Reliving the Middle Ages "as they ought to have been" is all the rage now, from Renaissance Pleasure Faires to The Society for Creative Anachronism to The Byrd's song, "Renaissance Faire". Not to be left out, our corner of San Diego has decided to put on its own Viking Fest, featuring axe-throwing, mead-drinking, and general revelry.
Of course, the seasoned time-traveling Journey crowd attended!
Something to cheer about
It's been a while since I've been able to report on a issue that's good from bow to stern (recognizing that such things are rare, of course–Sturgeon's Law ensures much of what anyone reads must not be the best). I'm happy to report that this month's issue of Fantasy of Science Fiction was quite enjoyable.
by Chesley Bonestell; as usual, it doesn't illustrate any of the stories inside
Home the Hard Way, by Richard McKenna
Chief Biotech Skinner Webb of the Galactic Patrol Ship Carlyle is determined to jump ship. The why: planet Conover is the loveliest world Webb has ever espied, and its richest denizens have offered him the moon…and a chance at love with a plump and gorgeous scion.
Sadly for Skinner, he's got a seven year hitch. And so, he does his damndest to get out of it, going AWOL, starting fights, even consorting with a criminal element. All it does it lose him stripes and put him under Vry Chalmers, his former adjutant and long-suffering friend. Will Webb ever get to paradise?
Author Richard McKenna seems to write more now that he's dead than he did when he was alive. I quite enjoyed this space-based yarn, and I particularly appreciated the frequent appearance of women in the navy–as high rated enlisted men, no less. I don't think I've ever seen that particular touch in a story. We've had women officers (q.v. Star Trek and Starship Troopers), but no women grunts. Certainly, it's a rare thing.
Of course, as my wife notes, why anyone would fall for Skinner Webb, when he's something of a lummox, is a bit of a mystery. But perhaps we just have an unsympathetic narrator. In any event, this story gets an unreserved four stars.
The artful Leiber offers up this tale of a family that seems to create its own reality. The father molds ebony companions out of shadow, with whom he converses over watered-down martinis. The mother sketches fanciful worlds and imagines that the machines of the house talk to her. And the son is an interstellar rocket jockey, aided by just a few toys as visual aids.
Notable for including the second use of the word "shit" in as many months in F&SF (will the mails stop carrying this trashy publication?) and for a surprising but welcome happy ending, this is another good piece. Leiber, a veteran stage actor, has mastered the art of rendering the theatrical in his prose. Four stars.
Speaking of Leiber…
Camels and Dromedaries, Clem, by R. A. Lafferty
Cleminger is a big man, one of the hottest traveling salesmen in the country. In fact, he's a little too big: one day, he falls asleep in a hotel and splits into two beings–externally identical, but somehow each half a man. The two go on to live separate lives, until their desirable and desiring wife, Veronica, demands an end to the intolerable situation.
Lafferty is always whimsical, but this piece feels a bit more grounded than most–more Ellison than Lafferty. Once again, it's enjoyable from beginning to end. That's three four-star stories in a row!
The Power of Every Root, by Avram Davidson
Now off to sunny Mexico, where Carlos Rodriguez Nunez, police officer of the municipality of Santo Tomas, finds himself increasingly afflicted with physical maladies, as well as furtively derided by his townsfolk. Is it a disease? A hex? The doctor cannot help, and the witch doctor's advice seems spurious. Surely his luscious wife, Lupe, is above suspicion…
Davidson, once editor of F&SF, fled to Mexico for a while after abandoning the helm of this magazine. He clearly absorbed enough of the local color to vividly paint this tale. While ably told and a beautiful travelogue, the plot itself is rather slight, so I'm afraid three stars is my limit for this one.
I've often complained that everybody else gets to review Chip Delany's work but me. Well, I got what's coming to me. This story involves a troublemaking hulk of a blue collar man named Buddy, who forms a rapport with "the prettiest little colored girl" named Lee, afflicted with uncontrollable telepathy. Said nine-year old has seen too much to want to live any longer. But her love for the popular music of Bryan Faust, particularly sharing it with Buddy, may give her a new lease on life.
If it weren't for the sentimentality, I'd say this is more Analog than F&SF. That said, despite the obvious attempts to be moving, I found myself curiously unmoved by this tale.
Three stars.
Music to My Ears, by Isaac Asimov
Speaking of music, Dr. A manages to take a potentially interesting topic–namely, the mathematical relationships between wave frequencies that underlie the fundamental scales of music–and make it not only dull as dishwater, but also virtually impenetrable.
And I have both a math and a music degree!
Two stars.
Alas, Poor Yorick! I Knew Him Well Enuff, by Joan Patricia Basch
Equity's a great gig. It's virtually impossible to get canned from a show when you're equity, even if you're dead! But what if you really need that not-dead skull who's a member of the guild to shut up so you can finish the damned play?
Basch has written a cute story, and it's likely to wring a grin or two from you, if nothing else.
Three stars.
Time, by L. Sprague de Camp
Poetry by a regular contributor of same, this time lamenting over the greats he'll never meet, and the fans he'll never know.
We return to the crystalline seas of Vermillion Sands. A yachter by the name of Melville is stranded when his sand boat blows a tire. A wraith-like vision of a woman named Hope offers succor, but her obsession with an old flame (whom she may or may not have killed) belies the pleasant qualities of her namesake.
I tend to prefer Vermillion Sands stories to the more kaleidoscopic stuff Ballard has been turning in of late. There's more of a through-line. I also like the idea of photographic paints that depict ever-changing portraits of their subjects.
I don't think I'd give it four stars, but it's definitely interesting.
Praise be to Odin!
With no bad fiction and some solid hits in the first half of the mag, this issue of F&SF is definitely something to foray from home for (it's not as if the Vikings got home delivery of their sf mags.) That's something to toast to!
Here's looking forward to more of the same in the issues to come.
by Gahan Wilson
If you're here, you're obviously a big fan of classic fantasy and science fiction. As you know, I founded Journey Press to revive lost classics and to bring into bring new works that evoke that same timeless quality.
I think you'll very much enjoy our newest release. You've probably heard of Marie Vibbert, one of the biggest names in SFF magazines these days. Her book, The Gods Awoke, is what I've been calling "a new New Wave masterpiece":
Do check it out. You'll not only be getting a great book, but you'll be supporting the Journey!
[L]et us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
– Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
A duty to a higher power
On April 28th, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali (whom many papers insist on calling by his former name, Cassius Clay) refused induction into the United States Army. In a matter of hours, the New York State Athletic Commission revoked his boxing license, and the World Boxing Association stripped him of his title. For those paying attention, Ali’s refusal came as no surprise. He had been classified as 1-Y (fit for service only in times of national emergency) due to his poor performance on the qualifying test, but when the army lowered its standards last year, he became subject to reclassification as 1-A. The draft board in Louisville Kentucky did so, and he appealed, seeking exemption as a Muslim minister (often incorrectly reported as conscientious objector status). The board denied the appeal in January, and Ali vowed to go to court. After moving to Houston, Texas, the champ again sought reclassification and was again denied.
Muhammad Ali is escorted from the induction center in Houston, Texas.
When called up, Ali appeared as ordered at the Houston induction center and participated in all the pre-induction activities. But when called to step forward for induction, he refused. He was taken aside and the consequences were explained, but he once again refused. After that, he signed a statement indicating his refusal and was escorted outside. He didn’t address the reporters and television cameras waiting for him, but handed out copies of a four-page statement indicating that he is aware of the penalties he faces, but that accepting induction is inconsistent with his “consciousness as a Muslim minister and [his] own personal convictions.” The case has been referred to the U. S. Attorney. If convicted, Mr. Ali faces a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
A sense of duty
Like Muhammad Ali, almost everyone in this month’s IF is motivated by strong beliefs: their duty to king and country, humanity at large, or their own personal beliefs and obligations.
Uncle Martin and Tim (from My Favorite Martian) seem to have had a falling out. Actually, this is supposedly from Spaceman!
Art by Wenzel.
Hunted for being an Esper, Craike decides death is preferable to capture and hurls himself from a cliff. And finds himself in another world, one where people like him are seen as wizards who maintain order for the feudal lords and will not tolerate unregulated Espers. He soon falls afoul of these Black Hoods by rescuing an attractive young woman who was being punished for being outside of the established system.
Takya and Craike set a trap for the Black Hoods. Art by Gray Morrow
We’ve all read this story a hundred times. Man from our world or one reasonably close finds himself mysteriously transported to another world, where he uses his knowledge and different way of thinking to upset the bad social order and get the girl. From John Carter to Lord Kalvan, the template has few variations. Norton’s typical strong writing lifts this above the usual fare, but she offers us nothing new. And there are bits that bother me. For all her power and maturity, Takya is clearly meant to be a young teen, who spends the whole story clad only in her hair. Then at the end, the wooing she expects from Craike borders on rape, however consensual it may be.
Gilberto Klee was working on a youth farm when he was captured in a berserker raid. Now aboard a human ship converted to berserker use, he meets other prisoners, one of whom is sure he can fly the ship if only they can destroy the berserker brain piloting it. Because human captives are suffering from dietary deficiencies, the berserkers order Gil to grow something to end the problem. He suggests a fast-growing squash, though the others disdain him for aiding their captors. Is Gil trying to be viewed as “goodlife” or is there something else going on?
As fellow Journey writer Victoria Silverwolf recently noted, Saberhagen is able to return to this setting over and over again without repeating himself. Perhaps that’s because most of these stories, like this one, tend to be character pieces with the action secondary to the plot. The tight focus on Gil’s internal thoughts without giving away the ending is extremely well done. The ending is also quite symbolic for the overall struggle against the great killing machines.
A very high three stars.
All True Believers, by Howard L. Morris
Not quite two years after thwarting the invasion of Briden by the Freunch under Naflon (see Not by Sea), Sir Hubert Wulf-Leigh (Wilfly) stumbles upon a new Freunch plot: a simultaneous rising in Cullenland and a landing by the Pantlerist pretender in Celtland. Once again, his brilliant mind – aided by a regrettable lack of wine – is up to the challenge.
A strand-gleaner makes an important discovery. Art by Virgil Finlay
The previous story by this author, though readable, was a little too long and tried much too hard to be funny. Morris has largely corrected those problems, though he’s stuck with the ridiculous place names. This piece is clearly based on British fears during the Napoleonic Wars of an Irish rebellion and an attempt by the Stewart pretender to claim the throne and is really no more plausible here than it was in reality. Also the Finlay art seems to be repurposed from Treasure Island or something and doesn’t fit at all. Still, it's all an improvement.
Three stars.
The N3F and Others, by Lin Carter
After looking at a number of less successful attempts at creating national fan clubs last month, Carter looks first at the strange story of the Cosmic Circle and then the more successful National Fantasy Fan Federation. The N3F has lasted a quarter century at this point, but Carter seems ambivalent. In his opinion, it and its extensive membership list offer a reasonable first step and a way to meet fans near you and around the country, but he feels that the organization doesn’t really do anything in fandom. Nevertheless, it seems to be a good introduction for those without a local club in their vicinity.
Three stars.
The Castaways, by Jack B. Lawson
A handful of people are on their way to Smith’s World in suspended animation aboard an automated spaceship when an unexpected nova sends the ship off course. They’re able to find a habitable world, but it’s one without any other people. Can the end products of 6,000 years of civilization survive in a primitive setting?
While the writing is strong on a line-by-line basis, the story itself is so bleak and pessimistic I can’t bring myself to like it.
A very well-written two stars.
Spaceman! (Part 2 of 3), by Keith Laumer
Seeking shelter from a blizzard, Billy Danger accidentally stowed away on a spaceship, ultimately finding himself marooned with the beautiful Lady Raire and a collie-sized cat named Eureka. Raire was taken away by strange, dwarfish aliens, and Billy had to wait for rescue. Billy then spends a few years working his way up the ladder to Chief Power Engineer and also working his way towards Raire’s home planet near the galactic core. He learns that the aliens who took Raire are known as the H’eeaq. After several (mis)adventures, he finds himself in possession of a stolen spaceship and the assistance of a H’eeaq named Srat.
They begin scouring the scattered worlds of the Galactic Zenith, looking for those who took Raire. On the verge of giving up, he finds Raire enslaved and buys both her and another human. Staggering drunkenly back to his ship after finalizing his purchases, Billy watches as the ship takes off with Raire aboard and then finds himself arrested for illegally manumitting a slave. When he wakes up, he discovers that he has been implanted with a control device. Billy is now a slave. To be concluded.
Billy meets Srat for the first time. Poor Srat. Art by Castellon
This installment reminded me a lot of Earthblood, especially the protagonist rising through the ranks as he travels and moves ever closer to a seemingly impossible goal. While Rosel George Brown’s steadying influence there gave us moments of introspection, Laumer alone is free to indulge in wild adventure and action. He also has a tendency to rely too much on coincidence to move the plot along. It’s still an enjoyable read, though.
Three stars.
Family Loyalty, by Stan Elliott
A series of letters between Joe Seaworthy, who is emigrating off-world, and his cousin and former employee Harry Aimes, who senses a chance to get himself out of a bind.
Here is this month’s new author. The first letter feels very unnatural, although there are reasons for that. Things improve after that, and Elliott does a pretty good job of telling us a lot about the world without direct exposition.
Cal Svenson is an amphiman, someone who has been surgically altered so that they can live and breathe underwater. Eighteen years ago, he was severely injured while trying to lay a power cable in an oceanic trench known as the Slash. Unable to work due to a paralyzed leg and torn swim membranes, he has a pension and a house on the Brazilian coast provided by the company he worked for. He spends his days searching for driftglass (also called sea glass) and chatting with his friend Juao, a local fisherman. Encountering a young amphiman woman, Cal learns that the company is planning to try laying a cable in the Slash again the next day. Juao’s two children, Cal’s godchildren, have been accepted into the amphiman program and must leave for Brasilia the next day as well. Cal has to sort out his feelings about both of these things and their consequences.
Cal is injured. Art by Gaughan
Simple. Beautiful. Subtle. Delany writes with a maturity far beyond his 25 years. This story alone is worth your 50¢.
Five stars.
An example of some sea glass
Summing up
That’s another month in the books. Mostly fair to middlin’, but two of the shorter works stand out. The Saberhagen is very good, even if it doesn’t quite deserve a fourth star, and Driftglass is amazing. I expect to see it on all the awards lists. I’m nominating it for a Galactic Star right now, with not even half the year gone.
This is presumably the Riverworld story promised for Worlds of Tomorrow. The lack of other information suggests that Fred is scrambling to deal with the loss of a magazine.
So I’m now having to get used to receiving just one issue of the British magazines a month. The deal made with the Arts Council last month means that I was guaranteed this issue, which I understand will be the last in this paperback format. It is less but is it a case of "less means more"? Let’s go to the issue!
Editor Mike Moorcock is clearly busy this month, and as a result we have a Guest Editorial from the much-plaudit-ed Samuel R. Delany, who I know is making quite an impact in the US with his novels (Babel 17, amongst others).
Though it is well written, it’s another editorial discussing the future of science fiction. Editors Moorcock, Harrison and Bonfiglioli have all covered this in various issues in the past few years, and this isn’t really anything new. It may, however, be for new readers. It is unsurprisingly positive and embraces the change that we’ve seen in recent years.
Judith Merril is currently writing reviews for the Magazine of Fantasy & SF and editing The Year’s Best SF anthology. In between her work on those, she also found the time to revise one of her pieces from December, 1952.
Allowing for the fact that it's a reprint, Daughters of Earth is a cracker in that it takes a lot of old-fashioned science fiction ideas but gives them a modern, different twist. It is the story of future human space exploration but instead of the usual future being determined by men, this is told through successions of generations of women in one family. It is a deliberate subversion of the usual science fiction cliches.
To emphasise this, the story begins in an almost-Old Testament style: “Martha begat Joan, and Joan begat Ariadne. Ariadne lived and died at home on Pluto, but her daughter, Emma, took the long trip out to a distant planet of an alien sun. Emma begat Leah, and Leah begat Carla, who was the first to make her bridal voyage through sub-space, a long journey faster than the speed of light itself”. We go from the Earth to the Moon with Joan, from the Moon to Pluto with Ariadne and from Pluto with Emma to Ullern, a planet reached on the spaceship Newhope through FTL travel. There the colonists meet aliens.
It is an epistolary story, initially told through letters written for Carla, a future descendant, and for future generations on Ullern.
This may sound like a typical space-exploration story as humans expand their influence to the stars. However, it is different in that although it is clearly writing a history, it shows the female of the species in a more positive and pro-active light than usual, even when at times it regresses to soap-opera. With that in mind, the story is perhaps proto-feminist and shows that the future is not just male heroism and gung-ho histrionics, but also about love, family, and personal sacrifice, as well as coming to grips with the fear created by travel into the unknown.
Pleasingly refreshing, this makes me think that this is the sort of story that Heinlein would like to write, but can’t quite reach. It is an example of how traditional science fiction can be given a modern update. 4 out of 5.
Aid to Nothing by P. F. Woods
And then a step down, from the author also known as Barrington J. Bayley. A story of conflict when a Martian tribe, the Sussorr, meets colonising humans. The Sussorr are receiving telepathic vibes from their neighbours the Tuaranth. The beginning reminds me of A. E. van Vogt’s The Black Destroyer, but it soon degenerates into a story where other parts read like a cut-rate Edgar Rice Burroughs. The sympathy is clearly with the peaceful Martians, emphasised by the cartoonish war-loving humans, led by a man annoyingly named Bungleton. 2 out of 5.
Three Short Stories by Thomas M. Disch
The return of Mr Disch, who recently exploded into the British magazines (and was perhaps most recently noted by our Noble Editor for his expletive-laden story in this month’s Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction), started well and yet recently has had stories published that to me felt like his writing is running out of steam.
The title tells it all – there are three stories. The first is a story told by a man to another about a girl he knew before she committed suicide. The storyteller is shot by a secret agent once he has told the story. In the second part, Thadeus and Diane are looking to move into a dilapidated New York apartment, where they discuss life and love before leaving. In the third piece, Mrs. Neary is on a ship that is sinking.
Lots of metaphor and clearly sentences that are meant to mean something, but the point of the stories seem to have passed me by. I’m sure that the stories means something to somebody, and that the three stories are connected in some way, but if they are it is all a bit beyond me. Disch can write – but this is still a bemusingly metaphorical disappointment.3 out of 5.
Illustration by James Cawthorn
The Key of the Door by Arthur Sellings
Arthur is an author much liked by Moorcock, so the return of this writer to New Worlds is not entirely a surprise. His last story was That Evening Sun Go Down in the September 1966 issue of New Worlds.
I had better just check, though. Are you aware in the US what the phrase “Key in the Door” means to us Brits? Just in case you’re not (and apologies if you are!) here it’s a turn of phrase to describe the rite of passage, reached at the mighty age of twenty-one, when according to the adage, the person is symbolically given the key of the door to a property. It really means that they are now an adult, with the freedom to do what they want in their future. Here such matters are turned into a light-hearted time-travel story that’s moderately humorous and not to be taken too seriously.
Victorian Godfrey is discovered to be using his father’s time machine, travelling to 1985 and 2035. There he saw his father dancing with a young lady, but is reluctant to tell his father this. To his father’s horror, Godfrey’s travelling has changed things in the future. As you may know, humour is very divisive and usually for me doesn’t do too well. This one is… fair. It provides a bit of lighter counterbalance to the rest of the issue. 3 out of 5.
Book Reviews
I’m pleased to see the return of a book review column, even if it is for only one book! Guest reviewer Brian Aldiss reviews I. F. Clarke’s (no, not that one!) book, Voices Prophesying War 1763 – 1984. Brian goes through the book in some detail, pointing out the (mostly) positives and negatives of the book. It rather sounds like the sort of thing Olaf Stapledon was doing with First and Last Men – quite dry, but full of science-fictional ideas. Might be worth a look.
Summing up New Worlds / SF Impulse
Really this is a holding issue, in that it is the last before we get the new New Worlds in its new form, whatever that is. Whilst it is not quite the same as the “What do we have left?” issue of last month, it is still a little underwhelming. As you might expect, the Merril short novel dominates the issue at about 70 pages and is as good as I had hoped for, but it is a (revised?) reprint. The rest of the issue is lesser material. Even the Disch felt like sub-standard work.
And as is clearly explained in the beginning, that’s that. Goodbye SF Impulse, hello NewNew Worlds!
It looks like Mr. Disch may be important. I’m hoping that this new material may be better than his recent efforts, good though they can be.
Three titles for you today across two books (reminds me of the old astronomical saw: "Three out of every two stars is a binary"). None of them are great, but one of them is surprisingly decent given the source.
"Fast-paced, readable fun," pretty much describes everything Mr. High has written of late, and perhaps ever (my records only go back to 1961). His latest effort, Twin Planets, (from Paperback Library) does not break the mold.
It starts promisingly enough: A fellow named Denning is driving his car when it suddenly becomes very cold, the policemen are dressed quite oddly, and the sun is now a sullen orange orb on the horizon. Has he traveled to the future? Into another dimension?
Turns out, the answer is both. Earth has an analog that the natives call "Firma", with a slightly different history. Centuries ago, aliens appeared and froze the planet's rotation (with attendant momentum-related catastrophe). The world is now divided into a temperate zone, a hot zone, and a frigid region (where Denning had been transported).
Denning has a twin on Firma, name of Liston. Possessed of insatiable sexual desire that couples with his intelligence and strength, he is banished to one of the inhospitable zones early in the book, to be recruited by the resistance. Said resistance also taps Denning, who comes into his own superhuman powers–as well as a raging libido and attractiveness to women.
Turns out Denning and Liston are biological constructs, originally to be linchpins of the resistance, but by the end of the book free agents with a hankering to topple the aliens who run Earth from the shadows. Lots of running around, killing people, implied sexual exploits, and a happy ending.
This is a very old style of book. And while some of the ideas are quite interesting, for the most part, they are set aside for the action. Also, the competent women characters suffer for being hapless victims of their hormones, unable to resist the pheromones of their superhero companions. I raced through the first quarter of the book, but the last quarter took me several days, despite the novel's brevity.
Next up is Ace Double #G-614. Ace is known more for publishing "fast-paced, readable fun" than "thought-provoking classics" but you never know. After all, Tom Purdom's I Want the Stars and Terry Carr's Warlord of Kor both came out as halves of Ace Doubles.
Not so this first novel, I'm afraid. Mr. Shaw, whose name is completely unknown to me, starts off with a bang. If Anne McCaffrey wrote The Ship Who Sang, this book is the tale of "The Ship Who Barked". On board the inventively named "Spaceship-One" (presumably, Mr. Shaw is English) is a lone crewmember: a disembodied dog's brain. His mission is to scout out the Sirius system, which has been identified as a likely target to possess planets. Indeed, it has four planets, all identical copies. Only one of them is inhabited, by a Eloi-ish race of humans with Greek/Italian-esque names and blonde hair, who live symbiotically with a race of prehensile-handed dogs. Turns out the canines are the real power behind the throne (with truly groan-worthy names like "Chienandros" and "Perralto." Our hero, who calls himself "Ishmael", must work with them to secure colonizing rights while also delivering a message of warning to war-ravaged and overpopulated Earth.
There are things I liked about this book. Ishmael is a fun narrator, reminding me of Hank "The Beast" McCoy from Marvel's X-Men comic. The opening forty pages or so, before the ship gets to Sirius, are quite fun, indeed. The ship uses time travel as a space drive (letting the universe move underneath, as it were), which I've only seen once before, in Wallace West's The River of Time.
But the science is about thirty years out of date (planets formed by stellar collision, indeed), every gizmo is detailed for the pulp fans, and the setting and characters have as much subtlety as brutalist architecture.
This is the one I was really worried about. The Richmonds, a married couple that (reportedly) collaborates telepathically, have heretofore been Analog exclusives. The best they've managed thus far are a pair of passable three-star shorts, the rest being bad to dreadful. And in contrast to the other three tales, it's the beginning that's discouraging. Terry Ferman ("Terran Freeman?") is an electrical engineering student who, upon twiddling with a certain radio transmitter, finds himself on a faraway planet. He is now a captive of a computerized jailer, who refers to him as a basic galactic citizen and impresses upon him a rudimentary knowledge of the star-spanning polity he is supposedly a member of. Terry is also given a set of nifty tools including a ray gun, X-Ray glasses, a pocket translator, and a compass. At this point, I was sure this was going to be some kind of interstellar spy story, thinly cloaked wish fulfillment for boys.
But as the book goes on, Terry's situation becomes more complex. He meets Grontag, a dinosaur-like alien, also a student of electricity, who was similarly summoned unwillingly. They befriend "Tinkan", a robot that has become independent of the computer and developed a will of its own. It becomes clear that some sort of catastrophe has befallen the galactic civilization, and the marooned team must figure out what happened, why, and who might be responsible.
It's a very technical story, with lots of doodads created by someone who clearly has a background in electrical engineering. The pacing is excellent, however, with each section more interesting than the last. The Richmonds also have interesting things to say about repressive civil relationships like slavery and marriage. After the slow start, I finished the book in just two sessions, which is saying something.
Three and a half stars.
Five out of Two
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
One of the little curiosities of the ease of getting American science fiction novels in Britain depends on whether they have a UK edition coming out.
If there is no UK publisher on the horizon it is a little harder to get hold of, but no one worries if a bookseller imports them. You may not be able to pick them up at WH Smith’s or your local library but most good booksellers with an interest in SF will probably be able to help you find a copy.
On the other hand, if it has a UK edition coming out, you will really struggle to get hold of an overseas version and have to wait for the local version to be produced. This is the case with both the books I am reviewing, and whilst I had a contact send me an early copy of The Einstein Intersection, I had to wait for The Revolving Boy:
At the start of this book there is not much to suggest this is going to be science fiction. Yes, this is set very slightly in the future, but it is simply a slightly more conservative United States of the 1970s, not something requiring much imagination given signs of backlash like Republican gains in US midterms or Mary Whitehouse’s crusades over here. At first sight it appears to be about a good relationship between a mother and a child with autistic tendencies. The common depiction of autism in science fiction is often very negative.
Take, as an example, this passage from Disch’s recent Mankind Under Leash:
The nuts – in this whole cellblock you won’t find anything else. And these, I should point out, are only the worst, the most hopeless cases. ‘Autism’ is the technical word that the psychologists use to describe their condition.
Whilst in The Revolving Boy young Derv feels the need to spin around on occasion. His mother is willing to accept this as something he does. She only interferes when he is spinning on the stairs and so works for a compromise:
She told Derv in an offhand way that he must not spin on the stairs and why.
‘But what if I have to?’
Although she knew he thought of it this way, in terms of coercive psychological need, she was a little taken aback by the straightforward way he put it.
‘How many do you have to take?’
‘Just two on the stairs. I take another when I get outside.’
‘Then suppose you take the three when you get outside.’
‘All right,’ he said
It was as easy as that.
It shows such a mature and well-reasoned approach to a child with autistic tendencies. No suggestion it is caused by a ‘refrigerator mother’, not showing a complete inability to communicate with the outside world, but a child with a different perception and how you can work with them in a loving way to allow them to function in a world where most people do not have these tendencies. As someone who appears to have a lot of these tendencies, I was very heartened by this.
At the same time he makes friends with Prin, who is quiet and has perfect pitch. Together they are able to form a bond that allows them to connect in a world that can be hard for those that do not fall into patterns expected by wider society.
The source of science fictional content comes from the fact that Derv turns out to have been the first child born in space. When he was weightless and away from other signals he seems to have become connected to an electromagnetic signal from another solar system. As he gets older he finds himself leaning towards this signal whenever he is awake. This comes to the attention of Project Ozma who believe he may be the key to discovering extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Despite the concept of a child being able to point the direction for our radio telescopes, the whole story goes to great pains to appear realistic and make it seem less fantastical than most of what you would read in Analog or If.
But at its heart it is also a character story, the tale of him and Prin growing up. It is heart warming, clever and a real delight to read.
All of us here at Galactic Journey see Delany as one of the brightest talents currently writing science fiction, so it is with great anticipation we wait for his next novel. He began with writing his tales of a fantasy-tinged future Earth with The Jewels of Aptor and the Toron novels, but more recently has moved to outer space tales such as Babel-17. He seems now to have come back down to Earth but is also attempting to do something more ambitious than before.
Greek myths have been a regular source of inspiration for writers of the fantastic. The tale of Theseus and the Minotaur itself has been retold by authors as different as Jack Williamson and Thomas Burnett Swann. Here Delany blends in a number of Greek myths into this tale, but adds a kind of Ballardian spin to it, where our popular culture is seen just as much of a myth to these folks. With The Beatles being seen as a later example of the Orpheus myth and advertising slogans used as nuggets of wisdom at the start of chapters.
The Orpheus myth is probably the most central of the tales here, for Lo Lobey himself is a musician and his driving force is to save his beloved Friza from Kid Death. However, the way legends are treated in this book is fascinating, that there is not really a distinction between truth and fiction, and it is entirely possible for one to imitate the other. I can’t help but wonder if Delany has some familiarity with the ideas of C. S. Lewis but is choosing to apply them in a non-Christian context.
In this future, humans have all left the Earth and others are inhabiting it in the remains of humanity. We are introduced to this concept so casually I almost missed it when it is stated by PHAEDRA (a computer with the kind of silly reverse acronym people are fond of these days). It is an interesting concept that manages to at once be central to the story but also you could enjoy without knowing. For this is what Delany does, carefully layering understanding so it can be read in multiple ways, just like the myths that are being imitated.
For there is so much more in here than I have space to elucidate. Among others it touches on areas such as racism, gender, ESP, colonialism, the nature of truth and more besides.
I have seen Delany’s earlier works compared with the late great Cordwainer Smith’s writing. The Einstein Intersection, I would posit, is much more reminiscent of Zelazny. As such it is less accessible than The Ballad of Beta-2 but also more ambitious and thankfully succeeds.
Delany continues to be one of the brightest new lights of science fiction writing and this continues to reveal new depths to his talents.
Five Stars
by Jason Sacks
Sometimes Too Much Plot is Too Much
One of the things I love about Philip K. Dick’s novels is how they always seem to be about one thing but usually end up being about something very different. Usually his fake-out strategy works brilliantly, but in his latest novel, Dick seems to believe his own fake-out.
Counter-Clock World starts with an idea which could inspire a full novel just in its implications: What if time, somehow, started rolling backwards? How would living in a counter-clock world affect human relationships, our relationship with history, families, the economy, society? Would rebirth be a horror or pleasure? How would those who mourned the dead, maybe even moved beyond their mourning, handle the change? What would be the implications to a society if a specific person was reborn, a person who might be especially evil or especially good or just especially controversial?
These are all tantalizing questions, and Dick does explore most of them in this fascinating book. Of course, Dick being Dick, he explores many of them obliquely, in veiled allusions and small asides in dialogue. Far from making his ideas feel weaker, though, this commonplace element gives the book a naturalistic feel (as outlandish ideas often do in Dick novels) while also feeling profoundly strange.
I gotta say, there are also plenty of ridiculous ideas in this book, like how he shows cigarettes are smoked from stub to full cigarette (with the odor diffusing as the cigarette grows), or the idea that food is regurgitated and reconstituted into its source foods (okay, rather a disgusting idea), or how eventually everyone reverts to baby age and then has to crawl back into a womb and be absorbed into a body (a surprisingly moving scene in the book).
But there are also plenty of eerie moments in Counter-Clock. As the book begins, Officer Joseph Tinbane is cruising past a cemetery when he hears a voice beckoning him from a grave. Landing, he discovers an old woman has woken up in her coffin and is begging for help escaping her home six feet underground. Dick quickly establishes this as a normal part of Tinbane’s job, as Dick relates this event often becomes an all-night ritual which requires enlisting the services of something called a Vitarium.
Thankfully, the officer knows a man named Sebastian Hermes, reborn himself and the owner of The Flask of Hermes Vitarium.
This being a Dick novel, rebirth hasn’t been an ideal experience for Hermes. Sebastian is even more neurotic than he was when alive, haunted by nightmares of his awakening in his grave and stuck in a complicated marriage with someone who doesn’t quite understand him. Hermes sort of dreams of emigrating from California to Mars, but he’s literally grounded on Earth, digging up the bodies of those who died, more or less systemically since the Hobart Effect struck and changed everything.
So I’ve given you an idea of this book, and its world, and yeah, you say, I’m in. I'll buy the book because this all sounds fascinating.
Hold off for a second before running to the paperback stands at your local Korvettes, because all my setup is kind of prologue.
A rare photo of Mr. Dick, his wife and child
What if I told you Dick’s main topic for this issue is the idea of what happens if a popular religious prophet is reborn, and the prophet is in opposition to an evil Library?
Yep, it’s a Philip K. Dick novel, so you gotta be ready for a swerve.
See, Dick’s attention is really on the recently resurrected body of the Anarch Thomas Peak, dead prophet and founder of the Udi cult. The Anarch is articulate, philosophizing from the likes of Plotinus, Plato, Kant, Leibnitz, and Spinoza. Naturally, a group of fascist librarians hate the Azarch, and somehow the book descends into being a crazy oddball escape heist which involves LSD bombs, the slowing down of time, nuclear weapons striking a library, and the odd paradox of what happens when you kill someone who was already dead.
Yeah, Counter Clock World is more than a little crazy, which is no surprise really. What is surprising, though, is how Dick never quite gives this book the usual foundation in humanity most of his novels contain. This book lacks the warmth of Dr. Bloodmoney, or the existential horror of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer or the deep empathy of Martian Time-Slip. Instead we get an inelegant jumble which never quite lives up to the considerable potential of its amazing premise.
We have to be told twice that it's the Fabulous Flamingo.
Here we go with my first magazine review of 1967. I'm glad to say that the year begins with a bang, as the lead novella in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow is a knockout. Will the rest of the stories and articles be anywhere near as good? Let's find out.
Delany has already published several novels, but I believe this is his first appearance in a science fiction magazine. It's certainly an auspicious debut. That's not such a big surprise, as his book Babel-17 won high praise from my esteemed colleague Cora Buhlert, and was the overwhelming choice for the most recent Galactic Stars award for Best Novel.
Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.
The narrator begins with an account of an incident in his past that puts him in a bad light. While living on a planet with two suns, as part of a group marriage, he destroyed a miniature ecological system built by the family's children, as shown above. (I pictured the thing, which is something like a super-sophisticated ant farm, as quite a bit larger.)
Two of the alien organisms released during the narrator's destruction of the object. I pictured them as much smaller.
Several years later, the narrator is at the edge of the galaxy, working as a mechanic for starships. For a while, it seems as if the opening section of the story has little to do with the rest, but it all ties up at the end.
This is a future time when travel throughout the Milky Way is possible, but not beyond its borders. Attempting to do so results in insanity and death for the unfortunate extragalactic voyager. That is, unless you happen to be one of the rare people known as golden. (The word is used as a noun here, and serves as both the singular and plural form. Delany displays his interest in language in this story just as he did in the novel mentioned above.)
Golden have both hormonal and psychological abnormalities that allow them to travel to other galaxies, bringing back rare and valuable items. They are also mean or stupid, as one character says, prone to foolish actions and sudden violence. As you'd expect, ordinary people resent them, not only for their unpleasant personalities, but out of jealousy for their ability to escape the Milky Way.
The narrator and a young man encounter an unconscious golden. (It seems that a disease brought back from another galaxy causes intermittent blackouts.)
Carrying a golden.
They bring the golden to a woman who is a projective telepath. Let me explain. That means that she causes other people to experience her sensations. She was also born addicted to a hallucinatory drug taken by her mother. Combined with her telepathic ability, the drug allowed her to serve as a psychiatric therapist, helping golden overcome psychic shock caused by their journeys.
The projective telepath. She may be the most fascinating character in the story.
Another incident involving two golden leaves the narrator with a starship designed to travel to other galaxies. The question of what should be done with it leads to multiple complications, both tragic and hopeful. (I haven't even mentioned the narrator's assistant, who plays a major part.)
There's also a dramatic scene involving waldoes.
I have only given you a small taste of a very intricate story. Despite having the depth and complexity of a full-length novel, it is never confusing. The richly imagined future reminds me a bit of Cordwainer Smith, although Delany's narrative style is much more intimate than Smith's mythologizing.
The writing is beautiful, and the author creates living, breathing characters. The plot deals with love, hate, marriage, parenthood, and much more. It will break your heart and bring you much joy.
Five stars.
The Psychiatric Syndrome in Science Fiction, by Sam Moskowitz
The indefatigable historian of fantastic fiction offers a look at the use of psychology in the genre. He traces this theme back to Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, then talks about a lot of other stories.
A big chunk of the article deals with the works of David H. Keller, a practicing psychiatrist. I'm not convinced that all the Kelleryarns discussed here are really relevant to the topic.
There's also discussion of The Jet Propelled Couch, a chapter from the book The Fifty-Minute Hour by psychologist Robert M. Lindner. (He also wrote the book Rebel Without a Cause, which gave its title, if nothing else, to the famous movie of the same name.) This is the true account of one of Linder's patients, who became obsessed with a fantasy world in which he was the hero of outer space adventures. Although quite interesting, the case has little to do with the subject of psychiatry in science fiction.
The article wanders all over the place, and it is not very well organized. It's not as dull as some of the author's endless listings of old stories, but it's not his best work, either.
Two stars.
The Planet Wreckers, by Keith Laumer
Illustrations by Gray Morrow.
Our hapless hero is in a crummy hotel room, trying to get some sleep, when he hears noises coming from above. Since he's in a Laumer story, he doesn't just call the front desk. He climbs up the fire escape to see what's going on. What seems at first to be a lovely young woman turns out to be a weird alien being.
She's some kind of outer space law enforcement agent. It seems that other weird aliens plan to cause a series of disasters on Earth, in order to record them as a form of entertainment. (Think of Hollywood spectaculars.) She doesn't care about the fact that huge numbers of human beings will be killed; she just wants to protect the environment.
The alien policewoman and our pajama-clad protagonist go zooming all over the place in her flying machine, trying to stop the catastrophes. It all winds up with the hero inside the alien studio, so to speak, and with another revelation about his female companion.
Can you tell this isn't the most serious story in the world?
Laumer writes a lot of comic adventures, along with serious ones, but I think this may be the silliest yet. There doesn't seem to be any real satire here, although I guess you can interpret it as a dig at the movie industry. It's full of goofy-looking aliens with wacky names, and plenty of slapstick mishaps. If you're looking for a brainless farce, go no further.
Two stars.
Sun Grazers, by Robert S. Richardson
Inspired by the appearance of the comet Ikeya-Seki, which was visible from late 1965 to early 1966, the author discusses comets that pass close to the sun. He also talks about how comet groups form (larger comets breaking up into smaller ones) and whether the paths of comets suggest a tenth planet beyond Pluto (inconclusive.) The article ends with the author's own struggle to view Ikeya-Seki, and how he made a rough guess as to the size of its tail.
The author describes Ikeya-Seki as a disappointment. (The name comes from two Japanese comet hunters who discovered it independently, by the way.) Other accounts of which I am aware state that it was very bright, visible in the daytime. The article is moderately informative, but a little on the dry side. Like the author's experience with the comet, it isn't as spectacular as one might wish.
Two stars.
Station HR972, by Kenneth Bulmer
The superhighways of the future, where vehicles travel two hundred miles per hour and more, require teams of specialists to deal with accidents. This includes transplanting limbs and internal organs. All in a day's work.
There's not really much plot here. It's kind of a slice-of-life story, detailing the activities of the folks who have to deal with the gruesome effects of high speed collisions. I'm reminded of Rick Raphael's story Code Three, which had a very similar theme. Frankly, that one was a lot better.
Two stars.
About 2001, by David A. Kyle
No, this isn't an article about the first year of the next millennium. It's a very brief piece concerning the upcoming movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Director Stanley Kubrick (with beard) and writer Arthur C. Clarke (without hair.)
There's not a lot of information here, as the creators are keeping things hush-hush. What we do find out is intriguing. Will the finished product live up to Clarke's prediction that It'll be the greatest science fiction picture ever made? Only time will tell.
I can't really blame the author of this article for frustrating my desire to learn more about the film, as he was obviously prevented from finding out too much. That doesn't keep me from wishing it were a lot longer.
Two stars.
The Shape of Shapes to Come, by Robert Bartlett Riley
An architect imagines what buildings and cities might be like in the future. This involves three areas of prediction. From easiest to most difficult, these are technological changes; what people will choose to do with these techniques; and how this will change society.
Topics discussed include advanced building materials, new forms of lighting, and greater control of interior environments. The author laments the lack of mass-produced housing, similar to the way automobiles are manufactured, which would greatly reduce the price of a home. In the most imaginative section, he dreams of shelters made from force fields rather than physical materials, and of personal Life Packs that would supply one with all the functions of a house.
I found this slightly interesting, but rather vague in its predictions and not very exciting. Despite the discussion of a couple of wild possibilities, the author seems to think that architecture is going to remain conservative for quite some time, avoiding the futuristic visions of science fiction writers.
Two stars.
The Fifth Columbiad, by Richard C. Meredith
Illustrations by Hector Castellon.
Many centuries before the story begins, aliens destroyed all humans on Earth. In what must have been the most embarrassing mistake of all time, they thought the humans were other beings who were their deadly enemies.
The only people to survive were those who happened to be on starships at the time. Now, their descendants make war on the aliens, capturing their starships to add to the human fleets.
The plot involves the captain and crew of one starship. The vessel is badly damaged in battle, just barely managing to escape. The commander and a team of volunteers remain on the derelict vessel, hoping to lure an alien starship into docking with it so they can sneak aboard the enemy vessel and seize it for themselves.
Carnage on the starship.
This yarn reminds me of war stories in which a small team of commandos attacks an enemy installation against overwhelming odds. The Guns of Navarone in space, if you will. You know that some of the volunteers will be killed in action, but that the mission will succeed. I thought there might be some kind of ironic ending, given the mistake that started the war in the first place, but nothing like that happens.
There's some odd, smirking sexual content in this story. At the risk of sounding like a prude, I didn't think it was necessary to point out that the pseudo-reptilian aliens, who have a matriarchal society, have breasts like human women.
Not shown here, for reasons of good taste, I assume.
There's one volunteer who's only there so he can be a hero, thus earning the sexual favors of admiring women. The author tells us the female crew members wear nothing but skirts — no shirts or blouses, apparently — and gives us a fair amount of detail about the heroine's panties. (The excuse is that the interior of the alien ship is hot and humid, so the humans have to strip down to the basics.)
Two stars.
Coming To A Bad End
This issue really went into a nosedive after soaring to the heights of imaginative literature with Delany's novella. Scuttlebutt has it that Worlds of Tomorrow is on its last legs. That's too bad, as the magazine gave readers some very good stuff, along with a lot of not-so-good stuff. Very much a curate's egg, I'm afraid.
Cartoon by Wilkerson, from the May 22, 1895 issue of Judy.
A better known cartoon by George du Maurier, from the November 9, 1895 issue of the better known magazine Punch. Too similar to be a coincidence, I'd say.
Before heading into the planned book review, I have sad news to relate: on May 10, two Lockheed F104G Starfighters of the West German air force collided over the North Sea and crashed into the waves, killing both pilots.
A Lockheed F104G Starfighter, actually flying for once.
This would be a tragedy in itself, but what makes it even worse is that only eight days before, on May 2, another aircraft of the same type crashed near Rendsburg in the far north of West Germany, killing the pilot. Nor are these isolated incidents. All in all, the West German air force has lost fifty-four Lockheed Starfighters since 1961, twenty-six of them in 1965 alone. By now, the aircraft has a terrible reputation in West Germany, is nicknamed "widow maker" or "flying coffin," and also gave birth to tasteless jokes such as "How do you become the owner of a Starfighter? – Just buy a meadow and wait."
This Starfighter crash in Twistringen, some 25 kilometres from where I live, cost not just the life of the pilot, but also that of a woman and her two daughters as well as a volunteer firefighter.
After so many crashes and avoidable deaths of both pilots and civilians on the ground, the West German parliament has finally launched an inquiry into why these accidents keep happening. Reasons include inadequate safety equipment and maintenance, general issues with the aircraft as well as the fact that West German Secretary of Defence Franz Josef Strauß, probably the worst German politician since 1945, requested alterations and add-ons, which the light fighter aircraft cannot handle.
West German Secretary of Defence Franz Josef Strauß poses in the cockpit of a Starfighter. A pity he won't be the one who's in the cockpit when the next Starfighter crashes.
Spies in Space
With so much grim news in the real world, you just want to escape into a book. So I was happy to find Babel-17, the latest science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany, in the spinner rack at my local import bookstore. The blurb promised a mix of space opera and James Bond style spy adventure, which sounded right up my alley.
Babel-17 starts with a poem, and there are further poems scattered throughout the novel, used as chapter epigraphs. This is something you occasionally find in vintage pulp magazines, but rarely in contemporary science fiction. However, the use of poetry is entirely appropriate here, because Rydra Wong, protagonist of Babel-17, is a poet.
Rumour has it that the character is based on Samuel Delany's wife, the poet Marilyn Hacker, and that the poems found throughout the novel are her work. This is supported by a scene where Rydra Wong remembers the two men with whom she was in a triple marriage, a fellow writer named Muels Aranlyde and a geologist named Fobo Lombs. Muels Aranlyde is not just an anagram for Samuel R. Delany, he is also the author of a novel called Empire Star, which just happens to be the title of a novel Delany published earlier this year (reviewed here by our own Jason Sacks). Fobo Lombs is an anagram for Bob Folsom, a friend of the Delanys, to whom Babel-17 is dedicated.
The poet Marilyn Hacker, wife of Samuel R. Delany and model for Rydra Wong
After the poem, the novel proper opens with General Forester of the Alliance musing about invasions, embargos, hunger and cannibalism. From this, the reader deduces that Babel-17 is set in a galactic empire in the far future, which is at war. Later, we learn that warring parties, the Alliance and the Invaders, are both human.
The General is at bar, waiting to meet the above mentioned Rydra Wong. At twenty-six, Rydra Wong is not only the voice of the age and the most famous poet in the five explored galaxies, but also a linguistic genius with perfect verbal recall as well as breathtakingly beautiful. Oh yes, and she can read minds as well. Normally, characters this perfect simply annoy the reader. Rydra Wong, however, is endlessly fascinating, not just to the reader, but also to any man she meets. She has the magnetic charisma of James Bond, if James Bond were a brilliant female poet.
The military has hired Rydra Wong to solve a mystery. Factories and military installations have been experiencing mysterious accidents, which appear to be due to sabotage. Just before every accident, a burst of radio signals occurs. The signals seem to be encoded messages, but no one can crack the code, named Babel-17.
This is where Rydra Wong comes in. Using her linguistic genius, she determines that reason no one can decode Babel-17 is that it's not a code at all, but a language. Once Rydra realises that the messages are a dialogue, not a monologue, she makes headway in translating them and figures out where the next accident will occur. And since Rydra Wong also happens to have a space captain's licence, she is determined to go there.
As Rydra begins to translate more messages in Babel-17, she finds that her thoughts speed up to the point that regular English seems hopelessly slow and clumsy to convey meaning. Furthermore, Rydra realises that her uncanny abilities to guess what others are thinking from involuntary muscle movements are becoming more accurate and that she has also developed the ability to determine weak spots in anything from restraint webbing to attack patterns. Learning Babel-17 is literally changing the way Rydra perceives the universe.
A Multicultural Future
The next few chapters are given over to Rydra Wong recruiting her spaceship crew in various dodgy bars. These chapters are not only a lot of fun, they also serve to enrich the world Delany has built. We learn that cosmetic surgery is commonplace in this universe to the point that some people barely look human anymore and that walking around naked or nearly naked is not only perfectly acceptable, but socially expected. We also learn that there are so-called triples – marriages of three people – that are required for certain jobs aboard spaceships and that there are other jobs aboard spaceships that can only be done by what are essentially ghosts.
The reader also learns that Babel-17 is set in a multilingual and multiracial world. This is not your typical science fiction future where everybody speaks English – instead, there are myriad languages in this universe, snippets of some of which make their way into the novel. Our heroine Rydra Wong is an Asian woman, one of her three navigators, as well as Dr. Marcus T'mwarba, a psychologist who took in young Rydra after she was orphaned by the invasion, are black. None of this should sound unusual – after all, we live in a multilingual, multiracial and multi-ethnic world, so why should the future consist solely of white Americans? However, in practice science fiction all too often still offers up white monolingual all-American futures. Samuel R. Delany, however, is a black man and chose to show a more diverse future.
Samuel R. Delany is not just one of our most talented writers, he's also a very handsome man.
Treason Close to Home
Rydra's mission runs into problems almost immediately and her ship Rimbaud (named after French poet Arthur Rimbaud) suffers sabotage before it has even left Earth orbit. There is a traitor on board, but who?
Once the Rimbaud reaches her destination, the Alliance War Yards at Bellatrix, more trouble awaits. Delany goes into full James Bond mode here. First, he has Baron Ver Dorco, director of the War Yards, show off the secret superweapons developed there to Rydra, only for the Baron and several members of his staff to be murdered during a dinner party, when one of those superweapons, a shapeshifting android assassin, goes awry. The saboteur has struck again.
Rydra and her crew are not targeted by the saboteur, even though Rydra later notes that the murderous android had every chance to kill her. However, once Rydra and her crew return to the Rimbaud, they are struck by sabotage again, causing the ship to launch prematurely. Rydra muses that someone on board must speak Babel-17 and that this someone must be the saboteur. If you're thinking at this point that there is only one person aboard the Rimbaud who speaks Babel-17, you're on the right track.
Left adrift with their generators burned out, Rydra and crew of the Rimbaud are rescued by the pirate vessel Jebel Tarik. Though for a pirate ship, the Jebel Tarik has a surprisingly literate captain who is eager to discuss literature with Rydra. However, Rydra quickly impresses Captain Tarik in other ways as well, when she uses her Babel-17 derived abilities to aid the pirates during a raid and to save Tarik from an assassination attempt.
Rydra also bonds with Tarik's lieutenant Butcher, an amnesiac ex-con who was tortured by the Invaders and who cannot understand the concepts of "I" and "you". Rydra tries to teach him those concepts in a stunning dialogue where "I" and "you" are reversed throughout.
Rydra's next destination is the Alliance Administrative Headquarters. But before they can get there, they are attacked by the Invaders. Rydra, her crew and Butcher escape after a thrilling hand to hand battle in deep space. If you're thinking by now that Rydra Wong is remarkably unlucky, you're on the right track.
However, Rydra is not just remarkably unlucky, she is also very smart and so she eventually puts the pieces together in a nigh psychedelic and erotically charged scene where Rydra and Butcher merge both their bodies and minds. The saboteur and the traitor aboard the Rimbaud are revealed. So are Butcher's missing memories.
Reprogramming Human Brains
As the title implies, the solution to the mystery is Babel-17. For while Babel-17 is a language, it functions like a programming language, only that it programs not computers but human brains. Exposure to Babel-17 can turn people into unwitting traitors and replace their entire personality.
However, those who fell victim to Babel-17 can be deprogrammed. Furthermore, Rydra Wong has realised that what makes Babel-17 is so destructive is the lack of personal pronouns and the concepts of self and others. However, changing the language to include those concepts will also correct its flaws and stop the sabotage and the war. And so Rydra, Butcher and the rest of Rydra's loyal crew take off in a stolen Alliance battleship to put everything right and end the war. If only wars in the real world, such as the ongoing conflict in Vietnam, could be ended so easily.
Soft Science and Hard Linguistics
Space opera is often less scientifically rigorous than other types of science fiction. Babel-17, however, is based in real science. Though that science is not physics, chemistry or astronomy, but linguistics.
The newly built campus of the Pedagogic College Vechta, where I taught linguistics.
I'm a translator and linguist by training and even taught English linguistics at the Pedagogic College in Vechta, a town in Northwest Germany (which also suffered a Starfighter crash, by the way). So I'm familiar with the linguistic theories behind Babel-17.
The concept that underlies Babel-17, both the novel and the fictional language, is the theory of linguistic relativity, which postulates that the structure and vocabulary of a language determines the speaker's thoughts, worldview and perception.
Edward SapirBenjamin Lee Whorf
The theory of linguistic relativity goes back to Enlightenment era thinkers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Nowadays, it is mostly associated with the American linguists Edward Sapir and particularly Benjamin Lee Whorf (who also coined the term linguistic relativity) to the point that the theory is sometimes referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, even if Sapir and Whorf, though influenced by each other, did not actually develop the theory together. Working independently of Sapir and Whorf, West German linguist Leo Weisgerber has developed the similar theory of "inhaltsbezogene Grammatik" (content-related grammar), which is still influential in both West and East Germany.
Leo Weissgerber
Weisgerber's work is little known in the English-speaking world, but I am certain that Samuel R. Delany is familiar with both Sapir's and Whorf's work. The concept of allophones – variations of a spoken sound that belong to the same phoneme – which Rydra explains to General Forester early in the novel, was taken straight from Whorf's work.
The theory of linguistic relativity is popular among science fiction writers. Jack Vance also used it as the background for his 1957 novel The Languages of Pao. The idea that language determines thought and perception is certainly seductive and I can understand why science fiction writers keep using it. There is only one problem. The theory of linguistic relativity is not only controversial, but also very likely wrong.
Particularly Whorf comes in for a lot of criticism these days, some of which, e.g. the fact that too many of his hypotheses are based on anecdotal evidence, is justified, some of which, e.g. the sniffy disdain for the fact that Whorf was a chemical engineer by training and never actually completed a linguistics degree, is not.
Neither I nor most other linguists would go so far to declare that there is no link at all between the structure, grammar and vocabulary of a language and the perception and worldview of its speakers. After all, everybody who speaks more than one language has experienced that one language uses words and grammar to express concepts that the other does not even have. However, the link between language and worldview is not nearly as strong as Benjamin Lee Whorf and Leo Weisgerber claim.
Nor does the fact that a language does not have a word for a certain concept or perception mean that its speakers don't experience that perception. For example, English does not have an equivalent to the German word "Feierabend" (the time after work, literally "celebration evening"). Nonetheless English speakers are familiar with the joyful feeling of leaving the office or factory to head home, even if they don't have a word to describe it.
Meanwhile, the central concept of Babel-17, namely that learning and understanding a language can influence a person's thoughts and actions to the point that they lose their memories and identity and turn traitor, is – pardon me for being so blunt – nonsense and likely born out of Cold War fears about Manchurian Candidate style brainwashing and Communist sleeper agents. It does, however, make for a great story. Besides, science fiction thrives on extrapolating far-fetched and often impossible ideas from solid scientific theories. If we accept faster-than-light travel, then we can certainly accept Babel-17.
Babel-17 is many things: an action-packed space opera in the tradition of Planet Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, a James Bond style spy adventure in space, a meditation about language and how it influences our thoughts and identities and a primer on linguistic theories. Above all, however, it is a great science fiction novel, the best I've read this year so far.
[This month's first Galactoscope features an esteemed pair of science fiction novels. The first is by one of the genre's most accomplished veterans, the other by one of its newest and brightest lights…]
A defector from beyond the Iron Curtain lies dying on the operating table, a terrible secret in his brain. Only an operation from the inside has any chance of success. Thus begins a fantastic voyage in which five souls in a midget submarine are miniaturized and injected into the patient. Their destination: the blood clot that threatens the defecting scientist's mind.
A myriad of biological wonders and horrors awaits the team, from antibodies to circulatory typhoons. But even more dangerous to the mission is the possibility of a saboteur on board. Is it Owens, pilot and designer of the Proteus? Duval, the brilliant but antisocial surgeon? His expert laser technician assistant, Peterson? The cartographer of the circulatory system, Michaels? Or could it be Grant, the agent dispatched to watch the other four?
And can the saboteur be stopped before the miniaturization wears off, killing the patient and potentially the crew?
Voyage marks the author's return to novel-length fiction after a nearly a decade. The circumstances are unusual; I understand the book is actually a novelization of a movie script, though unusually, the movie is not due out for many months. Dr. A is, of course, a great choice for the job. With his chemistry and general scientific background, he renders just plausible what will likely be enjoyable folderol on the screen. He combines a vivid depiction of the inside of the human body with his usual competent pacing and plotting. And as an old hand at mysteries (he essentially invented the still meager science fiction/mystery hybrid genre), he does a good job turning a science fiction adventure into a whodunnit.
I suspect what I don't like about the book mostly derives from the original script. I found a lot of the action sequences a bit tedious. Frankly, I might have been happier with a book that was just a guided tour of the human body from within, so deft is the Good Doctor with his nonfiction writing. I also found Grant's incessant pursuit of Ms. Peterson (first name, Cora, like our esteemed fellow traveler) annoying — just let her do her job, man! Also, only two thirds of the book are devoted to the actual voyage, insertion not taking place until page 70. The build-up to the action feels a bit drawn out.
Nevertheless, it's a fine book and it's great to see Asimov flexing his fictional muscles again.
Three and a half stars.
Empire Star, by Samuel R. Delany
by John Boston
Samuel R. Delany has been quietly pumping out Ace paperbacks for a while, building a reputation from the bottom up. He’s up to six now with the newest, Empire Star, and I thought I’d better pay some attention.
by Jack Gaughan
Empire Star is your basic unprepossessing—actually, pretty ugly—half of an Ace Double, just under 100 pages, with generically goofy blurb: "He warped time and space to deliver a message to eternity." But open it up and it features epigraphs from Proust and W.H. Auden (a first for Ace, I'm sure), and then introduces us to Comet Jo. What? Is this the new Captain Future?
Fortunately not. Comet Jo is a yokel, galactically speaking, living on a satellite (of what, it’s not clear) in the Tau Ceti system. He’s physically graceful, with claws on one hand, and his hair is long and either wheat-colored or yellow depending on which paragraph you’re reading. He carries an ocarina wherever he goes. He works tending the underground fields of plyasil, more crudely known as jhup, “an organic plastic that grows in the flower of a mutant strain of grain that only blooms with the radiation that comes from the heart of Rhys in the darkness of the caves.” He got his nickname wandering away from home to look at the stars.
One day Comet Jo hears a menacing noise, sees a devil-kitten (eight legs, three horns, hisses when upset) which leads him to where “green slop frothed and flamed,” with writhing, dying figures visible in it. One of them breaks out—Comet Jo’s double—and tells him he needs to take a message to Empire Star, but dies before he can say what the message is. The kitten rescues a small object from the now-cooled and evaporating puddle. This is Jewel—“multicolored, multifaceted, multiplexed, and me”—i.e., the narrator, who we later learn is a “crystallized Tritovian.” Say what? High-powered miniature computer with a personality—at least that will do.
So Comet Jo (hereinafter denominated “CJ”) goes to the spaceport the next morning to head for Empire Star, which he knows nothing about, to deliver a message he doesn’t have. This farmhand gets hired on the spot to work on a spaceship, no questions asked. On the way he encounters the strikingly dressed San Severina, who tells him he’s a beautiful boy but he needs to comb his hair, gives him a comb, and offers him diction lessons. She proves to be the owner of the ship he’s working on, and of the seven Lll aboard—sentient slaves who are great builders and project their emotions of great sadness to anyone who gets close to them. Owning these slaves is not a lot of fun.
Why not free them? “Economics.” San Severina explains that after a war she has “eight worlds, fifty-two civilizations, and thirty-two thousand three hundred and fifty-seven complete and distinct ethical systems to rebuild,” and can’t do it without the enslaved Lll. She also tells CJ he has a long journey ahead and has a message to deliver quite precisely. How she knows this is not explained, and CJ still doesn’t know what the message is. This is one of many incidents in which the people CJ encounters seem to know more about his mission than he does.
During these events, and later, CJ is told that he and his culture are simplex, as opposed to complex and multiplex, terms which are tossed around throughout the book without being defined very precisely. (Where is A.E. van Vogt when you need him? Never mind, forget I said it.) We are told that multiplex means being able to see things from different points of view, and also it seems to have something to do with pattern recognition. Also the multiplex ask questions when they need to. It certainly means becoming more mentally capable. A big part of the story is CJ’s getting more plexy with experience.
San Severina leaves him on Earth on his own, but advises him to “find the Lump.” Say what? Only clue is it’s “not a people.” The Lump—which turns out to be a linguistic ubiquitous multi-plex, also part Lll, in the guise of a portly man named Oscar—finds him. They set out in separate spaceships, but CJ quickly bumps into something—the Geodetic Survey Station, whose occupants are up to volume 167, Bba to Bbaab—and narrowly escapes the wrath of a comical and homicidal pedant. At their destination, in orbit around the inhospitable planet Tantamount, CJ and Oscar encounter the poet Ni Ty Lee, who discloses that he worked on Rhys in the jhup fields before, and also played the ocarina once, which mightily disturbs CJ, and leads into a disquisition by the Lump on the works of Theodore Sturgeon, four thousand years gone by the time of the story. Ni Ty Lee discloses more things he has done before CJ, including hanging out with San Severina, and CJ gets even more upset. Ni isn’t happy either; he exclaims, “Always returning, always coming back, always the same things over and over and over!” Hint, in neon!
Enough synopsis. The book continues in similar style. It should be clear by now that large parts of this story make very little sense, starting with CJ’s determination to leave his farm job and head for the galactic capital with a yet-nonexistent message, because he was told to do so under the most bizarre and alarming circumstances. But that’s OK because it’s not really a story in the usual sense. Rather, it’s a story about a story, or about Story, or about the author moving game pieces about a board, each piece decorated with a piece of the stock imagery of pulp SF. (Towards the end there’s even a Prince leading a spaceborne army to take over Empire Star, and the heiress to the throne struggling to thwart him.) Maybe it’s better described as a confection. There is of course a revelation at the end that purports to rationalize everything, and does to some extent, but it’s almost beside the point.
My patience for this sort of construct is generally limited, but Empire Star is extremely well done. It’s enormously clever, with many pleasing and colorful displays along the way; there’s much more detail and incident than the foregoing half-synopsis hints, even if much remains unexplained or implausible. Enormous cleverness colorfully rendered is never to be sneezed at. Four stars.
[Note: We will have to read Tom Purdom's The Tree Lord of Imeton to finish this Ace Double, and also because, well, it's Tom Purdom! Stay tuned…(ed.)]
The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.
[Kris Vyas-Myall and Cora Buhlert team up to cover two of the better Ace Doubles to have come out in a while. Enjoy!]
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
The Ballad of Beta-2, by Samuel R. Delany, and Alpha, Yes! Terra, no!, by Emil Petaja (Ace Double M-121)
I have generally been disappointed by the Ace Doubles so far this year. Those I have read have seemed to me to be quite old fashioned and I had been wondering if they were going to be heading into a more conservative route with them this year. Thankfully, this new Double I have found has been one of their best:
I have been a fan of all four of Delany’s Ace novels, however I approached this with some excitement but also trepidation. For three of those former works were in the same Toron series and The Jewels of Aptor was also set in a similar post-catastrophe future. So, whilst I know he is an excellent writer I wondered how he would do with a generation starship story. I can definitively say he has not only succeeded but produced his best work to date.
This is an interesting take on the well-worn theme, where the generation starship became obsolete long before the crew reached their destination. The inhabitants found hyperdrive had resulted in the systems already being colonized and they themselves were outdated relics who were simply content to live on their ships. At the same time, it appears some form of reversion has taken place and those on board lack much of the knowledge they would have had at the start of the voyage.
Galactic anthropology student Joneny is forced to do an assignment on these Star Folk’s culture, specifically the titular “Ballad of Beta-2”. Originally Joneny assumes that the ballad is nothing but meaningless “cotton candy effusions”, but as he investigates further, he discovers this may hold the truth of what terrible fate befell the Star Folk on their long voyage.
This story starts off fairly leisurely and I assumed this was going to be a sedate academic kind of novel, travelling around exploring the starships. However, as it goes on you do discover that the terror listed on the front cover is justified, my heart pounding as I read some passages. And it should be said there are multiple unforeseen twists within its pages.
Delany clearly has a gift for poetry, with the ballad itself being a beautiful piece and with a clearer understanding of metre and imagery than may others in the fantasy field. He also uses a number of other clever literary devices which I loved, such as building up a mosaic story from framed narratives.
Throughout this Delany explores numerous interesting ideas. First is the value of the fantastic in storytelling and how easily it is dismissed by literary critics (something I am sure we have all seen).
Second is the problem of unchecked biases in academia. The only first-hand account Joneny can find is the original contact when the Star Folk entered the system and the Ballad was only picked up by sending in a robot to record, which the original anthropologist changed the lyrics he thought were clearly incorrect. It is off the back of this information that the common truth about the nature of the Star Folk is held.
Third is the danger of cultural assumptions. Thinking about who is civilized and what it truly means to be human. Throughout we are called on to challenge what we think we know and reassess that which we hold to be true.
Then this also acts as a reality check on the space romances, that see an ease to zipping around the universe, showing how hard this could really be. But then the story dives further into the dangers of anti-intellectualism and religious fundamentalism.
I could keep on about all the ways this work is fascinating. It should be noted this part of the Double is pretty short, only 96 pages, but within it he crafts a story with more depth than most writers manage in triple that time. And yet I would not say any of the concepts are treated at a surface level, he weaves it all together like a stout rope and you can see more ideas every time you look closer.
Needless to say, I fell in love with this short novel. I would recommend it for everyone, but it is not for the faint of heart or those looking for a light read. It is tough, intellectually challenging and really brutal at times.
Delany has once again proven himself to be one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction. If he is not to be my favourite writer of the year, someone else is going to have to produce something spectacular in the next six months!
Emil Petaja is an old hand of the genre but has been out of the writing game for almost a decade, only just beginning to sell new short stories and (I believe) this is his first novel. As such I was very curious what it would be like.
Humanity has fully conquered the Solar System and is preparing interstellar ships for further expansion. In Alpha Centauri they had been initially deflecting ships with their barrier, but the tribunal has decided it will be necessary to wipe out humanity completely.
The novel opens with an alien from Alpha Centauri arriving in San Francisco and ending up mingling with the homeless of the city. This person (who is initially called The Tourist but who will have more names as the story unfolds) has psychic powers and uses them to take a look at the differences in humanity and what life is like on Earth. However, his mission is not authorized, and a tracker has been sent to kill him.
Trying to summarize beyond this jumping on point seems like a fool’s errand as it become very complex. This story then evolves into a tapestry of life across the solar system, all of it linked together through a range of different characters, touching on ideas of power, mythology, belief and humanity.
Petaja makes a real effort to show what a future of ever-growing space colonization would be like rather than purely projecting the present into the future. This drive is leaving ordinary people’s lives in shambles as everyone has their eyes on space; crime and unemployment are rampant. Drug use is common. The natives of the planets that are being colonized are being exploited but it only manifests as power for a small number and as a means to fuel further expansion.
The author has an easily readable style which is useful as what he is doing could easily collapse under its own weight but somehow, he manages to juggle it. There were times when I would have to backtrack to check I was indeed following everything that was happening, but I never found myself becoming lost. I do think he could possibly have done more if this had been a full-length novel rather than squeezed down into one half of a Double, but he still works admirably with the page count he is given.
I expect this will be compared to Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (although that itself is an old concept, dating at least as far back as Montaigne’s Of Cannibals) but it is really doing something different. This more a dialogue on humanity’s future weighing up the optimistic and pessimistic views we have emerging in science fiction and considering whether there is something worth saving in us.
So overall, Petaja’s return has proved to be a welcome surprise and I will be interested to see what he comes up with next. He clearly has a great affinity with Finnish myths, so perhaps a book based around that would be welcome?
Rating: Four Stars
by Cora Buhlert
The Rithian Terror and Off Center by Damon Knight (Ace Double M-113)
Summer has come to West Germany, though you wouldn't know it by the wet and miserable weather we've been having.
Nonetheless, there are some good news. My hometown team Werder Bremen has won the West German football (soccer to our American friends) championship for the 1964/65 season.
The Werder Bremen team celebrates winning the 1965 West German football championship
The 83rd Kieler Woche, one of the biggest sailing regattas in the world, kicks off today in Kiel-Eckernförde. In addition to the sailing competition, there is also a parade featuring 23 tall ships from all over the world.
The West German police boat SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN and the French tall ships ETOILE and BELLE POULE, the Swedish tall ships GLADAN and FALKEN and the Chilean tall ship ESMERALDA at the Kieler Woche.This striking minimalist poster, designed by Michael Engelmann, advertises the 1965 Kieler Woche sailing regatta.
On to reading: In the spinner rack of my local import bookstore, I came across yet another Ace Double, No. M-113 to be precise. This one contained a novel as well as a short fiction collection by Damon Knight. In the past, I have enjoyed Damon Knight's works of literary criticism, so how would his fiction stand up?
Monster Hunt
Quite well, it turns out. The novel The Rithian Terror starts out with Security Commissioner Thorne Spangler, currently the most important official in the Earth Empire, on the hunt for a monster. That monster, the titular Rithian terror, is a tentacled horror that can take on the appearance of anybody it wishes. Seven Rithians came to Earth, but only one is still at large.
However, Spangler is certain he has the monster cornered. After all, there are house by house searches and roadblocks on every street, where everybody has to pass through a scanner. This is the one test a Rithian can't pass, for the scanner detects human skeletons and Rithians have none.
Spangler is accompanied by Jawj Pembun, an official from Manhaven, one of Earth's colony worlds, which recently gained its independence. Manhaven has regular contact with the Rithians, so Pumbun was brought in as an expert.
Spangler clearly resents Pembun's involvement in what should be his moment of glory. For starters, Pembun comes from a small backwater planet, one that only gained its independence, because the Earth Empire with its 260 planets let them. Furthermore, Pembun speaks in heavy dialect, while the Empire prizes precise language. Finally, Pembun is a black man, descended from African and Caribbean colonists, and Spangler is the sort of person who is very bothered by this and not shy about expressing it.
I have to admit that after the first fifteen pages or so, I came close to throwing the book against the nearest wall. There are enough racists in the real world, so I really don't need to spend time with racist characters while reading. However, I quickly realised that Knight was a better author than that. For even though Spangler may be the POV character, we're not meant to sympathise with him or his Empire. After all, Spangler and the Empire he serves are rigid, overorganised, xenophobic, have a massive superiority complex and are racist to boot. Spangler is also unpleasant in his personal life, a social climber who only courts his girlfriend Joanna because she is a member of a patrician family and will be useful to him. At one point, he even hits Joanna.
As a result, I quickly found myself sympathising with Pembun and cheered as he deflated Spangler and his smug compatriots. For starters, those scanners at every roadblock that Spangler is so proud of won't work, for while Rithians don't have skeletons, they could just swallow one to pass the test. Also, if the Empire wants to capture a Rithian alive, then maybe shooting six of the seven Rithians who crashlanded on Earth dead is not the best idea. Finally, Pembun casually drops the bombshell that the Rithians have hypnotic abilities as well as a nasty sense of humour.
A Game of Spies
What began as the hunt for an alien spy quickly turns into a game of cat and mouse between Spangler and Pembun. Spangler decides that Pembun must be a traitor and wastes a lots of resources trying to catch him redhanded. But the meeting of supposed offworld insurrectionists Spangler has his forces storm only turns out to be a Christmas party, where Pembun hands out gifts to children while dressed up as a legendary figure called the Grey Parrot.
While Spangler fails at every turn due to his rigid mindset, Pembun's unorthodox methods get results. And so Pembun manages to unmask the Rithian two thirds through the novel, using the Rithian's sense of humour against him. It turns out that the alien is posing as a junior member of the very committee dedicated to hunting him down. However, in the attempt to apprehend the Rithian, the alien is killed and Colonel Cassina, the military official the Rithian had hypnotised into giving him access to the security headquarters, is grievously wounded.
However, the crisis is not yet over. For the Rithians have planted bombs on Earth as leverage against the Empire. The key to the location of the bombs is in Colonel Cassina's head, only Cassina will not talk. And once Spangler's people finally manage to extract the message, destroying the Colonel's mind in the process, it turns out to be useless.
For Pembun points out that even though language has frozen and standardised in the Empire with every word having only a single meaning, it continued to evolve on the colony planets, where the same term can have many different meanings. So the location given in the message could be anywhere on Earth. Spangler and his security forces have no chance of locating the bombs. The Empire is finished, destroyed by its own rigidity, and so is Spangler's career. However, Spangler and Pembun have developed a grudging respect for each other and Pembun offers him a place on his homeworld Manhaven. Spangler's girlfriend Joanna, who up to now had refused to marry him, knowing fully well that Spangler wanted her not for herself, but for her position, agrees to go with him.
A Tale with Multiple Meanings
As a linguist, I enjoyed that the solution to the central mystery of the novel lies in the ambiguity of language. Another thing I liked was that Pembun's native tongue, which he occasionally speaks throughout the novel, is a Creole based on French, Spanish and English. I have no idea if Knight used a real Creole language, but it certainly feels convincing enough.
Just like the solution of the linguistic mystery, The Rithian Terror is a novel with multiple layers and meanings. On the surface, it is a hunt for a literal bug-eyed monster that has infiltrated Earth. However, it is also a John Le Carré like spy novel about two agents, both nominally on the same side, trying to outmanoeuvre each other. Finally, The Rithian Terror is a novel about colonialism and the slow decline and death of empires.
It is this last aspect that is also the most topical, for in the past fifteen years, we have seen the once great colonial empires of Britain and France as well as smaller powers like Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy slowly fall apart, as more and more nations in Africa, South East Asia and the Caribbean gain independence. And it is certainly no accident that Pembun, the representative of a newly independent world, is also a black man speaking Creole, while his counterpart Spangler is an overly rigid white man with the proverbial stick shoved up his backside. Knight makes it very clear to which of these two very different men the future belongs.
Four stars.
Off Center
Of Immigrants and Dolpins
Off Center, the second half of this Ace Double, is a collection of five pieces of short fiction originally published between 1952 and 1964.
The first story "What Rough Beast?" is the story of a young immigrant named Mike Kronski trying to make his way in America. However, Mike is not the simple East European immigrant he appears to be. He comes from far further afield, from an alternate universe. He also has the ability to bend reality to his will and has accidentally changed his world into ours.
Through a series of misadventures, Mike meets a young woman called Anne with burn scars on her body. He uses his ability to heal Anne's scars, which causes Anne's father and a greedy friend to capture Mike to exploit him. Mike tries to run away and is shot. In his terror, he accidentally erases New York from existence. Only Anne remains. Mike takes her to a different version of New York, where she can feel at home, and then departs to a new reality, hoping that this time, he will fit in.
A touching tale about the alienation and profound sense of homesickness many immigrants feel. Knight captures Mike's voice and his imperfect English well. Our editor Gideon Marcus also loved the story.
"Second Class Citizen" is the story of researcher Charles Craven and the subject of his studies, the dolphin Pete. Craven has taught Pete to understand and speak English, spell simple words and even do chemical experiments. While Craven patronisingly presents Pete to some visitors, we learn from background conversations that there is an international crisis going on. Craven is convinced that this crisis will blow over, like any other crisis before.
However, Craven is wrong, for shortly after the visitors have left, the TV program is interrupted for a special bulletin before dropping out altogether. Craven correctly deduces that war has begun and manages to dive to the underwater station of his research base just before heat bombs fall all around him. Craven survives the attack, but once his food runs out, he will be doomed, unless he manages to catch enough fish to survive. However, Craven has no idea how to catch fish. Then Pete appears, easily catching the fish. The roles are reversed now, the teacher has become the student.
The novella "Be My Guest" is the story of Kip Morgan, a young man who finds himself possessed by four bickering ghosts after a poisoning attempt gone wrong. Kip also has another problem, he as well as two women of his acquaintance have become invisible to everybody but each other.
The novella follows Kip through his increasingly desperate attempts to get rid of his unwanted tenants and solve his invisibility problem. Kip finally realises that everybody had multiple ghosts living inside them and that these ghosts influence their decisions. He also realises that his invisibility problem is a form of quarantine to keep Kip from talking about the ghosts. Eventually, he blackmails some very powerful ghosts inhabiting the body of a rich man into lifting the quarantine and make sure that he and the two women are given only beneficial and helpful ghosts. Finally free, Kip also realises that the woman he thought he loved is not the person who's really good for him.
"Be My Guest" is an fascinating attempt at a science fictional ghost story. Knight viscerally conveys Kip's growing desperation. It does feel a little long, though, and would probably have worked better as a novelette or short story.
"God's Nose" is a short vignette that does exactly what it says on the tin. The unnamed narrator and his female friend debate what the nose of God would look like. Eventually, her lover Godfrey arrives. He has a very prominent nose.
Inconsequential without much in the way of plot or point.
The final story "Catch That Martian" feels very much like a mix between The Rithian Terror and "Be My Guest". Once again, we have a dangerous alien, the titular Martian, who can take on the appearance of any human being. And once again, we have people abruptly taken out of the real world and turned into "ghosts". A young police officer is determined to crack the mystery of the ghosts and catch the Martian in the act. He deduces that the ghosts must have annoyed the Martian somehow, mostly via making noise, and that the Martian has a taste for musical theatre. So the narrator traces the Martian to a Broadway theatre, determined to apprehend him. But before he can give chase, he falls into the orchestra pit, straight onto a bass drum.
Well written and Knight once again captures the distinctive voice of his first person narrator perfectly. However, the story is also slight and a little silly, particularly compared to the two similar stories in this Ace Double.
All told, Off Center is a nice collection that showcases Knight's writing skills, even though some of the stories are a little slight.
Three stars.
[Don't miss the next episode of The Journey Show, featuring singer-songwriter Harry Seldon. He'll be playing a mix of Dylan, Simon, and some unique original compositions!]
The news recently has been dominated by battles between the old-guard conservative and the new liberal voices in the matter of race relations.
In the USA President Johnson has urged passage of a Voting Rights Act at the same time as another Johnson (a judge this time) has agreed to let a civil rights march in Alabama continue, in spite of fierce opposition.
In the UK, Rhodesian ministers have been touring trying to drum up support for their declaration of independence under white minority rule to resolve the stalemate between Ian Smith and Harold Wilson. Given the Rhodesian argument seems to primarily be that they have real experience of governing and the black people of Rhodesia are uncivilized, I don’t think they are going to win too many friends.
At the same time we have continued debates over Commonwealth immigration into the UK. Firstly whether the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act is being circumvented illegally and how widely, secondly if those citizens should be deported and, thirdly, if further controls need to be placed on immigration. I am personally in agreement with the late leader of the opposition, Hugh Gaitskell, who stated that it was cruel and brutal, and as such I am not surprised there are some people trying to get around it.
Then there are the inflammatory statements made by Sir David Renton MP that certain communities do not wish to integrate and that we have too much of our farmland been taken up by urban sprawl. On my personal experience, Indian and Pakistani communities in the UK are doing a much better job of integration into British life than most British people living in India seemed to have done. Whilst most of the increasing land-use over the last ten years seems not to have come from immigration but from those formally in the cities moving out to areas with more space. If they are really worried about this I would contend wider availability of birth control, legalization of abortion and a proper investment into inner city renewal.
A Quiet Town
Closer to home in Bedford, however, we have long had a thriving immigrant population and I have yet to hear any complaint about it. In fact the biggest grumbling locally is the that TV signal continues to be poor and plans for a nearby relay station continue to be delayed.
Thankfully we have many other entertainments around here. We have a number of local picture houses, with The Empire continuing to show a range of excellent films for the SFF enthusiast. On Sunday they are having both Vincent Price and Boris Karloff films I hope to sync my teeth into.
As well as the national charts, we get local charts. I approve of the top 3 going into this weekend (which I definitely contributed to myself).
And, of course, plenty of reading material, including two long awaited pieces. The Fourth issue of Gamma, which is looking backwards, and City of A Thousand Suns, which has an eye on the future.
Gamma: A Long-Expected Magazine
by John Healey
First thing, we have to start with is the cover. Gone now are beautiful space pictures and instead is a lurid cover right out of the pulp era. I have to wonder if this is the influence of the new co-editor, Jack Matcha, who has made a career writing Pulp Sleaze novels for Kozy Books and has the forthcoming novel A Rogue’s Guide to Europe whose content, I have heard, is just what you would expect from the title.
An example of Matcha's work for Kozy
The editorial confirms we are now going straight back to the pulp era. I personally was not yearning for the days:
…when Jayne Mansfield who invariably wore a space suit apparently constructed by a bikini manufacturer and every Bug-Eyed Monster attacked her for reasons known (if at all) only to himself (itself)?
We are definitely a far cry from the literary attempts to include imaginative fiction of all types, and the issue feels much the lesser for it.
H. B. Fyfe was first published in Astounding back in 1940 and was prolific during the 50s although he has been appearing in print less often of late.
Neil Bryson and a dietician named Carole Leland (who acts as his secretary), are sent on a mission by the Galactic Federation to assess a recently admitted planet that has seen a marked population boom that is alarming the other members of the federation. They are to investigate what is being done to get this down. On this planet we meet different groups with different responses to this directive.
One reason why I like to return on occasion to pulpy space adventures is they are fun and easy to read. This, on the other hand, is like reading through treacle with over-description, pointless diversions and regular stating of Bryson’s own thought process.
And yet the actual story within is quite fascinating. At first it seems like it is going to be a colonialist parable about “stupid natives” overpopulating themselves and not accepting the tenants of “superior people”. However it quickly gets messy as the Galactic directive has completely changed the various societies on this planet in unprecedent ways and we are led to wonder if the federation itself was at fault to start with.
So a very interesting piece brought down by poor execution. Three stars.
The Towers of Kagasi, by William P. Miller
William P. Miller is apparently a well-known and respected mystery writer, but I believe this is his first foray into science fiction. In this story, a team of astronauts investigate the titular planet from where a ray was sent to Earth, killing the entire population of four major cities.
At times it felt like what you used to get in Thrilling Wonder Stories, but it lacks any of the enjoyment and is a story that comes across to me as meanspirited, misogynistic and gross.
One star
Food, by Ray Nelson
Our first story by Ray Nelson since he got Four- and Five-star reviews for his pieces at F&SF in 1963 and is apparently now working on a novel with Philip K. Dick. He continues to show here why he is one to watch.
Ben is the last crewman alive on a planet where numerous creatures seem to be trying to kill him. This does not feel like a pulp era story at all, rather like the kinds of atmospheric vignettes we get in New Worlds.
Four stars
Hans Off in Free Pfall to The Moon, by E. A. Poe
This is a significant abridgement of Edgar Allen Poe’s Hans Pfall (about one fifth of the original length) done by cutting out his verbosity and digressions and instead sticking to the core of the tale, one of a man attempting to travel to the moon in a balloon.
Though I am not a fan of the original full-length work and do think Poe will use ten words where one can suffice, it feels like a lot is lost by making such a change. For example a section observing the Earth from above and pondering its appearance becomes a note about checking altitude on a barometer.
One star for a rather pointless exercise.
The Gamma Interview: Forrest J. Ackerman
I am a bit disappointed overall not just by the brevity of this interview but also the shallowness of it. It starts off interestingly, talking about the early history of monster movies but quickly descends into Ackerman bemoaning how terrible they all are. Also I am surprised that no real attention is given to how Hammer and Toho have really revived the monster film in recent years. He claims he watches every monster film that comes out but you would think from his description everything today was like The Creature From The Haunted Sea. You are much better off checking out Fritz Lieber’s editorial in the recent Fantastic instead.
Two stars
Open Season, by John Tanner
John Tanner is not a medical student as claimed but another alias for new co-editor Jack Matcha (and his second story for Gamma). In this tale, Ditmar is travelling to Venus to try to find out what happened to his wife, who disappeared previously on the same route. While there, the ship gets boarded and crew taken to the asteroid Zara, this being the exclusive property of Cyrus Blake, one of the wealthiest men on Earth
The story seems to be trying to be a tense mystery but I was just getting impatient. The twist itself is pretty expected for anyone who has encountered The Most Dangerous Game (and given how widely reprinted, taught, filmed and copied it is, that is probably 90% of the readership) and the whole thing feels like a very tired exercise.
One star
The Woman Astronaut, by Robert Katz
Katz is another new writer to science fiction from outside the field; if this vignette is anything to go by I hope he never comes back!
A comedic (and I use the term very loosely), dramatic telling of the first American Woman in space, this anonymous Mrs. Smith spends her time worrying about her appearance, is confused that communist China isn’t actually red from space and is generally befuddled by the whole experience.
It has been over a year since the first woman went into space on Vostok 6 and these kind of prejudiced attitudes are insulting, disgusting and probably do continued damage to any hope for progress on this front from NASA.
Unfunny, uninteresting and insulting. One star, only because I cannot give anything lower.
Happily Ever After, by William F. Nolan
The former managing editor of Gamma returns to try to raise the magazine out of the doldrums with this little tale. Donald Spencer buys an asteroid to live on with his wife, on the basis that land value increases will mean it is a sound investment in the long term. It turns out not enough was known about the asteroid and they might be destined for a different kind of happily ever after.
Not that strong, but it hums along and is at least a slight improvement on the last few pieces. Two and a half stars
Don’t Touch Me I’m Sensitive, by James Stamers
Huckelberry Waterstone Smith arrives on a heavily populated Earth controlled by various corporations (the zone he is in being the City G.L.C. Services inc.) wanting to be a space warden, but he lacks the mathematical skill and is illiterate. However, he has the unusual ability to leave behind him images of himself wherever he goes.
I have forced myself to read through this story three times now and I have no idea what is meant to be about. It seems to be written as a joke or satire but I am not convinced it really works as being about anything. Add to that the terrible prose style and it only gets one star from me.
The Hand of Dr. Insidious, by Ron Goulart
With Dr. Fu Manchu set to be brought back to life in the cinema later this year, it seems appropriate that Goulart, a skilled writer of silly satires, would do his take on the famous villain. In this version Dr. Insidious is attempting to create a talent agency and take control of Hollywood. When the 00 agents have been killed in their attempts to stop him it is up to crack spy Ian Naismith and Hollywood’s top plastic surgeon Dr. Maxwell Phoebus Jr. to take him down.
A fun and silly piece as you would expect from Goulart but it doesn’t really get at or examine the myriad problems with the Fu Manchu stories. In fact reads more as another silly version of the Spy-Fi genre.
Two Stars and a recommendation to instead check out the Goon Show stories of Fred Fu-Manchu.
A Messy Melee
Overall, a really disappointing turn for the once great magazine. My subscription is paid up until issue 7 and with the new bi-monthly schedule (assuming this one actually sticks) I should be reading up until September. However, if this is the new direction I certainly will not be renewing.
Thankfully, the other work is a significant improvement:
And so we now come to the conclusion of Delany’s Toron trilogy, which (at least for myself) has been the most anticipated book for a decade. The first two books showed that Delany was a writer of immense skill and did an amazing job of setting up this fantastical future and the stakes of the conflict. Now he has a full length novel, rather than half of an Ace Double, to conclude this tale.
This book jumps between two main focuses. Firstly, we have agents from numerous different species in the city of the Triple Entity. Here we learn of the war with The Lord of The Flames and the previous efforts to combat him. The Lord of Flames cannot experience concepts like war or compassion as those in our universe can so he has been trying to understand them first hand. The final result of the war will depend on which side has ownership of three manuscripts of the most sensitive minds of Earth and it is up to the Triple Entity’s agents, without outside aid, to bring them.
Back on Earth, the focus is on Jon and Alter. Now back in Toron (the centre of the Toromon empire), they have discovered mysterious words scrawled on walls everywhere. Following this trail leads them to the final resolution to the many conflicts we have seen throughout the series.
This is one that I think is going to get sharp reactions from the science fiction community, this is probably the toughest novel in an incredibly experimental series. It is a philosophical work touching on religion, communication, the morality of war, class conflict, racism and free will. Through it all we have a wide range of characters and concepts across a massive scope.
To start with the positive, there is absolutely no faulting Delany’s imagination and ambition. What would take entire novellas for another writer constitute a passing reference for him. To take one example:
…one of the attendants was an attractive woman with wide hazel eyes. But a minute examination would have shown her slim almond-nailed fingers, her cream and honey skin to be a bizarre cosmic coincidence. Internal examination and genetic analysis would prove her a bisexual species of moss.
This character never becomes important to the narrative and this description could be entirely exorcised without any confusion. Yet what it does do is display the multiplicity of life in this universe and the vast difference in beings we will be encountering.
Also, in spite of how complex the story he is trying to tell is he handles the action beats and flow incredibly well. It is easy to get lost in the world Delany has created, the tribulation of the characters and feel the tension grow as the remaining pages count down.
Yet, as with the previous books, keeping all the characters and situations in my head can be a real struggle. I don’t think this is a personal thing; I like Tolkien and Tolstoy and find their enormous casts just fine to understand. What I think is the major issue with these books is that Delany is attempting to paint on such an enormous scale with an incredibly finite canvas. There is no reason these books could not be expanded to the length of The Lord of The Rings without the need for significant plot alterations.
That is not to say it is not a great work that shows a talent that seems destined to become one of the most important in the field. But I do wonder if this kind of writing might not be better off trying a mainstream publisher or a long magazine serialization than the slim paperbacks Ace produces.
Rating: Four and a half stars
By the way, Galactic Journey will be doing a special presentation of our "Come Time Travel with Me" panel, the one we normally do at conventions, on March 27 at 6PM PDT. Come register to join us! It's free and fun…and you might win a prize!
I'm sitting here sipping some Earl Grey tea, nibbling a Bendicks Bittermint, listening to the Beatles on the radio; am I still in Tennessee? I must be, because I'm holding Ace paperback F-255 in my hand, and that's an American publisher. Then I take a closer look, and notice that the author is British. I guess there's no way of getting around it; I'm a walking anglophile.
Philip E. High may not be very well known to those of us on this side of the Atlantic, but his stories have appeared in UK publications for about a decade. I've had a chance to read a handful of them in New Worlds, thanks to fellow Traveler Mark Yon, who is very generous with lending copies of the magazine to Yanks.
High also had the story Fallen Angel published in the June 1961 issue of Analog. Our host was not impressed by it. Overall, High seems to be a competent, if undistinguished, writer of science fiction. Will his first novel confirm that opinion? Is it worth forty cents? Let's find out, starting with the front cover.
Was he there to teach Earth – or to rule it?
Well, that's a fairly interesting teaser. The cover art is all right, I suppose, although it doesn't really grab me. Let's take a look inside.
They wanted his secrets, but feared his presents
That should say presence, I think.
Next we have a cast of characters. That's a nice touch, as it allows me to flip back to the front when I forget who somebody is. My only complaint is that it leaves out some important names. Anyway, let's move on to the text. Like most science fiction novels, it's well under two hundred pages long, so it's not a major investment in time.
The background is complex, requiring a lot of expository narration and dialogue. Long before the novel begins, Earthlings settled a few extra-solar planets. They ran into aliens, at about the same level of technology, who wanted one of these worlds for themselves, and a long and bloody interstellar war followed. Eventually the humans won, but only at the cost of turning Earth into a brutal dictatorship. Anyone suspected of disloyalty undergoes involuntary psychological conditioning, so that rebellious thoughts cause intense physical pain.
Into this dystopian world comes our hero, a young man named Peter Duncan. As an infant, he was the only survivor of an accident in space, and was rescued by highly advanced aliens. The rulers of Earth see him as a potential threat, but also as a possible source of technological secrets. He has plans of his own, which I won't describe here, as they are not fully revealed until the end of the book.
The complicated, fast-moving plot also involves a bodyguard, a reporter, and a businessman who undergo important changes in their relationship with Duncan. Thrown into the mix are enemy aliens, held as prisoners of war after hostilities end. There is also a secret underground civilization, a love interest for the hero, and yet another set of aliens. The novel shifts point of view often, sometimes several times within a single scene.
Near the end, developments come at a furious pace. The revelation of Duncan's scheme, and the explanation of the novel's punning title, go beyond the limits of credulity.
The book is full of interesting ideas; maybe too many. Its basic theme can be expressed as Love Conquers All, which is not what you expect from a science fiction adventure story. Many of the secondary characters are intriguing, although the protagonist is rather bland. Often a villain turns out to be more complex than first thought, and earns the reader's sympathy. The author's style is serviceable at best, with some clumsy phrasings. Overall, it's a mixed bag, worth reading once, if you can spare a quarter, dime, and nickel, but not destined to become a timeless classic.
Three stars.
The Wanderer, by Fritz Leiber
by Jason Sacks
Cover by Bob Abbett
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber is an odd book, a combination of two disparate elements which never quite come together for me.
The core plot of the story is that a new planet, nicknamed the Wanderer, has appeared in our solar system — and in fact appears in almost exactly the same spot as our moon. At first nobody knows what to make of this new celestial body, but most people feel a combination of awe and confusion about what this new interstellar visitor might mean and what its impact might be on our world.
Quickly, though, a tragedy which once was unimaginable becomes inevitable. The moon begins to disintegrate under the gravity of The Wanderer, which unleashes a devastating level of natural destruction. Because The Wanderer has a higher gravity than the moon, ocean tides increase geometrically in power, terrible tidal waves hit all oceans, earthquakes strike in California, rising ocean currents open Lake Nicaragua to the ocean, and floods strike much of the United Kingdom.
In the midst of this utter destruction, Leiber shows us the hearty survivors who battle the effects of the devastation. We follow a band of travelers in Florida who encounter unexpected racism, a group of UFO enthusiasts in California who battle tsunamis, violence and some actual flying saucers, a lunar explorer who sees the crisis up front, and a panoply of other ordinary and extraordinary people, from South Africa to Vietnam to New York to a lone sailor piloting a ship across the Atlantic.
The scenes with these characters provide The Wanderer with much of its power and momentum, as readers are swept up in the terrifying and all-too-human adventures of these hearty and terrified people. In fact, if Leiber had focused exclusively on the people and left the reason for the destruction a mystery, this might have been an even more satisfying book.
Instead, Leiber shows us the reason for the Wanderer’s presence. In those sections, the book falters. The reason the Wanderer journeys to our solar system is that the Earth is one of the remaining backwaters in the universe that’s not yet settled by a group of extraterrestrial beings looking to civilize nearly all of known space. Those beings need to use our solar system as a kind of refueling station.
The Wanderer is actually an artificial planet, filled with hundreds of levels of civilizations inhabited by creatures and cultures nearly unimaginable to most humans. Piloting the ship is a super-brilliant catlike creature named Tigerishka who captures one of the lunar explorers and explains to him the background of the plot. A rebel against the civilizers, Tigerishka is soon captured and put on trial before she runs away from her fate — but not before she and the human have some extraterrestrial intercourse.
Leiber spins up an epic tale with some memorable characters and startling situations, but the work feels a bit undercooked to me. The two key elements of the plot never quite connect with each other and the space trial comes from out of nowhere. There is precious little foreshadowing of Tigerishka’s presence, and I found the idea and execution of her to be a bit pulpy. I kept imagining the cover being similar to a Gernsback pulp with an attractive human body attached to a mysterious feline face.
Still, this is the kind of epic novel which would make for a fine film and likely a nomination for the award named for Mr. Gernsback. While I won’t be voting for it in next year’s Hugos, it’s easy see Mr. Leiber’s entertaining though flawed creation taking home honors.
Some science fiction propels us to the farthest futures and remotest settings. The latest book by Martin Caidin, better known by his aeronautical and space nonfiction, takes place on the very edge of tomorrow. When the Soviets stun the world early in 1964 with the launch and docking of a pair of multi-crew spacecraft, NASA is directed to fill the space between Gordo Cooper's last Mercury flight and the increasingly delayed Gemini program. Major Richard Pruett, a (fictional) member of the second cadre of astronauts, is tapped for a 49 orbit Mercury endurance mission, launched in July.
For three days, all goes perfectly, but at the moment of deceleration, Pruett's retrorockets refuse to fire, stranding the fellow in space. Now, with just enough oxygen to last two more days, the hapless astronaut must somehow find a way to last three days — until the drag of the upper atmosphere seizes Mercury 7 and sends it plunging toward the Earth.
There is no question but that Caidin did his homework for the book. Undoubtedly, the author has enough material for a lengthy reference on the Mercury program and the astronaut training process in general. But within the gears and hard science, Caidin manages to draw a compelling profile of Pruett, sort of an amalgam of the seven Mercury astronauts. From his first flight in a propeller plane, through a bloody stint in Korea, and past the rigorous astronaut indoctrination, Pruett gives the reader a first-person view of the experiences that make up the humans beneath the silver sheen of the spacesuit.
Marooned shines most brightly in the first and last thirds of the book. The solitude and hopelessness Pruett's plight is vividly portrayed, and the pages fly up through about page 100. The journey through astronaut training is more clinical, with few dramatizations to liven it up. It will be interesting to neophytes, but any of us who read the Time Life series on the Mercury 7 (or the compilation We Seven) will find it dry. Things pick up again when we learn of the daring rescue attempts being assembled to save Pruett from being America's first casualty in space.
With Marooned, Caidin accomplishes two goals in one book, delivering an exciting read and providing perhaps the most detailed summary of the Mercury program for the layman yet put to paper.
It is the year 1973, and Art Harper owns a service station on the freeway to the launch pad where soon a giant rocket will take the first twelve men to the moon. His life had hitherto been one of complete and deliberate normality. But then, a woman appears claiming to be one of the Tuantha, a society of humans that had gone to the moon millennia before and established a secret, highly advanced civilization. She insists that Art is Tuanthan, too, placed with a human family like a changeling, and that he must come home. Further complicating the mix is Art's brother, Gecko, who, while human, managed to sneak into the Tuanthan moon city during one of the frequent inter-planet teleport trips. Now he wants to live in their lovely settlement, too.
The fly in the ointment is the upcoming lunar shot. The Tuanthans are convinced that, should the two societies ever meet, the Earthers will dominate and ultimately exterminate them, just as the Europeans slaughtered the American Indians. And so, the Tuanthans plan to sabotage the American lunar effort before the moon city is discovered.
This latest book by Robert Moore Williams stands in stark contrast to Caidin's hyer-realistic Marooned. Moore has been producing adventure stories since the '30s, and it shows. Eye reads like something written in 1948, lacking any comprehension of technological improvements since then. But the real flaws of the book are in its execution. It starts out excitingly enough, and the first half reads quite quickly. But then Art, Gecko, and the Tuanthan, Lecia, end up on the moon, and the whole thing becomes a slog of speeches and redundant scenes as the three are put on trial for treason for wanting to stop the destruction of the American moon rocket.
In fact, Williams' fiction production consists almost exclusively of novellas. It's pretty clear he has no heart or endurance for longer works, and the padding required to cross the novel-length finish line is tiresome and obvious. Finally, Eye is riddled with plot holes and story threads that go nowhere.
A promising but ultimately sloppy piece: Two and a half stars.
On the other hand, Chip Delany's new work, a sequel to last year's Captives of the Flame, reflects an upward trend. In the first book of the series, he introduced us to Toromon, capital of an island empire situated on Earth long after an atomic cataclysm. The cast of characters was bewilderingly large: the decadent and young King Uske, his cousin; Prince Let, who was smuggled into the custody of the smarter, psionically gifted forest people; the capable and canny Duchess Petra; the noble and former prisoner, Jon, who along with Petra had been rendered invisible in dim light by the radiations that girdle Toron's imperial boundaries; the paternal forest person, Arkor; Tel, a poor fisherman's son; Alter, a thief and acrobat; Clea, a brilliant mathematician…
It was all a bit much, but now that I see the author is planning on doing more with the world, I can understand why he introduced so many players. Towers does a fine job of continuing their stories, and I feel like I have a good handle on them all now.
Towers is set three years after Flame. The empire has rediscovered the technology of matter transfer and is busy exploring the devastated planet. A war has already been fought and won against the mutant insectoid tranu, and another is in progress against the mysterious ketzis. It is a strange war, fought in nearly impenetrable mists thousands of miles from home. The enemy is never seen, and its combatants (who include Tel, the fisherman's son), seem almost in a daze, unable to dwell much upon their pasts or their futures. Meanwhile, Toromon is in increasing turmoil. Prime Minister Chargill is assassinated. The evil seed of the fiery enemy from the first book is discovered hidden in the mind of King Uske. And Clea, seeking refuge in arcane mathematics after the death of her fiancee (that occurred in Flame), discovers a secret that could tear the entire empire asunder.
Tower is a significant improvement on Flame: better paced, more skillfully written, exciting. It is no mean feat to juggle all of these viewpoints and still maintain a coherent whole. Moreover, I appreciate the sheer variety of characters, including the prominence of several women.
I did find both fascinating and a little disturbing Delany's depiction of the three races of people that inhabit future Earth, with greater divergence than the paltry skin tone differences humanity has today. They are practically different species, with the baseline humans being seeming to be more imaginative (though not necessarily smarter) than the "neo-neanderthals," and the forest people occupying a mental rung above the humans. The neo-neanderthals are referred to as 'apes', and though they don't ever object, I can only imagine that the author (who is Black) is making a point.
If there's a down-side to the book, it's that it is a clear bridge to the next novel in the series, which has not yet come out. All the threads do come to a satisfying resolution at the book's end, but the aftermath, and the coming (final?) battle with the cosmic Lord of the Flames is left for later.
Three and a half stars, and kinder disposition toward the first book.
[(this book and the others in the series can be purchased here)]
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
![[September 18, 1967] Skål! (October 1967 <i>Fantasy and Science Fiction</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/670918cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
</small![[May 2, 1967] The Call of Duty (June 1967 <i>IF</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/IF-Cover-1967-06.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
Muhammad Ali is escorted from the induction center in Houston, Texas. 
Uncle Martin and Tim (from My Favorite Martian) seem to have had a falling out. Actually, this is supposedly from Spaceman!
Takya and Craike set a trap for the Black Hoods. Art by Gray Morrow
A strand-gleaner makes an important discovery. Art by Virgil Finlay
Billy meets Srat for the first time. Poor Srat. Art by Castellon
Cal is injured. Art by Gaughan
An example of some sea glass
This is presumably the Riverworld story promised for Worlds of Tomorrow. The lack of other information suggests that Fred is scrambling to deal with the loss of a magazine.![[March 26, 1967] Changes Coming <i>New Worlds and SF Impulse</i>, April 1967](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/New-Worlds-April-1967.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
Illustration by James Cawthorn
![[February 18, 1967] Six! Count them — Six! (February Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/670218covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[January 16, 1967] Off to a Good Start (February 1967 <i>Worlds of Tomorrow</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Worlds_of_Tomorrow_v04n03_1967-02_0000-2.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[May 16, 1966] Spies, Poets and Linguists: <i>Babel-17</i> by Samuel R. Delany](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BBEL1966.jpg?resize=386%2C372)
![[February 10, 1966] Within and without (Isaac Asimov's <i>Fantastic Voyage</i> and Samuel R. Delany's <i>Empire Star</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/660210cover.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[June 20, 1965] Ace Quadruple (June Galactoscope #1)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/650620cover.jpg?resize=397%2C372)
The first story "What Rough Beast?" is the story of a young immigrant named Mike Kronski trying to make his way in America. However, Mike is not the simple East European immigrant he appears to be. He comes from far further afield, from an alternate universe. He also has the ability to bend reality to his will and has accidentally changed his world into ours.
"Second Class Citizen" is the story of researcher Charles Craven and the subject of his studies, the dolphin Pete. Craven has taught Pete to understand and speak English, spell simple words and even do chemical experiments. While Craven patronisingly presents Pete to some visitors, we learn from background conversations that there is an international crisis going on. Craven is convinced that this crisis will blow over, like any other crisis before.
The novella "Be My Guest" is the story of Kip Morgan, a young man who finds himself possessed by four bickering ghosts after a poisoning attempt gone wrong. Kip also has another problem, he as well as two women of his acquaintance have become invisible to everybody but each other.
"God's Nose" is a short vignette that does exactly what it says on the tin. The unnamed narrator and his female friend debate what the nose of God would look like. Eventually, her lover Godfrey arrives. He has a very prominent nose.
The final story "Catch That Martian" feels very much like a mix between The Rithian Terror and "Be My Guest". Once again, we have a dangerous alien, the titular Martian, who can take on the appearance of any human being. And once again, we have people abruptly taken out of the real world and turned into "ghosts". A young police officer is determined to crack the mystery of the ghosts and catch the Martian in the act. He deduces that the ghosts must have annoyed the Martian somehow, mostly via making noise, and that the Martian has a taste for musical theatre. So the narrator traces the Martian to a Broadway theatre, determined to apprehend him. But before he can give chase, he falls into the orchestra pit, straight onto a bass drum.
![[March 20, 1965] Clash of The Old & The New (February 1965 <i>Gamma</i> & <i>City of a Thousand Suns</i>)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/650320covers.jpg?resize=672%2C372)
![[March 29, 1964] Five by Five (March Galactoscope)](https://i0.wp.com/galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/640329marooned-1.jpg?resize=417%2C372)
