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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 16, 1967] The Weird and the Surprising (July 1967 Galactoscope)

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by Jason Sacks

Philip K. Dick has a new novel out. And guess what, it’s very strange. Are you shocked?

The Ganymede Takeover, by Philip K. Dick & Ray Nelson

The space slugs have taken over the Earth.

Those slugs come from the distant planet Ganymede. Earth is their first invasion target ever. But they have ambitions. The Ganymedeans have managed to conquer and occupy our planet. However, the slugs are failing at their third objective: to absorb the people of Earth as their servants.

Resistance is strong in at least one area of the planet: the Bale of Tennessee. There, he will have to fight the Neegs, who are led by a violent revolutionary named Percy X. The dreaded assignment of conquering that area goes to Mekkis, an insecure slug whose fortune bodes poorly.

Mekkis and his fellow conquerors have one great weapon at hand they can use to defeat the humans. A human, the neurotic Dr. Baldani, condemned as quisling, has developed a reality distortion bomb, which can destroy all of humanity. But will he allow that weapon to be used?

The Ganymede Invasion, a rare collaboration between Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson, is dense as hell and weird as hell. Dick and Nelson make a pretty good team. Nelson smooths out Dick while Dick makes Nelson weird. Their San Francisco writers’ workshop friends must love the stories the pair creates

The esteemed Mr. Nelson

Truth be told, I missed Dick’s wild randomness at times; I was genuinely shocked that nearly all the elements introduced in the first chapter resolve by the end! Meanwhile, Nelson pushed Dick to go even further with his usual psychedelia, with references to supermarket carts with submachine guns and to vorpal meat cleavers, among many other stunning images. It’s the Summer of Love and this book came from the San Francisco area, so how can you ask for anything timelier?

The Black Panthers at the California state capitol, earlier this year

Percy X is the most intriguing character in the novel. Percy can be seen as an analog to Malcolm X, which would make the Neegs the equivalent of the Black Panther Party. Or he can be seen as a reflection of Perseus, the Greek legend who slayed monsters and came to found the republic of Mycenae. Either interpretation would fit this story. Percy is a crusader, a fighter against the literal monsters of the Ganymedeans and is a true hero. Heck, the name Ganymede implies a reference to Medea.

Philip K. Dick, Nancy Dick, and Robert Silverberg conversing in lobby, Baycon

I haven’t discussed the sentient hotel rooms or talking, neurotic taxi cabs or even a key Quisling type character in the book. There’s just too much to cover in a review like this and I want you to be surprised by what you read.

 The Ganymede Invasion isn’t great Dick, but it is hugely entertaining. And like nearly every novel by PKD, Ganymede is a short quick read. I recommend this oddball collaboration.

3 stars.


by Gideon Marcus

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison

The third collection of Ellison stories contains the now-typical set of introductions which folks often like as much as the stories they precede. It's a thin volume, with just seven pieces, and it suffers for being less tonally nuanced than the prior two collections. The subject is pain, Harlan's personal pain, and while I'm sure the tales were cathartic to write for him, by the end, they all start to sound like Harlan kvetching to us over a Shirley Temple at around 3am.

Not that they're bad–Harlan is a gifted author–but they are somewhat one-note and unsubtle. To wit:

  1. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: The last five humans are trapped in the bowels of the sapient computer who hates and torments them. This is the unexpurgated version of the story that appeared in IF a few months prior, with less veiled references to homosexuality and genitalia.

    It's a raw, powerful piece. Four stars.

  2. Big Sam was My Friend: An interstellar carnival makes a stop on a planet with a tradition of human sacrifice. Big Sam, the circus strong man, can't let them go through with it…with disastrous results. Interesting more for the detail than the events.

    Three stars.

  3. Eyes of Dust: On a world devoted to and obsessed with personal beauty, can deformity be tolerated? Be careful – perfection may need imperfection to exist!
     
    Another passionate story, but somehow forgettable. Three stars.
     
  4. World of the Myth: Three astronauts are stranded on a planet: a cruel but charismatic man, the woman who loves him, and the nice fellow who loves the woman. They meet a race of telepathic ants, conversation with whom reveals the true nature of the parties communicating. Can the astronauts stand that knowledge?
     
    It's a neat setup, but a rather prosaic story. Three stars.

    5.  

  5. Lonelyache: A widower is tormented by dreams in which he is hounded by assassins, forced to dispatch them in the most brutal of fashions. Gradually, the man becomes aware that there is an inchoate…something…sharing his apartment, feeding on his unhappiness. Can he escape its thrall before it's too late?
     
    The story with the most Harlan-esque voice. Three stars.

    6.  

  6. Delusion for a Dragon Slayer: To all respects, Warren Glazer Griffin was the milquetoastiest of milquetoasts. But when he died in a freak accident, he was allowed to live an afterlife fantasy in which he indulged all of his suppressed depravities. The result isn't pretty.
     
    Three stars.

    7.  

  7. Pretty Maggie Moneyes: Inspired by a true encounter (and with the best introduction of the collection), this is the tale of the woman who sold her soul for comfort, lost it permanently to a slot machine, and resorted to desperate measures to get free.

With the intro, I give it four stars.

For the collection, 3.5 stars.


by Robin Rose Graves

City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin

An amnesiac narrator on a planet of liars. Le Guin takes us far into Earth’s future where humanity has regressed under the domination of a group of aliens called the Shing.

Our main character is Falk, who looks almost human except for his slitted yellow eyes. He wakes up in the forest with no memory of where he came from and mentally reduced back to the mind of a baby. Falk is taken in by a family and rehabilitated, all the while learning their culture, which fears the Shing who now control Earth and hinder civilization from developing to be any larger than scattered small groups of people across the planet. The Shing are most notable for being liars, something Falk is warned about throughout the book. However, in order to reclaim the answers that were stolen from him, Falk must leave the family and seek out the Shing.

The book drags during the first 80 pages as Falk travels alone through nature. This part serves well to relay the isolation of his journey and to show the effect the Shing’s presence has on Earth’s development. However, overall nothing of great significance happens in this part of the book.

Once Falk gets captured by a hostile group of humans, he meets a slave woman named Strella with whom he plots his escape in exchange for her guiding him to the Shing. Here the book becomes interesting, particularly when something Strella says suggests that the reason Falk has been stripped of his memory might be because that is how the Shing punish criminals. It made me wonder if Falk is really the good guy after all.

However, it isn’t until Falk reaches the City of Illusion that the story reaches its full potential and lives up to its name, as deceptions are uncovered and more information is revealed to Falk, who doesn't know what is true and what is false – including everything he has experienced up until this point. He’s unable to trust the Shing and unsure if they have ulterior motives. I had a lot of fun reading these chapters. Something would be revealed only to be quickly disproved and it made for an exciting read where I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next because I barely knew what the truth was – much like the hero.

The end chapters redeem the slow beginning. For a small world, Le Guin well establishes Earth as something distant and foreign to a modern reader. The plot exercises the brain and leaves the reader in suspense. However, this book is far longer than it needed to be. For 160 pages long, the first 80 pages are particularly empty and I think Le Guin could have achieved the same story by cutting out half the words.

I enjoyed this book, but it failed to impress. 3 stars.

The Strength to Dream


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Colin Wilson
The Young Philosopher himself

There have been many surprising entries into SF writing, but perhaps none more so than Colin Wilson taking on H. P. Lovecraft.

Covers for Colin Wilson's The Outsider and Introduction to the New Existentialism

Best known as a philosopher, Colin Wilson received great acclaim for his first book The Outsider and continues to be successful in this arena, including last year’s Introduction to The New Existentialism.

Covers to Colin Wilson's Fiction novels Ritual in the Dark and the Glass Cage

He has also attempted to express some of his ideas in popular crime fiction, such as Ritual in the Dark and The Glass Cage.

Neither of these avenues lead directly to science fiction, let alone Lovecraft. So how did it happen?

Apparently, Wilson is a fan of the concepts of Lovecraft and had written an essay saying so but expressing distaste for his actual prose. August Derleth saw this and wrote to Wilson suggesting he write his own book on these themes.

The result is The Mind Parasites, what could be described as Post-Lovecraftian. An optimistic existentialist new-wave cosmic horror, which is likely to either impress or appall the reader!

The Mind Parasites by Colin Wilson

The story starts in 1997, with Dr. Austin learning of the suicide of his friend and colleague Dr. Weissman. The news unsettles him, but the world suicide rate has been increasing over the decades and is in fact a major concern of many people. Delving into his papers, Austin discovers Weissman had been experimenting with ways of expanding his consciousness but became fearful of an evil presence.

At the same time Dr. Austin is working on a dig in Turkey. They discover a remarkable Proto-Hattian settlement where the inhabitants worship “Aboth the Unclean” and have massive blocks of stone which should have been impossible to move in 10000 BC. The site becomes a sensation when an elderly August Derleth notes how much this mirrors the stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft.

These two facts come together to form a startling discovery: for centuries mankind has had its progress impeded by a force that feeds on our despair. The Mind Parasites!

Whilst the concepts and themes are definitely of the cosmic horror seen in 30s Weird Tales, it is also most clearly something different.

Firstly, its writing is more academic than purple prose. This story is said to be compiled from a variety of papers in the early 21st century, explaining the unusual world events in the early 1990s. The fact that it is being told from the future provides an explanation for the style and shows the author giving real consideration to the context.

Secondly, in keeping with Wilson’s “New Existentialist” ideals, the characters are not simply the victims of ideas too big to grasp. Instead this is an ode to the limitless potential of the human mind. Rather than nihilistic, the ending is optimistic and the revelation about the true nature of the titular creatures was a fascinating surprise to me.

Thirdly, and what is likely to repel some readers, is that large passages are devoted to discussion of various theories of the mind and man’s place in the universe. These sections read more like Huxley’s Heaven and Hell than an Ashton Smith fantasy. That is not to say there is not plenty of action, with scenes involving wars, ESP and space flight. But your tolerance for exploration of Wilson’s pet theories is likely to dictate your enjoyment.

Grading this on a standard scale is tough as it is so strange and experimental. So I am giving it a – very subjective – five stars!

And because we have so many books to review, we'll be having another Galactoscope in just two days! Stay tuned…



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 14, 1967] The Beat Goes On (August 1967 Amazing)

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by John Boston

The August 1967 Amazing looks out on the world through one of Frank R. Paul’s later and less interesting works, trimmed of course from its original pulp size.  This one, titled A City on Uranus, is from the back cover of the April 1941 Amazing, as usual cropped to fit the lower half of this smaller magazine.  The issue’s overall contents and presentation are also as usual: one new story and a bunch of reprints, with Harry Harrison’s intelligent book reviews taking a few pages.


by Frank R. Paul

La de da de de.

The Man from Zodiac, by Jack Vance

Once more I say—at the risk of repeating myself repeating myself repeating myself—when a first-rate author shows up at the bottom of the market, there’s a reason for it.  The one non-reprinted piece of fiction here is Jack Vance’s “Great New Short Novel,” as the table of contents has it, The Man from Zodiac.  Zodiac Control, Inc., is a corporation that sells government services to colony planets across the galaxy, or galaxies (there is ambiguous reference to Andromeda), with competitors like Aetna, Fidelity, and Argus. 


by Gray Morrow

The eponymous Man is Milton Hack, a Zodiac employee (and also a minority shareholder, a fact which ultimately has little significance), who is charged by the main owners with getting and supervising a contract with the Phrones of Ethelrinda Cordas.  The Phrones are cartoon barbarians who have (or whose elite has) little interest in schools, sewer systems, and the other usual appurtenances of government; they wish only to obtain weapons with which to smite their neighbors and enemies, the equally cartoonish Sabo. 

Hack engages in a course of bamboozlement and chicanery and ends up representing both the Phrones and the Sabos with identical contracts, and persuading them to live in something resembling peace, outsmarting everyone in sight at every opportunity since they are all utterly stupid.  It’s frankly pretty crude, devoid of Vance’s usual sharp satirical wit; worse, it’s thoroughly boring, and gives the impression that the author is as bored as the reader.  Or maybe he is attempting to emulate the literary and commercial success of Christopher Anvil.  Two stars.

Martian and Troglodyte, by Neil R. Jones

The reprints are the usual mixed bag, slightly better mixed than in some issues.  The longest and oldest—a “Special—Short Novel” per the contents page—is Neil R. Jones’s Martian and Troglodyte, from the May 1933 Amazing.  Jones is best remembered for his protracted “Professor Jameson” series, about a scientist who is revived from his orbiting tomb and who goes chasing around the universe for a couple of dozen stories with the robot-bodied Zoromes.  In this one, Thrag, a cave guy who has been chased out of his tribe in a dispute over possession of the winsome Tua, is saved from becoming lunch for a cave bear by visiting Martians on a voyage of discovery.  (Jones’s Earth has many perils.  In addition to cave bears and saber-tooth tigers, tyrannosaurs and pterodactyls are still around.) Thrag learns not to be afraid of the Martians and they help him out in his quest to recover Tua from her brutal usurper by lending him lethal Martian technology.  Thrag’s and the Martians’ efforts to figure each other out are surprisingly well done. 


by Leo Morey

Overall, this is a pleasant antique, though Jones’s peculiar verbosity is sometimes a distraction.  (Any resemblance to the present commentator is entirely illusory.) A sample:

“In the depths of space between the earth and its contemporary planet, known to present day man as Mars, a small space ship sped at an inconceivable speed across the millions of miles of space towards the earth.  It was now very close, having been upon its journey through the stellar void for the period of time in which it had taken the great globe it was approaching to turn upon its axis forty times.  Forty times the topographical features of the planet earth had swung lazily before the eager eyes of the two space navigators within their interstellar craft as day by day, according to the rotation of the cosmic sphere, the planet grew larger in proportion as they drew near.”

Two stars; it probably would rate higher by the standards of its time.

Blabbermouth, by Theodore Sturgeon


by Malcolm Smith

Theodore Sturgeon’s Blabbermouth, from the February 1947 Amazing, is about a captivating woman who is telepathic and compulsively blurts out people’s secrets to those from whom they are being kept secret.  This brings ruin to her husband’s career as a prominent New York radio emcee, but by the end he figures out how to make lemonade (i.e., money) from this particular lemon.  The story is told in an affected semi-Damon Runyonesque style that bespeaks a writer trying to execute the cliches he thinks his market requires.  And maybe it did.  Or not.  This is only the second published story Sturgeon sold to an SF or fantasy editor other than John W. Campbell, and maybe he didn’t have much confidence about following his own bent anywhere else.  Two stars.

The Roller Coaster, by Alfred Bester


by Bernard Krigstein

There are two stories here from the magazine’s brief high-word-rate renascence of 1953-54.  Alfred Bester’s The Roller Coaster, from the May-June 1953 Amazing, is also told in an affected style, but it’s Bester’s own affectation, so it’s a lot more convincing than Sturgeon’s off-the-rack costume in Blabbermouth.  It starts with a slap to the reader’s face of Spillaneish violent sadism—quite appropriate in context, as it turns out—and continues without letup or wasted words to retell a familiar SF story.  It’s as if somebody said, “You read Vintage Season?  Here’s how it really goes.” Four nasty stars. 

One Way Street, by Jerome Bixby


by Augusto Marin

In the other renascence item, Jerome Bixby’s One Way Street (Amazing, December 1953-January 1954), the protagonist has a split-second blackout, drives off the road, and wakes up in a wrecked car and a slightly different world—phone numbers are different, his dog is different, there’s no Hamlet, Shelley, Keats, or atomic power, and Stalin’s alive.  His wife’s a little different too, but he likes the differences and is trying to make a life in this new world when he gets a chance to try to go home via an experimental procedure.  The surprise ending is about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning, but overall the story is sharply and economically done.  Three stars, pushing four.

North God’s Temple, by Henry J. Kostkos


by Leo Morey

We dip back into the archaic with Henry J. Kostkos’s North God’s Temple (Amazing, August 1934), in which a Professor Challenger-type blowhard, Professor Norton of the Cosmopolitan Museum, receives a telepathic summons from the historians of the People of the Magnetic God, who live undersea near the North Pole.  So he fakes up a pretext for an expedition to seek out the magnetic pole.  Once there he is summoned alone and sucked underwater and then underground in a rowboat, and finds the Temple of the Magnetic God (it must be, since he’s pinned to the wall until he manages to work his steel revolver out of his pocket).  This Temple landed on Earth after the breakup of the former fifth planet that became the asteroids.  Then Norton gets sucked back underwater in a contretemps that apparently is intended to explain the migration of the magnetic poles.  Two stars for this tiresome period piece.

Vis Scientiae, by Miles J. Breuer, M.D.

But there’s still one more piece of archaic to eat: Vis Scientiae, a poem by Miles J. Breuer, M.D. (Amazing, May 1930), which seems to be a lament by the ancient gods that they’re no longer in charge of those pesky humans.  It must speak for itself:

“They have chained the livid lightning that goes hurtling down the sky,
Made it slave for them and pass them scatheless as it hurtles by;
They have trapped the furious tempest at whose breath the forest reels,
And the angrier it rages all the merrier turn their wheels; . . .”

Et cetera, though the meter varies.  The substance of Tennyson and the accidents of Robert W. Service?  The best to be said for it is that it could have been worse.  Two stars.

Summing Up

A couple of stories well worth reading, a couple more at least readable, and a couple of wastes of time.  La de da de da.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[July 10, 1967] Return to Collinsport (the gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows)

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by Natalie Devitt


[Collinwood]

It has been barely over a year since the unusual soap opera Dark Shadows started airing as part of the daytime lineup at ABC back on June 27, 1966, and already the program has teetered on the verge cancelation, although it appears that the show may be spared for now. 

Back in April, audiences were introduced to Barnabas Collins, a vampire originally from the 1700s played by Shakespearean actor Jonathan Frid, that was awoken from a long slumber after an attempted grave robbery by drifter Willie Loomis (character actor John Karlen was recast in the role after it was originally played by James Hall).  Frid was brought on the program as a guest star, and so far his character seems to be wildly popular with audiences.


[Willie at the Collins family mausoleum]

After arriving at Collinwood, mansion of the prominent Collins family, Barnabas claimed to be a long-lost cousin from England. He acted like it was just a coincidence that he bore an almost uncanny resemblance to a Collins family ancestor, also named Barnabas and who was featured in a portrait hanging in the foyer at Collinwood.  As they were unaware that Barnabas was undead and that he and the portrait’s subject were one and the same, Barnabas was able to gain the acceptance of his newfound family and set up residence at his original home, also on the property, determined to restore the aptly named Old House to its former glory. 


[Barnabas next to his portrait at Collinwood]

Surprisingly, Barnabas did not have much trouble adjusting to the present day, and it was not long until a number of strange incidences began occurring in the quaint New England fishing town of Collinsport.  Animals were discovered dead and drained of their blood.  Willie was discovered with an unusual wound near his wrist and was unable to recall ever being injured. 


[Collinsport, Maine]

Barnabas also met daughter of local artist Sam Evans (now being played by actor David Ford), waitress Maggie. Maggie is portrayed by relative newcomer Kathryn Leigh Scott, and now that she is no longer sporting a blonde wig, she's the spitting image of his late love, Josette du Pres, known for meeting an untimely demise at Widows Hill.  Shortly after meeting Barnabas, Maggie went missing and was presumed to be dead, but little did the residents of Collinsport know that she had been kidnapped and put under a trance by Barnabas, with the intention of turning her into his vampire bride – despite the fact Maggie is romantically involved with Carolyn Stoddard’s (newcomer Nancy Barrett) ex, Joe Haskell (theatre and television actor Joel Crothers).  Prior to her disappearance, she had been experiencing unexplained blood loss, just like Willie. 


[Barnabas and Maggie at the Old House]

Almost immediately with the arrival of Frid’s character on the gothic serial, the program really began to really change dramatically in tone.  In fact, Dark Shadows is starting to feel like a completely different show.  Sure, there had been supernatural elements sprinkled throughout the series, like the storyline involving Louis Edmonds' (Kraft Theatre ) character, Roger Collins’s estranged wife Laura (television and stage actress Diana Millay) being a phoenix, and the ones about the ghosts of Frenchwoman Josette du Pres and Collins fishing fleet manager Bill Malloy, but they seem to be becoming more commonplace, just like all of the séances they’ve been holding at Collinwood lately. 


[Ghost of Josette inside the Old House]

Veteran movie actress Joan Bennett receives top billing as family matriarch, Elizabeth Stoddard, having been the most established as an actor and being from a family of accomplished performers. Nevertheless, Dark Shadows was originally told from the perspective of Victoria Winters (Swedish actress Alexandra Moltke)–but her mission to find out her true identity after having been orphaned as a child seems to been put on the back burner for now.  I am still curious why Elizabeth was intent on hiring her as governess to her troubled nephew David, played by child actor David Henesy, in the first place.


[Victoria shortly after arriving in Collinsport]

I am happy to report that some other mysteries were solved, though. 

First, was the one involving the disappearance of Elizabeth’s husband, Paul Stoddard.  In fact, it was Elizabeth’s missing husband that set things in motion for Barnabas’ arrival at Collinwood in the first place.  As you may recall, Elizabeth’s husband had been missing and she had not left the Collinwood in more than eighteen years – that is until Paul’s old pal Jason McGuire (character actor Dennis Patrick) showed up at the family estate with Willie and an elaborate plot to blackmail her.  Long story short, Jason led Elizabeth to believe for years that she had murdered her husband, and that he had buried his remains in the basement. It turned out that she did not murder Paul after all, and Willie would go on to free Barnabas from his coffin.


[Elizabeth with her husband]

Second, finally viewers learned that the rift between Roger Collins and Burke Devlin (now being played by Anthony George who recently replaced Mitchell Ryan) was caused by Roger testifying against Burke in a vehicular manslaughter case that led to Burke spending several years in behind bars, when Roger was the one who was really guilty of the crime and Sam had been bribed to go along with Roger's story. 


[Elizabeth, Roger, Sam, and Bruke]

Even with its recent changes, I am still enjoying Dark Shadows.  What can I say? I am a sucker for atmosphere, and this show has it in spades, especially with its crazy twists and turns, a cast made up of mostly theatre actors, Sy Tomashoff’s set designs, composer Bob Cobert’s musical compositions, costumes provided by Ohrbach's, and all of its surprisingly ambitious special effects for television.  It does not hurt that each week, the show seems to adding more cobwebs and candles.  In recent months, the program also seems to be attracting an usually young audience for a daytime drama.  Rumor has it that the series is going to be making the leap from black and white to color later this summer.  I am curious to see how that will affect the tone and the popularity of the show.  Does Dark Shadows have any more tricks up his sleeve to ensure that it is not put back on the television chopping block? 



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, Uncategorized

[July 8, 1967] Family lines (August 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Royal Families

The news always likes to focus on heads of state, especially when they are flashy or glamorous in some way.  From Princess Grace of Monaco to Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, these leaders are instant idols, somehow more compelling for having the reins (and reigns) of nations even though they presumably put their pants/skirts/obis on the same way as the common folk.

This week scored a triplet of spotlights.  For instance, in the island nation of Tonga, Taufaʻahau Tupou IV was crowned monarch in a ceremony that included a feast of 71,000 suckling pigs!  And that, by itself, tells you all you need to know about the current Jewish/Moslem population of Tonga…

Closer to home, El BJ, chief of the United States, has got his first grandson.  Patrick Lyndon Nugent is the newborn child of First Daughter Luci Nugent (neé Johnson).  There is no word, as yet, whether his toddler status will grant him deferment in the lastest draft lottery.

Finally, junta chairman General Nguyen Cao Ky, the flamboyant leader of South Vietnam since 1965, has decided not to run for President in the upcoming democratic (perhaps) September elections.  Premier Thiệu has been backed by the junta for the top role, instead, with Ky getting the Vice Presidential nod.  It's all a lot of musical chairs, anyway. After all, Ky has asserted that the only politician he admires is Hitler, which tells you all you need to know about the state of democracy in that country (and its current Jewish population…)

Watching Big Brother

Fred Pohl, one of the original Futurians and a pillar of the SF community, has had his hands full for nearly a decade.  After he took over the reins of Galaxy and the newly acquired IF from H. L. Gold, rather than sit on his laurels, he looked for new worlds to conquer.  Thus, Worlds of Tomorrow was launched in 1963.  But juggling three mags (plus a few reprint-only titles) was a challenging job, often resulting in uneven quality and occasionally right-out flubs.  For instance, last year's issue of Worlds of Tomorrow where the pages got all mixed up.

One would think, with WoT going out of publication, that things might be less hectic over at the Guinn Co. mags.  But, in fact, this month's issue of Galaxy is even more higgledy-piggledy, making reading a real challenge.


by Sol Dember

Which is a shame, because there's some quite good stuff in here (mixed with some mediocre stuff, to be sure).  Thankfully, you've got me to be your guide.  Just grab your compass, or you might get lost.

Hawksbill Station, by Robert Silverberg


by Virgil Finlay

One-way time travel is developed in the early 21st Century.  Since humanity is deathly afraid of creating paradoxes, the new portals are used by the totalitarian regime for just one purpose: shipping undesirables into the far past, a sort of Paleozoic Botany Bay.

Hawksbill Station is the one reserved for male subversives, established sometime in the late Cambrian (Silverberg repeatedly gives a date of two billion years ago, but of course, the Cambrian went from about 600-500 million B.C.) Our perspective is that of Barrett, the de facto head of the more than 100 settler/prisoners on the coast of what will one day be the Atlantic Ocean.  It is a community slowly decaying as its denizens age along with no greater purpose in life.  That is, until a new young convict arrives from the future, one who appears to be a government spy…

This is more of a travelogue than a story, and the ending comes on a bit abruptly.  But the characterization, the details, the setting are all so gripping that I tore through the novella in no time, despite the labyrinthine page distribution.

Four stars, and if it ever gets expanded into a novel, it could make five.

Angel, Dark Angel, by Roger Zelazny

In another future-set tale, society is maintained by a sort of corporate Angel of Death who, with the help of ten thousand teleporting assistants, brings death to citizens after they have made sufficient contribution to humanity (and are, perhaps, on the verge of being detrimental).

One noteworthy woman has cultivated the aesthetic race of spirules (depicted on the cover) as an antidote to the cold, mechanistic technology of her time.  A subordinate angel is sent to dispatch her, but things prove more complicated.

This is a middlin' Zelazny story, not an empty poetic suit like some, but not a near masterpiece like some of his other works.  Three stars.

We're Coming Through the Window, by K. M. O'donnell

Throwaway vignette about a fellow who keeps duplicating himself due to time travel and needs Fred Pohl's help to get out of it.

Cute.  Three stars.

Ginny Wrapped in the Sun, by R. A. Lafferty

Ginny seems to be a precocious four year old, but in fact, is actually just a baseline human, maturing at age 4 and going on as an upright monkey.  It's the rest of us who are evolutionary aberrations, having five times as many heartbeats that a creature our mass should have.  Inevitably, Lafferty suggests, we'll all go ape.

This tale doesn't really work, and it's a bit more impenetrable than Lafferty's usual fare.  Two stars.

For Your Information: A Pangolin Is a Pangolin, by Willy Ley

Ley's article on the strange mammal that is neither aardvark nor anteater nor armadillo is interesting, but not much more than you might get from a rather good encyclopedia entry.

Three stars.

9-9-99, by Richard Wilson

Two wizened old characters are determined to settle an old score since both have outlived their wagered death dates, the bet having been made back in the 30s.

Whether it is even possible for them to collect given the state of the Earth in the late '90s is another matter…

Good enough, I guess.  Three stars.


by Wally Wood

Travelers Guide to Megahouston, by H. H. Hollis


by Wally Wood

This is a very long, somewhat farcical account of a 21st Century evolution of the Astrodome, in which domes enclose whole cities.

Pretty dull stuff.  Two stars.

The Being in the Tank, by Theodore L. Thomas

An alien being materializes in the heart of a hellish hydrazine factory and demands to speak to the President.  But is he the real deal?

Forgettable, but inoffensive.  A low three stars.

Hide and Seek, by Linda Marlowe

A childhood game is adapted into a method of population control.  It has shock value, but little else.

Two stars.

The Great Stupids, by Miriam Allen deFord

Mad scientist makes everyone under 50 a mental moron, all in service of a rather lame joke at the end.  DeFord was once one of the stars of the genre, but her light has waned over the years.  Here's hoping she's a Cepheid variable and not a dying dwarf.

To Outlive Eternity (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson


by Jack Gaughan

It is fitting that the final long piece of the issue is a sort of mirror image of Silverberg's novella in terms of strengths and weaknesses.  As we read in last month's installment, the ramscoop colony ship Leonora Christine suffered damage to its decelerators while traveling at near light speed on the way to Beta Virginis.  The solution: to accelerate to terrific velocities instead, plunging through the heart of the galaxy and out into the comparative emptiness of intergalactic space where repairs might be effected.

In this half, event after event conspires to force the Christine to travel ever faster and faster, ultimately spanning the lifespan of the universe and beyond in a matter of months.  The story is told as a series of problem-solving conversations spread out over the weeks, and each character largely exists solely to have these conversations.  Except for the women, of course, who are almost universally hysterics or hangers-on…except for the First Officer who ultimately whores herself out for the good of the crew.

In short, the setup and ideas are really neat, but its a plot outline, not a novel.  And where Poul Anderson does try to characterize, it's with quick stereotypes, and usually not agreeable ones.  As for setting, there really isn't one.  The crew of the Christine might as well be floating heads in blank spaces for all we really get to experience the ship.

Readable, but badly flawed.  Three stars.

Matrix Goose, by Jack Sharkey

Last up, some very familiar nursery rhymes as they might be rendered by robots–after the demise of humanity.  It's cute.  Three stars.


Perhaps my favorite example, art by Gray Morrow

Cross-eyed Kin

And so, Galaxy ends up a largely enjoyable, but unremarkable read — just under 3 stars in ranking.  Perhaps, with the demise of Worlds of Tomorrow further in the rear-view mirror, Pohl will be able to concentrate on (and concentrate the best stories into) his remaining mags.

On the other hand, perhaps he hasn't learned his lesson.  He's got a new magazine is coming out next month…



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[July 2, 1967] An Explosive Ending (Doctor Who: THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS [Part 2])

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By Jessica Holmes

When we last caught up with the Doctor’s adventures, we left him in the clutches of the Daleks, forced to help them discover the 'Human Factor' for their own ends. Jamie has become an unwitting lab-rat, with the fate of young Victoria Waterfield–and perhaps humanity itself–hanging in the balance. Let’s see how things turn out with the conclusion of The Evil Of The Daleks.

Continue reading [July 2, 1967] An Explosive Ending (Doctor Who: THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS [Part 2]) →

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 30, 1967] Bad trip (July 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

A time to laugh, a time to cry

It's been something of a rocky week.  A few days ago, Israel unilaterally announced that it was annexing all of Jerusalem, which had been de facto split after the 1948 war , and which de jure was supposed to be an international city.  The good news is, the government promised to integrate the Jewish and Arab halves peacefully, and so far, it looks like they are trying to do just that.  Still, the move is drawing condemnation from the world (strangely, I don't recall hearing aspersions cast against the Jordanians when they took half of the city…)

In sadder news, actress Jayne Mansfield was in a fatal car crash not far from New Orleans.  You may remember her from Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and other films and TV shows.  She'd earned a reputation as a budget Marilyn Monroe, but from recent performances, it was clear her talent ran deeper than that.  The only bright spot is that her three children, also in the car, escaped with minor injuries.

And in the You-gotta-laugh-or-you'll-cry department, Beach Boy Carl Wilson was set free after being tried for draft evasion.  Seems being a conscientious objector works for some people, but not others.  Witness one Muhammad Ali.  Let me know if you can tell me what's different about the two cases.

All ahead, half speed


by John Schoenherr

Meanwhile, this month's Analog is not so much ups and downs, but a straight shot.  Sort of like Route 99 to Sacramento–easy going, but a dull drive.

The Man from P.I.G., by Harry Harrison


by John Schoenherr

First up is an unusual interstellar fixit story in the Retief or Chris Anvil mold.  Bron Wurber, pig herder, arrives on a remote world in the middle of a crisis.  Its governor had just sent out a distress call about the mysterious plateau just outside of town that not only appears to be haunted, but is fatal to any who explore it.  Bron seems the most unlikely of support…until he reveals he really is a government agent, and the pigs are of the one-ton, super-intelligent variety.  With the help of his porcine aides, Bron cracks the case and saves the day.

P.I.G. works as an action-adventure story, and if you can get past the "as you know" explanations of why pigs are better than dogs (and who can argue with that? But cats beat them both…) then you'll enjoy yourself.  The piece does not work as a whodunnit, though.  Harrison has to explain the characteristics of the culprit at the end of the tale rather than dropping clues throughout.  I have to wonder if I missed a setup story somewhere.  Alternatively, this may be the first in a series, and the next one will thus be better prepped.

Three stars.

Compound Interest, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A couple of months back, we got a story about a troubleshooter who helps establish the sapience of an indigenous race of cat people, thus frustrating the commercial schemes of a settling corporation.

This tale rather unnecessarily retells the same story, but from the point of view of the commercial types.  Anvil adds a silver lining at the end of the story, depending, of course, on psionics (this being John Campbell's mag, after all).

The first story was decent.  This was is rather pointless.  Two stars.

Annual Report, by Listening Inc.

Instead of contracting a science writer this month, Campbell just borrowed a catalog from an outfit called Listening Inc.  They make all kinds of interesting sonar/listening gear, including stuff for talking to dolphins.

There's not a lot there, but it's interesting.  Three stars.

Aim for the Heel, by John T. Phillifent


by Kelly Freas

Accompanied by the most striking art of the issue, Heel is the story of an international agent whose job is to facilitate, but not directly cause, the assassination of otherwise unreachable criminals.  He does it by researching his targets, and then maneuvering them into a situation whereby they end up dead at their own hands.

It's somewhat gray, morally, rather like the season of Mission: Impossible we just watched.  It also delights a bit too much in what it does, to the point of being lurid.

But it is readable.  Three stars.

Something Important, by E. G. Von Wald


by Rudy Palais

I liked this one, about a disabled alien ship that sends out a distress call, and the communications team that cracks the code to effect a rescue.  There's not much to it, but the message (no pun intended) is nice.

Three stars.

Computer War (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

Last issue, we were introduced to the autocracy of Alphaland, which had just gone to war with its rival, Betastan, and run into difficulties.  The Betastani refuse to fight fair, retreating from their cities, only using subs for naval engagement, and using thousands of agents to create havoc within Alphaland.  As a result, Alphaland, despite computer predictions to the contrary, is on the verge of collapse.

Reynolds likes to cloak history lessons in the guise of fiction.  Sometimes he's successful at the task, and sometimes it feels like he's submitting a series of essays with a thin veneer of plot around them.  This latest effort is the latter.  The characters are cardboard, although the lessons have some applicability to our current quagmire in Vietnam.

A low three stars.

Bite, by Lawrence A. Perkins


by John Schoenherr

Lastly, an unpleasant tale of an unpleasant doctor who contracts rabies, and the unpleasant choice another doctor has of deciding whether it's worth treating him or not.

I didn't like it.  Two stars.

Traffic statistics

Not only did this month's Analog score a rather peaked 2.7, but there is a smug sameyness to every story, as if each one was pressed through the Campbell machine and laminated with a greasy coating.  The other mags this month, such as there were, weren't much better though.  Fantasy and Science Fiction and IF also scored 2.7, and only Fantastic (3.2) and New Worlds (3.5) were better, the first comprising mostly reprints, and the latter a half-size mag.

All told, you could take all the good fiction and fit it in one decent-sized digest.  Two of the 30 new fiction pieces were by women, both of them quite short.  I guess it's no surprise that the action is in SF novels these days.

Still, I like my magazines, and I hope they get their act together.  Otherwise, this is going to be one throughway most folks will want to turn off from.



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Magazine/Anthology

[June 20, 1967] Yours sincerely, wasting away (July 1967 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

When I get older, losing my hair

Age afflicts us all.  I remember once having a beautiful mop of curly hair with a line that was two inches from my brows.  Now, the front is racing toward the back, and my only compsensation is the flourishing stuff coming out my ears.

Of course, people age in different ways.  Robert Preston sang in last year's musical hit, I do! I do!–"Men of forty go to town. Women go to pot," but in my experience, it's quite the opposite. I'd like to think that I'm "entering my prime," but who knows?

Science fiction magazines are going through a midlife crisis, too.  The oldest of them, Amazing, turned 41 this year.  But is it "delightfully witty" and "wise"? Has it "stood the test of time"?  In fact, the magazine that Gernsback built is consistently the lowest rated of the SF digests, packed mostly with cheap reprints.  How about Analog, neé Astounding, rapidly approaching its Jack Benny birthday (he's eternally 39, you see)?  Well, I suppose it depends on whom you ask, but I think it's safe to say that Campbell's mag is definitely in a rut, fossilized into the features it had some fifteen years ago.

Even the newer crop has had a stormy adolescence.  Galaxy is 17.  Once a brilliant child, it is now an often insipid teenager.  If it stays this staid, it may not make it to voting age.  And how about Fantasy and Science Fiction, which just left its minority this year?  The venerable mag, the most literary of its kind, has had an unstable family life, with revolving editors through its teen years.  As a result, the wrinkles are already showing in this 18 year old.

Ed Ferman seems to be aware of his institution's aging.  Indeed, this month's issue, which begins and ends with (and devotes half its words to) the subject of growing old, seems a deliberate acknowledgement of the predicament.


by Jack Gaughan

The Day Before Forever, by Keith Laumer

Steve Dravek, late a denizen of the 20th Century, finds himself on a street near the end of the 21st.  Only shreds of memory remain, enough to give him a sense of identity, but no idea how he arrived in the future (young again, when he had been middle aged) nor why the black uniformed mooks of Eternity Incorporated (ETORP) are after him.

After being beset by "the lowest of the low" in a park, he is apprehended by "Jess", self-proclaimed "highest of the low", for purposes unknown.  Dravek uses force and wit to turn the situation around, making Jess take him to the heart of ETORP's facility on Long Island in pursuit of the truth…and himself.

Forever uses the latest gimmick everyone seems to have latched onto lately: cryonics.  That's the idea that one can be flash frozen before death in the hopes that any malady one is suffering from can be cured in the future.  Fred Pohl, editor of Galaxy and IF has gone into it in a big way, but now it's showing up here, too.

Anyway, there are more twists and turns than a new Los Angeles freeway interchange, and a lot of it gets explained in the end rather than shown as the story goes, but it's a readable potboiler, the kind Laumer can crank out in his sleep.

Three stars.

Balgrummo's Hell, by Russell Kirk

60+ years ago, Laird Balgrummo was sealed in his decaying manor house after committing an unspeakable crime against humanity and nature.  Now the world is waiting for him to shuffle off this mortal coil…save for Horgan, a greedy thief who would rob Balgrummo of his fortune of paintings while he sleeps.

Except Balgrummo sleeps not.  He lurks.

There are no surprises in this story, which reads like something out of Weird Tales' early days.  But the telling is delicious. 

My favorite story of the issue: four stars.

Alter Ego, by Hugo Correa

If you could make an identical new you, one unhindered by all of your life's wrong choices, who would be the better person?  You, or the android duplicate?

More a philosophical piece than science fiction, I found it stayed with me.  Three stars.

Encounter in the Past, by Robert Nathan

On the other hand, Nathan's story of the rediscovery of a Mesozoic human civilization doesn't make a lot of sense.  I reread the short piece a few times, and I still can't make heads or tails of it.

Two stars.

The Master's Thesis, by David Madden

Worse still is this pointless piece about a Professor Swinnard and the young man who insists on afflicting him with his master's thesis.  The story goes 'round in circles as Swinnard is increasingly disarmed and discomfited by the student's rudeness and the haste with which he finishes his project…yet I am at a loss to understand whence stems the horror, nor what the final thesis is actually about.

Am I stupid?  Is the point obvious to anyone else?

One star.

Flight Between Realities, by Doris Pitkin Buck

Buck's poem from the standpoint of an omniscient being sipping her sherry is a bit hard to parse, but seems to be of great moment.

Three stars.

The Sea Monster and the Mayor of New York City, by Gahan Wilson

On the perils to a monster's digestion due to the consumption of a fraught metropolis. 

Frivolous.  Two stars.

Twelve Point Three Six Nine, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor explains the foolishness of associating significance to chance juxtapositions of numbers by creating his own, tying together the relation of the lunar and solar calendars to the Bible.

It's cute, and I found some of the historical bits interesting.  Three stars.

The Vitanuls, by John Brunner

In the early 21st Century, the birthrate has slackened.  But new births are not unknown, and as a kind of medical immortality is introduced, more and more babies are born healthy but vacant.  Void of intellect or animus.  Could there be a connection?

This story has a lot of problems.  Not only is the piece structurally flawed, telegraphing its ending from the beginning but taking forever to get there, but it also doesn't seem to understand how souls work.  Set in India, there is much reference to Hindu reincarnation and such.  But the story suggests that there is a limited number of human souls, and by cheating death, we're robbing the young of life. 

I'd always understood that, per Hinduism, animals and plants and…everything…had souls, all of which could serve in a human form.  Even if that were not the case, I think Brunner's math is off.  Yes, it's true that half of the people who've ever lived are alive today, but if the living outnumber the dead, it won't be because of immortality, but simple birthrate.  And does the store of human souls grow over time, or was it fixed, like the memory store of a mainframe, at a specific number deemed sufficient a million years ago, but now inadequate?

Two stars for this poorly thought out shock tale.

Will you still need me?  Will you still read me?

I understand summer is when magazines put out all their inferior stuff since readership is at its lowest ebbs during the dog days.  Still, if this latest issue (which scores just 2.7 on the Starometer) be any indication of where the magazine is headed, quality-wise, I have distinct concerns that it may never make it to the ripe old age of 64…


by Gahan Wilson



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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 16, 1967] What's Going On Here? (June 1967 Galactoscope)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

State of Confusion

Two new science fiction novels feature protagonists who get into big trouble without understanding things until the end. They don't know who's fighting them or who's helping them, or why. One book comes from the pen (or typewriter) of a relatively new voice in SF, the other from an old pro.

The Rim-World Legacy, by F. A. Javor


Cover art by Paul Lehr.

F. A. Javor has published about half a dozen stories here and there, sometimes using the first name Frank instead of the initial. My fellow Galactic Journeyers have not been greatly impressed by his work. He's never scored higher than three stars, and sometimes earns two or one. That's not promising, but let's keep an open mind as we take a look at his first novel.

The book starts with the narrator running from an angry mob. He hides himself in a swamp by breathing through a reed. A flashback tells us how he got in this mess.

Our hero is a professional photographer down on his luck. He gets an assignment from a mysterious woman. It seems easy enough; just take pictures of her husband, a magician, performing his act.

Things start to go bad when it turns out that his camera has been rigged to kill the magician. As luck would have it, the assassination attempt fails. Our hero isn't out of the woods yet, however. Somebody takes a shot at him, barely missing.

On the run from the cops as well as the bad guys, the photographer tries to stay alive while figuring out what the whole thing is about. Along the way, a guy he never saw before offers him a bunch of money for information about the boy. The narrator doesn't have a clue what the fellow is talking about. It all has something to do with an incredibly valuable item.

You'll notice that the above synopsis doesn't contain any speculative elements. That's because this is a crime novel disguised as science fiction.

It takes place on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. (Hence the title.) The camera is rigged with a laser. The hero almost gets killed by a ray gun that leaves him with intermittent muscular and neurological effects. The thing that everybody is trying to get ahold of isn't the Maltese Falcon, but a matter duplicator/teleportation gizmo.

As a suspense novel, this is a decent if undistinguished example. The plot moves quickly, with plenty of twists and turns. As science fiction, it's so-so. I'll give the author a few points for considering the social, economic, and philosophical implications of the device that serves as the book's MacGuffin. Worth killing a few hours with, but forgettable.

Three stars.

Bright New Universe, by Jack Williamson


Cover art by John Schoenherr.

Veteran author Jack Williamson hardly needs an introduction to SF fans. Suffice to say that he's been going strong for forty years, and shows no signs of slowing up.

His latest novel takes place in the fairly near future. There's a thriving colony on the Moon, but no mention (unless I missed it) of the rest of the solar system, and certainly not of interstellar travel.

The protagonist breaks off his engagement with his fiancée, instead choosing to take part in a long-term project on the Moon. This upsets the young woman, of course, but it also distresses the hero's family and acquaintances.

He's willing to turn his back on everyone he cares for in order to pursue a dream. A lunar facility is searching for messages from aliens. Our hero believes that contact with extraterrestrials would benefit humanity to an almost unimaginable degree. As a secondary motive, his father, who died before he was born, was killed in an accident on the Moon, and he wants to find out what happened.

His stepfather argues with the protagonist, believing that progress is inherently bad. This scene serves as the philosophical heart of the novel. The stepfather points out the many dystopian works warning against the advance of technology. He argues that an alien species would lead the human race into this kind of dark future.

The book's title appears to be an allusion to Aldous Huxley's famous novel Brave New World, and Huxley is specifically mentioned in the text. Bright New Universe is the antithesis of that work. The hero believes that progress is good, and Williamson is obviously on his side.

(An in-joke appears at this point. Among other books depicting technology as a threat, the stepfather mentions This odd old book about the perfect machines, the humanoids, smothering men with too much perfection. This is obviously a reference to Williamson's own novel The Humanoids.)

On the Moon, the protagonist meets an alluring Eurasian woman. Unfortunately, her mission is to shut down the project as a waste of resources. She is much more than she seems to be, however, and we'll see a lot of her, in different roles, throughout the book.

Complications ensue when the hero finds out what really happened to his father, and winds up accused of murder. Back on Earth, he discovers a secret organization dedicated to fighting off aliens. (This group also happens to be extremely racist. Williamson is stacking the cards a bit here, making the xenophobes completely evil. I suppose the point is to compare two different kinds of prejudice.)

It's probably not giving too much away to reveal that highly advanced aliens have, indeed, been in contact with Earth. The protagonist's struggle to find out why this fact has been kept hidden leads up to a climactic confrontation between the xenophobes and the extraterrestrials.

The author depicts the two sides in this argument for and against progress in black and white, with no shades of gray. The aliens are completely benevolent, their opponents absolutely in the wrong. Although this renders the book's theme somewhat superficial, it's definitely worth reading. In addition to an action/adventure plot, you've got some very interesting aliens, and an enjoyably optimistic view of the future.

Three and one-half stars.


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The Kill[er\ing] Thing, by Kate Wilhelm

Just to explain the odd title, in the US Doubleday published this as The Killer Thing. However, my UK edition, from Herbert Jenkins SF, changed the title slightly to The Killing Thing. I am guessing they believed it was moderately more grammatically correct, although to my ear both are just as odd phrasing. I suppose the phrase “The Killing Machine” sounds slightly better than "The Killer Robot" but if they were that concerned should they not have called it The Thing That Kills?

All clear as mud? Good, good.

Kate Wilhelm is an author I have enjoyed via her short fiction but have yet to be impressed by her novels. The Clone read as an unnecessary expansion of Thomas’ excellent short and, whilst my incredibly smart colleague Victoria Silverwolf gave it 4 stars, The Nevermore Affair’s description sounded exactly the kind of book I do not enjoy and so I am yet to pick that one up.

But will her third foray into full length works be a marked improvement?

From the beginning there is definitely a sense of strangeness and unknowability to the whole enterprise, giving you more the sense of Moorcock’s New Worlds then Lalli’s Fantastic & Amazing (which formerly published a number of her pieces). We are immediately thrown into the fight against the titular robotic “Thing”, but it is not setup as an action-filled running commentary, but instead concentrating on lush imagery and the thoughts and reactions of those encountering it.

Within the text, I cannot help but read this as an anti-war novel. By this I do not mean the absurdist comedies of recent years, such as Bill The Galactic Hero or Catch-22, but more of a traditional serious piece like Wells’ The War in the Air or All Quiet on The Western Front. Whilst people seem willing to write about the potential horrors of the atom bomb, authors since World War 2 have seemed to shy away from criticizing conventional warfare. I cannot help but think this is due to current attitudes about it. Most new war films seem to portray the whole experience as a jolly jape of fine upstanding fellows and, in spite of some protests, polls still show a majority of the American public support the current US involvement in Vietnam. I feel the general view is summed up by Ian Chesterton in Doctor Who:

Pacifism only works when everybody feels the same

Large crowd of Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York May 67
Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York last month

Therefore, it is a pleasant surprise to see a work that is so clearly pacifist. Whether it is in the clever title, the horror of the action, the horrified responses to what they are seeing or the brutal statements of the generals, e.g.:

You have to take lands with your blood, yours and theirs, mixing together in the dirt so that in the ages to come you can’t tell whose blood it is that nourishes the trees and grasses. Then you know it’s your world, Colonel, and not until then.

As a member of the Society of Friends, pacifism is part of my beliefs and understanding of the universe. Given how rare it is to see displayed in fiction (although Dickson did a very good anti-war novel a few years back), I found it warming to read.

However, more there is a significant flaw I found, one that overrides my appreciation for the whole work, that is in the style. It unfortunately engages in one of my biggest pet peeves, that of over-description. Where we will get one line of action or dialogue and then nothing but description for ages, on a loop. For example:

He turned to look about.
The carrier was on tracks that were six feet above ground level… [23 lines of description]…Their heads as well as their faces were clean shaven.
‘Nice isn’t it’ Duncan said, at Trace’s side.
He was tall as Trace, and a twenty-three, three years younger. Both were second lieutenants. His black eyes were shining with the excitement of leave after four months’ running battle with the fleet dispatched by Mellic. ‘You have any plans for the duration?’ he asked.
They had come to a large shopping area, where stores were open to the warm, air and sunshine, and good were spread out to be seen and handled.
‘No,’ Trace said. ‘You?’

It creates a sense to me of a picture book with a complicated painted image and a tiny description without any feeling of motion.

As such, in spite of the ambition, I could not really love this particular thing.

Three stars (four for effort, two for execution)


by Jason Sacks

The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker, by Otto Binder

No, this novel isn't an adaptation of the wonderful Avengers TV series starring Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as the eternally delightful John Steed and Emma Peel. Instead, it's an adaptation of those other Avengers, the Marvel super-hero team which features Captain America and his pals. (By the way, if you are looking for a good novelization of those British Avengers, I can recommend the book below. It's apparently written by MacNee himself!)

Written by longtime comics writer (and science fiction writer) Otto Binder, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker had much promise. After all, Binder has written hundreds of comic book stories, including classic work on Captain Marvel as well as long runs at both National and Marvel, plus he's logged time at nearly every comic book company over the last 25 years. Beyond that, Binder has published dozens of prose novels, some under his own name and some under pseudonyms. Most of those books have been quick, fast reads.

Thus, with Binder at the helm, this book seemed like a big win for every Marvelite.

Sadly, though, Earth-Wrecker is pretty dire work. The book begins slowly and never improves from there, delivering a dull, sometimes campy work. This story likely would have been rejected by Stan Lee if it had been submitted for publication in the Avengers comic.

Earth-Wrecker begins as Captain America is leading a press conference to introduce his team of Avengers. The heroes quip and banter to the media in the most boring way (ten-foot tall Goliath complains about hitting his head, for instance) before the Avengers all agree to have a quick warmup battle for the media by playing their "Gladiator Games."

"Gladiator Games" seem like a combination of the X-Men's Danger Room and some arbitrary test of feats of strength. They also are something that never has appeared in any of the 43 issues of Avengers comics written by either Stan Lee or Roy Thomas.  Mr. Binder obviously wanted the readers to get a sense of how the team bickers their way to victory, but the whole sequence falls completely flat. It's action for its own sake, without any consequences involved. Thus there's no reason for a reader to care about what they read.

And in fact, it falls even flatter as one of the Avengers suddenly realizes their teammate Iron Man isn't there with them and begins to wonder why that is the case. No member of the team thought they should try to get in contact with him or were keeping tabs on where Iron Man was. Maybe the team doesn't have telephones or telegraphs to stay in contact with each other?

Regardless, Binder's ramshackle plot has Iron Man flying over the Himalayas for some unknown reason when he's caught in a downdraft. That downdraft sucks our hero down towards Mt. Everest. Never mind that there's no explanation of how Iron Man can breathe in that thin Himalayan air, or even any good reason for the Armored Avenger to be there at all. No, the character just happens to be wandering through Asis so he can advance the novel's plot. And while at the roof of the world, Iron Man just happens to be attacked by a guy who wants to destroy the entire world.

That evil villain is called Karzz the Conqueror. He comes to our times from the 70th century. Karzzd has an extremely covoluted plan to conquer his future Earth by destroying it in the 20th century, and honestly his plans were so weird and complicated it gave me a headache to contemplate them. They verge on camp, on the sort of thing you can imagine the Riddler trying to do on the Batman TV series.

And that's on top of the fact that Marvel already have a a villain from the 70th century called Kang the Conqueror, who's been groomed for years to be the team's greatest enemy. Kang is fun, has a complicated backstory, and would have made comic readers smile. But no smiles are earned here. Nope: for no good reason, Binder decided to create an amazing facsimile of that real Avengers villain instead of having ol' blue-face appear in his novel.

Cynical me wants to say that's because Binder had never read an Avengers comic in his life, and was given a weekend to write this 120-page quickie. That complaint is certainly reflected in the book's pages. It may be why the book's plot seems to ramble and amble aimlessly, or why the Wasp is always described in the most sexist terms, or why Hawkeye is such a jerk, or why the ending seems so rushed and bland.

Oh heck, I could go on and complain more about this book, but perhaps I've said enough to persuade you to just give this one a pass. Roy Thomas and John Buscema are doing excellent comics in the monthly Avengers series (I'm very intrigued by the Red Guardian, an actual hero of sorts from the USSR!) So stick with that book and leave The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker for some other sucker to pick up at your local Kresge's.

1 star (the cover is nice, anyway)



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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 10, 1967] Music To Read By (July 1967 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

So May I Introduce To You The Act You've Known For All These Years.

The Beatles, that is.

I know, I know. By now you're a little tired of the Fab Four. Well, the release of their latest album in the USA early this month may change your mind.

(Those lucky folks in the UK got it late last month.)

After evolving from catchy, expertly crafted pop songs into new musical territory with the albums Rubber Soul and Revolver, the Liverpudlians have taken a giant leap.


You could spend hours just studying the cover art.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is extraordinary. It takes rock 'n' roll, mixes it up with other forms of popular music, adds more than a little modern psychedelic surrealism, and comes up with a genuine work of art. I'm afraid I'm going to wear out lots of phonograph needles listening to it over and over.

Because I've already got the songs from this album stuck in my head, let me suggest the ones you might listen to while reading the latest issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

The image on the front is stolen from one of the weekly German magazines featuring the adventures of space explorer Perry Rhodan.


Perhaps one of our German Journeyers can supply a translation.

The Narrow Land, by Jack Vance


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

The only new story begins with the birth of our hero, forcing his way out of an egg and fighting off others of his kind. He then grows up swimming in swampy water with other amphibian youngsters.

You can tell he's not a human being, can't you? All of the characters are of his species, but there are different kinds. The number of ridges on their heads indicates what variety they are.

One-ridge folks are the most common, and exist as fully developed males and females. Two-ridge types are sexually neuter. Three-ridge individuals are invariably male. As we'll learn later, there used to be a lot of them, but war with the two-ridge kind left only one alive. There's also one four-ridge being, a monster that preys on the one-ridge children.

Confused? So is our hero, as he tries to understand his world. As the title implies, it's a thin strip of inhabitable land between a region of cold, dark mist and an ocean of constant thunderstorms.

(The editorial blurb states that this is a planet with one side always facing its sun. This is not explicitly stated in the text. It explains why it's always twilight.)


There are also birds, but they are barely mentioned.

We'll get a detailed explanation for the various subtypes of aliens. Suffice to say that the main character leaves the water and is taken in by the two-ridge folks as one of their own. Later, however, he is labeled a freak, and has to escape to the realm of the three-ridge being. He learns a lot more about what's going on from that fellow, and comes up with a plan.

The story's setting and exotic alien biology is fascinating. The author does a good job of seeing things through the eyes of a character very different from a human being. The end comes rather suddenly, suggesting the possibility of a sequel.

Four stars.

(Suggested listening: Fixing a Hole, because the protagonist is trying to fill the gaps in his knowledge of the world.)

The Ship Sails At Midnight, by Fritz Leiber


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

This lovely and sad story comes from the September 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Illustrations by Henry Sharp.

The narrator is one of a quartet of jaded, world-weary intellectuals in a small college town. He's a writer. One is a philosopher, another is studying physics. The only woman in the group is a sculptor. They're all fairly skilled in their various fields, but far from brilliant.

The four meet a strikingly beautiful woman working as a waitress at an all-night diner. She doesn't say much, and reveals almost nothing about herself. Somehow or other, she brings out the best in each of them. They lose their cynicism, and produce works of genius.


She claims her name is Helen, suggestive of the ancient Greek myth of the Trojan War.

It's obvious from the beginning that she's from another world. If the illustration wasn't enough of a clue, the story starts with reports of a meteorite falling to earth and sightings of a UFO.

The narrator falls in love with Helen, and she returns his affection. A strange man shows up, telling her it's time to leave. She chooses to stay. It turns out that the other two men are in love with Helen as well, and had also won her heart. Jealousy rears its ugly head, leading to sudden violence.

(As a side note, it seems to me that the author very subtly suggests that the sculptress is in love with Helen too. This is somewhat disguised by the fact that she is engaged to be married to the physics student. I may be reading too much into this, but I would not be very surprised if Leiber, a sophisticated writer always ahead of his time, meant to offer hints of a lesbian romance.)

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of joy won and lost.

Five stars.

(Suggested listening: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, because Lucy is as transcendent a creation as Helen.)

The Remarkable Flirgleflip, by William Tenn


Cover art by J. J. Blumenfeld.

The May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this futuristic farce.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

At some unspecified time in the future, human activities are controlled by time travelers from an even more distant future. In particular, they forbid a researcher from inventing time travel, because it's not supposed to be invented until a later time.

(I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Time travel stories are confusing.)

The guy decides to invent it anyway, and to heck with the consequences. He tricks the narrator into getting sent to the Twentieth Century. The fellow just wants to go back to his own time. Complications ensue, partly because people of the future don't wear clothing.

After hiding in a garbage can for a while, he winds up with a wisecracking newspaper reporter. It seems his story makes for hot news, even if nobody really believes him.

This is a silly story, without much of the satiric edge often found in Tenn's sardonic yarns. As you can tell from the title, it's full of goofy invented words. That always annoys me in a science fiction comedy.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!, because it's the most whimsical song on the album.)

From This Dark Mind, by Rog Phillips


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

The November/December 1953 issue of the magazine is the source of this look at tomorrow's psychiatry.

Using a device that gives a patient a word association test and analyzes it, the headshrinker is able to determine that a woman needs psychological surgery. This consists of altering her memory of an incident in her past.

As a secondary plot, another patient fails to show up for an appointment, and the psychiatrist suspects he's going to kill somebody. This part of the story turns into a kind of mystery, with a twist ending of sorts.

The background assumes that psychiatry is going to take over many of the functions of medical care. An outbreak of influenza among children, for example, is said to be caused by their anxiety over an event in the Little Orphan Annie comic strip!

At that point, I thought the author's intent was satire. As far as I can tell, however, the story is meant to be serious. The premise reminds me of the pseudoscience of Dianetics. (There's even a reference to pre-birth experiences as a source of mental disorders, which sure sounds like part of L. Ron Hubbard's nonsense to me.)

Setting aside my disdain for Dianetics, this isn't a very exciting story. There's some banter between the psychiatrist and his receptionist to fill up space. The two plots never come together, and they're resolved pretty much as you'd expect.

Two stars.

(Suggested listening: A Day In The Life, because the story takes place during one long day and night for the psychiatrist.)

The Man with the Fine Mind, by Kris Neville


Cover art by Robert Frankenberg.

This chiller comes from the January/February 1953 issue of the magazine.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

A man is at a party with his fiancée. He's drinking pretty heavily, and he doesn't seem to be too happy. He even thinks about killing her.

(Don't ask me why these two are engaged. They seem like a very unlikely couple indeed.)

She makes some remarks about how it's a shame he has to leave. He insists that he's staying. Things get weird when everybody at the party acts like he's gone. They ignore him completely. Figuring that this is some kind of cruel prank, he gets angrier and drunker. The situation ends badly.

I have to admit that I didn't fully understand this story. I wasn't sure if the guy had actually left, and some kind of unseen doppelganger was left at the party, or the other way around. Despite my confusion, and an unpleasant lead character, it held my interest.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: With A Little Help From My Friends, because the protagonist was in desperate need of assistance from his acquaintances.)

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


Cover art by Leo Morey.

Here's the conclusion of a novella that appeared (in one part) in the Summer 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly.


Illustration by Morey also.

Last issue, we met a fellow who attempted suicide because his loss of religious faith led to his girlfriend leaving him. (Oddly, the guy remains a rather jolly, wisecracking sort.) A Mad Scientist rescued him. In return, the man agreed to undergo a bizarre experiment.

Part of his brain went into the body of an ant, so he could experience its sensations. (This involved a lot of shrinking and growing. That's one talented Mad Scientist.)

In this half, the guy's mind goes into several different kinds of ants. We learn about gentle farmers of fungus, aggressive warriors that enslave other ants, herders of aphids that live on the liquid they secrete, and so forth. It all winds up with the fellow regaining his faith in God, based on life among the ants, and going back to his sweetheart.

As in the first part, the main appeal of the conclusion is in the detailed description of the ant colonies. The author must have done a lot of research. Some of this stuff is a little too anthropomorphic, but otherwise it seems very accurate.

The subplot of attempted suicide and loss of faith seems way out of place with the rest of the story. It's not a comedy, but it's very lighthearted. (The man gives whimsical nicknames to the other ants, such as Sherlocka Holmes.) The premise is outrageous, of course, but go along with it and it's not a bad read.

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: When I'm Sixty-Four, because this is the oldest story in the issue, and the song is also a featherweight piece of fluff.)

Mr. Steinway, by Robert Bloch


Cover art by Augusto Marin.

From the April 1954 issue of the magazine we get this bit of dark fantasy.


Illustration by Bill Ashman.

The narrator is a woman who falls in love with a pianist. The musician practices an odd sort of meditation, in which he enters a trance. In this unconscious state, he communicates with everything, including inanimate objects.

In particular, he has a special relationship with his piano. Nicknamed Mr. Steinway, it was a gift from his mother, now deceased. The instrument has its own preferences. It doesn't like certain composers, for example.

As the two lovers grow closer, Mr. Steinway displays signs of jealousy. As you might imagine, this doesn't end well for anybody.

On a superficial level, this is just a spooky yarn about a haunted piano. There's a bit more to it than that, I think. The author does a pretty good job of writing from a woman's point of view, which is not always something you can say about a male writer. What happens to the narrator is more subtle and disturbing than you might expect.

(If they made this into a movie, her fate would be a little more openly violent, I think.)

Three stars.

(Suggested listening: She's Leaving Home, because the narrator is never going home again.)

I've Got To Admit It's Getting Better, A Little Better All The Time.

Well, that was a pretty decent issue, with only a couple of poor pieces, a very good new story, some readable reprints, and one great classic. Not as perfect a masterpiece as the latest Beatles album, but enough to keep smiles on our faces.


Mustaches and band uniforms optional.



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 4, 1967] The Daleks Stoop To A New Low… Vehicle Theft! (Doctor Who: The Evil Of The Daleks [Part 1])

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By Jessica Holmes

EX-TER-MIN-ATE! I hope you aren’t tired of Daleks, because we’ve got angry pepperpots aplenty in the latest Doctor Who serial– and this one’s a long-haul. Will the Daleks quickly wear out their welcome or leave us begging for more? Let’s find out as we watch David Whittaker’s Victorian spin on the ever-popular villains, The Evil Of The Daleks.

Continue reading [June 4, 1967] The Daleks Stoop To A New Low… Vehicle Theft! (Doctor Who: The Evil Of The Daleks [Part 1]) →

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