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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[April 2, 1966] Hidden Truths (May 1966 IF)

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Don't miss tomorrow's exciting Adventure-themed episode of The Journey Show, taking you to the highest peaks, the deepest wildernesses, the coldest extremes, the vacuum of space, and the depths of the sea.  April 3 at 1PM — book your (free) ticket for adventure now!)


by David Levinson

They’re on our side (I believe)

There’s no question that French President Charles de Gaulle has a larger-than-life, albeit rather prickly, personality. It stood him in good stead through the War and in midwifing the Fifth Republic a few years ago. It’s also a big part of what underlies his “politics of grandeur”. Alas, it also makes him a sometimes troublesome partner on the world stage. As early as 1958, he was urging a greater role for France in NATO, kicking against the traces of the Anglo-American “special relationship”. In 1959, he pulled the French Mediterranean fleet and air defenses from NATO command and banned the United States from positioning nuclear weapons in France. A year later, he even tried to renegotiate the NATO treaty, but no other member nation supported him. He was fairly quiet during the Kennedy administration and showed great solidarity during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he’s up to his old tricks again.


French President Charles de Gaulle announcing that France will go her own way.

In February, de Gaulle declared that the changed world order has “stripped NATO of its justification” and demanded French control of all foreign troops and bases in France when the current NATO agreement ends in 1969. Apparently, he decided that was too far in the future. On March 7th, he ordered all foreign troops and equipment removed from France by next year. Two days later, France formally withdrew its officers from the NATO unified command, assumed full control of the 70,000 French troops in Germany and announced that they will close all allied bases that don’t surrender to French control. President Johnson appears to have taken all this with the poise of a matador performing a verónica, with the faith that de Gaulle can be brought around in a time of need, though there is a rumor he instructed Secretary of State Dean Rusk to ask if that withdrawal includes the thousands of American war dead in French cemeteries. “De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.”

Unearthing the past

Oftentimes, what we think we know about the past and how we got where we are is simply wrong. Learning the truth may make us change our course, shatter our identity or turn the whole world upside down. Quite a lot of this month’s IF features characters facing the consequences of just such a revelation.


Supposedly from Silkies in Space. Silkies don’t need spacesuits. Art by Schelling

Silkies in Space, by A. E. van Vogt

Nat Cemp is a Silkie, a genetically engineered human who can adapt his body so that he can live underwater or in space as easily as he can on land. While walking down the street, he encounters a man who appears to be his twin and delivers an ultimatum to Nat. All Silkies are to end their association with humans and return to the nation of Silkies or be deemed traitors. Around one fifth of all Silkies have had a similar experience at roughly the same time. The Silkie nation is traced to a planetoid that travels from outside the orbit of Neptune to inside that of Mercury, and Nat is sent to investigate. What he discovers will have enormous consequences, not only for the 2,000 Silkies of Earth, but for the entire planet.


Gregor Samsa… er, Nat in spacegoing form enters the mysterious planetoid. Art by Gaughan

This is a direct sequel to “The Silkie” from a couple of years ago. While this story largely stands alone, it might make more sense if the first story is fresh in your mind. Parts of it are quite good, other parts (mostly when Nat starts using his mental powers) rather confused and nonsensical. As we’ve discussed many times here at the Journey, van Vogt is a polarizing writer. Oddly, I find myself in both camps. There are stories I like a lot, but I’m also put off by his long fascination with supermen and his strong association with dianetics. There are bits here, like the “logic of levels” where I wonder if I’m being spoonfed Hubbard’s nonsense, and it detracts from the whole. The story goes completely off the rails at the end, as well. I’m waffling on the score, but I think I liked it just enough. Barely three stars.

The Historian, by Carroll J. Clem

We open with a chapter from a history book telling us that as humanity spread to the stars, no intelligence was found to equal man’s own. A few vignettes of humans engaging in the worst forms of colonization and oppression follow. The story concludes with the historian discussing his work with the people who commissioned it.

Clem is this month’s new writer. Stylistically, it’s decent and it’s short, but it’s also fairly obvious. Again, I find myself wavering on the score, but the fact that the author felt compelled to spell out the ironic twist is a mark against it. A high two stars.

The Hide Hunters, by Robert Moore Williams

Ed Grayson is exploring the Amazon, looking for the next big psychedelic drug. When the old chief of the tribe he is staying with begs the use of Ed’s rifle to kill the hide of his dead grandson, Ed is appalled. Later, he finds the chief skinning his grandson and horrified by the strange white filaments connecting the skin to what is inside it. His partner McPherson returns by helicopter and is worried by Ed’s behavior. Ed is going to return to civilization with the helicopter, but a poison dart attacks and kills the pilot. McPherson tries to fly them out and instead crashes near some ancient ruins, where they find Egyptian hieroglyphs and something much more disturbing.


An injured Grayson waits for his partner’s return. Art by Adkins

If Weird Tales were still publishing, this would have fit right in. The story clearly shows Williams’ roots in the pulp days, but is reasonably well updated for today, apart from the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Why not something Incan? One the whole, this is a decent representative of stories of this kind. Too bad the attack on the pilot makes absolutely no sense. Still, it’s three stars.

An APA For Everyone, by Lin Carter

Building on his look at fanzines last month, Carter takes a look at amateur press associations, an idea that goes back nearly a century. Unlike fanzines, which will send a copy to anybody willing to pay the postage, APAs limit circulation to a limited group of contributors who must submit a certain number of pages every month. There are even waiting lists for people to join. Carter examines some of the bigger APAs in fantasy and science fiction, as well as what drives someone to contribute to them. His breezy style is slightly tempered from last time, but it still grates. Three stars.

Mountains Like Mice, by Gene Wolfe

Dirk is being prepared for his Retreat by Otho the Captive. If he can avoid being found for the two months it will take for the dye to wear off, he will become a Master. That night, Otho leads him to the spot where his Retreat will begin at sunrise. Later, he sees what he thinks is Otho being captured by the gyrda, a race of people half the height of a normal person. He tracks them into the mountains with the plan of rescuing Otho. In the end, things known to Dirk are revealed to the reader, and he gains deeper insight.


A captive of the gyrda. Art by Lutjens

Wolfe is unknown to me, but after some digging I see that he had one previous sale to the “gentlemen’s” magazine Sir!. If he can write like this so early in his career, I foresee big things. He’s clearly in love with language and words, and every sentence is beautifully crafted. I don’t claim to really understand the metaphor of the title or the implications of the final paragraph, but the journey there is incredibly beautiful. Four stars.

Golden Trabant, by R. A. Lafferty

A man enters Patrick T. K.’s store to sell a huge lump of greenish gold, clearly of extraterrestrial origin. We then learn of the unscrupulous men seeking the legendary golden asteroid and the consequences of their success.

This is an unusually traditional story for Lafferty, but it still has his unique touch. Of course, it’s largely a retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Diamond as Big as the Ritz without the romance and with a few Lafferty-esque bits. This might be a good starting point for someone who has never read Lafferty and is concerned about some of the things they’ve heard. Three stars.

Earthblood (Part Two of Four), by Keith Laumer and Rosel G. Brown

Last time, Roan, a purebred Terran who grew up among aliens, was forced to join an interstellar circus. There he met the beautiful Stellaraire and rescued her from the villainous Ithc. Now he has hatched a plan for the two of them to escape so that he can make his way back to his mother and then find lost Terra. Those plans are thwarted when Iron Robert, the rock creature who was Stellaraire’s only friend, is grievously injured in a fight. At Roan’s insistence, Robert is brought aboard the ship and nursed back to health, rather than being left behind to die.

En route to another stop, the ship is attacked by the pirate Henry Dread. Many are killed when the ship enters emergency acceleration, and the rest are gunned down by Dread’s crew. Roan is spared, because he is fully human, as is Iron Robert again at Roan’s insistence. But Stellaraire was killed, crushed by a falling beam. Dread views the world divided into three groups: Terrans, Gooks, who are humanoid and may have some Terran in them, and Geeks, the rest of the aliens. And for him only Terrans matter, so he takes Roan under his wing.

Dread takes Roan along on a raid of the old imperial capital of Aldo Cerise. Roan saves Dread’s life and afterward Dread reveals that he is actually a member of a group calling themselves the Terran Navy, supposedly formed from the remnants of the old navy thousands of years ago. He inducts Roan and explains that he’s on a long mission recruiting and financing. Eventually, they find a Niss ship and Dread’s hate leads him to make a foolish attack. Roan winds up killing Dread in an attempt to save Iron Robert, but in the end, Robert must be left behind on the dying ship while Roan leads a desperate raid on the Niss ship, their only hope for survival. To be continued.


Iron Robert meets his match. Art by Wood

Well, that didn’t go how I expected. After last month, I was sure I could see the course of this story. The circus ship would prove to be an extremely powerful warship that Roan would use to break the Niss and Stellaraire would prove not to be a sterile mule. Instead, she’s dead and the ship was about as effective in combat as a Greek trireme against an Iowa-class battleship. In fact, almost everyone who ever supported Roan is dead. His father, Stellaraire, Iron Robert (presumably) and Henry Dread.

Last time, I also expressed concern about the human superiority that was expressed. Some of that is there again, but it’s more clearly an ugly thing. Roan lashes out once at Iron Robert with the vile language Dread uses, but immediately regrets it, and his constant support of Iron Robert shows his real attitudes. I’m more hopeful.

I still don’t see much Laumer here, other than in names (Groaci and Aldo Cerise this time) and the presence of Bolos. And it looks like Wally Wood is indeed the artist for the illos. Three stars.

Summing up

Not as good an issue as last month, certainly. But Earthblood looks like it will be much more than I expected, and we have an interesting new voice in Gene Wolfe. If he can hone his craft a bit more and keep his beautiful language, he may be a force to be reckoned with.


No hype at all for next month? That’s not a good sign.




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Book, Magazine

[June 8, 1964] Be Prepared! (July 1964 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

In Preparation

In three days, the Traveler family returns to Japan for an unprecedented three-week trip.  That's an endeavor that calls for tremendous planning, from the purchasing of tickets (Pan Am flies direct from Los Angeles to Tokyo these days!) to judicious packing.  A house-sitter must be engaged.  Mail must be held at the post office.  And, of course, three weeks of The Journey must be plotted in advance.  Thank goodness we're such a broad team.

Out in the real world, the United States Senate, under the agile leadership of Hubert Humphrey, is putting its ducks in order.  The goal: to invoke cloture, ending the months-long "debate" over the Civil Rights Act and allowing a vote on the landmark bill.  This fate of this legislation, federally guaranteeing equality of the races regardless of the desire of certain states to retain barbaric discrimination practices,was never really in doubt.  By the time it came to the floor this year, after two years of increasing Black American protest, and support from the President's office (first JFK, now LBJ), it was a matter of when Southern resistance was crushed, not if.  Such are the fruits of good planning.

Twenty years ago, meticulous planning brought another racist regime to heel.  After months of preparation, the Western Allies lined up thousands of ships and tens of thousands of troops for an invasion of Nazi-occupied France.  D-Day at Normandy was a hard-won but smashing success that sounded the death knell for Hitler's empire.  The other night, Walter Cronkite met up with the operation's implementer, President/General Eisenhower, for a heart to heart in France.  It was good television, and stirring tribute to one of America's finest hours.

What If?

IF Worlds of Science Fiction, Galaxy's scrappy younger sister, has also launched a big operation, the result of a long-ranged plan.  For years, the magazine has been a bi-monthly, alternating publication with Galaxy.  Now, editor Fred Pohl says it's going monthly.  To that end, he lined up a slew of big-name authors to contribute enough material to sustain the increased publication rate.  Moreover, Pohl intends IF to be the adventurous throwback mag, in contrast to the more cerebral digests under his direction (Galaxy and Worlds of Tomorrow.  Or in his words:

"Adventure.  Excitement.  Drama.  Color.  Not hack pulp-writing or gory comic-strip blood and thunder, but the sort of story that attracted most of us to science fiction in the first place."

Frankly, it was Galaxy that got me into SF in 1950, so I'm not sure I want a return to the "Golden Age".  But I'm willing to see how this works out, and in fact, this month's issue is encouragingly decent, as you shall soon see.


by Gray Morrow

The Issue at Hand

Farnham's Freehold (Part 1 of 3), by Robert A. Heinlein


by Jack Gaughan

This issue starts with a serial that is all about being prepared.  In Heinlein's latest, Hubert Farnham and his family are interrupted during bridge night when the Russkies start pounding his town with atom bombs.  Luckily, this second example of a perspicacious Hubert had the foresight to build a well-stocked shelter.  'Hugh', his headstrong son, Duke, cheerful daughter, Karen, alcoholic and listless wife, Grace, 'houseboy' and 'Negro' Joe, and friend, Barbara (as well as Joe's cat, 'Dr. Livingston, I presume') all cram into the basement refuge as the first two warheads go off.

Drama quickly erupts.  Duke does not take kindly to his father's autocratic style (and he is all the more resentful since Hugh is always right).  After the second bomb, Hugh and Barbara keep watch together, and promptly commence to having an affair.  This would have been more palatable had there been any sort of build up or prior history.  Just a few pages ago, Hugh was lamenting that Duke and Barbara weren't an item yet.  All it takes is a couple of bombs, some sweltering heat, and a nearby knocked-out wife to fan the flames of passion, I guess.

There is a third walloping, but this time, there is no accompanying radiation or rumble.  Instead, when the six finally work their way out of the shelter, they find themselves in an utterly virgin version of their former home.  No city.  No people.  Just greenery and wildlife. 

Thus it is that Farnham's Freehold transforms from Alas, Babylon to Swiss Family Robinson. 

Hugh immediately creates a long-range settlement plan, complete with irrigation, plumbing, and light industry.  For several months, there is idyll in the new Garden.  But then (read no further if you don't want telling details) it turns out that both Karen and Barbara are pregnant.  Karen dies in the agonies of childbirth, as does her infant daughter.  Grace refuses to live under the same roof as Barbara and decides to leave, the Oedipally inclined Duke in tow.  Just as this split is about to come to fruition, other humans appear.

Black humans, with hoverships and paralyze rays.  They don't speak English, but they are kindly disposed to Joe.  Less so to the others.  End Part One.

After the disappointment that was Podkayne of Mars), I was not looking forward to spending hours with Bob Heinlein this month.  To some extent, my fears were borne out.  While I do admire the ability to tell a story completely in dialog, with the action implied in the lines of the characters, it is too much of a good thing here, especially since all of the characters sound like Bob Heinlein or Heinlein's Band of Straw Men.  The story reads like the screenplay for Heinlein — a One Man Show! crossed with The Boy Scout Handbook.  Bob even manages to cram in paeans to nudity, cats, and Libertarianism within the first 25 pages (I think he has a checklist).  And the "passionate" dialog between Hugh and Barbara?  Ugh.

That said, the book is readable and well-paced.  If you can look past the cardboard characters and the sparse scenery, the bones of the story are alright, I suppose.  Perhaps it's just my taste for the Post-Apocalyptic that kept me going.

Three stars for now.  We'll see what happens.

Weetl, by Jack Sharkey

This is a silly tale of man who was unprepared.  Raised in religiosity, a young zealot creates a machine that makes it impossible for anyone to weetle.  That is to say, when they try to say something weetleive, it is subweetletuted with the censoring sound, 'weetle.'  As you can see, beweetles a problem very quickly.

It starts great, ends dumb, and yet, I like the concept.  I can see a future where OMNIVAC ruins all of our computer programs by overzealously deleting words it finds offensive.  Or maybe Ma Bell implementing a razzer over particularly spicy phone conversations.

Three stars.

The Mathenauts, by Norman Kagan


by Nodel

Sometimes, things can't be planned for at all.  In the future, it turns out that the mathematically inclined can pilot spaceships that traverse pure math space, shortcutting the physical world.  But one of the geniuses in the crew goes too far and discovers that math isn't just an abstraction — it is the universe, and the physical world is just a construct of the beings that once thrived in the real (or should I say irrationally complex?) world of numbers.

This story left me completely cold, with its flat-falling jokes and easy philosophy ("Like, man, what if the dreams are real, and we're really asleep right now?!") But I know a lot of folks really liked this tale, and in deference to them, I gave the story multiple and deep readings.  After a while, I was able to refine my position.

I still don't like it.  Two stars.

(Full disclosure: I was not able to get past my third year of University mathematics, and proofs are my weak point.  I am a physicist, not a mathematician, and certainly not a philosopher.)

Old Testament, by Jerome Bixby

A wife and husband team of planetary explorers do their best to make a furtive survey of a planet inhabited by primitive extraterrestrials.  But the best-laid plans gang aft agley — the aliens have left a foundling child on board their ship, one who will die if they don't take it back.  Can they return the child without further tainting the culture?

I liked this one, a UFO story in reverse.  Four stars.

The Silkie, by A. E. van Vogt


by Gray Morrow

Last up is a most unusual story from pulp veteran A. E. van Vogt, featuring a profoundly altered variety of humanity that can not only breathe air but also live undersea and sail through the vastness of interplanetary space.  Cemp, a Silkie (sort of a telepathic, spacefaring cop) encounters an extraterrestrial incursion right on the eve of his once-in-a-decade period of spawning.  Talk about unplanned events!  Can he defeat the menace when he is at his most vulnerable?

It's the telling of this story, weird and subtle, that makes it.  Silkie feels less like van Vogt and more like Dick (and perhaps better Dick than a lot of recent Dick).  Not quite perfection, but interesting nonetheless.

Four stars.

Summing up

So far, Pohl's efforts to beef up IF appear to be paying off.  I look forward to seeing his plan further translate into reality!

Now I just need to figure out where to cram in the extra review every month…

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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