance, it was called The Cold Green Eye. Don't ask me why they left out the first word.

Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The child of a pair of daring explorers is raised by Buddhist monks after his parents die in a mountaineering accident. He's adopted by an aunt back in the United States. She's a harsh disciplinarian, punishing the boy for what she thinks of as his heathenish ways. In particular, she hates flies and kills them whenever she can, while the child believes in reincarnation and that all living creatures should be protected. Things get strange when the kid uses the sacred scroll he has in his possession.

There's a good chance you'll see the ending coming, although it still raises goose bumps. What's more surprising is that the cruel aunt is a devout Christian, in contrast to the boy's gentle Buddhism. I didn't expect that from an American horror story from more than a decade ago. Maybe the author just thought it made for a good story, and wasn't really trying to say anything about the two faiths.

Three stars, mostly for aunt's comeuppance.

Hok Draws the Bow, by Manly Wade Wellman

Cover art by C. L. Hartman.

Here's a sequel to a story that was reprinted in the previous issue of Fantastic. It comes from the May 1940 issue of Amazing Stories.

Illustrations by Robert Fuqua.

Once again our hero is Hok, a Homo sapiens fighting a war of extermination against sinister, cannibalistic Neanderthals. (It's best to forget about this story's version of prehistory and just think of it as a sword-and-sorcery yarn.) A fellow shows up bragging about his ability to project a spear farther than anybody else. That's because he's got a leather strap that he winds around it, sending it spinning.

The boastful man also has plan to take over Hok's clan, and he's particularly interested in Hok's pretty mate. He's made himself a god-like ruler over the Neanderthals, even teaching them basic military tactics. It looks like Hok's people will be wiped out, but our hero combines the man's strap and a throwing stick used by the Neanderthals to create a secret weapon.

That doesn't keep him from being captured. Fortunately, his mate has a throwing arm Sandy Koufax might envy.

The title and the opening illustration give away the fact that this story is about Hok inventing the bow and arrow. Other than that, it's an efficient adventure story.

Three stars, mostly for keeping things moving quickly.

Beside Still Waters, by Robert Sheckley

Illustration by Virgil Finlay.

The same issue as the Sturgeon story is the source of this tale. A spaceman lives on an asteroid, turning rock into soil that can grow crops and extracting oxygen from minerals. His only companion is a robot. The machine starts off only able to speak a few phrases, but over time the man teaches it to converse more fully. The story ends with a scene that tries to touch the reader's emotions.

The fact that the man can live on the surface of an asteroid unprotected, even if he somehow produces oxygen and food, is ludicrous. (Not to mention the fact that the asteroid's tiny gravity is going to send the oxygen out into space quickly.) The ending takes the plot into pure fantasy. An author best known for his wit tries to be sentimental here, and the result is bathetic.

Two stars, mostly for the excellent illustration.

Bridging the Gap

That was mostly a middle-of-the-road issue, coming to a sudden halt at the end. Maybe there's something to be said for mediocrity. If nothing else, both young and old can agree that the Old Wave and the New Wave have their ups and downs.

The late President Kennedy closes the generation gap.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 18, 1966] What's the Difference? (Two versions of Mindswap by Robert Sheckley)

May 18, 2021 Victoria Silverwolf 6 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

What's The Big Idea?

Science fiction writers often take novellas that have appeared in magazines and turn them into novels, to be published as books. Sometimes this doesn't require any expansion of the original at all, particularly if it's half of an Ace Double.

Case in point, as Rod Serling might say, is The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick, which appeared in the December 1964 issue of Fantastic.

Cover art by Lloyd Birmingham. It's not really a complete short novel, but you'll rarely see the word novella in a magazine.

It showed up as half of Ace Double G-602 without any changes. (In case you're wondering, the other half was something called The Mind Monsters by somebody named Howard L. Cory.)

Cover art by Kelly Freas. It's still not a complete novel.

On the other hand, an author can make use of the big (and profitable) idea of reusing old material by adding new stuff to it. One example is The Whole Man by John Brunner. The first half is original, while the second half makes use of two previously published novellas.

The cover art is anonymous, and deserves to be so, in my opinion.

With that background in mind, let's take a look at a recent example of stretching a novella into a novel.

What's The Story?

I'll start with the magazine version of Mindswap, Robert Sheckley's comic tale of a fellow whose consciousness goes bouncing around the universe from body to body. It appeared in the June 1965 issue of Galaxy.

Cover art by George Schelling. The table of contents calls Mindswap a, you guessed it, complete short novel.

Our Gracious Host didn't care for it, awarding it only two stars. That's a matter of taste of course, as I'll discuss later. For now, let me outline the plot, so we can compare it with the novel.

Marvin Flynn is a fellow who wants to travel to other planets, but who can't afford the extremely high price of space travel. Fortunately, the process of switching bodies with somebody, even over interstellar distances, is a lot cheaper. (Maybe not the most plausible premise in the world, but let's go with it.)

He answers an ad from a Martian who wants to mindswap with an Earthling. The bad news is that the Martian is a crook, who has already sold his body to a previous customer, and who runs off with Marvin's body. Marvin has to mindswap again, in order to avoid dying when he gets kicked out of the criminal's body.

Having no other choice, he winds up in an alien body, working as an egg catcher. These aren't ordinary eggs. They talk, for one thing. In addition to that, the dinosaur-like beings who produce the eggs hunt down those hunting the eggs. Facing a very unpleasant demise in the jaws of one of these creatures, Marvin mindswaps once more.

This time he's in the body of an insectoid alien, and he has a ticking ring in his nose that might be a bomb, ready to go off in the near future.

Things are already complicated enough, but it gets a lot weirder. You see, the act of mindswapping tends to cause the swapper to perceive reality in odd ways. The story turns into a parody of cowboy fiction when Marvin hallucinates that he's in the Old West.

Without going into too much detail about a complex plot, let me just say that Marvin falls in love, loses the woman he adores, searches for her with the help of a peculiar companion, confronts the villain who stole his body, and winds up back on Earth. There's a twist at the end.

What's New?

Mindswap just came out as a hardcover novel from Delacorte Press. Is it worth paying the three dollars and ninety-five cents they're asking at the bookstore? Let's find out. (Or you could just wait for the paperback edition, which should cost just about as much as the magazine did.)

Cover art by James McMullan. By the way, The Game of X isn't science fiction, but a comic spy novel.

At first, there seems to be very little difference between the novella and the novel. That changes at Chapter 24 (out of 33) or, if you prefer, on page 151 (out of 216.) Either way, that means that not quite one-third of the book is new.

In the short version, Marvin runs into the Martian crook a lot quicker. In the long version, there's a major section of the book where he gets involved in a swashbuckling adventure. Reality has completely broken down at this point, so you'll just have to accept the fact that he starts acting and talking like somebody in an Errol Flynn movie. After that, we get the same twist ending as in the magazine.

What's So Funny?

Appreciation of comedy is very much an individual thing; more so, I think, than appreciation of any other form of art. Maybe I like the Marx Brothers and you like the Three Stooges. Each of us would have a difficult time convincing the other of the superiority of our differing preferences. Without arguing for the merits of Sheckley's work, allow me to discuss the various forms of humor he employs.

Slapstick

Maybe we can define this as amusement at another person's woes, as long as they're ludicrous. When Marvin is about to get his head bitten off by a dinosaur, or when he expects to have the bomb in his nose explode, we can laugh at his anxiety.

Parody

I've already mentioned the spoofs of Western and swashbuckling fiction. There's also a section where, for ridiculous reasons, characters start speaking in pseudo-Shakespearean verse. The novel as a whole seems to be a parody of science fiction itself.

Wordplay

This occurs all through the book. Right at the start we hear Marvin and his buddy talk in futuristic slang that borrows from other languages. (Might Sheckley be making fun of the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange?)

The author delights in silly names, of which there are dozens, if not hundreds, scattered throughout the novel. Marvin's companion during his search for his lost love alternates speaking in a thick, stereotypical Mexican accent and formal English. During the swashbuckling section, everybody talks in a highfalutin' fashion that you'd only hear in a romantic novel or a Hollywood movie.

Illogic

Reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter, Sheckley's characters often reason in ways that might seem superficially logical, but which expose their inside-out and upside-down thinking.

The Martian detective searching for the criminal (I didn't mention him, did I?) figures that probability is on his side; he's failed to solve 158 cases, so he's bound to solve this one.

The hermit who mindswaps Marvin from the egg hunter's body into the insectoid body (I didn't mention him either, did I?) speaks in verse because he thinks it protects him from the dinosaurs. His proof? That he hasn't been killed yet.

The pseudo-Mexican helping Marvin in his search (I did mention him, didn't I?) has an unusual theory of searching; just go somewhere and wait, so that the searcher becomes the searchee.

Overall, I have to say that the book amused me. It doesn't have quite the same satiric bite as some other Sheckley works, but it made me smile all the way through.

Three and one-half stars.

What's Next?

I'm sure that other writers will continue to turn stories into novels. (The series of linked stories by Robert Silverberg that started with Blue Fire and which recently ended, or so it seems, with Open the Sky cries out to be a novel.)

My sources in the publishing industry tell me that Larry Niven's impressive novella World of Ptavvs has been expanded into a novel, and will appear in a few months. Here's a sneak preview.

Cover art by Norman Adams

And just to prove that authors aren't the only ones to reuse old material, just take a look at this book from 1963.

Look familiar?

All of us should heed the example of writers, artists, and publishers, and reuse whatever we can. It's the patriotic thing to do.

Junior looks like he might be searching through old science fiction magazines.

If you want to hear some great current music, then tune in to KGJ, our radio station! We never reuse the old songs!

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction