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[August 16, 1963] Time and Time Again (October 1963 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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[Did you meet the Traveler at WorldCon?  Please drop him a line!]


by Victoria Silverwolf

I believe that time, even more than space, is the great theme of science fiction.  Not only time travel, but also the ways in which the passage of time changes people and the way they live.  Most SF stories take place in the future, and offer visions of the years, centuries, and millennia to come. Some feature precognition.  Others deal with distortions in time, such as the slowing of time associated with velocities approaching the speed of light.

It's not surprising, then, that many of the stories in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow feature characters struggling with the mysteries and challenges of time.

The Night of the Trolls, by Keith Laumer

The narrator of this novella is thrust out of his own time and into another.  He is placed in suspended animation for a routine test, which is only supposed to last a few days.  He awakens to discover that nearly a century has passed.  The secret government installation where he works is in ruins.  The compound is still guarded by a gigantic, heavily armed, automated tank called a Bolo.  (Such a device first appeared in Combat Unit, from the November 1960 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  That story takes place many centuries after this one, so no knowledge of it is needed to appreciate the new tale.)

Getting past the mechanical guardian is the narrator's first task.  Later he discovers that an apocalyptic event left most survivors barely able to stay alive.  Feudal lords leading lives of luxury rule over them.  The narrator infiltrates the fortress of one such dictator.  He encounters a figure from his past, and becomes involved in a scheme to activate another Bolo. 

This is a fast-paced, vividly written adventure story.  The narrator is one of the author's super-competent heroes.  His ability to fight and bluff his way into the lord's stronghold strains credibility.  The antagonist is a two-dimensional character of pure villainy.  However, these are minor quibbles.  The action-filled plot always holds the reader's attention, and there are moments of powerful emotional impact.  Four stars.

The Hermit of Mars, by Stephen Bartholomew

The protagonist of this story also journeys alone through the years, but by his own choice.  An archeologist, he was part of an exploration team sent to the red planet.  A minor heart problem made it risky for him to return to Earth when the mission ended.  He gladly volunteered to remain behind, because unhappy relationships with women made him a misanthropic loner.  Unmanned spaceships send him supplies.  For thirty-five years he lives alone, studying the incredibly ancient artifacts left behind by the extinct Martians.  Two men arrive after all this time.  It soon becomes clear that they are up to no good.  They tolerate the hermit as a harmless old fool, but he proves to have a trick up his sleeve.

There is nothing particularly noteworthy, for good or bad, about this story.  The author's style is serviceable, but undistinguished.  There are no surprises in the plot.  The resolution is something of a deus ex machina.  There's an enjoyable bit of irony at the very end.  Three stars.

The Good Friends, by Cordwainer Smith

An astronaut returns to Earth after an emergency.  While recovering in a hospital, he inquires about the other members of the crew.  The doctor caring for him tells him the frightening truth.  Like other stories in this issue, a long period of time is involved.

This is a brief story with the flavor of an episode of The Twilight Zone.  It will disappoint fans of the author's beautiful and mysterious myths of the far future.  The style is simple and direct, without the intricate wordplay and imaginative images found in tales of the Instrumentality of Mankind.  It's not a bad story, but it pales into insignificance compared to masterpieces like Alpha Ralpha Boulevard and The Ballad of Lost C'Mell.  Three stars.

Orphans of Science, by Stephen Barr

This is an informal article about small mysteries.  Why does light reflecting off metal create small white highlights?  What, exactly, is white light?  Why does a mirror reverse things from left to right, but not top to bottom?  (The magazine's editorial explains the author's confusion on this point.) The rest of the article discusses a few more minor puzzles.  These trivial ponderings are mildly interesting.  Two stars.

All We Marsmen (Part 2 of 3) , by Philip K. Dick

This section of the novel concentrates on three characters.  At the heart of the story is a boy who is severely autistic, one who has never spoken.  The wealthy and powerful head of the Martian water workers union believes the child is able to foresee the future.  He plans to have a skilled handyman, who suffers from episodes of schizophrenia, build a device that will allow the boy to communicate.  The theory behind this is that the child perceives time moving at a very fast rate.  This allows him to look beyond the present, but also prevents him from talking.  An important subplot involves the handyman's father, who has a scheme to make a large profit by buying seemingly worthless Martian land.  The boy draws a picture that provides hints about the future of this project.

So far, the narrative style is realistic.  This changes drastically when bizarre images of death and decay fill the page.  These are associated with the nonsense word gubbish.  If I understand the author's intent correctly, this neologism appears in the boy's mind to describe the inevitable disintegration of all material things with time.  As if this were not disconcerting enough, a meeting between the handyman and the union leader is described multiple times before it actually occurs.  These descriptions repeat certain words and events, but have important differences.  Surreal images of a disturbing nature fill the repetitions.  Whether these are hallucinations, symbolic visions of the future, or indications that the child is somehow able to manipulate time, the effect is frightening.

I suspect that some readers will give up on the novel at this point.  Before this section, the multiple plotlines were complex, but comprehensible.  The sudden change to inexplicable images and strange distortions of reality make the plot difficult to follow.  It's impossible to predict where the author will take me next, but so far the journey has been fascinating, and I'm eager to find out what our destination will be.  Four stars.

The Lonely, by Judith Merril

This story takes the form of a transcription of a message intercepted from space.  An eel-like alien lectures other aliens about human beings.  It seems that very few sentient species reproduce sexually.  Of those that do, humanity is almost unique in having only two sexes.  A statue of a woman holding a rocket, created by unicellular aliens after humans visited their world, is involved.  Eventually humans return to that world and find the statue.

This is a very strange story.  I credit the author for coming up with aliens that do not resemble people at all.  Other than that, the story's intent is unclear.  It seems to be saying something about art and symbolism, as well as the way in which men and women view each other.  Two stars.

To Save Earth, by Edward W. Ludwig

Earth's sun is going to explode in a little over twelve years.  Six astronauts spend six years journeying to a distant planet, looking for a place where humanity can survive.  The length of the trip causes mental disturbances.  One becomes an alcoholic, one a kleptomaniac, one an amnesiac, one a paranoiac, one a schizophrenic, and one feels compelled to break things.  The latter destroys their communication equipment.  Unable to contact Earth, they face the horrifying challenge of making the long journey back, just in time to begin the exodus of its population.  The new planet is inhabited by friendly aliens, who invite them to stay.  The aliens offer them delicious food and drink, beautiful alien women as lovers, and a life free from all care.  They must decide whether to turn their backs on Earth or endure the voyage home.

In sharp contrast to the previous story, these aliens are just slightly different from people.  The familiar plot device of telepathy allows them to speak to their human visitors.  As you can see from the synopsis above, the story has many other implausible events.  Two stars.

The Masked World, by Jack Williamson

Six survey ships are lost without a trace after visiting a distant planet.  The captain of the seventh ship discovers the skeleton of his wife, the pilot of the sixth ship.  Near her remains is a strange plant, unlike anything else on the planet.  Its DNA structure turns out to be the key to solving the mystery.

This is a very short story with a unique concept.  I had to wonder why anyone would keep sending survey ships to a place where they always disappear.  Three stars.

I see by the old clock on the wall that our time is up for today.  See you next time!

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[April 1, 1963] Stuck in the Past (April 1963 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The world is a topsy-turvy place.  Whether it's a coup in Guatemala, or pro-Peronista unrest in Argentina, or a slow-motion civil war in Indochina, one can't open the newspaper without seeing evidence of disorder.  Even at home, it's clear that the battle for Civil Rights is just getting started, with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference planning a sit-in campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, the most segregated city in the country.  It's been a long time coming, but there's no question that many folks (on the wrong side of history) are upset at the changing order of things. 

So it's no wonder that some turn to the old familiar pleasures to escape from reality.  And while most science fiction magazines are now flirting with a new, literary style (particularly F&SF), a direction the British are starting to call "The New Wave," Analog Science Fact – Science Fiction sticks stolidly to the same recipe it's employed since the early 1950s: Psi, Hokum, and Conservatism. 

I suppose some might find the April 1963 Analog comforting, but I just found it a slog.  What do you think?

Which Stars Have Planets?, by Stanley Leinwoll

You'd think an article with a name like this would be right up my alley, but it turns out to be some metaphysics about planets causing sunspots.  Because, you see, Jupiter's orbital period of 12 years is close to the solar sunspot cycle of 11 years.  And if you add up the orbital periods of Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and divide by four, you get 11 years. 

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?

Nothing.  Not a damned thing.  The latter observation is numerological folderol, and the former is meaningless given that sunspots don't only show up on the side facing Jupiter.

Two stars for the pretty pictures.

"What'll You Give?", by Winston Sanders

Last month, Editor Campbell wrote a piece about how the gas giants of our solar system were untapped reservoirs of chemical wealth just waiting to be exploited.  "Winston Sanders" (a frequent pseudonym of Poul Anderson) has obliged Campbell by writing about a Jupiter mining mission in which a deep-diving spacecraft encounters trouble while scooping the ammonia and methane from the giant planet's atmosphere. 

By all rights, it should be an exciting piece, and yet, it almost completely fails to be.  A tidbit the Young Traveler taught me as I was writing my latest novel: don't assume your audience will find the technical details fascinating.  You have to make them relevant to the characters, described through their reactions. 

I could have done without the hackneyed nationality depictions, too.  Three stars, because the topic is good.  The execution is less so.

Sonny, by Rick Raphael

Hayseed army recruit plays havoc with local electrical systems when he telepaths home instead of writing like everyone else.  The military sends him to Russia to send mental postcards.

It's as dumb and smug as it sounds — the most Campbellian piece of the issue.  It is in English, however.

Two stars.

Last Resort, by Stephen Bartholomew

Things start well-enough in this story about an astronaut slowly but fatally losing air from his capsule.  I liked the bit about using a balloon to find the leak (it drifts to the hole, you see), but all trace of verisimilitude is lost when the spaceman lights not one but two cigarettes during the crisis!  Maybe smokes of the future don't burn oxygen. 

And, of course, the story is "solved" with psi.  Because this is Analog.

Two stars.

Frigid Fracas (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

After Middle Middle class mercenary, Major Joe Mauser, utterly louses up his chance at joining the ranks of the Uppers through military daring, he signs up with the underground movement whose aim is to tear the class system down altogether.  He is dispatched to the Sov-world capital of Budapest with the cover of being a liaison, but he's really an agent to see if the Workers' Paradise is similarly inclined to revolution.

This, the fourth installment in this particular future history, is rich on color but poor in credibility, and there's a lot more talking than doing.  It's not as disappointing as Reynolds' recent "Africa" series, but I expected a better conclusion to a promising saga.

Three stars.

Iceberg From Earth, by J. T. McIntosh

Iceberg is an espionage potboiler whose setting is a trio of colonized planets that, blessedly, isn't Earth, Mars, and Venus.  I did appreciate that the hero agent was a woman (the iceberg); I was sad that she wasn't the viewpoint character — instead, it was a rather lackluster and anti-woman fellow spy.  I did like the solar system McIntosh created, though.  Three stars.

A Slight Case of Limbo, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

Lastly, if not quite leastly, is this tale about a stout-hearted guy with a weak heart who gives his life to save another.  Except that the other is an alien who swaps the human's ticker with a machine, which turns out to be a mixed blessing.  The story meanders all over the place, and the ending is right out of a mediocre episode of Twilight Zone.  Still, it's not bad — I think I was just disappointed that the Simakian beginning had a Serlingian end.  Three stars.

And so we've come to the end of the April digests (though technically, Analog is now a slick).  Campbell's mag clocks in at a sad 2.6 stars.  Galaxy is the clear champion, at 3.5 stars.  Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fantastic, and New Worlds are all pleasantly above water at 3.2, and Amazing trails badly at 2.1.

Four of 41 fiction pieces were by women — par for the course.  There were enough 4 and 5-star stories to fill two good digests, my favorite of which was On the Fourth Planet, by Jesse Bone.

Speaking of quality, I am proud to announce that Galactic Journey is a finalist for the Best Fanzine Hugo!  Thanks to all who of you who nominated us, and I hope we'll have your continued support come Labor Day.  Either way, we're just happy to have you along for the ride. 

What have you enjoyed the most about the Journey?

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[November 12, 1962] HEADS ABOVE THE CLOUDS (the December 1962 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Science fiction becomes science fact!  Well not quite, fortunately for us all.  It appears that we came to the brink of nuclear war last month but our leaders on both sides had sense enough to turn back from it.  These grave events reverberated even here, far from any population center or promising military target.  We were herded to a school assembly to be addressed by the principal, very briefly.  It went more or less like this:

“We, ah, don’t think . . . er, anything . . . is going to . . . ah, happen, but if, er, . . . something . . . ah, happens . . . classes will be dismissed and you will return to your homes” (these last clauses delivered with accelerating confidence, unlike the earlier ones).

Shortly thereafter, I was outside in gym class (physical education, as they call it here).  In a corner of the large outdoor area, the school’s paper trash was burning in a concrete enclosure.  (Isn’t there a better way of disposing of this stuff than burning it in the open air?  There ought to be a law.) The wind shifted, and fine bits of ash began drifting down on us.  “Fallout!” someone yelled.

So much for existential terror, at least in the so-called real world.  There’s a fair dose of it in the December Amazing, however, and this issue is noticeably wider awake than its recent predecessors.

Raymond F. Jones contributes the lead story Stay Off the Moon! Jones is an intermittently prolific 20-year veteran who has produced a lot of cut-to-specs product but sometimes comes up with clever oddball ideas, and here’s one of them.  Our guys at Mission Control succeed in putting a remote-controlled mobile laboratory device on the Moon to take soil (i.e. rock) samples, analyze them, and transmit the results.  Turns out the atomic weights and energy levels are different from the matter we know.  How can that be?  The Moon must have originated a long, long way away, in a place where the laws we thought are universal don’t quite work.  Well, what else is going on up there?  Finding the bizarre but logical (and terrifying) answer is the rest of the story.  This is the kind of thing only an SF fanatic can appreciate, but within those bounds it’s imaginative and well done.  Four stars.

Roger Zelazny’s Moonless in Byzantium—his second Amazing story, fourth published—might have a broader appeal.  It’s a surreal riff on one of the more familiar plots in the warehouse, the lone rebel face to face with an oppressive regime, in this case the Robotic Overseeing Unit.  In this dystopia, machines are in charge, people are mostly machines, and our protagonist is charged with writing Sailing to Byzantium on a washroom wall.  He is also charged with illegal possession of a name—William Butler Yeats, which he appended to Yeats’s poem.  This is the world of Cutgab, in which language itself is drastically restricted and simplified, and writing forbidden.  ROU accuses: “You write without purpose or utility, which is why writing itself has been abolished—men always lie when they write or speak.” The outcome is inevitable save for the accused’s final and futile defiance.  This is one that succeeds on sheer power of writing; in theme and style, it suggests Bradbury with sharper teeth.  Four stars for bravura execution of a stock idea.

This month’s Editorial indicates that some readers thought that this Roger Zelazny was himself a fictional character, and prints Zelazny’s reassurance that he exists; his Polish ancestors were armorers and the name comes from the Polish for “iron”; he’s 25, and possesses an M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, military training as a guided missile launcher crewman, and his old copies of Captain Future.

The Zelazny is followed by Far Enough to Touch, by Stephen Bartholomew, who had a couple of stories in If and one in Astounding a few years ago.  A space mission is returning from the Moon, and suddenly one of the crew—the young one who seemed most entranced by space—has gone out the airlock in his spacesuit.  Rescued, he’s in an ecstatic delusional fugue, and stays that way.  And the point?  It escapes me, but the story is very smoothly written.  Two stars.

Stewart Pierce Brown contributes an equally well-turned but insubstantial story in Small Voice, Big Man, in which the voice of a washed-up singer suddenly is emanating from radios everywhere, to benign effect.  And the singer, Van Richie, is trying to make a comeback, but had a hard time singing loudly enough until the producer’s electrician rigged up an amplifier for him to wear.  OK, clear enough, but so what?  Two insipid stars—but this one is also smoothly written, not surprisingly from a writer who’s been in Bluebook, Collier’s, Playboy, and the Saturday Evening Post.

Marion Zimmer Bradley, who served up a dish of broken glass in the last issue, is back with something more soothing.  Measureless to Man takes place on yesterday’s Mars, where explorers travel on foot through the mountains with tents and sleeping bags, people get around by flagging down the mail jet, and the fauna include cute scaly sand mice and banshees, giant, stupid but dangerous flightless birds.  I suspect that this story was at least started a decade ago in hopes of a sale to the now-deceased pulps that Bradley admired.  Anyway, it concerns an expedition into the said mountains to the ancient city Xanadu, abandoned ages ago by the seemingly extinct Martians, from which no previous expedition has returned, and you can more or less guess what happens, in broad outline at least.  This used furniture is rearranged agreeably enough, with a slightly ironic, newer-style ending.  Three stars.

Sam Moskowitz’s “SF Profile” this issue is “Psycho”-logical Bloch, which is a little puzzling; Moskowitz readily concedes that Robert Bloch is a fairly inconsequential SF writer and that his main credentials are in horror and psychological suspense, at this point chiefly in film and TV.  Apparently Bloch is here in this series featuring the likes of Asimov and Heinlein because he’s popular among fandom.  But for a relatively pointless article, it’s perfectly readable and informative.  Three stars.

Finally, Frank Tinsley is back with The Mars Supply Fleet, doing his best to make space travel pedestrian again.  Two stars for making interesting information boring.

But still, cause for hope: two items in this issue poke their heads above the cloudbank of routine, in very different ways…

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