Tag Archives: science fiction

[January 24, 1969] Make rheum, make rheum (Star Trek: "The Mark of Gideon")


by Gideon Marcus

"Gideon"—the very name connotes greatness.  Grandeur.  Brilliance.  Romance.  Surely, any world with that namesake must be a living paradise.  So it is no wonder that the Federation bought the reports sent from planet Gideon declaring it to be just that.  No wonder that the Federation would tie itself in knots so as not to jeopardize the chances of welcoming Gideon to the Federation.

Unfortunately, Gideon has other plans.

Title over Kirk wandering lost through the corridors of a fake Enterprise

From the moment Captain Kirk, the sole allowed representative of the Federation, beams down to Gideon, "The Mark of Gideon" catches your attention.  We've seen Kirk on an empty Enterprise before—in "This Side of Paradise", "By Any Other Name", and (sort of) "Wink of an Eye", but it's no less effective for its repetition.  Sure, it's just a re-use of the standing sets on Stage 9, but then so was "The Tholian Web", "The Omega Glory" and "Mirror, Mirror".  Indeed, because we have seen the sets used to represent other ships and other dimensions, the audience has already been trained to think in terms of historical precedents rather than the true situation.

That true situation, of course, is that Kirk is actually in a fantastically detailed replica of the Enterprise, so good that it takes him a (credulity-stretching given how quickly Spock figures things out) long time to figure out that he's not on his beloved ship.  But fairly quickly, the episode's focus returns to the real Enterprise and Spock doing his usual sterling job in command, the "Mark of Gideon" becomes less "Where is Everybody?" and more "Stopover in a Quiet Town" (respectively, the first episode of The Twilight Zone, and one of the very last).

The plot is quite simple: Gideon was once Heaven-on-Earth, but it has since become a Malthusian nightmare due to the one-two punch of no native diseases and a fanatical reverence for life.  Only the very privileged get a few square meters of space to themselves (Holy Shades of the Soviet Union, Batman!) So, the Gideon council hatches a plan to capture Kirk, withdraw some of his blood, and use the lingering, though harmless, remnants of Vegan Meningitis therein to infect Odona, the council chair's daughter.  She will then serve as an example and a vector to infect the rest of the population of Gideon, which presumably will be devastated before natural immunity kicks in (or enough Gideonites stop wanting to be sick).

Chairman Hodin looks over his sick daughter, Odona, on a bed
"Father, could I have a Bayer?  No other aspirin works better."

The real problem with this episode is not the story, nor the effective bits with Kirk and Odona on the empty ship, nor the entertaining segments featuring Spock sparring with Chairman Hodin.  It's that the plot and the events don't match up.

Regarding the disease: it's not stated what happens if mortality turns out to be 100%, or what the Gideonites will do once the disease loses its lethality.

It's never explicitly stated, either, why (or how) the Gideonites went through the trouble of building a replica of a starship on their surface for the purpose of letting Kirk wander around in it.  If all they need is his blood, he could have been kept unconscious for the nine minutes required to take his blood and then sent back to the Enterprise with some kind of cover story.  Did the plan really require that Odona join Kirk in the simulated halls of the starship?  Did she really need to fake falling for him?

Kirk grips Odona by her shoulders passionately on the empty bridge of the fake Enterprise
"I have.  to.  kiss you.  Odona.  It's in…the script."

I really want this episode to work.  Not just because it bears an absolutely terrific name, but because it is genuinely entertaining to watch from beginning to end.  Our crowd advanced a few hypotheses that I like.  The best was that the ship was Odona's idea, and like the Dolman from "Elaan of Troyius", she could be refused nothing.  Moreover, there was an intense voyeuristic desire on the part of the Gideonites to see beings in a truly open space, so this plan killed two birds with one stone.  Another is simply that Kirk was drugged when he woke up, and the mock-up didn't need to be perfect (a la last year's Assignment: Moon Girl).

As for the idea that it is hypocrisy for the Gideonites to value life yet hatch a scheme to indirectly kill billions (trillions?), I am reminded of the orthodox Jew who could not turn on a light switch himself on the Sabbath, so he cannily lifted his infant son (too young to be bound by mitzvot) to within flicking range of the switch.  And religion is, indeed, in the crosshairs of this episode, for did not Pope Paul VI this summer enjoin Catholics from using The Pill, humanity's main hope of stopping the population boom?

I'm writing this piece in the cold light of day, when I should be more inclined to savage the episode in light of its inconsistencies and absurdities.  But I find myself feeling charitable—perhaps it's because director Jud Taylor finally seems to be finding his sea legs (even if Shatner. did. employ many. unnecessary pauses. last week).

Three stars.



Deeply Creepy


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Maybe it was the feral cats yowling over my fence in the middle of the episode, but this is for my money the creepiest episode we've seen yet. Something about those yearning, horrifying disembodied faces just got me right in the shivvers.

It also had me thinking about ferality, about what happens when something once tamed becomes unruly. Consider pigeons. Tamed and bred by humans for 10,000 years as messenger birds, companions, and beauties, only to themselves over the course of a bare century transition back to a wild world that they had never been prepared for.

The people of Gideon likewise seem to be at the devastating mercy of a too-too civilized society whose very progress towards perfection endangers their lives. Yes, I felt the storytelling placed too heavy a burden on just telling us that they love sex too much to prevent vicious overcrowding — a cultural quirk that felt too big to swallow. But the feeling of confinement, of encroachment and enclosure came through loud and clear.

In a way, their whole society had become feral: bred and evolved for specific purposes and suddenly set adrift with all of that breeding and evolution still in place, but none of the supports and expectations which allowed it to happen in the first place. The individuals seemed civilized enough, grading on a curve of aliens we've seen thus far, but the entire concept of a society so desperately, brutally crowded seemed fundamentally wild to me.

Let's get to the criticism. As beautifully creepy as the premise was, the synthetic bodysuits and wobbling crowded walks outside the windows were closer to funny than horrifying. The question of where they got space to build a 1:1 model of the Enterprise also beggared belief. Some science fiction and fantasy writers believe you get one big lie, a total of one shocking premise that the audience will just go with you on because, hey, it's a genre story, them's table stakes. But you only get one.

For me, the Big Lie of this episode was that Kirk was lost and wandering around a completely empty Enterprise. That was disturbing enough. But then it turns out many of the assumptions we'd taken on faith as an audience were false and that just felt like being crudely manipulated. I watch shows to be manipulated, but I like it to feel earned, not like I'm being rushed from plot point to plot point, each more giddily hideous than the next. She's not just a fake damsel in distress, she's the weirdo ruler's daughter! And a national hero! And dying of some exotic disease! That she wanted! So they could cull their society like a dairyman shrinks his herd when the price of milk is down!

That's just too many additional premises in one story for me.

A beautifully staged shot of, from left to right, Lieutenant Brent, Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, Ensign Chekov, and Mr. Scott, on the bridge of the Enterprise, as Spock parlays with Hodin
Even Spock is incredulous of this episode

I wish we'd kept the lens tightly on Kirk and the crew and the mysterious woman. I wish the weirdo ruler's throne room had given us a hint that claustrophobia was going to be the enemy of the day. And I wish we'd gotten more of the woman actress, she was doing so much with so little. I hope we see more of her.

Overall, this piece will be memorable for its premise and a few fine lines, but the execution was lacking.

2 stars.

How Crowded Is This Place?


by Erica Frank

Odona says, "There is no place, no street, no house, no garden, no beach, no mountain that is not filled with people." This sounds like the Earth of Harrison's Make Room! Make Room!: an overcrowded world, very little privacy, and extreme government measures to cope with the seemingly infinite population. (Can you imagine living on a planet with seven billion people, as we're expected to have on this planet by the year 2000?)

However, we get glimpses that imply it's worse than that. We are led to infer, from the masses of people in plain bodysuits visible behind the High Council room, that the planet is literally so crowded that they don't have space for a few rooms for office work. That aside from their fake Enterprise, there is no empty 20'-by-20' room on the planet.

Kirk looks sternly at Ambassador Hodin offscreen. In the background, we see the people of Gideon milling around aimlessly.
The real question isn't "are there really that many people" but "why do they have a viewing window into the High Council room?"

I reject this notion. I believe Gideon is crowded, yes, but not that it's so packed that most adults spend their waking hours packed like sardines, slowly bumbling around in huge crowds.

If that were so, how would they even find space to make the fake Enterprise? What happened to the people displaced by it? No, while I can accept that Gideon is "full of people," I cannot believe they are literally shoulder-to-shoulder across the planet, nor even "…except for special cases" like childbirth and whatever space is needed to design and sew the High Council's uniforms.

Ambassador Hodin wearing a suit mostly made of brown velvet hexagons with some kind of wide ribbon between them, and a shiny metallic blue row down the front. He is flanked by two assistants in all-black hooded bodysuits.
Perhaps they're made of hexagons because they can be assembled by hand — no space for a sewing machine necessary.

Do the people have jobs? Families? How are children raised? How do they maintain a culture focused on the "love of life" if they are just walking around staring at nothing all day?

My answer: The people we see are probably tourists — visitors to the Capitol, hoping for a rare view of the Council chambers, which is separated by one-way glass. They may be required to keep moving; that gives everyone a chance to see the Council when the glass is raised, perhaps a few times a day.

This is a ridiculous conclusion, but the whole episode is ridiculous. A culture that refuses birth control on ethical grounds will use a fatal disease to cull their populace? How will they decide who to infect — will they be selected by computer and told to line up for it, as in A Taste of Armageddon? Or will they volunteer to die, these miserable people who reject diaphragms, IUDs, and condoms because life is too sacred to prevent?

The individual scenes of this episode were fascinating but the underlying story just doesn't add up. Two stars.


Old Fools


by Joe Reid

The story this week was about a people claiming to love life so much that they couldn't harm one another, and so long-lived that they developed an overpopulation problem.  Overpopulation so severe as to cause them to lure a Starfleet captain who survived a deadly space disease to their planet to infect them with the pox.  Why?  Perhaps this seemed like the most interesting way to die?  For people who love life their treatment of every life seemed to be just the opposite.

Let’s start off on the grand scale.  Unlike most of the technically advanced races in the galaxy, the Gideonites lacked the most basic imagination when it came to needing more space.  If there isn’t enough space where you are, go somewhere else and find some.  Am I to believe that a people who could perfectly reproduce a spaceship as a ruse weren’t able to produce their own ships to take them to other planets to spread out?  What weak imaginations these advanced humanoids must have had to not consider that most basic of solutions.  During his career Kirk had been to dozens if not hundreds of worlds where a hardy race like the Gideonites could expand.

The next charge affirming the utter hypocrisy of the Gideonites had to do with how freely they lied. Although it might not be fair to lay this charge at the feet of all the people, their leaders certainly were not honest Abes.  They lied about transport coordinates. The location of the captain. The girl lied about her origins, claiming to know nothing about Gideon.  The entire fake ship was a lie.  They only ever resorted to the truth after each specific lie was uncovered, and not a minute sooner.  It might explain how these leaders came to power.  Even in our world, you don’t come to power by telling the truth.  It makes me wonder if the planet was even named Gideon, although saying, “welcome to the planet Marcus”, doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

[Au contraire, mon ami.  We've already had a planet Marcus 12 in "And the Children Shall Lead".  If Odona emigrated from planet Gideon to planet Marcus 12, she'd be "Odona Gideon Marcus 12" (ed.)]

Hodin, flanked by two council members, harangues Kirk in the council chambers
"Not only have we no space, but I am using the planet's only hairpiece!"

If they really did love life, it must only have been the lives of their own people.  These Gideonites showed a complete lack of basic empathy for anyone who wasn’t them, for example, concocting a plan that lured an alien captain to their world to kidnap, imprison him, and bleed him dry.  These actions sure sound out of character for the "lovers of life" they purport to be.  In truth, the Gideonites were unimaginative in every sense of the word.  Trapping their own people on a planet that can’t support them is evil for an advanced technical society.  Using misdirection and bad faith negotiation tactics to carry out their shortsighted plan was contemptible.  Making the incarceration and blood letting of an unsuspecting victim their plan to save a planet was morally bankrupt. Attempts by the leader's daughter to redeem their reputation by choosing to sacrifice herself in the end fell flat for me.  There wasn’t enough good in the episode to salvage it from the bottom.

One star


[Come join us tonight (January 31st) for the next thrilling episode of Star Trek!  KGJ is broadcasting the show live with commercials and accompanied by trekzine readings at 8pm Eastern and Pacific.  You won't want to miss it…]




[January 20, 1969] Waiter? There’s An Alien In My Soup! (Doctor Who: The Krotons)


By Jessica Holmes

Another new year rolls around, and we have a new writer to welcome to Doctor Who: Robert Holmes. Before you ask, no relation. At least I don't think so. Regardless, whenever he writes something I like, I will be claiming him as part of the family.

So, am I claiming him as kin today? Let’s find out, and join the Doctor as he shows the youths that their school is just a brainwashing tool to keep them in line, and introduces them to the wonders of acid. Here are my thoughts on "The Krotons".


On a planet with two suns, sunburn is a real killer.

In Case You Missed It

The TARDIS arrives on a blighted world lit by twin suns, wastelands as far as the eye can see and a strong whiff of sulfur in the air. Despite the harsh conditions, this world is inhabited by a race of people called the Gonds.

In their society, the two brightest youths of each generation are chosen to be companions of their rulers, the mysterious Krotons. What they don’t realise, and what the Doctor very quickly discovers, is that this great ‘honour’ ends with ejection from the city, and a swift and grim death by disintegration on the back doorstep.

The Doctor and his friends attempt to warn the Gonds against sending any more candidates, but their sudden and unexpected appearance only makes the Gonds suspicious. Despite their efforts, a girl called Vana (Madeleine Mills) enters the Krotons' machine, the Dynatrope. The gang rush off to try and rescue her, with her boyfriend Thara (Gilbert Wynne) following, defying the law of his people to venture out into the wasteland. They’re successful in saving her from disintegration, but whatever the Krotons did to her has left her catatonic.


Cut him some slack, the man's not a medical Doctor. Though I could have sworn he once said he was.

Thara takes Vana to the home of his father, Selris (James Copeland). While the Doctor attempts to bring Vana out of her catatonic state, Selris explains that the Krotons have ruled over the Gonds for all of recorded history. Shortly after they arrived, they rained poison from the sky, making the land uninhabitable and wiping out much of the native Gond population. The Gonds have been under their ‘benevolent’ rule ever since.

It’s not all been bad for the Gonds, or so Selris claims. Sure, they can’t leave the city, and sure, they have to hand over a couple of their people every so often, and sure, they have to obey everything the Krotons say… But at least they get a robust education. Courtesy of the Krotons’ advanced teaching machines, no less!

Well, they get a robust education when it comes to how great the Krotons are and how marvellous it is to be ruled by them. Less so when it comes to things like chemistry and the concept of electricity. It’s not education, it’s brainwashing.

The Doctor and Zoe leave with Selris to investigate the Learning Hall further. While the Doctor explores the Underhall with Selris, Zoe tries out one of the teaching machines, earning herself a very high score, and an invitation from the Krotons to be their companion.

Aghast, the Doctor takes the test himself, so that she won’t have to go into the Dynatrope alone. He's so terribly upset when he realises she's doomed herself. It's really quite sweet.

Jamie arrives to tell them that Vana has woken up, but he’s too late to stop them. As he hammers on the door from the outside, the Doctor and Zoe are at the mercy of a mysterious machine. It knocks them out, but they survive the ordeal, with Zoe deducing that the Krotons have found a way to convert brain power into energy. That’s why they’ve been educating the Gonds, and why they’ve been taking their best and brightest.

But what’s it all for? The pair spot a vat nearby, filled with a kind of slurry of crystals in suspension. Like a primeval soup. And what might one find in a soup? Croutons. Sorry, Krotons.

The Krotons take on solid form and emerge from the soup as the Doctor and Zoe make their escape. Outside of the tanks, they’re hulking crystalline beings, reliant on a feed line to maintain their form. Or something. It’s not entirely clear.

Jamie finally succeeds in breaking into the Dynatrope , but the Krotons capture him immediately. Despite his inferior mind (rude) the Krotons decide to spare Jamie, reasoning that he could give them intelligence on the Doctor and Zoe.

Outside, the Gonds don’t just have the Krotons to contend with, but power struggles within their own ranks. Eelek (Philip Madoc), previously very pro-Kroton, realises that the current crisis is the prime opportunity to seize control of the governing council away from Selris, its current leader. He goes on the warpath, trying to recruit his people into all out war against the Krotons—never mind that the Krotons have chemical weapons while the Gonds are fighting with axes and clubs. It won’t be a revolution, but a slaughter.

Having lost the Doctor, the Krotons decide to destroy his means of escape, disintegrating the TARDIS with a blast of the gas gun. All is lost…for all of about ten seconds, until the TARDIS re-materialises a short distance away.

Meanwhile, Selris has a plan to defeat the Krotons that is a little less doomed-to-failure. If the Gonds can destroy the supports at the base of the Dynatrope, they could bring down the whole machine! Unfortunately, he can’t get Eelek on board with this idea, so decides he’s going to go ahead without him.

The Doctor and Zoe return to the city, having discovered that the Krotons are composed of Tellurium, which happens to be soluble in sulfuric acid. As it happens, there’s absolutely oodles of pure sulfur all over the wasteland.

Jamie manages to sneak away from the Krotons as the Doctor and Zoe lend the Gonds’ chief scientist, Beta (James Cairncross), a hand with his very first chemistry lesson. They’re making acid, and their laboratory safety practices are absolutely atrocious. On learning that Jamie hasn’t been seen for some time, they go to look for him.

They arrive at the Learning Hall to discover that Selris’ scheme is well underway, the ceiling of the Underhall is caving in, and worst of all, Jamie is inside the Dynatrope. Following a narrow escape from falling debris, they rush off to the Dynatrope’s exit to try and save Jamie. Eelek arrives on scene shortly afterwards, furious at Selris for disobeying his orders. He has him arrested, and with his power secure, Eelek makes a deal with the Krotons: if they agree to leave the Gonds alone, he will hand over the Doctor and Zoe.

Blissfully unaware that they’ve just been thrown under the bus, the Doctor and Zoe meet Jamie at the exit of the Dynatrope, saving him from the disintegration gas. They tell him to go and find Beta and get him to make as much acid as he can, then run off, straight into the waiting arms of Eelek and his loyalists.


Beep boop.

Eelek shoves the Doctor and Zoe into the Dynatrope, with Selris diving in after them, bringing with him a bottle of the acid solution smuggled from Beta. It’s a brave act, and his last, as the Krotons kill him on sight.

However, it does save the Doctor and Zoe, who pour the solution into the soup, and the Krotons unknowingly pump it into their bodies. It takes them a little while to notice that something is wrong, and by the time they do, it’s too late to stop it. They dissolve from the inside out. It would be quite grisly if they were more fleshy.

As the Krotons dissolve, Jamie and Beta pour barrel upon barrel of acid onto the outside of the Dynatrope. The Doctor and Zoe flee the rapidly disintegrating Dynatrope, and the Gonds celebrate their new-found freedom. Thara deposes Eelek’s short lived dictatorship, taking on his father’s hereditary role as leader of the council. He has a mind to ask the Doctor for his advice, but our spacefaring friend has already slipped out the back and made a beeline for the TARDIS. I guess the Gonds will work out democracy at their own pace. Their future is theirs to decide now, after all.

A Few Thoughts

The dynamic between Zoe and the Doctor is so much fun in this serial. They snipe back and forth over which of them is the cleverest (and it’s very funny), but I don’t doubt they’d each walk into traffic if the other asked them to.

Holmes’ dialogue is snappy and witty, and Troughton and Padbury are definitely having fun with it. Unfortunately Jamie gets a bit sidelined in this serial, though he does have his moments. When the group initially encounters the Gonds, some of them get a bit aggressive, and Jamie steps forward, unarmed, to defend the Doctor. Later, he manages to keep the Krotons talking long enough to delay his own execution, and steal one of their gas canisters into the bargain. I’ve long said that he might not be a maths whizz or a super-genius from the future (or wherever), but he’s not dim.

As for the Krotons, well. I don’t think they’re going to become iconic like the Daleks or the Cybermen. There was an attempt to hint at a wider Kroton threat, with some mention of a wider Kroton battle fleet, but see… I just can’t take them seriously. They’re so clunky and awkward. I kept expecting them to go ‘beep boop’ in true B-Movie fashion. I know, I know, they’re not robots, but they look like them and act like them. And that’s a bit of a shame because a life form composed of living crystal is a marvellous idea. It’s so wonderfully alien.

And another thing. Remember how the Daleks have pretty iconic voices? All that modulated shouting they do, easily mimicked by shouting into a desk fan? And the Cybermen, with their uncanny computerised tones? Well, I think there was an attempt to give the Krotons a distinct, signature voice. Something to really sell the idea that they’re from a distant galaxy, a truly exotic life-form. The distant, far-away galaxy… of Birmingham. That’s what they sound like. Brummie aliens. Brummie aliens whose heads spin around. I don't think Krotonmania is on the horizon.


Let's not put gloves on before we pour enormous vats of corrosive fluid! Yay, safety!

I don’t know enough about Robert Holmes yet to guess if this was on purpose, but there’s a definite counter-cultural undercurrent running through this serial. You’ve got the youth rejecting the propaganda of the state, the education system revealed as a brainwashing tool, and of course the answer to it all is dropping acid. In a very literal sense. All we’re missing is some tie-dye and a little grass. Groovy.


I couldn't find anywhere appropriate to insert this image, but it's funny and I thought you should see it. Behold the Krotons' cruellest weapon: the wide-angle lens.

And Finally…

The plot’s nothing mind-blowing and the alien enemies are so-so, but "The Krotons" is a solid story. It’s tightly-paced and fun to watch, with likable characters to root for…and also Eelek. Stuff Eelek.

Robert Holmes has had an encouraging debut, and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing more from him.

That’s about it for the first serial of 1969! Who can say what the year ahead has in store for us all, but as far as Doctor Who is concerned, I’d say the future is looking pretty bright.

3.5 stars out of 5 for The Krotons.






[January 18, 1969] (February 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)


by Gideon Marcus

Sticking close to home

The last quarter of 1968 had the newsmen on tenterhooks.  After the flight of Zond 5, many suspected the Russians would try for a flight around the Moon.  Would they get there before the hastily rescheduled Apollo 8?

They did not, and now it seems they are taking a different tack, trying to progress in endeavors closer to home.  On January 14, the Soviets launched Soyuz 4 into orbit carrying a single cosmonaut, Vladimir Shatalov.  This was ho hum stuff—the putatively multi-man Soyuz was once again carrying a single occupant.  Ah, but on the 16th, Soyuz 5 took off with cosmonauts Boris Volnyov, Aleksey Yeliseyev, and Evegenii Khrunov, the first three-seat flight since Voskhod 1, four years ago.

More than that, the two craft docked in orbit, the first time two piloted craft have managed the feat.  Then Yeliseyev and Khrunov donned space suits, opened their hatch, and walked next door.  They weren't visiting for a cup of borscht; they were there to stay, and they bore gifts: newspapers and letters from after Shatalov had taken off!  The next day, Soyuz 4 landed with the two new passengers.  As of this article's going to press, Volnyov should have landed his Soyuz 5—safely, I trust.

The Soviets are already beging to hail the mission as the construction of the first station in space, and there's no doubt that a lot of firsts have been scored.  On the other hand, the two Soyuz craft were only linked for a few hours, and there was no easy way to get between the two craft.  Really, they haven't done anything that couldn't have been done during our Gemini program.

That said, this may only be the beginning.  Unlike Voskhod, which only comprised a couple of flights, there have been a number of Soyuz missions, both manned and unmanned, so it's probably only a matter of time before a truly ambitious trek is managed, perhaps a real space station.

What's more impressive?  American boots on the Moon, or a permanent Soviet presence in near Earth orbit?  You be the judge.

Mail's in!

The latest issue of F&SF offers a myriad of treats that are, in some ways, as exciting as today's space news.  Let's dive in:


Another splurty cover by Russell FitzGerald

Attitudes, by James H. Schmitz

Azard is one of the Malatlo, the group of peaceniks who have divorced themselves from the Federation of the Hub.  Years ago, the Malatlo were given their own planet, far away, but next door to the Raceels, an up-and-coming race, so that the separatists might not be too lonely.

Now war has destroyed both worlds, and Azard is being escorted by three representatives of the Federation to a new world.  It's a magnanimous mission…so why is Azard contemplating the murder of his benefactors?  And is all really what it seems?

I found the telling of the story a bit talky and stilted, and yet, when I was done, I found the thing stuck with me, some of the scenes vivid in the extreme.  So, four stars for a fine opening piece.


by Gahan Wilson

The Cave, by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Per Sam Moskowitz' introduction, this is the tale of the end result of Communism as envisioned by a dissident writer in 1920 Leningrad.  As winter sets in, an impoverished citizen in the "equal" society wrestles with the urge to steal wood from an advantaged neighbor.  Soviet Marxism thus results in reversion to Stone Age sensibilities.

An interesting curiosity.  Three stars.

Nightwalker, by Larry Brody

Frank Whalen is a super-spy with a secret: his body shoots off electricity at will.  He also has a super suit, which confers stealth, but also has the annoying side effect of causing an all-over itch.  This tale rather straightforwardly details an adventure Whalen has behind the Bamboo Curtain, and how he escapes from a Red Chinese jail.

Probably the first in an ongoing series, there's not really enough of Whalen yet to hang on to, character-wise.  If you like superhero comics, you'll probably enjoy this one, in a superficial sort of way.

Three stars.

Dormant Soul, by Josephine Saxton

Saxton is an English author whose work generally fails to resonate with me, but this time, she channels her inner Pam Zoline with this beautiful, stream-of-consicousness story.  It deals with a prematurely old widow struggling with inexplicable migraines, deep depression, and an uncaring medical system that seems tailor-made to perpetuate the problem with useless nostrums and a callous ear.

The solution?  Wine and a bit of angelic help.

It's a beautiful, moving piece, and it was well on its way to five stars before the typically British, bummer ending.  Still four stars.

Drool, by Vance Aandahl

Justice Stewart once observed (essentially) "I can't tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it."  Aandahl proves that, "when correctly viewed, everything is lewd" (thank you Tom Lehrer) in this effective vignette.

Four stars.

Twin Sisters, by Doris Pitkin Buck

A short poem personifying the rain.  I liked it.  Four stars.

Pater One Pater Two, by Patrick Meadows

Two 21st Century disasters combine to doom the 24th Century: a doomsday weapon renders all of the Earth uninhabitable save for Greece and Asia Minor, and a birth control initiative backed by technology has gone awry, preventing all new births.  It's up to Jacson and Marya from the island of Xios to topple the remnants of the past to save the future.

An interesting, innovative tale.  Four stars.

Uncertain, Coy, and Hard to Please, by Isaac Asimov

For this piece, I felt it was important to have a female perspective—you'll understand why…


by Janice L. Newman

Asimov’s most recent “Science” article is on feminism. He never uses the word, but feminism is what it argues: that men and women are inherently equal, and that it is only cultural and artificial distinctions that keep them from being equal. It’s an excellent screed. For many women it would be a revelation, particularly if they have had no prior contact with feminist ideas.

Some might take exception to the description of the male/female relationship as slavemaster/slave, but I do not. For too long women have been considered property, unable to own anything: not money, not land, not their own work and discoveries, not even their own bodies. Even today a woman cannot open a checking account at the vast majority of banks without her husband’s or father’s signature. Consider how crippling this is for an independent person in modern society.

I can’t agree with every argument Asimov makes. While I concede that courtly love is an artificial construct, one need only look to the animal kingdom to find plenty of animals that mate for life, and which become despondent if one of the pair is removed. Nor can I dismiss fatherly love as purely cultural. Children look like their parents, after all, and men who cared for partners and offspring were more likely to have children that made it to adulthood.

However, these are minor quibbles. Overall the piece is well thought-out and logical and usually right, and I believe it should be required reading for all fen…indeed, all persons.

Including its author.

Asimov is well-known for groping women at conventions: grabbing their backsides or their frontsides, even seizing and kissing women who had approached him in the hope of getting an autograph. I am certain that he thinks such behavior is flattering–indeed, he lists the "smirk and the leer" as among the petty rewards of being a woman in today's society. I cannot speak for all women; likely some did feel flattered by such attentions. But having talked with some of his victims, I know that this was not so in many cases.

I have never met Asimov in person. Perhaps friends have deliberately kept me away from him at conventions to protect me. At this point, it seems increasingly unlikely that I will ever meet him. But if I ever do, I would like to say to him, “You, too, wield the power of the slavemaster. The very ‘silliness’ that you decry as an artificial defense mechanism is exactly what is coming into play when you kiss a woman and she blushes and laughs awkwardly. Hers is a conditioned response born, at its heart, out of fear.”

Perhaps it is not surprising that Asimov apparently can’t make the extra leap to apply his reasoning to his own behavior. As excellent and revelatory as this piece is, it seems to come entirely from Asimov’s mind without any discussion with actual women. In fact, it’s unlikely that he’s had much opportunity to see things from a ‘feminine perspective’, considering the vast majority of media is from a male point of view. Not surprising, but it is saddening and frustrating.

I don’t know if I could convince him that he is not exempt, that however unthreatening he may think himself, society nonetheless places the slavemaster’s whip firmly in his hand. But perhaps, someday, he can: I think the man capable of writing such an important feminist piece could learn from his own words.

Five stars.



by Gideon Marcus

After All the Dreaming Ends, by Gary Jennings

A simple boy meets girl episode in wartime, just before the boy is to ship off to the European Theater of Operations.  Except the girl isn't there—she's dying in a hospital bed 25 years later.  To sleep, perchance to dream…and what a beautiful, romantic dream.

A sweet, wistful piece.  I'm a sucker for love stories.  Five stars.

A pleasant recounting

Well now—not a clunker in the bunch, and some Star material to boot.  Indeed, this is the first 4-star issue of F&SF in the history of our reviewing the magazine!  That's exciting news in the skies above and on the ground, and definitely enough to keep us renewing our subscription—to F&SF AND Aviation Weekly.






[January 16, 1969] Mixed messages (Star Trek: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")


by Janice L. Newman

Star Trek has given us some great episodes this season. Sadly, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield was not one of them. It was ineptly written, poorly directed, and both ham- and heavy-handed in its delivery.

The story opens with the Enterprise coming across a stolen shuttlecraft on the way to Ariannus, a planet which urgently needs ‘decontamination’ else millions will die. The shuttlecraft is in distress, and the crew bring the vehicle aboard and treat its lone passenger. The scene with the shuttle bay opening and closing is a good effect…but would have been even more so if they had edited out the “1701” across its side.


The latest rage: All Federation shuttlecraft have the Enterprise's serial number

The scriptwriter here makes the first of a number of blunders. Over-eager to ‘explain’ the strange black-white coloration of the alien, the author penned an awkward conversation between Doctor McCoy, Captain Kirk, and Mr. Spock about how such a being might have come to exist. The problem is that this explanation is unnecessary and feels forced. The audience has seen plenty of strange aliens thus far and almost never has there been a need to ‘explain’ how they came about. Furthermore, the explanation doesn’t explain anything. Spock and McCoy write off the divided coloration as being a totally unique mutation, while Kirk nonsensically opines that “…he is the result of a very dramatic conflict.”


They got blue people and green people but this guy looks weird?  And no one suspects it's not a cosmetic affectation?

The alien’s name is Lokai. He takes umbrage at the assertion that he ‘stole’ the shuttlecraft, both implying that he was only borrowing it and outright stating that his great need justified taking it. When Kirk attempts to interrogate him further, he becomes uncooperative and refuses to answer any more questions.

Kirk is called back to the bridge when an alien ship shows up—or doesn’t show up, as the case may be. The sensors are picking it up, but it doesn’t show up on any of the screens. It’s on a collision course with the Enterprise and ends by disintegrating against the hull and depositing one alien onto the bridge in the process.

This entire scene was awful. It’s a little tricky to put into words what made it so bad, but it had me groaning and hitting my head against a pillow repeatedly, so I will try.

First, the camera repeatedly did an extra-dramatic zoom in and out and shake effect on the red alert light. It drew laughs from the watching crowd, feeling more like something out of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea than Star Trek. The entire sequence is contrived and unnatural, existing only to get the characters where the writer wanted them. Efforts to ‘explain’ the ship and its fate, like the prior conversation about mutation, serve only to highlight how silly it all is.

The new alien is named Bele, and in direct contradiction to the previous conversation about one-of-a-kind mutations, has the same half-black and half-white coloration as Lokai. He states that he’s “chief officer of the Commission on Political Traitors” on his planet, and has come to claim Lokai. Kirk challenges him, but agrees to let him see the other prisoner.


"Riddle me this, Captain: what's black and white and insufferable all over?"

Bele and Lokai proceed to react to each other with pure vitriol. Lokai claims that he is a revolutionary, fighting for the rights of his people. Bele calls him a loathsome murderer. Lokai turns to Kirk and demands political asylum, while Bele demands to be taken to their home planted, Cheron, immediately. Kirk tells them both that Starfleet will sort it out after the Enterprise finishes their decontamination mission, as millions of lives are at stake. Bele states that this is unacceptable, just before the Enterprise takes a new heading, seemingly all by itself.

Maddeningly, Kirk doesn’t connect the misbehavior of his ship with the presence of the aliens aboard until just before Bele outright claims responsibility. Lokai and Bele have another confrontation on the bridge, both of them ignoring the fact that “millions of lives” on Ariannus are at stake. Kirk orders both of them to the brig, then shot at with phasers set on stun, neither of which are effective against the aliens’ “personal shields”.


The rarely seen "tickle" setting of the phaser

Contrived, contrived, contrived. I felt the hand of the scriptwriter turning and moving the ship like a child with a toy. The scriptwriter didn’t want Bele or Lokai thrown in the brig or knocked out, so they were given invincibility. The creator of the story wanted certain things to happen, and so forced them to happen in the bluntest and most direct ways possible.

However, Kirk’s response to Bele did lead to a scene I actually liked. Kirk tells Bele that the ship will fulfill its mission to Ariannus or he will destroy it. Bele tries to call his bluff, and Kirk initiates the self-destruct sequence. This was perhaps a little drawn out, and the codes for self-destruct could have been more complex than variations of, “one, code one, one A”. Still, Kirk’s defiance and unwillingness to surrender his ship is great, very in-character, and the scene actually managed some genuine tension.


"This starship will self-destruct in five seconds…"

Kirk’s never tolerated threats to his ship well, so it’s a little jarring that he chooses to give them free run of the ship after that. On the other hand, how could he stop them? They’ve been shown to be invincible and Bele is both able and willing to take over the ship, even at the cost of “millions of lives”. Kirk has exactly one possible counter-move, and it’s one that would lead to a Pyrrhic victory indeed.

Lokai begins making friends among the crew, making his case to them. He says something interesting here that could have been great if the writer had bothered to follow up on it: “Do you know what it would be like to be dragged out of your hovel into a war on another planet? A battle that will serve your oppressor and bring death to you and your brothers?”

This tantalizing hint of actual background is once again casually ignored by the rest of the story. We cut to Bele, drinking with the Captain and trying to win him to his side much the same way that Lokai is doing with the crewmembers. It is in this conversation that we come to the crux of the episode, a point delivered with a sledgehammer. Bele is amazed that the captain and Spock can’t see his superiority. He is, after all, black on the right side, while Lokai is white on the right side.

Wow, this racial metaphor is so nuanced and clever!


A punchline not worth waiting for

Well, perhaps in more skilled hands, it might have been. There is certainly a simplicity to the message, to the point where even a child could understand it. We the viewers are shocked by what appears to us to be such bizarre and extreme racism over a minor difference. We are meant to take it to heart, to apply it to our own lives and question our own prejudices.

The problem is, the message becomes muddled despite itself. I will leave going into detail as to why the portrayal of the two aliens undermines and even contradicts the episode’s theme to the other writers on this piece. Suffice it to say that the “revelation” of the source of the racial differences elicited more groans than gasps from the watchers in my house.

Ariannus is successfully decontaminated, and Bele takes control of the Enterprise again, this time burning out the directional and self-destruct circuits first. (In other words, the scriptwriter’s hand once again descended upon the ship and turned its course to Cheron.)

The ship arrives at Cheron and finds that the people on it have destroyed each other (presumably fairly recently, since there are still bodies on the planet). Bele chases Lokai through the corridors of the Enterprise, with Kirk doing nothing to stop them. Pursued and pursuer beam themselves down to the dead planet, presumably to try to kill each other. Kirk leaves them there, and we are spoon-fed the other Important Message of the episode:

SPOCK: To expect sense from two mentalities of such extreme viewpoints is not logical.
SULU: But their planet's dead. Does it matter now which one's right?
SPOCK: Not to Lokai and Bele. All that matters to them is their hate.
UHURA: Do you suppose that's all they ever had, sir?


The ashes of Detroit still smolder after 50,000 years

Well. That was a mess of poor writing, inept directing, and Shatner’s own particular brand of scenery chewing. And as much as I appreciated the messages the writer so desperately wanted to convey, it would have been more effective if the plot could have settled on one of them instead of trying to cram in both. If you want to watch a good episode about the dangers of racism, irrational hatred, and unchecked violence, wait for a re-run of Day of the Dove.

One and a half stars (the half almost entirely for the self-destruct sequence.)


Bones beneath the fat


by Lorelei Marcus

At a sacrifice in Ancient Greece, Prometheus once slaughtered an ox and offered up two piles for Zeus to choose from.  One contained the meat and much of the fat.  The other was a pile of bones artfully arranged under a layer of glistening juices so as to look like the more appetizing pick.  Zeus chose the latter, and was so angered by this deception that he withheld fire from humanity.

From the unsubtle makeup to Lokai's stirring speech against Bele in Sick Bay, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" presents itself as a racial narrative in favor of Black rights.  Yet, somewhere along the way, it loses that thread and ultimately concludes with a different message: If we continue to hate one another, we will only destroy ourselves.

This is quite a turn which clashes spectacularly with Lokai's initial characterization.  Of course, Lokai is bound to hate the group which subjugates and ghettoizes his people.  His revolutionary vigor seems justified when he is fighting for "basic dignity", a trait Kirk has often associated with humanity's freedom when dealing with alien enslavers and oppressors.

However, the finale would have you believe that Lokai's hatred is unjustified, or at least, excessive.  Therein lies the true sin of the episode, because to achieve the dramatic final theme, it must gut its initial framing of racial injustice and the characters that metaphorically represent it.

Lokai is consistently unlikable.  He arrives as a suspected criminal, refuses to communicate or cooperate, and he is quick to anger.  Regardless of how noble his initial goals, or how genuine his pleas for amnesty, he is never truly taken seriously by the Enterprise crew and therefore, we also see no reason to sympathize.  Throughout the episode, he is termed a firebrand, a troublemaker, and even a murderer, with no redeeming actions to prove otherwise.  He also reveals a prejudice, not just against his oppressors, but also the monocolored humans and audience, further alienating him and his cause.

Bele's character, in contrast, while evil by default, is treated with respect, making Lokai look worse still.  Bele is quickly established as the oppressive, bigoted, authority.  He also commits heinous acts like hijacking the Enterprise from a critical, planet-saving mission for his own selfish purposes.  But isn't he justified because he has toiled for nearly 50,000 years to capture his criminal, a mass-murdering fanatic?  And after all, he does eventually allow the Enterprise to finish her mission, so can he really be so bad?

Well, yes, and the ending would even like to remind us of that: even with his whole planet destroyed, Bele is doomed by his own hatred to forever chase Lokai across their barren world.  But first, he is allowed to roam the ship like an esteemed guest and even dine finely with the Captain.  Even certain emissaries have not had so high an honor, but I suppose there are special treatment regulations for starship hijackers. 


"Well, in compensation for our not immediately flying you to Havana, have some brandy."

While Bele's motives are prejudiced and unsympathetic, this kid-glove treatment affords him some respectability, furthering Lokai's appearance as irrational in comparison.

This brings me to my conclusion.  Lokai and Bele both ultimately come across as incomprehensible extremists.  Lokai is logical in motive, but not in action; Bele is logical in action, but not motive.  Tragically, their extreme hatred seems to be a microcosm for their whole planet's struggle—they appear as figureheads of the two sides.  Thus, the episode becomes a cautionary tale against extremism.

Yet, the shroud of the race-relations narrative remains, literally expressed by the ever-present alien makeup.  So the two themes join, linking extremism with the race struggle and its leaders.  This, in turn, undermines both causes.  If Lokai's genuine issues can be disregarded with the justification that he is unlikeable and dangerous, then what implication does that have for the black man?  Did the riots not begin because pacifist pleas for change fall time and time again on deaf ears?

The episode is so self-righteous about stopping hatred that it sours the positive social message it could have had, and instead, vilifies the struggle it claims to represent.

And so, some of the fire in my passion for Star Trek diminishes.  To describe the episode in a word, I'll quote Mr. Scott: "Disgusting."

One star.


An end to war


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

24 men died on the USS Enterprise yesterday, another 85 injured as a rocket exploded onboard; 11 planes were also destroyed. Those young men were on that ship in service of a war many had no right to vote for just seven short months ago. The Enterprise herself has touched many conflicts — Vietnam, Cuba, Japan, the Middle East — and was preparing for her fourth deployment to Vietnam. This is the fourth time a U.S. aircraft carrier had caught fire in 15 years, accidents that killed 537 sailors in total according to The New York Times; of the four, only one involved enemy fire.

I was thinking about the ways in which war destroys the people who wage it while watching “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” Rather than an atom-powered football field-sized carrier ferrying fighter jets to bomb a country that barely has an air force, the war in this episode is reduced to two men; a binary pair. Their hatred is made irrational, and while other reviewers found it ham-handed, I found it operatic.

We have the sense of scale conveyed by a few terse lines — millions in danger; 50,000 years of pursuit! We have the stentorian arias given by Kirk, Spock, and our two representative combatants — where Kirk and Spock could have been Purcell tenor roles with their clear, short, decisive words, Lokai and Bele were all Mozart at his muddiest and most secretive, all Sarastro lecturing Pamina in coded Masonic lessons about how the world works with none of the delicacy or lightness of the Queen of the Night’s aria to lift us up again afterwards. We also have the oversized tragic ending — not just these two men killing each other, as they've been trying to do all episode long, but their entire world dead, corpses left on the ground unburied, and them doomed to chase and haunt each other amongst the moldering wreckage of their hatred forever more, like the ending of a Noh Play written for Tom and Jerry.


But what of Lazarus?

With the bright light of the teleporter and the offstage decision makers driving the plot, it reminded me of nothing so much as the end of Puccini’s Suor Angelica, where the former-aristocrat-and-current-nun learns her child out of wedlock has died and she kills herself. Obviously the plot is not the main parallel; Suor Angelica is mostly women’s roles, making it a favorite of mixed gender opera programs around the world, and Star Trek is sometimes pressed to include 2 speaking women per episode, much less a dozen. It is the feeling of the ending as an audience member that is the same. In my favorite productions of Suor Angelica, as she sings her final aria, begging Mother Mary to save her after she’s poisoned herself — “Madonna! Madonna! Salve me, salve me!” complete with its glorious high A's — a bright light floods down on center stage, a transporter beam from the Madonna herself, bringing Suor Angelica up with her to heaven to reunite with her child.

For me, there is something likewise satisfying about the ending of “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.” These two men have wreaked havoc across the galaxy for centuries, trailing their hatred like plague corpses, disrupting societies, destroying lives as they whirl and swirl and clash against each other. And as of the end of the episode, they cannot. They are planet-bound, returned to the home they both thought they were fighting for, deprived of the tools to hurt anyone but themselves. Trapped, forever, in a Hell of their own making, reunited and secure in their hatred.

Real war is nothing like opera or science fiction. It is famously boring until it’s not, and mostly kills people who had no say in its arrival or its leaving. Many who die in war and no small number who fight in it fervently wish that each clash would be their “last battlefield”; after all the useless deaths of sailors the real life Enterprise and of families who are Vietnamese, Nigerian, Palestinian, Eritrean, Guatemalan, Rhodesian, Laotian, Irish, and so many more who are suffering war today. It was nice, for a little less than an hour, to see a world on my screen where no matter how bloody, some wars end.

Three stars.


You've Come a Long Way, Baby


by Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele

Ads for Virginia Slims cigarettes have been playing over the past several episodes. Women sneaking away to smoke and getting caught, with an emphasis on how outdated the idea is. Thanks to the suffragettes we see, women won their rights in 1920. Modern women can vote and smoke! It's fashionable to applaud that movement, and from this side of history, relatively easy. None of the ads have mentioned the much more recent Voting Rights Act, though, which passed among significant backlash just a few years ago.

Part of Star Trek's appeal is that it offers a future that upholds ideals of equality. Most of the time.

The most important scene, to me, is not the final moments of pursuit against a backdrop of destruction. It is instead, a conversation held almost off-camera as Spock listens from behind a door.

LOKAI: I act the madman out of the anger and frustration he forces upon me, and thereby prove his point that I am a madman. [….] How can you understand my fear, my apprehension, my degradation, my suffering?
CHEKOV: There was persecution on Earth once. I remember reading about it in my history class.
SULU: Yes, but it happened way back in the twentieth century. There's no such primitive thinking today.

Except, prejudice is there when McCoy casually insults Spock for his biology and culture, or when crew members disregard his authority after he acts in accordance with Vulcan philosophy.


"Preach it, Lokai."

The message is tucked away from the rest of the ship and the rest of the episode. It's easy enough to make broad statements decrying hate. It is harder to face up to the part that we ourselves might play, to confront the systems that allow hate to act with authority. As fans of science fiction, many of us like to think of ourselves as more open-minded, more accepting. It's only logical. The true test is when those standards are challenged, when equality extends “too far”. Yes, yes, rights for women – but not too many. Freedom of religious expression – for some.

How many people today will support the cause of the oppressed, and yet sit and break bread with the oppressors under the guise of “civility”? Bele admitted his people's culpability in the crimes Lokai accused him of, and still was treated better than some of the diplomats the Enterprise has been charged with carrying.

Kirk tells Bele, “I cannot take sides.” He can, and by his own moral standards, he should. He may have limited power against an alien who can take control of the ship with his mind, but that has never stopped him from speaking his piece before.

Lokai is loud and angry, he insults the crew even as he asks for help and asylum. Nothing about his behavior is particularly endearing to his cause. And that, whether the rest of the episode discusses it or not, is important. The Federation, represented by the Enterprise, has standards of justice, and none of those standards are based on being well-mannered. What is right does not depend on what is easy or palatable. The meanest, rudest individual still deserves rights, because rights do not depend on being likable.

3 stars


Rich Tale to Poor Tale


by Joe Reid

“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, the second episode of Star Trek for the new year, drew out of me thoughts both praise and derision, with feelings of familiarity and futility.  This episode at first took a simple message and elevated it with meaningful layered acting, only to become so utterly absurd, undermining said message. 

The Enterprise encountered a stolen shuttle with a man in need of help.  Aid was rendered by the crew to ensure that the alien man survived to answer questions.  Things quickly went downhill as the half white half black alien, named Lokai, awoke in the infirmary with a suspicion on his face as was accused by Kirk of theft.  Lokai objected only to being further pressed by Kirk on the matter, which led to no questions being answered by the two-tone alien as he refused to continue being interrogated.  The brief exchange revealed that Lokai had a purpose for “using” the ship, which he was willing to face consequences for.  Also, that he had been disappointed by “monotone humans” in the past.

This scene to me felt different than others on TV—the difference being that the character with the hidden cause in custody is often Negro or some other race.  I felt a familiarity with Lokai’s circumstances.  To be thought of as a criminal before trial.  To be frustrated by a lack of or even willingness by some to understand my situation.  Lokai served up a lot in this short scene.  I found it interesting that the performance was carried out by a white actor portraying an alien who was neither black nor white.  If the character were black like me, I might’ve identified with his plight and sympathized with his frustration at authority and the evasiveness it brought about.  Since Lokai was not black, his position as a victim required proof, and the frustration that he expressed required justification to be seen as righteous. There is an old proverb that says, “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Pro 13:10).  Lokai clearly had a sickness of the heart making him unpleasant.  We are willing to forgive sickness in others only if we identify with their hopes.  Lokai appearing as he does, made that challenging and interesting.

Later we were introduced to another alien man who’d been pursuing Lokai for fifty thousand years.  Bele, also two-toned half black and white, appeared on the bridge of the Enterprise without warning.  Unlike Lokai, Bele was not accused of anything although he invaded the bridge in what could’ve been seen as an attack.  He demanded the “cargo”, Lokai, be handed over to him.  Not frustrated in his interactions with Kirk as Lokai was, Bele was mildly irritated to have to defer to Kirk and challenged the captain’s authority repeatedly.  His interaction with Lokai established that they were at odds for reasons of class and privilege.

The role of Bele was played by another white actor.  Though two-toned himself, the duo considered themselves different based on which side of their bodies were black or white.  Black on the right side was dominant and Bele was domineering in every way.  Taking control of the Enterprise twice.  Although Bele’s actions were resisted, he was never held accountable by Kirk.  He was even allowed a pleasant social dinner with the captain after his first hijacking attempt. 

Bele and Lokai obviously represent the color-based stratification of the U.S.  Choices that were made by casting and the actors themselves in how they personified those roles, took an American reality and obfuscated it to detach it from our world.  I was pleased by this execution, until the third act. 

Then the Enterprise arrived at the home of the dual-toned men, the planet Cheron, devoid of life due to war.  The episode was saying that we could be doomed to suffer the same fate due to our own hatred.  The final act featured interlaced footage of burning buildings, possibly from the riots after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


Happy memories of traipsing through the streets of Dresden

Social messages, especially simple ones, are better delivered if you don’t break the obfuscation in the telling of the story.  Allow the message to speak through the story, and not scream over it.  The ending displayed poor choices for what could have been a meaningful tale.  It cheapened the emotional depth witnessed in the early part of the story and replaced it with shallow visual exposition just in case the audience was too simple to understand nuance.  It was a poor choice.

Two stars


[Come join us tomorrow night (January 17th) for the next thrilling episode of Star Trek!  KGJ is broadcasting the show live with commercials and accompanied by trekzine readings at 8pm Eastern and Pacific.  You won't want to miss it…]





[January 14, 1969] Ten for the road (January Galactoscope)


by Gideon Marcus

We've got a whopping ten titles for you to enjoy this month.  Part of it is the increased pace of paperback production.  Part is the increased number of Journey reviewers on staff!  Enjoy:

Double, Double, by John Brunner

From the author of Stand on Zanzibar, and also a lot of churned-out mediocrity, comes this mid-length novel. Can it reach the sublimity of last year's masterpiece, or is it a rent-payer? Let's see.

The band "Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" (great name, that) have a bit of a Be-in on a deserted beach south of London. Their frivolity is marred by the appearance of a flight-suited zombie, half his face eaten away.

Strange happenings compound: the lushy Mrs. Beedle, who lives in a wreck of a home by the beach, suddenly starts appearing in two places at once. Those who encounter her find themselves doused with some kind of acid. Meanwhile, Rory, a DJ on the pirate radio ship Jolly Roger, hauls up a fish on his line that transforms halfway into a squid before breaking free.

The local constabulary, as well as the scientific types in the vicinity, are increasingly alarmed and then mobilized, as the true nature of what they're dealing with is determined: an alien or mutated being with the power to digest and mimic anything it encounters.

In premise, it's thus somewhat akin to Don A. Stuart's (John W. Campbell Jr.) seminal "Who Goes There". In execution, it's not. The rather thin story is developed glacially, with lots of slice-of-life scenes that are not unpleasant to read, but don't add much. Indeed, one could argue that it is possible to unbalance things too far in the direction of "show, don't tell"—Double, Double is written almost like a screenplay, with endless little cliff-hangers, and always from the point of view of the various characters.

Beyond the writing, the premise is fundamentally flawed: digestion is never 100% efficient. Heck, I don't think it's 10% efficient. And this creature can not only digest but duplicate, down to memories? Color me unconvinced. Also, we are lucky that it chose to come to land as quickly as it did—if it had just stayed in the sea, all of the sea life in the world would have been these… things… in very short order.

All told, this is definitely a piece written for the cash grab, perhaps even a recycled, rejected script for the TV anthology Journey to the Unknown. It's not a bad piece of writing, but I'll be donating it to my local book shop when I'm done.

Three stars.



by Brian Collins

For my first book reviews as part of the Journey, I got some SF and fantasy in equal measure. Neither are really worth it, but here we can see the difference between a deeply flawed novel and one that is virtually impossible to salvage.

Omnivore, by Piers Anthony

I know it’s only been a few months since Piers Anthony hit us with his second novel, Sos the Rope, but he has already given us another with Omnivore. That’s three novels in two years! For all his faults, you can’t say he’s lazy. It’s quite possible that in thirty years there will be more Piers Anthony novels than there are stars in the sky.

Omnivore is a planetary adventure, not dissimilar from what Hal Clement or Poul Anderson would write, but with some of those “lovable” Anthony quirks. Here’s the gist: A superhuman agent named Subble is sent to investigate three explorers who have returned to Earth from the “dangerous but promising” planet Nacre, each with his/her trauma and secrets as to what happened. Why did eighteen people die while exploring Nacre prior to these three, and what did they bring back with them? There’s Veg, who as his nickname suggests is a vegetarian; Aquilon, an emotionally fraught woman who now has a case of shell shock; and Cal, gifted with a brilliant intellect but cursed with a frail body. Veg and Cal love Aquilon and Aquilon loves both men. Romantic tension ensues. Anthony pulled a similar love triangle in Sos the Rope, but for what it's worth this one is not quite as painful.

Nacre itself is the star of the show, and it would not surprise me if Anthony were to return to this setting in the future. It’s a fungus-rich planet in which the land is covered in an unfathomable amount of “dust”—spores from airborne fungi. There’s so much airborne fungi, in fact, that the sun has been more or less blocked out, and the animal life has adapted not only to low-light conditions but to move about with only one (big) eye and one limb. Clement would have surely treated this material with more scientific enthusiasm, but Clement sadly is no longer producing his best work and this novel is a serviceable substitute for the not-too-discerning.

Omnivore is Anthony’s best novel to date; unfortunately it’s still not good. There are two crippling problems here. The first is that Anthony simply cannot help himself when it comes to writing women unsympathetically, and the first section of the novel (there are four, each focusing on a different character) is the worst. Veg, while heroic, is unfortunately a woman-hater. I don’t necessarily have an issue with characters having unsavory flaws, but the problem is that this dim view of women bleeds into the rest of the novel to some degree. It should come as no surprise that Aquilon, the sole female character, is also the only one driven purely by emotions as opposed to intellect. Subble himself may as well be a robot, but Anthony writes him as a human so that he can a) take drugs, and b) seduce Aquilon.

The second is that it’s clear that this novel is About Things, but I can’t figure out what those Things could be. There is obvious symbolism at work. The trio of explorers play off of elements (herbivore/carnivore/omnivore, brains/brawn/beauty, and so on), but I’m not sure what statement is being made here. This is especially glaring in a year where we got many SF novels that are About Things; indeed 1968 might’ve been the year of SF novels that try to say Something Very Important. Omnivore might’ve been fine in the hands of a Clement or Anderson, but rather than be true to itself (an Analog-style adventure yarn), it has delusions of importance. It doesn’t help that Anthony gives us a puzzle narrative, but then takes seemingly forever to tell us what the puzzle actually is. The solution, thus, is unsatisfying.

At the rate he’s progressing, Anthony may be able to pen a decent novel in another few years. Two out of five stars, maybe three if it had caught me in a very forgiving mood.

Swordmen of Vistar, by Charles Nuetzel


Cover by Albert Nuetzell

Now we have the latest in what's proving to be an avalanche of heroic fantasy releases, and this one is simply painful to read. We know something is amiss just from looking at the title; to my recollection Nuetzel never used "swordman" or "swordmen" in the novel itself, which leads me to wonder what he could've been thinking. The writing between the covers is no less clumsy.

Thoris is a galley slave, in an ancient world not far off from the mythical Greece of Perseus and Pegasus, when he and the princess Illa find themselves possibly the only survivors of a shipwreck. Thoris falls in love with Illa before the two have even had a full conversation together. They first arrive at an island of cannibals before escaping, only to fall into the clutches of the tyrannical Lord Waja and his sword(s)men of Vistar. Also imprisoned is the wizard Xalla, who is father to a woman named Opil whom Thoris had saved earlier. With no other options, Thoris makes a deal with Xalla to vanquish Waja and then free the wizard—on the ultimate condition that Thoris also take Opil as his bride.

The back cover compares Thoris to Conan the Cimmerian and John Carter of Mars, and indeed Swordmen of Vistar is supposed to be a rip-roaring adventure with a damsel in distress, a morally ambiguous wizard, and a giant snake. One problem: the prose is some of the most ungainly I've ever laid eyes on. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard were not tender in their use of the English language, but they had a real knack for plotting which Nuetzel lacks. This is a 220-page novel and surprisingly little happens in it. I hope you still like love triangles, because this novel also has one. Lord Waja and his top henchmen are defeated by the end of the eleventh chapter, but we still have two more to go with Opil as the final obstacle. We need to pad out this already-short book, obviously.

With how much I've been reading about love triangles, I think God may be telling me to try acquiring a second girlfriend. If I were Thoris I would be stuck with a tough choice. Do I pick the tough-minded woman who clearly appreciates my swordsmanship, or the haughty princess who's been degrading me for much of the novel? Sure, the former threatens to kill me if I refuse her, but nobody's perfect.

By the way, Nuetzel may be excusing the awkward prose by stating in the preface that the Thoris narrative is a translation of an ancient manuscript that some academic had written up and given to him. Unfortunately academics, by and large, are terrible writers with no ear for English, and this shows in the "translation." It doesn't help that yes, this is derivative of the John Carter novels, along with a few other things; and while Robert E. Howard's Conan stories are often About Something, Nuetzel doesn't really have anything to say. If you've read hackwork in this genre then the good news is that you've already read Swordmen of Vistar, and so can save yourself the trouble of buying a copy.

Basically worthless, although the illustrations (courtesy of Albert Nuetzell) are at least decent. One out of five stars.



by Jason Sacks

The Star Venturers by Kenneth Bulmer

Bill Jarrett is a galactic adventurer, a man who spans the stars to find excitement, glory and money. He’s a flirt and a fighter and the kind of guy who can work himself out of situations. But when Jarrett gets abducted, has a mind-controlling creature strapped to his head, and is sent to overthrow a man who he’s told is a dictator, Jarrett finds himself in a situation he might not be able to win.

Well, yeah, of course, Jarrett does end up winning in the situation he finds himself in, with the help of his friends and a few mechanical contrivances. Because of course he does. As a galactic adventurer, that’s what you might expect from him.

The Star Venturers is an entertaining Ace novel, a quickie star-spanner with a handful of ideas which might stick to your brain. Author Kenneth Bulmer occasionally throws in a small element of satire or self-awareness which enlivens the plot; there’s a bit of a feeling of the author kind of winking at us as he tells this story. But there’s not nearly enough of that stuff to make this book stand out.

Bulmer does play a bit with an interesting concept, the sort of self-learning machine, a kind of artificially intelligent creature called a frug (which Jarrett nicknames Ferdie the Frug) which is placed on a person’s forehead like a headband and which compels the person to follow orders lest they feel horrific agony.

Mr. Bulmer with his wife Pamela

Bulmer takes pains to imply that the device is both mechanical and semi-sentient, a kind of uncaring vicious machine which Jarrett sometimes reasons with and almost treats like a pet – if the pet was a giant tumor which could only cause pain, that is. This idea of artificial intelligence dates back at least to the first robot stories, but the author gives the idea a fresh coat of paint here, and that concept is a real highlight for me.

Other than that, this is a pretty basic space fantasy Ace novel, which is entertaining for its two hour reading time but which will have you quickly flipping over to read the novel by Dean Koontz on the other side. At least it’s not About Things or Very Important. Instead The Star Venturers is just forgettable.

2.5 stars

The Fall of the Dream Machine by Dean Koontz

On the other hand, the flip side of this Ace Double is pretty memorable. Dean R. Koontz, an author new to me, has delivered a fascinating satire of a world which is easy to imagine and just as easy to dread.

In the near future, post apocalyptic America, television rules our world. All the people in America live for a special show which all can experience viscerally. That TV show, called The Show, has seven hundred million subscribers. Those subscribers watch a continuing story, kind of a soap opera, about the characters on the screen. But they don't just watch the characters, they also feel the same emotions as the characters. They feel empathy and pain for the characters. In a real way the characters and viewers are bonded.

Because the actors are so well known, so much a part of their audience's lives, even the act of replacing an actor can be tremendously fraught with stress and worry. The act of leaving The Show can be freeing but also terrifying. And when lead actor Mike Jorgova leaves The Show, it makes his life much more complicated. He becomes untethered, is trained to become part of a revolution, and discovers the deeper frightening truths behind a world he scarcely understood.

Young author Dean Koontz delivers a clever and exciting story which shows tremendous potential. He does an excellent job of creating his world in relatively few words, delivering character in just a few broad strokes and creating memorable villains and settings. The end action set-piece, for instance, is built with real suspense and ends with a thrilling struggle which is filled with energy.

Dean Koontz

Along with that aspect, young Mr. Koontz delivers two more elements which separate this book from many of its peers.

First, he paints a fascinating future which seems like a smart extension of McLuhan's concept that "the medium is the message." Koontz creates a TV show which feels like reality, in which the characters live in some semblance of real life while engaging in exaggerated, bizarre actions. That's a concept which feels all the more possible these days, with controversies about the Smothers Brothers and Vietnam dominating headlines about television in 1969.

Koontz also delivers a series of philosophical asides which discuss human evolution from village to society and the ways mass media both shrinks the world and expands our horizons. Nowadays we know everything about people who live across the world but nothing about the people who live next door to us, and that gap only promises to get wider. As our social networks grow, the strengths of our connections only shrink.

This is heady stuff for an Ace Double – and I've only touched on a few of the many ideas shared almost to overflowing here. In fact, the book is chockablock full of ideas but the ambition is a bit high for their achievement.  Like many a new author, Koontz has many, many ideas he wants to explore but there are a few too many on display. Nevertheless, despite its thematic density, The Fall of the Dream Machine reads like a rocketship, hurtling ahead until it lands gracefully, sharing a thrilling journey for the readers.

Keep your eye on Mr. Koontz. I predict great things from him.

3.5 stars.



by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Frontier of Going: An Anthology of Space Poetry, ed. By John Fairfax

Frontier of Going 1969 Cover

Poetry has always had a strange place in science fiction. Long before appearing in Hugo Gernsbeck’s magazines, poets have been attempting to explore fantastic themes. However, in spite of their regular presence in almost every SFF periodical, and many fanzines, they rarely seemed to be talked about, nor are they represented in either the Nebulas or the Hugos (although we here give out Galactic Stars to them).

Enter John Fairfax and Panther publishing, who have put together this anthology of responses to the space age. The selection inside is varied. Some are original and some are reprints. Some are SFnal, some are fantastical, others closer to reality. And, as the editor puts it:

Some poets are optimistic about the space odyssey, others view it with cynicism…and other poets do not care if man steps into space or the nearest bar so long as human relations begin with fornication and end with death.

As this book contains almost 50 separate pieces, I cannot hope to cover them all here; rather I want to give an overview and highlight some of the best.

Possibly due to my natural cynicism, Leslie Norris’ poems were among my favorites. He is willing to engage deeply with the future, but believes the same problems we have down here will continue there. For example, in Space Miner we hear of the fate of those travelling to distant worlds for such a job:

He had worked deep seams where encrusted ore,
Too hard for his diamond drill, had ripped
Strips from his flesh. Dust from a thousand metals
Stilted his lungs and softened the strength of his
Muscles. He had worked the treasuries of many
Near stars, but now he stood on the moving
pavement reserved for cripples who had served well.

Just a small part of one of his moving poems that raise interesting questions about where we are headed.

Closely related is John Moat’s Overture I. His works concentrate less on the science fiction but still wonder if we are heading in the right direction:

That twelve years’ Jane pacing outside the bar,
Offering anything for her weekly share
Of tea; those rats now grown immune to death –
I ask you, in whose name and by what power
Have you set out to colonize the stars?

This is only an extract and continues in that fashion. It ponders if what we are bringing to other planets is something they would care for.

Not all are so negative. Some, instead, write about the wonder and artistic possibilities of space travel. Robert Conquest (who SF fans may know from his anthologies or short fiction in Analog) produces a Stapledon-esque epic among the stars in Far Out:

While each colour and flow
Psychedelicists know
As Ion effects
Quotidian sights
Of those counterflared nights.

Yet Conquest still asks within, what is the value of these views to the artist? A complex piece for sure.

There are probably only two other names you have a reasonable chance of recognizing inside: D. M. Thomas and Peter Redgrove, both for their occasional appearances in the British Mags. As you might expect these are among the most explicitly science fictional. For example, in Limbo Thomas gives us a kind of verse version of The Cold Equations, whilst Redgrove’s pieces are trains of thoughts of two common character types of SFF.

However, it should not be thought others have written repetitively on the theme. These poems include such diverse topics as the difficulties of copulation in space, how to serve tea on a space liner, the first computer to be made an Anglican bishop, and explorers getting absorbed into a gestalt entity.

The biggest disappointment for me are the poems from the editor. It is to be expected Fairfax would have a number of pieces inside but, unfortunately, they are among the most pedestrian. For example, his Space Walk:

Around, around in freefall thought
The clinging cosmo-astronaut,
Awkward and expensive star
Dogpaddles from his spinning car.

The poem has nothing inherently wrong with it, but it does not feel insightful, nor does it do anything experimental. It more feels like what would win a middle-school poetry competition on the Space Race. Probably deserving of a low three stars but little more.

I feel, at least in passing, I need to point out we have the recurring problem of the British scene. In spite of the number of poems contained within, none of the poets appears to be woman. There are no shortage of women poets, either in the mainstream or within the fanzines, so I find it hard to believe there were no good pieces available. Hopefully, this can be remedied in a future volume. The Second Frontier, perhaps?

Either way, this is still a fabulous collection. Of course, it will not be for everyone. Poetry is probably the most subjective form of literature, and not everyone likes to sit down to read more than forty poems in a row. However, the selection here is a cut above what we tend to see from our regular science fiction writers (looking at you, de Camp and Carter) and I hope it helps raise the form to higher standards and recognition.

Four Stars for the whole anthology with a liberal sprinkling of fives for the poems I have called out.



by Victoria Silverwolf

The Four Seasons

Four new novels suggest the seasons, at least for those of us living in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Let's start with the traditional beginning of the year, as opposed to our modern January.

Springtime of Life

Spring is associated with youth. Our first novel is narrated by a teenager, and is obviously intended for readers of that age.

The Whistling Boy, by Ruth M. Arthur


Cover art by Margery Gill, who also supplies several interior illustrations.

The first thing you see when you open the book is musical notation. The melody is said to be a very old French tune, and it plays a major part in the plot.


Those of you who can read music may be able to whistle along with the boy.

Christina, known as Kirsty, is a schoolgirl whose mother died a while ago. Her father remarried, this time to a much younger woman. Like many stepchildren, Kirsty resents her.

An opportunity to escape the awkward situation for a while comes when Kirsty gets a job picking fruit in Norfolk. She moves away from her home in Suffolk and lives with a kindly elderly couple.

Strange things start to happen when she hears music coming from an empty room next to her attic bedroom. She meets a local boy who experienced amnesia and sleepwalking when he stayed in the house. More alarmingly, he almost drowned when he walked toward the sea in a trance.

In addition to this mystery, which involves the supernatural, there are multiple subplots. Kirsty has to learn to get along with her young stepmother. A schoolfriend has no father, an alcoholic mother, smokes, admits to having tried marijuana, and is later arrested for shoplifting. One of her two young brothers suffers an accident.

Despite all this going on, and a dramatic climax, the novel is rather leisurely. The author captures the voice of her young narrator convincingly, and never writes down to her readers. There's a love story involved, and the book might be thought of as a Gothic Romance for teenage girls. In addition to this target audience, adults and even boys are likely to get some pleasure from it.

Three stars (maybe four for teenyboppers.)

The Long, Hot Summer

Our next book takes its characters into a place of tropical heat.

Genesis Two, by L. P. Davies


Cover art by Kenneth Farnhill.

Two young men are hiking when they get lost in a storm. They wind up in a tiny village with only a handful of people living there. It seems that a dam under construction is going to flood the place, so most folks have moved out.

They spend the night in the home of an elderly couple whose son was killed in World War Two. (That may not seem relevant, but it plays a part in the plot.) The other inhabitants of the doomed village are an ex-military man, his adult son and daughter, a somewhat shady fellow, and the former showgirl who lives with him.

Things get weird when this quiet English village develops a tropical climate overnight. Bizarre plants, some like hot air balloons and some like birds, show up. The surrounding countryside changes into a land of earthquakes and volcanoes. What the heck happened?

We soon find out that people from a time thousands of years from now use time travel to transport folks hundreds of thousands of years into the future. Why? Because the future people face an all-encompassing disaster, and want to start human life all over again in the extreme far future.

(They only select folks in the past who were going to be wiped out of history anyway. The village was just about to be buried under a huge landslide, leaving no evidence behind.)

The rest of the book shows our reluctant time travelers exploring, figuring out a way to survive, and fighting among themselves. The two young women pair up with a couple of the men, but not in the way you might expect.

Near the end, the plot turns into a murder mystery, which seems a little odd. The conclusion is something of a deus ex machina. Otherwise, it's an OK read. The characters are interesting.

Three stars.

Autumn Memories

Fall is a time of nostalgia and anticipation. We gaze at the past, and ponder the future. Our next book features a lead character who has a lot to look back on, and plenty to concern him coming up.

Isle of the Dead, by Roger Zelazny


Cover art by Diane and Leo Dillon.

The book takes its title from a famous painting by 19th century Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin.


The artist created several versions of the work. This is one of them.

Francis Sandow, our narrator, started off as a man of our own time. (There are hints that he fought in Vietnam, or at least somewhere in Southeast Asia.) He went on to travel on starships in a state of suspended animation, so he is still alive many centuries from now. In fact, he's one of the wealthiest people in the galaxy.

(Some of this is deduction on my part. The narrator only offers bits and pieces of his life throughout the text. The same might be said about the book's complex background. The author makes the reader work.)

Francis made his fortune by creating planets as an art form. If that isn't god-like enough for you, he's also an avatar of an alien deity, one of many in their pantheon. It's unclear if this is a manifestation of psychic power or a genuine case of possession. The mixing of religion and science in an ambiguous fashion is reminiscent of the Zelazny's previous novel Lord of Light.

Somebody sends Francis new photographs of friends, enemies, lovers, and a wife, all of whom have been dead for a very long time. He also gets a message from an ex-lover (still alive) stating that she is in serious trouble.

This sets him off on an odyssey to multiple planets, as he tracks down an unknown enemy. Along the way, he participates in the death ritual of his alien mentor. The climax takes place on the Isle of the Dead, a place he created on one of his planets as a deliberate imitation of Böcklin's painting.

The bare bones of the plot fail to convey the exotic mood of the book, or Zelazny's style. His writing is informal at times; in other places, he uses extremely long, flowing sentences you can get lost in.

As I've suggested, this novel requires careful reading. Stuff gets mentioned that you won't understand until later, so be patient. I found it intriguing throughout. If the ending seems a little rushed, that's a minor flaw.

Four stars.

The Winter of Our Discontent

Winter has its own special beauty, but it is often seen as a dismal time. The characters in our final book face a bleak future indeed.

S.T.A.R. Flight, by E. C. Tubb


Uncredited cover art.

About fifty years before the novel begins, aliens arrived on Earth with what seemed to be benevolent intent. Well, you know what they say about Greeks bearing gifts.

The Kaltichs brought longevity treatments and advanced medical techniques that could replace any damaged organ. The catch is that Earthlings have to pay a high price for these things.

There's also the problem of overpopulation. The Kaltichs promised to give humans the secret of instantaneous transportation to a large number of habitable planets. It's been half a century, and we're still waiting.

Because the longevity treatments have to be renewed every ten years, and the Kaltichs deny them to anybody they don't like, Earthlings are subservient to them. We have to call them sire, and punishment with a special whip that inflicts extreme pain follows any transgression.

Our protagonist, Martin Preston, is a secret agent for S.T.A.R., the Secret Terran Armed Resistance. (I guess we're still not over the spy craze, with its love of acronyms.) The agency asks him to imitate a Kaltich and infiltrate one of their centers, which are off limits to humans.

(I should mention here that the Kaltichs are physically identical to Earthlings. That seems unlikely, but it's a plot point and we get an explanation later.)

Because the previous fellow who tried this had his hands cut off and sent back to S.T.A.R., Martin understandably refuses. An incident occurs that changes his mind. With the help of a brilliant female surgeon (who, like most of the women in a James Bond adventure, is gorgeous and sexually available), he sets out on his dangerous mission.

What follows is imprisonment, torture, escape, killings, double crosses, and the discovery of the big secret of the Kaltichs, which you may anticipate. The book is similar to a Keith Laumer slam bang thriller, if a little more gruesome. Hardly profound, but it sure won't bore you.

Three stars.


There you have it, folks. Take ten and enjoy all the new novels coming out. We'll be back next month to help you figure out which ones to put at the top of the pile.




[January 12, 1969] Taking French Leave: Playtime (a movie) and The Green Slime (a flick)


by Fiona Moore

Jacques Tati’s newest movie, first released in 1967 but only recently screened at the Institut Français in London, is a tremendous achievement, dealing with many of the same themes as his earlier movies but in a much subtler and cleverer way. Although the box office has apparently been disappointing, the film is gradually accumulating the critical acclaim it deserves as it makes its way around the world.
The main theme is similar to that of Tati’s earlier comedy Mon Oncle (My Uncle, 1958): the idea that technologically-focused modernity is a superficial, soul-destroying philosophy which is ultimately doomed to failure. Playtime, though, takes a more subtle and arguably less conservative approach.


Playtime movie poster

We find ourselves in a fantasy Paris which is nothing but glass, chrome and concrete office blocks: the famous landmarks of the city, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, are only glimpsed in the reflections of windows. The theme is made clearer when we see a tourist bureau with posters advertising London, Stockholm, and Mexico, each with the same office building and a few superficial details (for instance Routemaster buses and Big Ben) to mark the supposed differences. We are in a futuristic fantasy world where every place is the same and the subtle, playful, unpredictable details have been erased. It isn’t an unhappy scenario: the streets are clean and no one is poor or sick. But the pleasure people take in it is superficial and vapid (a tourist exclaiming at a trade fair that “they even have American stuff!”), and they also don’t seem to know what they are missing.


The Eiffel Tower reflected in a window

The film opens in a building where the viewer is left for a long time with no idea as to its purpose: we see black and chrome sofas, glass frontage, small cubicles. An older couple converse in accented English; nuns pass by, as does a priest, and a nurse with a crying baby. Is it a hospital? A government office? Finally we see a man with suitcases and the nature of the building is revealed: it is an airport. Tati’s cinema persona Monsieur Hulot is changed, having shed his pipe and scarf and adopted a grey coat in place of his trademark brown macintosh, but a variety of other people wander around the story in M Hulot’s costume and are mistaken for him. We see office buildings full of filing cabinets which are revealed, when seen from overhead, to be cubicles; we see little dramas play out in an apartment building where all the walls are glass and face onto the street. At one point two groups of people in adjacent rooms watch the same television programme, completely unaware of this shared experience and unable to come together and commune over their enjoyment.


Apartment living: isolating and atomising?

Unlike the way in which Mon Oncle harked back to a nostalgic imagined past, however, Playtime sees the doom of this conformist, modernist approach as lying in the future. The glass-fronted modernity is fragile and superficial, and falls apart at the slightest pressure, and so can’t cope with the everyday fallibilities of humanity, whether M Hulot, who lopes and skips around an office building and a trade fair subtly creating chaos, or his female counterpart in the story, American tourist Barbara (played by Barbara Dennek), who is constantly getting separated from her tour, or even background characters like a group of glaziers whose window-fitting activities subtly become a dance routine, enjoyed by a crowd of Parisians watching them from the street.


M Hulot observing office work

The film’s message is encapsulated in a long, climactic sequence in a fancy restaurant whose superficial efficiency and organisation is a façade. We see a beautiful oasis of elegant food and décor, but when the backstage areas are revealed, we discover that the restaurant is still being built, that the waiters are swapping jackets to hide stains and damage, that the kitchen is chaos. The introduction of M Hulot breaks the boundary between front and backstage and sends the whole thing into a joyous spiral of anarchy: the glass door shatters, the ceiling decoration falls down, the decorous bossa-nova music turns into wild jazz. The lighting fixtures break. Random people wander in off the street. Chairs fall over. Waiters trip. A plastic sculpture of an airplane melts. A wealthy American businessman declares one section of the room his private bistro and invites tourists and workmen to eat and drink at his expense. A drunk is ejected and walks straight back in. The austere and ordered modernity is undermined from all sides.

The car carousel makes Paris playful again The car carousel makes Paris playful again

Afterwards, the patrons walk out into a transformed city, one which still includes the office blocks and grey concrete, but where the cars are now colourful, the buildings hung with bunting, and cheerful shops selling cheeses and scarves have replaced the trade fair. M Hulot buys Barbara a gift but, being unable to give it to her, delegates one of the Hulot impersonators to do it. Tati’s direction wittily turns a roundabout into a carousel, a car mechanic’s shop into a fairground ride. The message is not to destroy technological modernity, but to subvert it, and to find ways of making it joyful and playful. Five stars. Go and see it—if you don’t speak French don’t worry, most of the dialogue is in English and the physical comedy carries the action.



The Green Slime movie poster

From the sublime to the ridiculous! The other film I saw this week is the recently-released SF-horror The Green Slime, a Japanese production filmed in English with American and European actors. The plot involves a spaceman, Jack Rankin, sent up to a space station commanded by the man who has stolen his girlfriend, to lead a mission to destroy an asteroid which threatens Earth. In doing so, however, he and his crew accidentally bring back some of the titular slime which, when exposed to radiation, develops into alien monsters which must be fought while the two men and their love object reconcile their romantic interests.

I give this film more points than most reviewers because of the, possibly unintentional but definitely hilarious, Freudian message: a man’s jealousy over his ex-girlfriend’s new relationship causes him to unleash, through the medium of green slime, one-eyed tubular monsters onto the universe, and it’s up to him to bring them under control again. The modelwork is good and the characterisation unsubtle, giving the series the feel of what might happen if Gerry and Sylvia Anderson decided to work with live actors rather than puppets (as I’m told is soon to be the case), but without the budget of a Century 21 production. Definitely one to watch only when inebriated and in the right company, but very fun under those circumstances; I'm not sure if I was supposed to laugh all the way through it, but I did. One and a half stars.






[January 10, 1969] Mad for this show (Star Trek: "Whom Gods Destroy")

The Cure for Schizophrenic Storytelling


by Joe Reid

Happy New Year to everyone!  1969 is upon us and the first new episode of Star Trek for this year is come!  “Whom Gods Destroy” is the episode of the new year and although it was a smaller story, it was well crafted and concise.

It started off with the Enterprise arriving at a poisonous planet named Elba 2: a planet for the criminally insane. Kirk and Spock beamed down with an unnamed medicine that cured all incurable mental illness.  As the curable ones have all already been cured throughout the galaxy, the asylum only had about a dozen patients in it.

Upon arrival they meet Governor Donald Corey, a very jovial man, who informs them that the asylum recently welcomed its 15th patient, Garth of Izar, a former captain that Kirk revered.

On the way to visit Garth, Marta, a green skinned Orion woman, says that Corey is not who he says he is. Corey laughs it off and takes them to Garth's cell, only to find that Corey, the real Donald Corey, is in the cell.


"Also, I'm Batgirl—why won't anybody believe me?"

Garth had tricked them, changing from Corey into his true form before their eyes, and freeing the inmates in the surrounding cells, bringing them to his side.  Kirk and Spock are trapped on the planet.  As Spock is dragged away unconscious, Kirk is put into the cell with the real Corey.

Lord Garth, leader of the future masters of the universe, as he now demands to be called, transforms into Kirk as a part of his plan to take the Enterprise and pursue vengeance against his former crew that mutinied against him. 

As Garth contacts the Enterprise in the guise of Kirk, he is foiled in his attempt to gain access to the ship by Commander Scott.  “Queen to queen’s level 3”, says Scotty.  It's a passcode that the real Kirk set up as an increased security measure.  Garth blows a gasket after this occurrs.

Garth then decides that he should change tactics.  He goes back to Kirk, bringing Spock back and inviting them for dinner.

All the free asylum inmates, now Garth’s crew and subjects, are present and entertaining each other.  We are even treated to a dance by the lovely, jade-colored Marta.


"Dessert, Captain?"

At this point I considered this episode, written by Lee Erwin, to be fully set up. 

What came next was an expertly written tale of misdirection and subterfuge, by all parties.  Kirk as the hostage trying to use his intelligence and wits to find a way out.  Scotty, as a commander seeking to find a way to rescue his captain without causing him harm.  Garth, as a brilliant, but insane, changeling able to match wits and brawn with Kirk to achieve his aim of universal domination. 

Several times throughout the episode I had my assumptions challenged and my expectations subverted.

Again, I give credit to Mr. Erwin for crafting a tale with fleshed-out characters and subtle nods to history.  Garth, wearing his coat with this left arm in the sleeve and the other draped over his shoulder, hinted at him being a futuristic Napoleon Bonaparte.  Marta was a complex character who was as insane as the other inmates, yet lived within some rational rules and boundaries, never lying to anyone about anything.

Kirk, and the rest of the crew made no mistakes in the episode that a less skilled writer might employ to increase tension. 

In the end this small, self-contained story did many interesting things, but didn’t try to do too much.  There were many paths that this story could have meandered down, but Mr. Erwin skillfully kept the main thing the main thing.  A great start for 1969 Star Trek in my opinion.

Five stars



by Janice L. Newman

The Little Captain

I was very much impressed by “Lord Garth’s” performance. He took a role which would have been terribly easy to overplay and made it his own. Thanks to movies, TV, and comic books, we’re all familiar with the idea of the inmate of an asylum who ‘thinks he’s Napoleon’. Often such roles are treated as one-note portrayals: usually for laughs, occasionally to be creepy or frightening, sometimes to be pathetic. Brilliantly, Steve Ihnat manages to infuse his performance as Garth with all of these, smoothly transitioning from menacing and cruel, to throwing a tantrum like a small child, to being unintentionally funny even as one tries not to laugh.

One of the most interesting and subtle aspects was Garth’s furred, gold-lined coat. Throughout the episode, except when he is disguised as someone else, he is never seen without it. He’s constantly fidgeting with the coat, swinging it around him like a cloak (with one sleeve hanging ridiculously off the back), slinging it over one shoulder like a toga, or even cuddling it like a child with a security blanket. The coat becomes a physical representation of his delusion, and it’s not until the very end of the episode, when he’s beginning to respond to the treatment of his mental illness, that we see him without it at last.


"Don't tell me how to wear my clothes…"

There were many other things I liked in the episode, but the one that stayed with me, and which I suspect will stay with me for some time to come, was “Lord Garth”.

Five stars.



by Gideon Marcus

Birth of a Dream

As is tradition, before we tuned into Trek Friday night, we all gathered 'round the dinner table for a fanzine read.  Trekzines are a land office business these days, and my mailbox sees a good half dozen amateur publications in it each month devoted just to Trek (not counting the half dozen or so others that cover science fiction in general).  This time around, it was the near-pro quality Triskelion issue #2. 

The first piece in the fan-mag is by none other than Hal Clement, the famed hard science fiction author and professor, writing about the Enterprise and its basis in real science.  Abstruse stuff, but interesting.  It just goes to show how engaging the universe of Star Trek is, above and beyond the weekly drama and our favorite characters.

In addition to being a fine piece of writing and a showcase for some quite good acting, "Whom Gods Destroy" was compelling for how much it told us about the setting of the show.  For though the episode takes place in the claustrophobic confines of Stage 10 on the Paramount lot, redressed to look like the prison colony of Elba, the dialogue fills in details about the show that seem to address the very beginning of the entire Federation.

When Kirk was put on trial in the episode "Court Martial", we learned that he had an award for "the Axanar peace mission".  No other details were given at the time.  In "Whom Gods Destroy", it turns out Axanar was the site of a terrific battle, one in which Fleet Captain Garth's participation was essential to victory.  Kirk recounts that he was a "newly fledged cadet" when he went on the subsequent peace mission (in a role that could not have been too momentous given his inexperience).  If Kirk is 35, which makes sense since last year he was 34, then he was a cadet probably 17 years ago, when he was 18.

And just last episode (well, last rerun), Spock related he'd been serving in Star Fleet for 17 years.

Hmm.

Add to that the fact that the Axanar accords resulted in Kirk and Spock being "brothers", and the significance of the event becomes pretty clear.


Kirk, Spock, Garth, red boa-cloak, and piggy-face: brothers, thanks to Axanar

In the first half of the first season of Trek, there were no references to the Federation.  The Enterprise was an "Earth ship" reporting to the "United Earth Space Probe Agency".  Only gradually did the words "Star Fleet" and "Federation" get bandied around with frequency.  That suggests that the United Federation of Planets is a fairly new nation.

I deduce that Axanar was some sort of titanic conflict between what would be the major races of the Federation: the humans, the Vulcans, the Andorians, the Tellarites, the Orionids, and all the rest.  It might even have resulted in a defeat for the Vulcanians—the "conquering" to which McCoy refers in "Conscience of the King".  But now, the UFP is like a United Nations with teeth, ensuring harmony among the myriad worlds that have banded together in the name of peace.

Garth, a soldier's soldier, and maddened by a grievous injury, could not stomach this clemency, so he tried to incite an insurrection on Antos IV.  Happily, the Antosians were having none of it, lest the shaky foundations of the Federation be toppled even as they were laid.

After Axanar, Kirk became an explorer first, and a soldier second.  Now that Garth is on the way to recovery, perhaps he can join Kirk on that noble expedition to the stars.


About face


by Lorelei Marcus

It is not often that our Captain Kirk submits readily to another person.  He gives his respect to direct Starfleet superiors, but to an esteemed alien passenger or important civilian escort, he shows only the required amount of deference, and sometimes less.  Even when he or his ship is threatened with mortal danger, he refuses to buckle to the whims of any supposedly all-powerful being, often to his own detriment.

Yet, in "Whom Gods Destroy", Kirk not only lacks hostility towards his captor, but in fact follows Garth's orders and tries to reach an understanding with him through exclusively nonviolent means.  One could argue this was merely Kirk acting out of self-preservation, as Garth could have killed him with a phaser at any time.  However, in a similar episode, "Plato's Stepchildren" Kirk relentlessly resisted the physical control of the Platonians, almost to his death. He is not one to give in easily, if at all.

Then why the change in temperament with Garth?  I postulate two reasons.  First, Garth is a former starship captain and Federation hero.  Kirk grew up reading of his exploits and admires Garth as a man of greater rank and accomplishment.  Even in his delusional state, Garth still invokes an awe that commands obedience, even from Kirk.

Second, Kirk understands that Garth is mentally ill and doesn't hold him accountable for his actions.  When dealing with other enemies, Kirk is unyielding from his position of righteousness.  Other foes act horrendously, with full intent and cognizance, justifying Kirk's equally stubborn resistance.

But Garth does not truly know what he's doing, at least not the Garth Kirk worships and admires, and he's better dealt with using a soft hand.  Ironically, this ends up being the wrong choice.  On multiple occasions, Kirk tries to reason with Garth and talk him down.  However, his diplomacy never works—as it shouldn't, given Garth's insanity is incurable.  If not for Spock's clever ruse and confidence with his phaser, they might never have escaped the prison.


Kirk gives diplomacy the old college try

Between the acting and the development of Federation history, "Whom Gods Destroy" makes for an excellent bottle-esque episode.

5 stars.



by Mx. Blue Cathey-Thiele

Second Verse, Same as the First

GARTH: You wrote that?
MARTA: Yesterday, as a matter of fact.
GARTH: It was written by an Earth man named Shakespeare a long time ago!
MARTA: Which does not alter the fact that I wrote it again yesterday! I think it's one of my best poems, don't you?

Kirk seems destined to watch his heroes fail. Professors and peers from the Academy, fellow officers, esteemed scientists. Time and time again, he expects better from his fellow humans, and is met instead by (mostly) men who think that the only issue with ultimate authority and unchecked ambition is the personal failings of previous tyrants.

“It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes.” -Theodor Reik

Even with all the horrors he has encountered, perhaps even in spite of them, he is quick to declare a paradise, to look for the best in others. The rank of Starship Captain must demand a degree of ego, surely, to be capable of commanding over 400 persons, making life-or-death decisions, and being the first to approach previously unknown species and planets. Setting the stage for humanity and the Federation is a doozy of a first impression! A sense of confidence is a must, then.

We have seen Kirk mishandle situations, fall prey to his own weaknesses. But he also relies on Spock and McCoy to check him. Is it enough? After peers and mentors keep making the same mistakes with catastrophic repercussions… is it telling of the system, of the people, or both? Just what sort of curriculum does the Academy promote, that so many graduates have gone on to lose perspective, take over planets, view tyrants from history as inspiration, reconstruct fascist regimes? To repeat the mistakes and tragedy of history, thinking that this time they can do things right.


Starfleet: molding megalomaniacs for more than 20 years!

Consider Dr. Daystrom's desperate need to achieve again, at the cost of lives in war games with his M5. Or Lt. McGivers, so enamored with how men “used to be” that even as a historian who knew of Khan, she was easily swayed. Remember Dr. Adams who used a neural neutralizer to gain complete control of Tantalus, or Gary Mitchell declaring himself a god upon gaining psychic powers? And of course we can't forget John Gill, a historian and teacher so sure of his ability to do it the 'right way' that he recreated the Nazi regime. Kirk and his colleagues have stumbled to different degrees over the Great Man theory, the notion that history hinges on exceptional individuals.

More importantly, on dismissing those who aren't Great Men. Only the fact that his crew mutinied saved the planet of Antos 4 when Captain Garth was unable to handle the rejection. And yet, without his crew, he could do nothing. (Mutiny! As recently as in The Tholian Web, there is no recorded instance of such on a starship.) The story was written before, it will be written again. Abuse finds home in authority. Once one thinks of people as something less than human (or in Trek, alien), it is possible to justify any number of injustices.

Much of this episode was a re-wording of what has been said before, and usually said better. It wasn't terrible, but I'd like a key-change, at least.

3 stars



[Come join us tonight (January 10th) for the next thrilling episode of Star Trek!  KGJ is broadcasting the show live with commercials and accompanied by trekzine readings at 8pm Eastern and Pacific.  You won't want to miss it…]




[January 8, 1969] Young Punks and Old Fogies (February 1969 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

I trust that singer Martin Gaye will forgive me for stealing the title of his current smash hit, which has been at the top of the American pop music charts since last month, and shows no signs of disappearing soon. (Gladys Knight and the Pips had a big hit with it not much more than a year ago, too.)


He's what's happening.

The reason for my musical theft is that certain information about the authors of the stories in the latest issue of Fantastic reached me through informal channels.

Open your ears, for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?

Henry IV, Part 2

I'll explain when the time comes. Meanwhile, let's take a look at a very mixed bag indeed.

Catch A Wave

(OK, I'll apologize to the Beach Boys as well.)


Cover art by William Baker.

Wow! A new piece of art on the cover. The grapevine tells me editor Barry N. Malzberg is shaking things up at Fantastic.

The editorial by Robert Silverberg, the magazine's new associate editor (so long, former-editor-turned-associate-editor Harry Harrison), makes the case that there's plenty of room in the world of imaginative fiction for both Old Wave and New Wave. Hear, hear.

This issue, which contains ten new stories as well as four reprints, should prove an excellent test case for his thesis. We've got old-fashioned yarns as well as experimental works.

First of all is a new tale from an author who bridges the gap between the opposing Waves. (Don't try to tell me his 1950 story Coming Attraction isn't a Dangerous Vision!)

Richmond, Late September, by Fritz Leiber


Illustration by Bill Baker.

Near the end of his life, Edgar Allan Poe encounters a mysterious, beautiful woman with whom he becomes obsessed. Their conversation suggests that Poe has a premonition of the coming American Civil War. The conclusion hints at the woman's true identity.

As you'd expect, this is elegantly written. Leiber obviously knows and loves the works of fellow fantasist Poe. The story is full of references to Poe's tales and poems. (Some might say too many.) The denouement is nicely subtle.

It's not a major piece (calling it Fritz Leiber's Greatest Short Story in the table of contents is hardly accurate) but well worth reading. High three stars or low four stars? I'm prejudiced in favor of both Poe and Leiber, so let's go on the high end.

Four stars.

Any Heads at Home?, by David R. Bunch

Hollywood used to call actor/director Erich von Stroheim The Man You Love To Hate, because of his many villainous screen roles. The controversial works of David R. Bunch, back when the magazine was edited by Cele Goldsmith (later Cele Lalli), made him The Writer You Love To Hate in the eyes of many conservative readers. He's back in form here.

The insane narrator (shades of Poe!) relates how he took the head of his dead, filthy rich boss out of his grave so he could kick it around. A visit from the police isn't the only thing he should worry about.

The bare bones (pun intended) of the plot make it sound like an ordinary horror story. What makes it unusual is the author's unique style. His familiar quirks are here. Certain words are printed in ALL CAPITALS, often with EXCLAMATION POINTS! Bunch uses hyphens to create new words like leather-cloppy and stone-feather. The whole thing seems to be written in a frenzy.

Whether you like this stuff or not is a matter of taste. I think it's fairly effective.

Three stars.

Bathe Your Bearings in Blood!, by Clifford D. Simak

After that bit of New Wave, we go back to the Old. This story from one of the greats comes from the December 1950 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by James B. Settles.

A newspaper man finds out his alarm clock and watch are both an hour fast. Just an odd coincidence? Maybe, but then there's the guy who calls the newspaper to report a sewing machine moving down the street by itself. Not to mention the rat-like machines hiding in the newspaper office, and the fact that the protagonist's typewriter prints out messages to him.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

The grapevine tells me this story has already been reprinted quite a few times, under the less melodramatic title Skirmish. The premise may remind you of the Twilight Zone episode A Thing About Machines. It's not bad, but it stops right at a dramatic moment, leaving things unresolved.

Three stars.

Back we go to new stuff; no less than half a dozen brief yarns before it's reprint time again. (Note that these six stories lack any illustrations. Maybe most of the art budget was blown on the cover.)

All in the Game, by Edward Y. Breese

An unscrupulous fellow finds himself in an extremely luxurious afterlife. His every desire is satisfied. There's a twist.

Sound familiar? Then you've seen another episode of Twilight Zone, namely A Nice Place to Visit. At least Simak has the excuse that he came first!

Two stars.

The Castle on the Crag, by P. G. Wyal

The previous story was new, but very traditionally narrated. This one is not. It starts like a satiric fairy tale (we're told that a princess is a White Liberal, and thus values poverty above all else) but then it jumps forward multiple centuries at a time, in several brief sections of text. A tree grows out of the dead body of the princess, an abbey is built on the ruins of her castle, etc. It builds up to a modern horror.

The point seems to be that nothing is permanent. This is a strange, dark story with a couple of remarks about religion that may raise some eyebrows. Not exactly pleasant reading, but interesting.

Three stars.

The Major Incitement to Riot, by K. M. O'Donnell

The grapevine tells me K. M. O'Donnell is actually editor Barry N. Malzberg. This surreal yarn consists of multiple conflicting versions of what caused violence to break out during the display of the gigantic death mask of a deceased official.

Weird stuff. Don't ask me what it means. The image of the huge mask is haunting, if nothing else.

Two stars.

The Life of the Stripe, by Piers Anthony

The army is running out of the stripes they use to designate rank. A sergeant is busted down to buck private so his can be reused. After his death, everybody who wears the stripe comes to a bad end. Is there a way to end the curse?

Not much to this beyond the premise. As military satire, it's not exactly Catch-22.

Two stars.

Slice of Universe, by James R. Sallis

As far as I can tell, this story involves a couple of aliens who speak in a complicated, song-like manner because they have multiple tongues. Their starship is operated, in some manner or other, by self-pitying, homesick birds. They explore the universe to its very end.

That's a very poor synopsis, because this piece is more of a dream-like prose poem than anything else. As such, I found it intriguing, if a little confusing. The aliens are really alien, that's for sure.

Three stars.

Reason for Honor, by Robert Hoskins

After World War Three, a couple of soldiers are the only ones left out of their unit. They see enemy troops approach. The encounter leads to an ironic conclusion.

Pretty grim stuff. Effective enough for what it is.

Three stars.

The Closed Door, by Kendall Foster Crossen

Back to reprints. This one comes from the August/September issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Gaylord Walker.

The grapevine tells me that the author's first name, despite the way it is spelled in the original magazine and in this reprint, is actually supposed to be Kendell. Gotta watch those vowels.


Illustrations uncredited.

Anyway, what we have here is a futuristic locked room mystery. The detective even mentions Gideon Fell, a fictional solver of such mysteries created by author John Dickson Carr.


Whodunit?

A humanoid alien is murdered in his hotel room, despite the fact that the door can only be locked or unlocked by his hand. Does a torn piece of paper bearing the letters COO hold the key to the crime?

Boy, this is a lousy story. It fails as science fiction and as a mystery. The solution depends on things the reader can't possibly know. Give me Lije Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw any day in the week.

One star.

The Origin of Species, by Jody Scott Wood

We interrupt our reprints for a couple of new pieces. (Again, no illustrations.)

Less than a page long, this one takes the form of a tirade by a tree-dwelling ape against those radicals who are walking on the ground and doing other outrageous stuff.

A satire about the previous generation (Old Wave?) complaining about those darn kids nowadays (New Wave?), I suppose. Whatever.

Two stars.

Grounds for Divorce, by Robert S. Phillips

A man goes to a lawyer asking to divorce his wife. It seems the fellow isn't satisfied with his sex life, compared to the images he sees of the old days.

You'll probably see the twist coming a mile away. A mildly Dangerous Vision.

Two stars.

This Planet for Sale, by Ralph Sholto

The pages of the July 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures supply this space opera.


Cover art by Walter Popp.

A couple of guys are in their spaceship, smuggling valuable cargo. Meanwhile, a father and daughter are in another spaceship. The two vessels run into an invisible planet that made its way into the solar system.


Illustration by Ernie Barth.

The daughter (in true science fiction fashion, this young adult woman is always called a girl) gets captured by the bad guy. The smuggler-turned-hero rescues her.

It all has something to do with the bad guy's plan to wipe out the indigenous population of the invisible planet and transport it somewhere else, in order to sell it to aliens. The bad guy also wants to do the same thing to Earth.

Pretty bad stuff. Nonsensical science, thud-and-blunder action. The nature of the smuggled cargo (kept concealed from the reader) solves everybody's problems (expect the bad guy, of course.)

One star.

The Day After Eternity, by Lawrence Chandler.

Another action/adventure yarn, this time from the February 1955 issue of the magazine.


Cover art by Henry Sharp.

The grapevine tells me that Lawrence Chandler was a house name (pseudonym shared by more than one writer.) Might be Howard Browne, might be Henry Slesar, might be somebody else. The grapevine doesn't know everything.


Illustration by Paul Lundy.

Another wandering planet comes into the solar system. This one seems to be stealing Earth's water. (Forget that. It has nothing to do with the plot.) Our manly hero and his manly buddies, plus a whole bunch of cannon fodder from other planets, set out to defeat the thing.

A telepathic psychiatrist comes along, because she's figured out that the planet is actually stealing minds. The cover illustration, for which the story was probably written, depicts a scene in which one of the buddies, who loves old cars, gets tricked by an illusion and blown up.

(At this point, I was reminded of Ray Bradbury's 1948 story Mars is Heaven!, which is much better.)

Everybody gets killed except the hero and the (ahem) girl. They bicker at first, but of course they wind up in love.

Two rotten old stories in a row. This one adds insult to injury by emphasizing the fact that the psychiatrist is old-fashioned because she doesn't expose her breasts.

One star.

Sour Grapes

There were some real stinkers in this issue, particularly the reprints from lesser known writers. Not all the new stuff was worthy either.

The grapevine tells me that Malzberg isn't happy with the magazine's reprint policy. Did he deliberately choose losers to make his point? The rumor mill also suggests that he won't be around long.

There were some decent stories here — it's hard to throw fourteen darts and not hit the target sometimes — but you might want to spend some time watching an old movie on TV instead.


This one is pretty good.






[January 6, 1969] Booms and Busts (February 1969 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

Brighter than a Million Suns

China's got the Bomb, but have no fears—they can't wipe us out for at least five years…

So sang satirist Tom Lehrer in 1965 for the television show That Was the Week that Was.  Well, here we are, about five years later, and the Chinese have graduated to the big time.  18 months ago, they tested their first H-Bomb, the big firecracker that involves nuclear fusion rather than fission, with a damage yield equal to more than 100 times that of the Hiroshima A-Bomb.  A try at #2 last year was a dud, but one detonated less than a fortnight ago went off just fine, creating a 3 megaton blast.

Radio Peking announced the blast on December 29th, but the Atomic Energy Commission had detected the blast the day before.  It was apparently timed in celebration of Mao Tse Tung's 75th birthday.  (In China, if you go carrying pictures of the Chairman, you will make it with someone…)

The bright…uh…positive side to this is that China's missiles, if there be any, are probably mostly pointed at the Soviet Union.  Apparently, the Russians have beefed up their border divisions, and inter-Communist relations are sub-frosty.

So perhaps we have another five years…

Bigger than a half-dozen magazines

On the homefront, the latest issue of Galaxy, the magazine with half again as much content as all the others, offers some boffo entertainment as well as a few duds.


by John Pederson Jr.

To Jorslem, by Robert Silverberg

The ever-productive Silverbob offers up what may (but may not) be the final installment in his vivid Nightwings series.  I'm sure we'll see a fix-up soon, a la To Open the Sky.  According to Bob, this is his modus operandi—sell novellas to Galaxy editor Pohl, and then corral them into a novel.


by Jack Gaughan

Following directly on the heels of the last story, the invaders have fully Vichy-ized the Earth.  Tomis, formerly a star-surveying Watcher, and then an historian of the caste Rememberers, is now a Pilgrim.  Accompanied by the haughty Olmayne, cast out of the Rememberers for her slaying of her husband to be with the (now dead) former prince of Roum, the two make their way toward the holy city of Jorslem.  Tomis is burdened not only with Olmayne's company but also the knowledge that he has sold out humanity, giving the invaders records of the Terran subjugation of the aliens' ancestors—thus justifying the invasion.

The story is something of a travelogue, something of a search for redemption, and it's written absolutely beautifully.  It's not New Wave, exactly, but it's qualitatively different from what filled Galaxy last decade (or, indeed, what continues to fill Analog).  Maybe Silverberg is leading a one-man revolution.

"Jorslem" does not quite achieve five stars, however.  The plot is thin, even as (and perhaps especially as) a climax to the series.  The happy endings come too suddenly and a bit implausibly.  Female characters exist to be lovers or harpies. 

Nevertheless, the world is so beautifully rendered, and the prose so masterfully done, that you'll enjoy the journey regardless.

Four stars.

Now Hear the Word of the Lord, by Algis Budrys

An alien race has controlled the world since 1958, secretly and tirelessly infiltrating every level of our society.  One lone voice, a representative of the World Language League, finds a member of this cabal and threatens to kill him in order to learn the true extent of the invasion.  The truth is shocking enough to blow your circuits.

A humdrum plot, but excellent, sensual telling.  Four stars.

The War with the Fnools, by Philip K. Dick


by Bruce Eliot Jones

Another aliens-among-us story.  This time, the baddies are the Fnools, who perfectly ape members of a given profession—realtors, minor cabinet officials, what have you.  Only one thing gives them away: they are all only two feet tall.

But what if there was an easily accessible way for them to grow to human height?  All hope would be lost!

This is a silly story, and most of the goodwill it earns is thrown away by the rather tasteless ending. 

Two stars.

Golden Quicksand, by J. R. Klugh


by Jack Gaughan

The ferret ship H.L.S. Solsmyga is running for its life from two Grakevi raiders at thousands of times the speed of light.  Its crew are protected from the tremendous accelerations involved only by the use of liquid-filled, individual pods, linked by the computerized Shipmind.  If only the Solsmyga could use its superior maneuverability to ditch its pursuers; but in fact, Commander Yuri Hammlin's mission is to lead the raiders into a trap.

The running battle is competently presented, with lush, pseudotechnical detail, and Gaughan peppers the story with pretty, albeit superfluous, pictures.  Ultimately, though, it's just a combat story.  There is an attempted stingy tail, but it's more of an appendix.

Three stars.

Our Binary Brothers, by James Blish


by Brock

A driven man achieves everlasting success on Earth, but that's not enough.  Repelled by humanity's technological quagmire, he longs for a simpler, cleaner world.  And he finds one orbiting a hitherto undiscovered dwarf star just a fifth of a lightyear away.  There, he sets himself up as a God and slowly leads the unwashed masses there toward a better civilization.

But planets comprise multiple populations, and not all are as backward as the hill people first encountered by the Terran…

A well-written but one-note vignette.  Three stars.

For Your Information: The Island of Brazil, by Willy Ley

This is a fascinating piece on a variety of Atlantic land masses that never were.  It's a nice complement to his piece on Atlantis.

Five stars.

Kendy's World, by Hayden Howard


by Reese

Kennedy Olson was born to high hopes just before the National Emergency turned the United States into an increasingly autocratic police state.  After the death of his hippie, goodnik father, the boy coasted through life on his athletic skills and his winning smile.  Come his junior year in high school, "Kendy" had more than a dozen scholarship offers, but the most persuasive came from the small California campus of National University.  Seemingly too good to be true, the old-fashioned college offered a well-rounded education, sports opportunities, and a chance to make a difference.

Except that NU is really a training ground for spies, and the big bad isn't the Soviets, but the unspeakable, top secret horror they found when they tried to land on Phobos…

From the author that brought us The Eskimo Invasion, this story appears to be the setup for another serialized novel.  The writing is strictly amateur, and there's not much story here—just a series of unpleasant events.  I am curious about the alien menace, though, if it ever be developed.

Two stars.

Finish with a bust

As promised, there's lots of good stuff, and a fair bit of mediocrity in this first Galaxy of 1969.  Ending with the weakest tale probably makes sense, but it does leave a bitter taste in the mouth.  Nevertheless, the issue finishes on the positive side of the three-star divide, and that's a good enough New Year baby for me!


How about two of them, with Dick Martin from Laugh-In






[January 2, 1969] Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Star Trek: "Elaan of Troyius")


by Janice L. Newman

On December 23rd, 1968, exactly eleven months after they were captured by North Korea, the crew of the USS Pueblo was finally released, and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. The USA would not be starting World War III over the incident, and our boys, though they’ve been starved and tortured, are coming home alive for Christmas.

It is thus appropriate that this week’s Star Trek episode revolved around choosing peace instead of war.


Bill Theiss, you've done it again!

In the episode opener, we learn that the Enterprise has been sent to support Petri, Ambassador of Troyius, in his mission to “train” the Dohlman of Elas to be a suitable wife for the Troyian leader. The Dohlman turns out to be a beautiful woman played by France Nuyen, made up to look like Cleopatra in a bathing suit. Her name is Elaan, and she is imperious and demanding, while Petri is servile but contemptuous. They are intractable in their dislike of each other. Kirk quickly becomes exasperated with both of them, telling Petri, “Stop trying to kill each other. Then worry about being friendly.”


"And maybe try wearing a bikini…"

In the meantime, the Enterprise is being followed by a “ghost” ship, which eventually materializes and proves to be a Klingon warship. This is a nice callback to Balance of Terror, where the Enterprise played the part of the “ghost ship”, and the recent Enterprise Incident, where we learned that the Klingons now have cloaking technology.


"Follow that starship!"

No sooner does the ship reveal itself than Kirk is called away from the bridge again. Elaan has stabbed Petri, who declares that he will have nothing more to do with her.  He also explains to Nurse Chapel that the mysterious “allure” of Elasian women is merely biochemical: “A man whose flesh is once touched by the tears of a woman of Elas has his heart enslaved forever.”

Back in Elaan’s quarters, Kirk is fed up and declares that he will be Elaan’s new teacher. He tells her she is, “an uncivilized savage, a vicious child in a woman's body, an arrogant monster!”


"I said, 'Gimme five'—you've got to learn modern courtesy."

I must admit, my sympathies were thoroughly with Elaan. Despite her imperious attitude in the beginning, it becomes increasingly clear that she has no choice in the political marriage and no desire to be married. At one point she says, “I will not go to Troyius, I will not be mated to a Troyian, and I will not be humiliated, and I will not be given to a green pig as a bribe to stop a war!” And yet, the Enterprise continues on its way to Troyius, regardless of her behavior, her orders, or her protests. It seems she has no true power, but is merely a pawn to be traded, and probably one the Elasians don’t actually care much about.

In fact, I had to wonder if the Elasians didn’t want peace at all, but sent their “Dohlman” to be married as a sop to the Federation. That way they could say they’d tried, and if the Troyians couldn’t handle the Dohlman, well that just proved that peace wasn’t possible between them.

This also nicely sets up the question of why the Federation cares so much about stopping the war between these two planets, to the point of bringing diplomatic pressure and sending one of their best starships to ensure that the wedding and negotiations go well. Scotty blatantly asks the same question in the episode opener, leaving it to rest in the back of our minds as we watch.

The next day, Kryton, one of the Elasian guards, sneaks into Engineering and sabotages the Enterprise. Kirk forces his way into Elaan’s quarters and again begins trying to “teach” her, which mostly consists of wrestling with her and threatening to spank her. She starts to weep, and he wipes away her tears. The effect is immediate, with Kirk’s ire evaporating and transforming into passion.


"Say, you didn't just hear a kind of snake rattle sound, did you?"

Kryton is caught, and kills himself rather than allow himself to be subjected to a Vulcan mind meld. Kirk orders Scotty to figure out what Kryton did, then returns to Elaan’s quarters. Elaan tries to convince Kirk to work with the Klingons, but he tells her there are more important things than love: “Elaan, two planets, an entire star system's stability depends on it. We have a duty to forget what happened.”

At this point, those of us who have been watching Star Trek since the beginning already know what’s going to happen: Kirk will always choose the Enterprise over everything else. And indeed, when Spock and McCoy come to roust the captain out of Elaan’s quarters, all it takes for him to leave Elaan behind is to hear that the Klingon ship has changed course and is approaching at warp speed.


"Don't mind me.  I always walk this stiffly when my friends are watching…"

Once Kirk gets to the bridge, we’re treated to one of the best combat sequences we’ve seen yet on Star Trek. Kryton’s sabotage, Kirk learns at the last possible moment, was rigging the matter-antimatter unit to blow if the ship went into warp. The Klingon ship therefore starts by trying to bait the Enterprise into going into warp, and that doesn’t work, just firing on them.

The captain sends Elaan to Sickbay because it’s the safest part of the ship. Petri speaks to her there, finally treating her with a modicum of graciousness and respect, and asks her to wear the necklace gifted her by the Troyians, “as a token of respect for the desperate wishes of your people and mine for peace”. She seems genuinely affected by the words and gesture, perhaps realizing that Kirk will truly never sacrifice duty for love.


"Please put these on.  The Emperor paid retail."

Back on the bridge, the crew struggles to keep the Klingon ship’s hits to its best shield (Kirk doing a bit of back seat driving as he leans over Sulu and gives him his orders). An impulse-power driven ship is no match for warp, though, and all seems lost.

Elaan appears on the bridge, wearing the Troyian wedding dress and necklace. Spock immediately notes that there are strange readings coming from the necklace. It turns out that the stones, which Elaan says are “common”, are dilithium crystals! (No wonder the Federation and the Klingons are both so interested in this system!) She gives them to the Captain, who has Spock hurry them down to Engineering, where he and Scotty start installing them. Kirk does his best to stall, but the Klingons are unwilling to discuss terms (I imagine that after “The Enterprise Incident” and The Deadly Years, the Klingons have been instructed not to listen to anything the Federation says—or at least nothing that Kirk says.)


This fellow is no Michael Ansara.  He's not even a William Campbell…

The crystals are ready in the nick of time. A photon torpedo at close range leaves the Klingon ship damaged and limping. The Enterprise leaves it behind to fulfill its original mission.


Pow!  Right in the kisser.

Kirk says farewell to Elaan, who asks him not to forget her. He tells her he has no choice. Nor does she, she replies, only duty and responsibility. It’s clear that she’s come to accept her role, though whether it’s because she realized that her last desperate play to manipulate the captain failed or because her near-death experience made her decide that peace was more important than her personal feelings, we do not know. It is also worth noting that while she goes on to marry into a culture she despises and where she will likely be surrounded by people who hate, fear, and ridicule her (if Petri’s behavior is any indication), Kirk will simply continue doing what he loves. Her choice of “duty” over all else is thus, in my estimation, a far more difficult and admirable one.


"Oh, this knife?  I was just going to pare my nails.  Not kill the Emperor or anything like that, why do you ask?"

McCoy, unsurprisingly (given his track record) discovers an antidote to the Elasian tears. Spock tells him the captain has no need of it, as he’s already found his antidote: the Enterprise.

There were many things to love in this episode, and many things that frustrated me. The “Taming of the Shrew” sequences early on were grating, but the combat was excellent, and to the scriptwriter’s credit, the story did not end with Elaan being “tamed”. In the end, she makes a choice to accept her fate, but she does so with dignity.

The things I liked and didn’t like balanced out pretty well, leaving this a three star episode for me.



by Gideon Marcus

The Sum of its Parts

What I found so gratifying about "Elaan of Troyius" was its continuity with the Trek history we've encountered thus far.  Once again, as in "Journey to Babel", the Enterprise is host to a diplomatic mission (though how the ship could house several dozen delegates to the Babel Conference, but Uhura had to give up her room for Elaan, is never explained).  Once again, Kirk shows irritation at having to play nursemaid to a bunch of civilians.  I would find his flip treatment of Elaan demeaning, but it's no worse than he displays to Commissioner Ferris or Commissioner Fox.

I particularly loved the galactopolitical situation depicted in the episode.  Here we have a fairly new Federation system with two hostile planets, abundant with dilithium crystals, perched right at the edge of the Klingon Empire.  What a fraught situation Kirk must navigate!

At first, it was difficult for me to glean the plot behind the plot, but by the end of the episode, the setup was pretty clear.  The Federation, upon learning of the rich deposits on Elaas (and Troyius?) placed a clamp on all dispatches coming out of the system.  Not good enough, though, as the Klingons clearly want the worlds badly, too.  The Feds then explained to the two worlds in the system that they must work things out.  Elaas grudgingly agrees—and then effects two simultaneous plans to queer the deal.

The first is Kryton's sabotage.  By handing the Enterprise over to the Klingons, they get in their good graces (if, indeed, the Klingons have good graces).  Obviously, the savage Klingons are a better fit for for the militaristic Elaasians anyway.


"Of course I want to be a Klingon—you think I want to keep wearing this outfit?"

The second is Elaan.  She clearly doesn't want to be there.  Indeed, she does everything she can to get out of it, despite orders from the Elaasian council.  Elaan goes so far as to try to murder the Troyian ambassador and seduce the captain of the Enterprise.  And yet, that scheme fails when Elaan takes a page from Kirk's book, and indeed the example of the whole crew, that duty and the preservation of life trumps all else.  It's a quick, undershown change, but it's there, and I appreciated it.

The episode reminds me a bit of the parable of the peasant woman who shelters a starving prince.  The royal promises to give a gold coin for every fat bubble in the soup she serves.  Greedily, she dumps a huge pat of butter in the soup, which results in one big bubble rather than a myriad of little ones.  Similarly, if the Elaasians had stuck to just one plan, they might have succeeded.  Instead, they double hedged and lost all.

And was the Klingon commander operating with Imperial sanction?  Or was he a rogue skipper with notions of glory?  After all, taking on a starship seems pretty bold given the ever-watchful Organians.

It's not a perfect episode, but it's certainly an engaging one, and I always enjoy seeing Mrs. Robert Culp on the small screen.  Plus, her appearance alongside Shatner is something of a reunion—they starred together in the Broadway version of The World of Suzie Wong.  Plus, I dug both the Klingon ship (which we saw a bit of in "The Enterprise Incident" and "Day of the Dove") and the score for the episode.

Four stars.


Twixt Scylla and Charybdis


by Trini Stewart

The beginning of this week's episode did not seem promising to start, mostly because of the guest characters' first impressions on me. Petri the ambassador seemed childish and reckless in his peacemaking, and Elaan was almost comically uncooperative for royalty sent as a hospitable offering. Looking back, Elaan was possibly playing to her strengths to some end with her antagonistic reactions, and her development with Kirk ultimately became a gripping trial for our captain.

Kirk was the shining star of this episode, which is not something I feel about him often. He was impressively quick-witted against biochemical and psychological manipulation, which really sold his captain qualities for me more than his usual speeches or fights. The way Kirk kept his priorities in check while thinking on his feet reminded me of how Spock left me feeling in "The Tholian Web" when he held the ship together without Kirk. In the short time I have known Kirk, he has struck me as the type to always know what to say and fight when there is no other choice. Kirk managed to unravel the layers of the princess's antics even with serious disadvantages, revealing what his problem solving is like when he is out of sorts. Tension was well-built in this episode on several levels, and the challenges Kirk faced were arguably more dynamic and interesting than Spock's in "The Tholian Web".


"What's a case of tight trousers when the Enterprise is at stake?"

Kirk transitioned from acting as a respectful host to a firm authority with Elaan, and his initial responses to her rude behavior were tastefully poised. Once Elaan had seduced Kirk, he still managed to expertly dismantle the Elaisians’ schemes without falling for the Dohlman or her subordinates’ clever tricks. Shatner did a great job conveying how difficult it was for Kirk to maintain his composure, so it was riveting to see just how he would escape the Klingons, prepare the guileful Elaan for her marriage, and get the Enterprise back in ship shape under that level of duress. His allegiance to the Enterprise evidently sobered Kirk; his articulate maneuvering reflected his symbiotic relationship with the ship and her crew. In the end, even Elaan was humbled by our captain, finally submitting to the responsibilities her title bore. I was quite pleasantly surprised by Kirk this week, and the adversities threatening the crew were positively captivating. 4 stars!


Be Our Guest, Do As You Please


by Joe Reid

“Elaan of Troyius” was this week’s episode of Star Trek.  “Taming of the Shrew” storyline aside, there is one thing that the writers of Star Trek keep doing to twist my britches, and this episode was another example of it.  The Enterprise, powerful symbol of human achievement, has the laziest security imaginable.  Episode after episode, people that wish to do harm to the ship and its crew need only to walk into what should be the most secure areas of a ship to do as they please practically unchallenged.  Areas that on large ships, not all members of the crew are even allowed to enter.  So, let’s delve into some of areas of a ship that guests should not enter.

Let’s begin with the command center of the ship.  The bridge.  The seat of command, where the captain steers the destiny of a ship to complete its missions.  Obviously, a perfect place for a teenage princess to casually enter whenever she chooses.  Elaan pierced the bridge and interrupted the ship’s captain, while he was in the middle of a combat situation.  Good on the writers for making the captain, thanks to Spock’s urging, send her away from the bridge, only to have her show up on the bridge again after a change of clothes.  For an area holding some of the most senior members of the crew, it seems unusual that it wasn’t better protected.  Past episodes showcased singing children, enemy androids, and furry tribbles having free access to the brain trust of the Enterprise.  I anticipate that 15% of Kirk’s problems could be solved by securing access to the bridge to “Bridge Crew Only”.

The next ludicrous pattern that we witnessed in this episode was the open and unguarded access that guests on the Enterprise had to Engineering, the area of the ship that provides all the power, without which the Enterprise couldn’t move, fight, or support human life.  Why did Elaan’s former suitor have a free ticket to stroll into this most vital part of the ship and sabotage systems?  Again, good on the writers for allowing him to be discovered, be it many minutes later, only to allow the discoverer to be summarily executed for his weak efforts to question someone he'd found messing with the thing that keeps the ship alive.  If only this random trespass in Engineering were rare.  Previous episodes sported children again, along with genetically advanced conquerors, self-aware talking space probes, and Klingons traipsing merrily into the bowels of Engineering. 

Where before I said that 15% of Kirk’s problems could be solved by securing the Bridge, 99% of problems could go away if Engineering had a couple guards working shifts to protect the very heart of this starship. 


If only Kevin Riley were on duty, none of this would have happened.  So long as he's sober…

Historically there have been some areas of the ship that have been kept secure week after week.  Areas that no one can casually walk into without permission (unless you are a floating cloud of space gas that is). Those would be crew quarters.  Even in this week’s episode, crew quarters were better guarded, and their doors are better respected, than what should have been the most sensitive areas of the ship.  Not even Spock and McCoy could casually walk into the room where the captain was passionately kissing Elaan. 

Perhaps future episodes will take the security of the most critical parts of the ship more seriously.  That, or have the crew consider moving the engines and bridge staff to crew quarters, where doors are respected.

For continuing to overlook this easily solvable problem, I offer only 2 stars for “Elaan of Troyius”.  Ignoring the fact that the episode did display some interesting makeup and costumes, and featured a few well-acted scenes, the continued stupidity of the security of the ship is as untenable as its “secure” areas.

Two stars


[Come join us tomorrow night (January 3rd) for the next thrilling episode of Star Trek!  KGJ is broadcasting the show live with commercials and accompanied by trekzine readings at 8pm Eastern and Pacific.  You won't want to miss it…]