Tag Archives: ronald walotsky

[February 22, 1969] Good and Bad Trips (March 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

February 22, 2024 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Davey Jones has company

This week, the regional news has been filled with the death of a local hero. Aquanaut Berry L. Cannon, a resident of Sealab III off the coast of La Jolla, died while diving 610 feet to repair a helium leak in his undersea home.

It wasn't a matter of foul play or (so far as is currently known) an accident. The 33 year old Cannon, subject to the rigors of a deep dive and 19 times the pressure out of water, simply succumbed to a cardiac arrest. He was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

The three other divers who had gone with him had no physical troubles. The repair effort had come shortly after the habitat had been lowered to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean pending long-term habitation by eight aquanauts. Cannon was a veteran of the second Sealab experiment, back in 1965.

We talk a lot about the space program here on the Journey, but it's important to know that humanity is pushing at all the frontiers, from Antarctica to the sea bottom. And in all such dangerous endeavors, there are tragedies as well as triumphs. Sacrifice is part of the bargain we make for survival of the species, but it never goes down any easier. Especially for his wife, Mary Lou, and their three children…

Davy Jones has company

In less tragic news, the latest issue of F&SF is filled with the kind of madcap, surreal adventures you might expect to find on the (sadly cancelled) The Monkees, particularly the first tale:

by Ronald Walotsky, illustrating the title story

Calliope and Gherkin and the Yankee Doodle Thing, by Evelyn E. Smith

Like, far out—two Greenwich Village type 17 year-olds, the Jewish "Gherkin" and his Black girlfriend "Calliope" are set up to take the biggest trip of their life. Like, they don't trip out on acid or pot, but literally are snatched for a jaunt to the stars, where they hook up with some of the sexiest green-furred cats you ever did saw.

Was it all an illusion? Or were they really summoned beyond the stars for stud duty? The plot thickens when Calliope begins to show in a motherly way…

This is the first I've seen of Evelyn E. Smith since she was a frequent star of Galaxy in the early '50s. Her chatty, droll style translates pretty well into the modern day, with her madcap, satirical melange of race relations, drug culture, and extraterrestrial high jinks. It runs, perhaps, a bit overlong, and also overdense, but it's not unenjoyable. Welcome back!

Three stars.

Party Night, by Reginald Bretnor

Carce is a scheming woman-user, all veneer and bitterness. When his multi-year attempts to seduce the woman he wants from her husband fails, he goes on a driving jag that plunges him further and further into a night determined to karmically repay him. The pay-off is horrific, though appropriate.

Typical Twilight Zone or Hitchcock stuff, but nicely presented.

Four stars.

by Gahan Wilson

After Enfer, by Philip Latham

A milquetoast of a man, paralyzed by fear, decides (at the urging of his wife) to find a better job than the museum position he's been stuck in for 16 years. He is recruited to explore the Nth Dimensions with an eye toward opening up tesseractal space for colonization, the world being intensely overcrowded.

We never get no details of the trip; we just know that no one has ever managed to deal with the terror of 3D+ space before. Frankly, without that, the story is just sort of frivolous and a let down.

Two stars.

The Leftovers, by Sterling E. Lanier

The latest Brigadier Ffellowes shaggy-dog-story-told-in-a-pub-setting is the least of the three Lanier has written thus far. This time, it's about a Paleozoic race of sinister, intelligent bipeds that inhabit the southern coast of Arabia, and how the Brigadier and his Sudanese sidekick narrowly escape their pursuit.

Lovecraft was doing such stories better many decades ago. A low three stars.

An Affair with Genius, by Joseph Green

Valence is a gifted biologist, plodding and methodical. For twelve years, he has been estranged from Valerie, a volatile genius in the same field, with whom he had shared a brief but remarkable relationshop. Success tore them apart, as she got the credit for their landmark discovery, and then seemingly abandoned him for a senior professor.

So, when she reappears in his life on the desiccating planet of Tau Ceti 2 where Valence had been researching the colony life forms that eke out a bleak existence, he is shattered, even to the point of contemplating her death.

Fate intervenes in the form of a sudden sand storm, and Valence must save Valerie's life. In the ensuing moment he comes to the realization that without her, he was nothing–just a persistent technician, while Valerie had all the real talent.

But the truth is more complicated; sometimes, it takes yin and yang to make a complete unit…

This is a beautiful story. Perhaps I'm just the intended audience, but I loved it. Five stars.

Just Right, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor offers up, this month, a piece on the square-cube law—explaining why it's not possible to simply shrink or grow the scale of an object and think it will be subject to the same physical laws. He lambasts the TV show Land of the Giants in the process, as is appropriate.

It's a good article, and the final sentence is hilarious. Four stars.

The Day the Wind Died, by Peter Tate

An old man squats on his roof, in a senile dream reliving his days as an ace in World War I, planning to soar on artificial wings he has just purchased. His son Charlie, a harried weatherman, drops a mirror while shaving. His son notices that the wind around their house has abruptly stopped, and he believes his father caused it. He tells his friends.

And the plainclothes agents for the Bureau for the Investigation of Weather Incidents takes notice, certain that Charlie has stilled the wind for nefarious purposes—to ensure his father falls to his death when he takes to the sky on his wings.

Is Charlie a wizard? Who are these agents? Is this our world at all?

A surreal, rather puzzling story. I give it three stars.

Benji's Pencil, by Bruce McAllister

Maxwell, an English teacher, wakes from cold sleep two centuries hence only to find the world crammed with people and utterly lacking in color. But beauty exists as long as poetry is possible, and Maxwell makes sure that his multi-great grandson has the power of simile before the teacher is sent to the euthanasia chamber at age 70.

The story is written in a hopeful tone, but the subtext is entirely cynical. As usual, McAllister shows promise, but there is still a rawness that holds his work back from greatness.

Three stars.

Coming up for air

A good issue, this, and thankfully, no one had to risk perishing to explore these frontiers. Then again, perhaps it is prose daydreams like the ones in F&SF that drive men to explore onward. No coin is without two sides, I suppose.

Here's to future expeditions, both literary and actual, and safe travels to all who undertake them!

by Ronald Walotsky

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 20, 1968] It comes and goes (October 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

September 20, 2023 Gideon Marcus 3 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Out and in

Being something of a geography buff, one of my favorite games is to go to a thrift shop and inspect their globe collection. I can generally tell what year a globe was manufactured from the configuration of countries. And while we haven't had anything like the banner year of 1960, when more than a dozen African states sprang into existence, nevertheless, there are still enough changes every year to keep the game going.

For instance, this month, the Kingdom of Swaziland with its 400,000 denizens, achieved independence from the United Kingdom. The second-smallest African country, is not entirely free, of couse. It is completely surrounded by South Africa, with all transportation lines running through Pretoria. The money is South African. All telegraph lines go through South Africa. As for their economy, it's mostly propped up by British hand-outs.

But they do have sovereignty, something South Africa tried to snatch from them time and again, but which was thwarted by the British. Plus, the new country has vast mineral reserves of asbestos and iron, plus forests and fertile soil. So King Sobhuza I just might make a go of things.

Going the other way, the people of West Irian (formerly Netherlands New Guinea) have has been annexed as Indonesia's 26th province. Six years ago, the United Nations stepped in to stop a budding conflict between the Dutch and the Indonesians, who both laid claim to the region. Now the 800,000 poverty-stricken inhabitants are officially under the auspices of General Suharto. Sometime soon, they will be given the choice between independence and a union with their neighboring would-be superpower. It is anyone's guess how free and honest the local elections can be under the Suharto dictatorship (i.e. don't expect a free West Papua any time soon…)

The Morning Star Flag—which you won't see flown until and unless the Irians get independence…

Good and bad

Speaking of mixed bags, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction has much to recommend it, but then there's all the rest of the magazine. See for yourself:

by Ronald Walotsky

The Meddler, by Larry Niven

Bruce Cheeseborough, Jr. is a private dick operating some time in the near future. While in the course of waging a one man crusade against the new crime boss, Lester Dunhaven Sinclair, a certain meddler crosses his path. Said meddler first appears as a nebbishy, softish man, but he quickly betrays himself as a protean blob, possessed of all manner of wondrous powers. The "Martian" offers to help the detective, granting him invulnerability, the gift of flight, time dilation…but Cheeseborough finds the tilting of the scales unsporting.

Still, when the detective makes his final assault on Chez Sinc, it's going to take every resource he has, from human wit to alien marvel, to come out the other end alive…

The Meddler is a brilliant piece of genre hybridization, combining hard-boiled noir with cunning science fiction. Every piece of the story's myriad puzzles is meticulously laid out, so that an astute reader can figure out the revelations just before they materialized. Beyond that, the piece is funny as well as perfectly paced.

Five stars, and a nice broadening of the author's talents.

Time Was, by Phyllis Murphy

Picture a man so obsessed with saving time, that he applies the art of speed reading to life. You know: skipping over most of it, trying to absorb only the salient points. Except, how do you know which bits are the important ones? And what if you lose the ability to focus on any given thing in the pursuit of apprehending everything?

This story reminded me of a friend who insisted a person must do several things at once to be truly efficient. If she read the paper, she listened to the radio. When we watched television together, she'd inevitably crochet. Remarkably efficient…except half the time, she lost track of the show's plot and had to ask us what was going on.

Three stars.

The Wide World of Sports , by Harvey Jacobs

They say that football is a bloody sport, but it's nowhere near as bloody as whatever Jacobs is describing in this story, featuring machine guns, the slaughter of all audience members of a certain name, and general mayhem.

This story would be more effective if it made a lick of sense and/or had a plot. Two stars.

by Gahan Wilson

Coffee Break, by D. F. Jones

There's a Laugh-In bit where the projected news break underneath the action runs, "The United Nations today voted unanimously on everything; UN police are still looking for who put grass in the vents."

This story covers the exact same ground, but it takes much longer to do it, and not in nearly as funny a manner.

Two stars.

Dance Music for a Gone Planet, by Sonya Dorman

Fiddling after Rome is burnt? A tinge of hope for a post-apocalyptic ode?

I'm not sure—I found this one a bit too obtuse to understand. Maybe I'm the obtuse one.

Two stars.

Possible, That's All!, by Arthur C. Clarke

The Other Good Doctor takes umbrage at Asimov's assertion that nothing can go faster than light. He offers up some counterexamples, but they're honestly rather feeble, and the article is not particularly coherent.

Three stars.

Try a Dull Knife, by Harlan Ellison

Eddie Burma is an empath, life of the party, and he has so much to give. Folks are drawn to his magnetic personality like moths to flame, but, unknowingly, each takes a little bit from Burma in each encounter. This is the price of popularity: eventually, there can be nothing left of you, the you behind the glamor and charm, because no one wants you. They just want what rubs off.

If you've heard this refrain before, it's because Ellison delivered a soliloquy on the subject in his last collection, From the Land of Fear. Harlan is afeared that no one really loves him; they just love The Talent that resides within his physical husk. Readers of that collection also have encountered Knife in its embryonic form, a snippet of it among the story fragments at the beginning of the book.

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your soul overlaps with Harlan's, then his writing resonates with you as The Truth. If you are much unlike the man (as, for instance, I am), then you can admire the way he strings words together, but they don't move much.

Three stars for me. Four stars, perhaps, for you.

Segregationist, by Isaac Asimov

Organ transplants are the topic du jour in both science and science fiction. I find it particularly interesting that much is made of the muddled identity of a person when they incorporate the parts of other humans (viz. Van Scyoc's A Trip to Cleveland General in this month's Galaxy). This time around, Asimov takes things a step further: are humans less human if they have metal hearts? And are robots more human if they incorporate biological components?

I liked this story, one of the better pieces Dr. A has done since largely going on fiction hiatus after the launch of Sputnik.

Four stars.

The Ghost Patrol, by Ron Goulart

Speaking of crossed genres, Ghost Patrol is the latest in the Max Kearny series about an art director who solves occult crimes in his spare time. These yarns range from hilariously clever to limp.

This one, about a free doctor beset both by celebrity ghosts and Bircher anti-freeloaders, belongs, sadly, in the latter category.

Two stars.

Little Found Satellite, by Isaac Asimov

This month's piece is worth it for the funny anecdote that forms its preface. The rest is a pleasant, if not particularly deep, history of Saturn's telescopic observation. The piece culminates in the discovery of Saturn's tenth moon, Janus, just outside the ring system.

Four stars.

The Fangs of the Trees, by Robert Silverberg

At a recent convention, my daughter led a panel entitled "Plants vs. People", in which the panelists and audience discussed green menaces of various kinds. Triffids, killer ragweed, stuff like that. I wish I'd had Fangs as an example, as it's a good one.

Zen Holbrook is runs a plantation on a world countless light years from Earth. His trees produce a valuable, hallucinogenic-juiced fruit. They're also quasi-sentient, something like ultra-advanced Venus Fly Traps. Though he tries to keep his relationship with his trees strictly business, he can't help ascribing them personalities, giving them names, and treating them like pampered pets.

Which makes it all the more difficult when he gets news that all of the trees in Sector C have been afflicted with "rust", a disease that not only spells their impending death, but has the risk of spreading throughout the whole planet. Holbrook must kill his friends lest an entire world's economy die. Further complicating the matter is his 15-year old niece, Naomi, who would rather die than see the grove decimated.

It is implied, though never specifically stated, that there is no less destructive way to solve the problem: not only must the trees die, but so must an entire species of benign hopper-bear—a link in the infection cycle. Lord knows what that will do the local ecosystem, but "the needs of the many…"

It's an interesting, thought-provoking piece, composed with Silverberg's usual excellence, though I'm not quite sure which side we're supposed to take, if any. Like, do we all need to grow up and realize that ecological destruction is a valid and important necessity? Or is Zen actually the villain? I could have done without so much of the Uncle's attraction for his niece, too, even if it was supposed to say…something…about Zen's character. I know that the word for people who ascribe the emotions of an author's creation to the author himself is "moron" (at least, per Larry Niven), but Silverbob sure includes a lot of just-pubescent minors in his stories…

Four stars.

Whaddaya make of that?

If you read judiciously, this month's mag is terrific, kind of like how, if you parse the news in just the right way, it's all positive developments. Look deeper, and the seams show. Still, whether the news or the magazine are half full or empty all depends on your temperament, I suppose.

I guess I'll leave with the wishy washy conclusion that's always true: things could be worse!

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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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Movies, TV

[January 22, 1968] The Magical Mystery Tour (February 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction…plus the Beatles movie!)

January 22, 2023 Gideon Marcus 3 Comments

KGJ Weekly News is back! Come watch and find our what happened this week

by Gideon Marcus

A small pond

We have exciting tidbits from both sides of The Pond today, so stay tuned for both. But first up, the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

I got a letter from Ted White the other day. Seems he's no longer assistant editor over at F&SF, which is a shame. Apparently, he was once under consideration for editor at Fantastic (and possibly Amazing) back when Celle Goldsmith (Lalli) left! Boy, would that have been an interesting tenure–certainly more interesting than what we got under Sol Cohen.

Anyway, keep reading, because this isn't the only time Ted's name will come up.

by Ronald Walotsky

The Colonies

Stranger in the House, by Kate Wilhelm

We've been seeing a lot more of Kate Wilhelm, lately, which is generally a good thing. Stranger seems as if it will be a fairly typical, if sinister, haunted house story. A middle-aged couple moves into a house in the country, a surprisingly good deal, to escape the hustle and bustle of the city after the husband suffers a heart attack. Immediately, the wife begins to suffer fainting spells and strange visions. A little research uncovers that, since 1920, the place has seen an inordinate number of deaths and inexplicable illnesses amongst its ocuppants.

Is it a vengeful spook? Radon poisoning? Actually, as we quickly learn, it's an alien in the basement. Not just any alien: this one was sent on a first contact expedition. The hope of its race was that they would get to see that transient moment when a species first makes the jump into space.

The problem is, said aliens are hideous, live in a toxic atmosphere, shed acid, and communicate via a telepathy that is about as conducive to human communication as an icepick in the forehead. How, then, can there be a meeting of the minds?

I love a good "first contact" story, and I appreciate that Wilhelm has created a truly alien being. What keeps this piece from excellence are a couple of factors. For one, it is overlong for what it does. More importantly, much of the story, particularly that told from the alien's point of view, is detached and told in past tense. This lack of immediacy in a story that deals with turbulent emotions puts a muffling gauze over the proceedings. I wonder, in fact, if the whole story might have been improved by only including the human viewpoint.

Three stars.

The Lucky People, by Albert E. Cowdrey

Why stay hitched to three channels on the boob tube when you can watch the cannabalistic mutants that prey on your neighbors from the comfort of your own picture window?

Notable for being the first mention of Star Trek I've seen in print science fiction, it is a cute but frivolous tale.

Three stars.

The Stars Know, by Mose Mallette

A young ad exec, graduate of Dr. Ferthumlunger's 40-week handwriting analysis course, is convinced that his boss, the comely Lorna D., is in love with him. How else to explain "the sex-latent capitals, the rounded n's and m's, the generous o's and a's, and the unmistakably yearning ascenders in late."

Never mind that the note which our hero has examined is an angry exhortation to get his work done on time.

The misunderstanding continues, with Lorna actually becoming infatuated with the exec, but said exec steadfastedly refuses to believe it, analysis of subsequent notes revealing (so he believes) that she isn't interested at all. Of course, he doesn't actually read the contents of the notes. He only looks at the handwriting.

What seems a silly story at first is actually, upon further analysis, an indictment of those who miss the forest for the trees: the mystics, numerologists, saucer enthusiasts, and what have you, who ignore the evidence and invent their own patterns to reinforce their beliefs. It's really quite brilliant satire!

Or…perhaps I'm reading too much meaning into the thing.

Three stars.

by Gahan Wilson

Aperture in the Sky, by Theodore L. Thomas

Thomas' essays are usually not worth the single page they are written on. This time, however, he's hit on a good'n: artificial satellites designed to occult radio sources for better measurement of their distance. It sounds rather brilliant to me.

Four stars.

From a Terran Travel Folder, by Walter H. Kerr

Less successful is this one page program, I think advising aliens on the joy of eating people. I read it a few times and did not find myself enjoying it.

Two stars.

He Kilt It with a Stick, by William F. Nolan

Then we hit the nadir of the issue. The author of Logan's Run offers up a tale of a man who hates cats and does horrible things to them until they get their inevitable, macabre revenge.

Not only is this story cliché in the extreme, but if I never read another account of cruelty to cats, it'll be too soon.

One star. For shame.

Wednesday, Noon, by Ted White

Quality returns with this short piece by Ted White. When the rapture comes, the music may not be heavenly in origin, but it'll be compelling, all the same. This story took a whopping three and a half years to be printed from the date of submission (latter 1964), but I'm glad it finally made it. White has a real knack for living in his characters, conveying their sensory experience and internal monologues with visceral effectiveness. Wilhelm's piece could have used his touch, I think.

It helps that White lives in New York, the setting of the story, and lived through that brutal summer when Martha Reeves' classic first hit the airwaves…

Four stars.

The Locator, by Robert Lory

Gerald Bufus, accountant, is meticulous to the extreme. He also has a hobby: tracking the visitations of flying saucers to ensure he can one day be present at a landing. Sadly, his overwhelming addiction to symmetry compells him to greet the alien ship at the exact center of their predicted arrival site.

Three stars.

I Have My Vigil, by Harry Harrison

The three human crewmembers of the first interstellar flight go mad in hyperspace, and presently, none are left alive aboard the vessel except the one robot steward, who mechanically goes through the motions of serving the dead humans.

The twist at the end is ambiguous: has the robot also gone insane? Or is he actually a fourth crewmember, who has retreated behind a fictional metal shell in his own kind of insanity?

Four stars.

To Hell with the Odds, by Robert L. Fish

I love "deal with the Devil" stories, and this one, about a washed-up golfer who bargains to win this year's Open, is great all the way up to the end…where it flubs the finish. The problem I have is the clumsy phrasing of his final wish (an attempt to get out of the deal, which of course backfires,) given that he had 18 holes to perfect it.

Three stars.

The Predicted Metal, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor continues his series on the discovery of metals, this time recounting the creation of the Periodic Table. It's a fine piece, but I feel as if it was recycled from his 1962 book, The Search for the Elements.

Four stars.

The Veiled Feminists of Atlantis, by Booth Tarkington

The last is a 40-year old piece. Two scholars meet to discuss a legend of Atlantis in which the women not only win equality, but then fight a cataclysmic war with Atlantean men for the right to retain the distinction of their femininity–the veil.

Tarkington wrote the piece to poke a bit of fun at the war between the sexes that was waging in the 20s, whereby women had the temerity not only to demand the vote, but also to engage in male or female fashion and hobbies as they chose, and men were affronted by their cheek.

Interesting as an artifact, I suppose. Three stars.

Summing up

All in all, a decent but not outstanding magazine this month. And now onto something in an entirely different vein…

by Fiona Moore

At the outset of The Magical Mystery Tour, which premiered in black and white on Boxing Day but which was released in colour on 5 January this year, we are promised the “trip of a lifetime,” and, later on, we are assured that everyone is “having a lovely time.” Whether or not this includes the viewer is more open to question.

The Mystery Bus attempting to flee its critics.

The movie has the loose framing premise of Ringo Starr taking his Auntie Jessie on a Mystery Bus tour, in the company of the other Beatles, a few swinging hip types, an assortment of British pensioners who seem a little nonplussed by the proceedings, and The Courier, a Number Two figure who leads the tour assisted by Miss Winters and Alf the Driver. What follows is a series of short musical interludes featuring a selection of numbers from the eponymous album, interspersed with sketches that are a cargo-cult cross between At Last The 1948 Show and The Prisoner, which seem to miss the point of either.

There’s a sketch with a sergeant-major drilling the tour participants; a sort of school games’ day and car race around an airfield or test track (featuring Angelo Muscat, the Butler in The The Prisoner); a whirlwind romance between Auntie Jessie and a character named Buster Bloodvessel; a tent in a middle of a field that turns out to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. But no real sense of what all this is supposed to be saying to the audience.

Yes, but why?

The highlights of the film are definitely the musical interludes. “Flying”, when seen in colour, is actually rather beautiful (which is rather lost in the black and white version). There are also short films for “Blue Jay Way,” featuring George Harrison playing on a chalk-drawing piano, and “Fool on the Hill”, with Paul McCartney standing on, well, a hill. Everything really comes together, though, in “I Am the Walrus”, with the surreal costumes of the performers echoing the imagery of the song, and the Beatles all seem to be enjoying themselves. This is far from true of the other sketches, in which John and, in particular, George seem more than a little surly.

Everyone having a lovely time, apparently.

The film hit its nadir, for me, with a rather disgusting dream sequence of Auntie Jessie being served mountains of sloppy spaghetti by John Lennon in a restaurant, while the bus crew sit around half-naked drinking milk. Similarly peculiar was the decision to have a sequence where the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band perform their song “Death Cab for Cutie” in a strip club complete with stripper, watched by George and John. And the movie more or less ends right there, with that sequence going straight into a 1950s Hollywood-musical-style production of “Your Mother Should Know.”

I’d say this is definitely one for Beatles completists more than anything else.

Two out of Five stars.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 20, 1967] An Analog of Analog (August 1967 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

July 20, 2022 Gideon Marcus 5 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Imitation is…

I think it's safe to say that, for almost twenty years there have been three Big Science Fiction Magazines. Each aims at a specific branch of the scientification fandom. For instance, John Campbell's Analog (formerly Astounding) is at once the hardest of the Big Mags, focusing on near-future gizmo tech or sweeping galactic epics with a scientific core, and also one of the softest, given John's weakness for psi stories.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction covers the literary end of the STF spectrum, and it also veers into the outright fantastical (q.v. the masthead). Galaxy navigates a sort of middle path between the two.

But the most recent issue of FS&F had me wondering exactly which magazine I was reading again, for this month, Ed Ferman's publication feels a lot like Campbell's. Perhaps writers have finally answered FS&F's plea for harder works, or maybe Ferman finally had a sufficient number of such pieces to fill (most of) an issue. Either way, it's an interesting departure, especially with the increased art throughout. Does it work? Let's find out!

by Ronald Walotsky

Nuts, Bolts, and Dragons

Reduction in Arms, by Tom Purdom

My good friend Tom Purdom offers up this fascinating piece set in the early '80s. The superpowers have bound themselves by the Treaty of Peking to curtail the development and implementation of terrible weapons. But there is always the suspicion that one side or another is working on some version of a "ninety-five plus virus"–one that will wipe out most of a non-incoluated population.

Sure enough, American agents are tipped off when a Soviet biologist, supposed to be a patient in a specialized "role-play" treatment center, is found cavorting with ladies at a bar 30 miles away. A raid is authorized. Between hostile Soviets and rogue team members, the investigation quickly becomes fraught with peril.

Tom himself has this to say about the tale:

After I got out of the army in 1961 I became very interested in arms control and disarmament. I did a lot of reading on the subject and ended up writing two articles for the Kiwanis magazine (a good middle market for a new writer). An opportunity to write an article for Playboy didn't work out but I got to interview some of the people I'd been reading.

Fred Pohl suggested I write a story on the subject for Galaxy. I didn't think I could handle the technical stuff needed for a story about detecting nuclear weapons so I decided to write about biological weapons which seemed like they might be the next big threat. Microbiology labs, in addition, can be hidden in all sorts of small spaces. I decided to focus on a treaty banning secret research because I had come to the conclusion we tended to run the arms race against ourselves. Our people thought up a possibility and we had to work on it because the Russians might be working on it. If we could determine they weren't, both sides could avoid another cycle in the arms race.

I picked a mental health facility as the hiding place because it raised interesting human and moral issues. The story revolves around ethical and political issues instead of a duel between inspection technologies and evasion technologies. The programmed environment therapy seemed like a natural extension of Pavlovian conditioning.

Fred Pohl rejected the story. My agent, Scott Meredith, tried it on Redbook and Esquire with near misses at both places. The fiction editor at Esquire said he wanted to buy it but he was overruled by higher ups.

The story was a novelette, about ten thousand words. Playboy said they'd buy it if I could cut it in half. I did but they rejected it. Ed Ferman at F&SF liked the short version but felt it needed to be longer. So I expanded it to its original length. He bought it and now it's the August cover story. One of the peak moments in my writing career, so far.

The story grew out of intense, solid research and some deep thinking on the whole problem of arms control. When I finished it, I felt I had summarized and dramatized the key issues and dilemmas. Perhaps the sweeping treaty in the story isn't very plausible. We live in a time when the advance of technology makes serious arms control seem a necessity–so necessary even the politicians will have to see it. Science fiction explores What might happen if? The If may seem unlikely, but is still worth exploring.

I originally called the story "1980". Ed Ferman asked for a change and I thought Reduction in Arms had a nice military clatter. I also suggested War and Peace and A Farewell to Arms but he preferred Reduction in Arms.

There's no question that Tom has gotten a feather in his cap for the placement of this tale. I will say that, although I found the concept interesting, it suffers for being an action piece told in third-person by a largely uninvolved party. Visceral immediacy would have given the story more punch.

Still, it was interesting to see a Reynolds-esque thriller outside of Analog— and without the nardy slang Reynolds employs.

Three stars.

by Gahan Wilson

The Conflict, by Ilya Varshavsky

Here is an import from the Soviet Union, about the large and small scale strife between humans and their increasingly sapient "servants".

I think it loses something in translation. Two stars.

The Baron's Dog, by L. J. T. Biese

When an unemployed governess in Italy is offered 25,000 lira a month to walk a Transylvanian wolfhound, what's a girl to think? Especially when the employer is tall, dark, handsome…and strictly enjoins against photography of his pet?

I found this tale delightful, such a nice contrast from all the creeping horror that such a setup normally would have entailed. It's not quite Analogian, but it is good. And if L.J.T. Biese isn't a woman, I'll eat my hat.

Four stars.

Soft Come the Dragons, by Dean R. Koontz

Koontz is a brand new author, and he offers up the tale of a far-off world, the miners who live in fear upon it, and the gossamer dragons that turn beholders to stone. It's all rather metaphorical and lyrical and not quite sensical, rather as if Koontz spent the night reading Zelazny's works and then tried his hand at it.

I'd say it works more than it doesn't, but Koontz' rawness definitely shows through. Three stars.

Earthwoman, by Reginald Bretnor

Will Adamson, born on a distant world, is human in all qualities save one: he and his race are possessed of telepathy, knit into a consciousness collective. He is sent to Earth to discern how it is that we can love without the possibility of true connection. And if we truly be human, is there an innate telepathic skill just waiting to be awakened?

Bretnor usually write silly stories or bad puns, so this more serious piece is a welcome change. I found it a touch too affected, but otherwise enjoyable. And definitely something that could have appeared in Analog.

Three stars.

by Ed Emshwiller

Mosquito, by Theodore L. Thomas

F&SF's story seeder suggests mosquitos might be laden with vitamins and inoculants such that their bite becomes a beneficial distribution method. As usual, he misses some important aspects of his invention. To wit, mosquito bites are not controllable in distribution or quantity. And even if they provide needed drugs and nutrients, they still aren't pleasant to receive.

Two stars.

Bugs, by Charles L. Harness

Speaking of bugs, Charles L. Harness (who used to team up with Thomas under the pen name Leonard Lockhard) has authored this story of living bugs employed as espionage bugs.

There's a lot of "as you know" explanations, and the smugness with which the Americans subvert their KGB counterparts is pure Analog.

Mildly interesting, but just a bit too glib as well as prolix. Two stars.

The Bubble, by J. W. Schutz

The destruction of humanity's first and only space station has spooked the government, and now they've decided to pull the plug on space investment. Deane Aircraft, the largest space contractor, is faced with a pivotal decision: retool back to making conventional vehicles, or become the first private space presence. The linchpin to the success of the operation isn't Theodor Deane, President of the company, nor the thousands of engineers he employs. It's certainly not Theodor's greedy wife, Lillian, nor her paramour, Briggs, who is also Theodor's financial wiz.

It's Georgia Lighton, Theodor's secretary, who comes up with all the brilliant, cost-saving ideas.

The whole thing reads like a cross between Silverberg's Regan's Planet and a soap opera. Again, very Analog.

Not great, but Analog. Three stars.

Moondust, the Smell of Hay, and Dialectical Materialism, by Thomas M. Disch

The first man on the Moon, Mikhail Andreivich Karkhov, is dying. Does he die for science? For love? For the state? Or something else entirely?

A beautiful, moving piece, made all the more poignant by the recent twin tragedies that claimed the lives of three astronauts and one cosmonaut.

Five stars.

by Ed Emshwiller

Argent Blood, by Joe L. Hensley

A man is being treated in a ward for the incurably insane. Between fits of "disturbance" he begins to mistrust the charitable nature of his doctor and nurse. But he has a plan…

A good, atmospheric piece. Three stars.

Kaleidoscope in the Sky, by Isaac Asimov

In a rare return to topics astronomical, Dr. A. submits a nonfiction piece on the moons of Mars, and how these extremely low flying rocks would appear to a surface observer. If, indeed, they are even suitably placed to see them, for unlike our Moon, Phobos and Deimos orbit so close to their planet that Martian pole-dweller could not see them.

Good stuff. Four stars.

Quick with His Hands, by Avram Davidson

Capping things off, this vignette of sibling rivalry on Mars, ably told and with a tearjerking finale.

Four stars.

Doing the math

So, did F&SF's experiment in apery succeed? Well, there were high points and low points, but the overall impression I was left with was favorable. We'll just have to compare it to the real thing in just over a week to see if Brand X beat the competition!

(Speaking of kooky stunts, it looks like F&SF is joining forces with several other organizations to hold a writing contest. I wish them the best of luck, although the last time a magazine (Galaxy in that case) did this, in the early '50s, they got bupkis, and Fred Pohl had to write as a novice under a pseudonym to give them anything worth publishing.)

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 18, 1967] Bright Lights (May 1967 Fantasy and Science Fiction

April 18, 2022 Gideon Marcus 7 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Tinsel Town

Last weekend, the world's greatest stars and movie-makers assembled in Santa Monica for the annual celebration of the best the silver screen has to offer. It was a cavalcade of prominent names, from Sidney Poitier to Lee Remick to Julie Christie to Omar Sharif. Some of the contestants were unfamiliar (Herb Alpert has a short animated film?) Some were surprising but welcome in their inclusion (like The Wargame for best documentary). Some were inevitable (If Grand Prix hadn't won Best Sound and Best Editing, I'd have written letters…) Two titans towered all the rest (Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and A Man for All Seasons–both of which I still haven't seen yet).

And throughout it all, Bob Hope was host, narrator, and satirist. Lorelei observed that this time, the jokes about recognition still eluding the aging comedian seemed more pointed and bitter than usual. Maybe it's time he got some kind of lifetime achievement award, as did Isaac Asimov at a recent Worldcon…

Print City

The latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction features a similar assemblage of luminaries–and it's not even an "All-Star Issue"! Presented in a format that has been standard and familiar since 1949, this month's read was as comforting and entertaining as two primetime hours at the Oscars.

With the added benefit that one can reread favorite stories!

by Ronald Walotsky

Planetoid Idiot, by Phyllis Gotlieb

Our first star is Phyllis Gotlieb, a woman writer who joined the SF ranks one year after Mses. Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, and Pauline Ashwell. Her latest is a fine novella in the Analog tradition–indeed, it reads like something Katherine MacLean might have penned.

A mutli-species spaceship has landed on the ocean planed of Xirifor. Their goal is to save the indigenous race from a pandemic of gill rot such that they can better represent themselves when representatives of the Galactic Federation come to negotiate for the pearls the aliens harvest.

The crew of the contact ship are a beautifully heterogenous group: Hrufa, an eight foot telepathic amphibian is their leader, keeping the rest of the team in order, if not harmony. Thlyrrh is a protoplasmic being with a shape-shifting carapace; it can do almost anything…except compose an original thought. And then there are the two humans, or "solthrees" (I really like that phrase): Olivia the exobiologists, and Berringer, the generalist.

Despite their vast collective knowledge, they are hindered in their task by politics, internal and external. But in the end, working together, they deduce a solution that is completely scientific and plausible.

It's all very satisfactory, and if I have any complaint, it is only the title, which I found misleading (I thought "planetoid idiot" would be a play on "village idiot"). Definitely a candidate for the next volume of Rediscovery.

Four stars.

Sleeping Beauty, by Terry Carr

It's nice to see Ace Books publisher, Terry Carr, slinging the pen again. His latest story is a beautifully written if rather inconsequential tale of a landless prince, galloping across Europe looking for that most endangered of modern creatures: the single (and wealthy) princess. There is, of course, a sting in the story's tale.

You'll forget it soon after you read it, but you'll enjoy the journey. Three stars.

Safe at Any Speed, by Larry Niven

If Ralph Nader has his way, all cars of the future will be like the one presented in this, the latest tale to take place in Niven's "Known Space". It's his most humorous piece, almost Sheckleyesque, and it accomplishes a lot in a brief space.

Four stars.

Fifteen Miles, by Ben Bova

Two years ago, Air Force astronaut Chet Kinsman was tested in orbit when he had to go mano-a-mano with a Communist spacewoman. Now Kinsman is on the moon, haunted by the memory of the lady he had to slay. Will his guilt get in the way of his rescuing a fellow astronaut trapped in a lunar crevice?

This is another grounded SF tale I'm surprised (but pleased) to find in F&SF. I've not yet found Bova brilliant (though Victoria Silverwolf has), but I always enjoy him.

Three stars.

The Red Shift, by Theodore L. Thomas

Thomas explains in his nonfiction vignette how quasars, which must be extragalactic yet near objects, give lie to the Doppler shift, and thus rewrite physics. Specifically, he says that the redshift of quasars indicates that they are far away, but that radio astronomy locates them much closer to Earth.

I do not know how he makes this assertion, as it is radio astronomy that detects these quasars at all–including their red shift. According to the article I read in Britannica's 1966 year book of knowledge, quasars are very interesting in that they point up an asymmetry between the young universe (quasar-rich) and the curent universe (quaser-poor). But there's nothing that suggests quasars exist close by, or that there's anything wrong with Doppler.

There does seem to be something wrong, however, with Thomas.

One star.

Cyprian's Room, by Frances Oliver

Onward to the second woman-penned story, by an author about whom our editor knows virtually nothing. A pity, because her first story is a good one. Romantic Hilda Wendel takes a room in the big city hoping to meet someone interesting in her boarding house. She finds a tubercular artist whose views on art are maddeningly contradictory, yet irresistably compelling.

Is he just an avante-garde…or something otherworldly?

A high three.

Interview with a Lemming, by James Thurber

This putative dialogue between man and lemming, to indulge in adjectives solely beginning with "i" is inconsequential, irritating, and inspid–particularly the thinks-itself-clever ending.

Two stars.

Where is Thy Sting, by Emil Petaja

One of the last fertile men in a post-atomized Earth, racked with suicidal desires, must be kept alive at all costs, even if it means subverting his reality.

I'd have liked this story more had I not read one so similar to it (The Best is Yet to Be) in the pages of this same magazine not many months before.

Two stars.

Times of Our Lives, by Isaac Asimov

All about time zones. I actually found this atlas-derived article educational and interesting.

Four stars.

Fill in the Blank, by Ron Goulart

Finally, the return of a perennial star with a series with more installments than James Bond. Max Kearney is dragooned into investigating what appears to be an infestation of poltergeists. The culprits are all-too-temporal…but it doesn't mean magic's not involved!

It's funnier in the latter half. Three stars.

House Lights Return

By strict mathematical computation, the latest F&SF only scores an average three star rating. Nevertheless, the brilliance of the first piece, the general competence of most of the rest, and the edification provided by the Good Doctor leaves a most pleasant impression.

Let's keep our stars around for a while. They make good illumination.

by Gahan Wilson

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction