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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[July 12th, 1964] Mind Over Matter (Doctor Who: The Sensorites [Part 1])

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By Jessica Holmes

Can I admit to something silly? I am a little bit scared of mind-readers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually believe in telepaths. Then again, who knows what sort of freaky experiments certain entities get up to.

I just think the idea of someone reading my mind, or even manipulating it, is one of the most horrifying concepts out there.

And it looks like Doctor Who agrees with me.

STRANGERS IN SPACE

Before setting off on their next adventure, the companions take a moment to reflect on how far everyone has come, in the literal and metaphorical senses.

"Yes, it all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a…great spirit of adventure!"
The Doctor

Nice quote aside, the conversation feels a bit like it was yanked out of a children’s television programme, where the viewer needs the moral of the story spoonfed to them. It doesn’t belong at the start of this serial, for another thing. It just feels wrong for the pacing. We should be diving head-first into an adventure, not cautiously dipping a toe.

After stumbling over that scene, we can at last slide into the next adventure. Where has the TARDIS landed? A spaceship! And what should they find but a dead bloke slumped by the controls.

Bodes well, doesn't it?

There's another crew member nearby, also dead. Both are still warm.

Sensing danger, the companions turn back to the TARDIS, when the dead man suddenly moves.

The not-so-dead man grunts out a request for an unknown device, which revives him within seconds. He tells Barbara to use it on the dead woman, Carol. The man, Maitland, explains the device is a heart resuscitator, and that they weren't dead, just very deeply asleep.

Maitland explains that they’re orbiting a planet called the Sensesphere. Its people have been preventing them from leaving this region of space. How? By controlling their minds. Whenever the astronauts have tried to get past them, the Sensorites have used the control they have over the astronauts' brains to put them into a death-like sleep.

While he explains, we cut away to see a mysterious hand probing at the keyhole of the TARDIS, before waving an unknown device in front of it.

When we cut back, Barbara catches a whiff of something burning, and by the time we return to the TARDIS, the device has managed to extract the lock, as the Doctor and company discover a few minutes later, when they attempt to leave before running into any trouble. That’ll be the day.

No time to worry about that now, as the ship begins barrelling towards the surface of the Sensesphere. It’s only with the Doctor’s intervention that the ship doesn’t go smashing into the surface of the planet, leaving Maitland to wonder why he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

The Doctor postulates that it was the Sensorites' doing; an exercise in fear, to remind everyone that they could take control of their minds and kill them with ease, if they wanted to. However, it seems that the Doctor and his companions are immune to their influence.

Puzzled, the Doctor asks the astronauts if they've ever seen any of these Sensorites. Carol informs him that John, the third member of the crew (who we have yet to meet) has. However, when the Doctor expresses his desire to talk to John, he’s firmly shut down by Maitland.

Susan and Barbara go off to look for a drink, but someone closes the door behind them, and it’s not long before they find themselves trapped with a man who we can only presume must be John. The fellow doesn’t look particularly well as he shuffles about, blank-faced and glassy-eyed.

When Ian wonders aloud where the women have got to, the astronauts dart for the doorway Barbara and Susan just went through, but find it locked. They remark that they should have warned them. That your crewmate is a zombie? Yeah, probably worth mentioning!

Carol admits to Ian that John's brain has been pretty much turned to mush by the Sensorites. He gets violent sometimes, and is frightened of strangers.

This doesn’t bode well for Barbara and Susan, who have just been cornered by him. Rather than attack them, however, he breaks down in tears and asks who they are. Barbara, he says, looks like his sister. Have they come to help him?

Oh, poor bloke.

He's clearly just frightened and upset, so being decent human beings Barbara and Susan do what they can to comfort him.

I sense a metaphor here for the treatment of the mentally ill. Think about it. The other astronauts have locked him away, they're terrified of him, thinking him violent, when the poor chap is just scared, confused and unhappy.

A god-awful noise distracts the others from their attempts to break through the door, probably for the better. The last thing John needs is any hostility. There's something outside the ship, approaching fast.

Here come the Sensorites.

A pretty good start to the serial, with a nice build of tension and dread. Interested to see where it goes from here. 3.5 stars out of 5.

THE UNWILLING WARRIORS

Everyone tries to remain calm, but the astronauts seem a bit too good at it. They're completely frozen.

John breaks down again and starts speaking in response to an unseen voice. He's refusing to do something for them. To frighten Barbara and Susan. But why do the Sensorites want him to frighten the women?

It seems that the key to resisting the Sensorites is not allowing yourself to give in to fear. Fear opens the mind up to their influence, and that’s why our companions have been able to resist the Sensorites thus far. With everything they’ve been through, they’re hard as nails.

Susan suggests that she and Barbara could try using their minds to help resist the Sensorites. They have to be thinking in unison, and concentrating hard. To my surprise, it actually works, but the mental exertion makes Susan faint. It looks like she was doing most of the psychic heavy-lifting, as the Doctor discusses with Carol, once they manage to get the whole group back together.

He mentions it might be possible for Susan's thoughts to resist the Sensorites. Now, it's interesting that he specifically singles out Susan, not Barbara. Does Susan have an increased level of psychic ability? Why? How different exactly are the Doctor and Susan from the rest of the companions?

Meanwhile, Maitland and Ian are worrying about John, and trying to figure out why he bore the brunt of the Sensorites’ attack. Ian suspects that, as the ship’s mineralogist, John discovered something the Sensorites wanted to keep secret.

And now it's time for the science lesson, because there is probably someone at the BBC who is paid to come into the production offices of Doctor Who every so often and remind everyone that the programme is supposed to be educational.

The lesson doesn't get far before Susan tells Ian that she knows what a spectrograph is.

The Doctor takes a closer look at the spectrograph, and has a eureka moment. John found molybdenum.

We get another science lesson as Ian explains the properties of molybdenum, mainly its very high melting point, which makes it highly valued in certain industries. And the Sensesphere is a veritable goldmine of the stuff.

At his proclamation, there's a psychic attack, rendering the astronauts helpless, and Ian and Barbara go to look for the attackers.

After a long scene of them walking through the ship that feels like it goes on forever, they find the aliens. However, the Sensorites don’t attack, and once everyone’s calmed down, Ian figures they were probably as scared of him as he was of them.

Susan begins speaking to an unheard voice. Apparently the Sensorites have made contact, and are asking if they can talk. The Doctor agrees, as long as the Sensorites do them no harm.

The Sensorites reveal that the reason that they won't let the astronauts leave the Sensesphere is that humans have been to the planet before, bringing with them a terrible affliction. They won't let it happen again. However, knowing that this isn’t an ideal situation, the Sensorites have prepared a place for the humans to reside on the Sensesphere, where they’ll be well looked after, and everyone will be safe.

To be honest I think that’s fair enough, though it would have been helpful if they’d just explained that earlier. You’d think people with telepathy would be better communicators.

The Doctor doesn’t agree, however. He just wants the lock to his TARDIS back. Or else. That’s not a threat, but it is a promise.

The Sensorites go away to think about it. While they're making their own plans, the Doctor figures that they probably can't see in the dark, because their eyes were fully dilated in the full light of the ship’s bridge. I’ll take his word for it.

However, the Sensorites have another mental chat with Susan, and to everyone’s surprise, she declares that she’s made a deal with them. She’ll go with the Sensorites down to their planet.

In return, they won’t kill everyone else.

The serial is continuing strongly. 4 stars out of 5.

HIDDEN DANGER

This is why you don't accept lifts from strangers.

Ian and Barbara promptly go into surrogate-parent mode and leap into action to try and rescue Susan. They offer to talk to the Sensorites, who are resistant; they've had bad experiences in the past where other species have come offering peace, only to turn around and deliver destruction.

With the Doctor also attempting to intervene, the Sensorites contemplate stunning the humans and making their escape. However, before they can do that, Ian kills the lights, leaving them cowering in fear as they’re completely blinded. It’s quite pitiful to watch.

The Doctor tells the Sensorites that he simply want his lock back and to go home, so the Sensorites, the poor, timid things, start communicating with their superiors on the Sensesphere.

Ian wonders if he and Barbara were to use the Sensorites’ telepathy devices, could they read each others' minds? Gee, Ian, that's a bit intimate. At least buy her a drink first. Ian wonders if the Sensorites hypnotised Susan, but Barbara says, (with perhaps a hint of pride) that no, she's just growing up.

The Doctor and his granddaughter butt heads over her decision to go with the Sensorites. I don’t think the Doctor is quite ready to face up to the fact that his granddaughter is becoming more independent and starting to make important decisions on her own.

The Sensorites finally agree to let the Doctor talk to their leader, and at last everyone’s happy. Ish.

Well, everyone except for John. He’s tormented by the voices in his head. He’s so unhappy, I desperately want to give the poor man a hug. Carol is dismayed to see him like this, saying that he might as well be dead. Gee. How supportive. Poor man's desperately unwell and his fiancée abandons all hope. Oh, yes! They were planning to get married!

Before heading down to the Sensesphere, the Doctor interrogates the Sensorites further on why they attacked the astronauts.

They explain that ten years ago, five humans came to the Sensesphere. The Sensorites welcomed them, but the humans' minds were closed off. In time, they quarrelled, and two of them took off, their ship exploding a mile into the atmosphere. The other three, the Sensorites assume, must have snuck aboard, and in their struggle for control of the ship, caused the explosion.

Ever since that day, their people have been dying in greater numbers every year. The situation seems similar to how Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas.

Barbara, Maitland and Carol stay with the ship, and the others go down to the Sensesphere.

Meanwhile, the ruler of the Sensorites argues with his fellow elders about his decision to invite the humans down to the planet. He explains his rationale to them, and it's perfectly sensible. The Doctor’s a man of learning. Perhaps he can help them.

I'd have them go through decontamination procedures and keep them in an airtight room, to be on the safe side.

One of the other Sensorites objects on the grounds that humans are ugly. For one, rude. For two, the ruler observes that ugliness really depends on cultural context. The Sensorites think humans are very ugly, but the Elder acknowledges that the humans could well think them ugly.

Not wrong there, mate. You look like a partially-deflated rugby ball with a bad toupee glued onto the wrong end.

No offence.

Still, the Sensorite leader seems like a nice, very reasonable chap. I like him. It’s interesting to see human-alien relations from the other perspective. It does a lot to underline that the Sensorites are just people. Weird-looking people who can read minds, but still people.

The others are rather uncertain about the Earth creatures, untrusting of them. I think both sides of this discussion have merit. They have perfectly valid concerns about potential aggression.

Well. One of them does.

The other doesn't think they'll be safe until all the humans are dead.

I'd argue with him but I’ve read history books and I know what humans are like.

Upon arriving on the Sensesphere, our companions learn that the Sensorites have a caste system. The Elders think and rule, the Warriors fight, and the Sensorites work and play. Everyone's happy, and some are happier than others, as Ian remarks. The Sensorites don't get his point.

Curious. I’d have thought they’d have a more egalitarian society, what with their advanced technology. Then again, technological advancement does not necessarily equal enlightened attitudes.

Also, is Sensorite the name of the species or just that one caste?

Unbeknownst to them (I do so love that word), one of the Sensorites is preparing an assassination. Once everyone is seated, the humans will be struck in the heart with a disintegrator beam.

Meanwhile, the other Sensorites say they can help heal poor John, who seems to be able to tell if people are good or not. Somehow. He's in good company…for now.

Barbara goes with him, and the others go to sit down. The suspense is killing me!

Before they can be assassinated, however, another Sensorite foils the plot, admonishing the murderous Sensorite. I do with they had names. It’d be much easier to keep them straight.

The Elder confirms the group’s assumptions about how John came to be the way he is. He found out about the molybdenum, got overexcited, opening up his mind, and the Sensorites caught him thinking about human mining fleets coming in to mine the resource, so they decided they had to imprison him. They didn’t mean to drive him out of his mind. They put the others to sleep, but his mind was so open, it was as if they hit him with the psychic equivalent of a bus.

The Elder notes that his guests have been brought different water to him, and orders that some of the better water be brought for them. Isn’t water just water?

Ian, not being too fussy, drinks some of the bog-standard water, and a few minutes later, begins to cough. As we all know, coughing in any story is a sure signifier of doom. Nobody ever coughs unless they’re about to drop down dead.

And I've already worked it out:

  • Fact the first: The Elders do not get the disease that plagues their people.
  • Fact the second: The Elders drink water from a different source to the water the common people drink.
  • Fact the third: Ian had some of this poor-people water.
  • And now Ian is coughing.

Something is polluting the water supply.

They don’t call me Holmes for nothing, you know.

I get to feel clever for figuring it out before the Doctor, who takes forever to notice that Ian sounds like he’s about to bring up a lung. The key to understanding the mystery plague is sitting right next to you, man!

However, he can’t fail to notice when Ian begins to choke, and drops to the floor, unconscious.

According to the Elder, there's no hope. He's dying.

Now look here, Mr. Newman. You are not allowed to kill Ian. I like Ian, and I shall be very cross with you if you kill him.

Some nice character moments in this episode. This is shaping up to be a very good serial. 4 stars out of 5.

Final Thoughts

So, that’s the first half of the Sensorites. Personally? I really like it. It’s already taken us to some pretty dark places, and I have a feeling it’s going to get darker before the end. Telepathy has no real limit to how disturbing it can be; it all depends on how brave the writer is feeling (or what the BBC will let him put on television).

I’m also enjoying the presentation of the Sensorites not as villains, but as people with their own problems and their own perspective. Can they work together with the Doctor and company to solve their problems, or will sinister forces hinder their efforts at every turn?

We’ll have to wait and see.

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Book, Magazine

[June 28, 1964] Not Quite What You Think. ( New Worlds, July-August 1964)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

I’m back to New Worlds this month on its new bi-monthly schedule. Getting an issue every other month is taking a bit of getting used to, if I’m honest – I was so used to receiving a monthly issue – but I must admit I’m liking the changes. Perhaps waiting that bit longer has sharpened my appetite?

The issue at hand


by James Cawthorn

The July-August 1964 issue of New Worlds starts with another eye-catching cover by Michael Moorcock’s friend Jim Cawthorn. Like the one in May, it draws you in and makes you want to read it, which does the job it is intended to do. (Although, as I will say later, there is some dissent in the Letters pages.)

To the stories themselves.

Hang on – where’s the rest of The Star Virus, by Barrington J. Bailey? Last issue I thought that there was going to be a second part. However, it seems I was wrong. Apologies for the misunderstanding on my part. (please take another point off the rating)

The Fall of Frenchy Steiner, by Hilary Bailey

I said last month that the ‘new’ New Worlds seems to want to merge the old clichés of s-f with the new sensibility of the so-called New Wave. The title story is one of those, in that the idea of alternate history is not a new one for s-f, but here it is given a new energy and perhaps grittier realism.

Told through the enigmatic and moody “Lowry”, it is a story of what happens to Frenchy Steiner, a German bar singer with psi-powers in an alternate Britain in 1954 run by the victorious Germans. Expectedly, it is a setting full of grimness, all rationing, power shortages and curfews, with the Germans keeping control through propaganda and a strict regime. As well as a pub entertainer, Frenchy leads a double life, as we find out about her familial connections to the Third Reich and her importance to the Fuhrer.

The story starts slowly but builds a credible impression of England under occupation. However, by the end it moves a little too quickly towards its resolution and there’s a few plot points that lack the thought of the initial set-up.

If you are a long-time reader, you may recognise the author’s name. We have met work by Hilary Bailey before, with Breakdown in the October 1963 issue of New Worlds. Breakdown was odd and a little underwhelming for me, but Frenchy Steiner, in a longer novella format, worked much better for me, even though I felt at the end that it could have been better paced. Despite the slight whiff of nepotism (Hilary is also the wife of Mr. Moorcock) this was a great start to the issue. 4 out of 5.

Storm-Water Tunnel, by Langdon Jones

A new writer with his debut here at New Worlds, Langdon is described by the story’s banner as ‘a musician’ as well as a writer. Storm-Water Tunnel is a time travel story using the Moebius strip idea – you know, the one where time is a continuous journey that twists back upon itself. This is a story that does that, but the reasons for it doing so are not clear and so it remains an intriguing trifle. I can see why editor Moorcock likes this one, as it covers similar ideas shown in his writing. As an attempt to be different, it’s OK. I suspect that we’ll see more of this writer in later issues. 3 out of 5.

Goodbye, Miranda, by Michael Moorcock

And so, after a story by the wife of the editor and a story by a friend of the editor, we now have a story by the editor. The banner at the top claims that Goodbye, Miranda is a story about ignorance and the consequences of ignorance. To me it was an experimental piece that just reminded me of a bad Shakespearean tragedy where everyone dies at the end. Based on this, Mike needs to stick to editing rather than writing, at the moment. Awful. 2 out of 5.

Single Combat, by Joseph Green

And here is the return of one of the ‘old guard’, from the older version of New Worlds! We last read Joseph’s work in the July 1963 New Worlds with the so-so Refuge. Single Combat is the story of a fight between a King and a pretender to the throne on a world where the people are seven feet tall. The main difference is that in addition to the physical battle psi-powers are used, which means that most of the story takes place in the participant’s heads.

It is interesting to see how the old style New Worlds writer stands up to the reinvigorated aims of the new New Worlds. The answer is not particularly well, frankly. Away from the psi-powers angle story, the story’s a mass of clichés. The tribes are clearly modelled on the coloured peoples of Africa and the twist in the tale is that – gasp – one of the combatants is a woman. I’m less convinced myself by this old sheep in new clothing persona given to the author myself, but the editor seems to like his work a lot. This is on a par with the ‘old stuff’, so, unsurprisingly, it gets a 3 out of 5 from me.

The Evidence, by Lee Harding

And from one of the old familiars to another. Next is the return of another writer, that of Lee Harding, last seen in the August 1963 issue of New Worlds. The Evidence is described as a “moral tale in the vein of Kafka or Peake”. These are rather lofty ambitions which the story fails to reach, although it is a good try. It’s very paranoid in nature but makes its minor point that whoever uses thermonuclear weapons in warfare must eventually be brought to trial. 3 out of 5.

Miscellany

We then have some letters! One of the advantages of being bi-monthly is that you can have responses in the next issue about the one just read. So, we have comments about Ballard’s story Equinox, concluded this month, and opinions given on the new style New Worlds, but at the same time there’s also the valid point that serial stories may not be good for the new magazine when the issues are two months apart. At least we have a range of perspectives and the views are not all positive, which I think is a healthy position to take. But again, I noticed that there are letters from Jim Cawthorn and John Brunner, which suggests that Moorcock is relying on his friends a great deal. Nevertheless, Brunner’s comment on Brian Aldiss’s mathematical gaffe in his story last month is gently amusing.

The Editorial that follows – again, an unusual placing in the issue – is a report on the British Science Fiction Association Convention of 1964. As I wasn’t able to attend myself, it’s an interesting read on the state of the genre in Britain and a nice overview of the way things are changing in fandom at the moment, but I do suspect that the report is a rather sanitised version of proceedings and doesn’t entirely cover all of the high jinks usually experienced at such events. Nevertheless it is heartening to read that there seems to be an influx of new younger attendees, whilst at the same time an award was given to New World’s retiring editor John Carnell. Do such matters translate to readers in the US, I wonder? I’m not sure. But I guess we may find out, in that one piece of good news in there was the announcement that the 1965 Worldcon may be held in London.

I’m also very pleased to see the return of the book review column, reviewed by someone new, James Colvin. (But actually, it is not new. James is a pseudonym used by both Michael Moorcock and Barrington J. Bayley.)

It is divided into British publications and US publications. In the British part this month we have under the spotlight Gunner Cade by Cyril Judd, otherwise known as Cyril Kornbluth and Judith Merrill, and a non-fiction book named Science: The Glorious Entertainment by Jacques Barzun.

There’s also two paperbacks reviewed covering similar non-fictional themes – Arthur C Clarke’s Profiles of the Future and the perhaps lesser known Inventing the Future by Dennis Gabor.

In the US section there’s Budrys’s Inferno by (strangely enough) Algis Budrys, You Will Never Be the Same by Cordwainer Smith and lastly an Ace Double, The Dragon Masters and The Five Gold Bands by Jack Vance.

Equinox, by J. G. Ballard

In the first part of this story we followed Dr. Sanders on his mission to find his friend Suzanne Clair who had sent him an odd letter and then disappeared into the Cameroun jungle. Much of this part is about Dr. Sanders’ time at the town of Mont Royale on the border between the jungle and the jungle turning into crystal.

The descriptions of the things that have turned into crystal are vivid and imaginative but there’s little else to the story. The plot, such as it is, seems to mainly involve lots of walking and running about by Dr. Sanders through the crystalline landscape in search of his friends.

Whilst Sanders does this there are a number of characters that we also revisit. Generally, the characters seem rather unpleasant, aggressive or sad, though whether this is because of their own nature or as a result of the crystals is unclear.

It helps that we now get an explanation of the cause of the crystallisation, as the physical effect of the combination of our timestream and anti-time, although it is not really rooted in sensible science. Really, Equinox is all about the mystery and strangeness of the landscape and in this the story succeeds, whilst simultaneously showing Ballard’s melancholic obsession with change and decay. If the story’s purpose is to weird out the reader, then it succeeds admirably. Even if I’m still not entirely sure what it’s all about. 4 out of 5.

Summing up

With the second issue of this “magazine of the Space Age”, we are starting to get a better idea of this brave new vision for New Worlds. We have a mixture of the old-style s-f combined with the new, to keep the old readers but also entice new ones. I still get the sense that the editor is finding his feet and seems to be mainly determined to shock and confuse, but he does seem to be confident in what he’s doing, even if he’s resorting to using those that he knows to create a creditable issue.

This seems to be the right way forward. There was a letter in the issue this month that seems rather telling – the correspondent has said that they had bought the last copy of issue 142 from their newsagent, which had not been the case for a long while during the Carnell era. I hope that it is so.

I do feel that there is a change that is new and exciting, even when it doesn’t quite meet its aspirations. Compared with New Worlds of a year ago, the magazine is good.

On this new schedule the next issue will be out at the end of August. Until next time…

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TV

[June 14th, 1964] A Whole Lot Of Heartache(Doctor Who: The Aztecs)

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By Jessica Holmes

Friends and enemies, welcome back to another installment of Doctor Who. We’re diving into a pure historical serial today from the pen of John Lucarotti, concerning a fascinating Mesoamerican civilisation with quite the reputation: the Aztecs.

THE TEMPLE OF EVIL

The TARDIS lands in a burial chamber, and Barbara unleashes her inner magpie as she pokes around the grave goods, identifying the remains as belonging to an important Aztec who died around the 1430s. While admiring the grave goods, Barbara puts on a pretty bracelet she finds. That’s called stealing, Barbara. I don’t think he’s been dead long enough for it to count as archaeology.

Barbara exits the tomb onto a rather impressive set, showing us that we’re high above an Aztec city (possibly Tenochtitlan), presumably at the top of a pyramid. This is a bit curious, because as far as I’ve been able to find out, the Aztecs didn’t entomb their dead in their pyramids. Yes, I am going to continue being this pedantic through the entire review. No, I’m not sorry. You have been warned.

However, Barbara doesn’t get far before running into an Aztec priest.

The others emerge from the tomb and wonder where Barbara is. While they’re wondering, the door closes behind them, so they can't get back to the TARDIS. This does seem to happen a lot. You’d think the Doctor would get into the habit of parking in a more accessible location by now.

They’re met by a pair of priests, and in a pleasant surprise these holy men are downright friendly to the newcomers. I suppose it's too much to ask for authentic casting here. These priests are Tlotoxl, high priest of sacrifice (and also hammy acting, glorious hammy acting), and Autloc, high priest of knowledge. The Doctor is immediately suspicious of them, but the gang follow along and soon reunite with Barbara, who is a god now.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Put on a bit of bling and suddenly it’s all ‘hear my prayer’ and ‘please accept this sacrificial goat’.

Joking aside, the Aztec priests, having witnessed Barbara emerge from a sealed tomb with that stolen bracelet on, have come to the conclusion that Barbara is a goddess: Yetaxa.

I’m pretty certain that there is no Yetaxa in the Aztec pantheon, but who am I to argue with the chaps with the obsidian daggers?

Unable to get back to the TARDIS, the companions realise that they're going to have to keep up the ruse for as long as it takes to find a way back into the tomb, which doesn’t open from the outside.

Ian finds himself being groomed to lead the Aztec army. He is a servant of a god, after all. Who better to lead the mighty army of the Aztecs? Well, a man called Ixta, for one.

Ixta’s trained his whole life to be a warrior. He’s strong, he’s fearless, and he’s clever.

Ian is a science teacher.

They’re a little mismatched is all I’m saying.

Meanwhile, Autloc takes the Doctor to the Aztec equivalent of the old folks' home, where people in their golden years go to live out their days in peace and tranquility, doling out wisdom to any visitors. While exploring a lovely terrace garden, the Doctor takes a shine to a lady called Cameca, and the two get to talking about the architecture of the garden, and the pyramid it’s built upon.

Ian arrives to interrupt their nice little chat. He's not enjoying his time here nearly as much as the Doctor is. Why? Because there’s a drought on. You know what that means. Human sacrifice time!

To his shock, the Doctor urges him to just go along with things, both to maintain their cover, and not to interfere in the religious practices of the Aztecs. Easy for him to say, really. He’s not the one who’s going to get covered in blood.

In this sacrifice, however, Barbara sees an opportunity to flex her godly muscles. She’s a goddess, right? And everyone has to obey a goddess. Her idea is that if she can enact social change and eliminate the more disturbing aspects of Aztec society, by the time Cortez arrives they'll be perfect angels.

Perfect angels, Barbara, who will still be all but wiped out, either by the sword of the Conquistador in his lust for land and gold, or the uncaring indifference of smallpox.

I suppose her heart’s in the right place.

“You can’t change history. Not one line!”
The Doctor

Barbara doesn’t heed the Doctor’s warning, however, and when the time comes, she calls a halt to the sacrifice.

The victim, however, isn't grateful for the reprieve. By stopping the sacrifice, Barbara has denied him honour. Accounts suggest that many Aztec sacrifices weren’t just willing, they were eager for the honour of going to meet their gods.

Then again, the Aztecs did also like to sacrifice conquered enemies by the thousands. I don’t imagine they were quite so enthusiastic about the whole ordeal.

The victim, having been denied the obsidian blade, takes matters into his own hands as he flings himself off the pyramid. And lo! With death came rain.

And with this, Tlotoxl comes to an inescapable conclusion: whoever Barbara is, she’s no god. And for that, he shall destroy her.

A pretty good start to the serial, all in all, but nothing that really made me go ‘Wow!’. 3.5 out of 5.

WARRIORS OF DEATH

We pick up where we left off, and the high priest of scenery-chewing reaffirms his declaration that he shall see Barbara destroyed.

The Doctor and Barbara argue over her intervention, and how much danger it's put them in. The Doctor points out the victim wanted to be sacrificed, but Barbara wanted the Aztecs to see that the rains could come without it. The Doctor briefly loses his temper, upsetting Barbara. Realising what he’s done, he apologises for being harsh with her. I absolutely love this scene. There’s something so wonderfully human about it the emotions here. The anger, frustration, desperation, distress, remorse. It’s wonderful.

The Doctor goes off to meet with Cameca, leaving Barbara to verbally spar with Tlotoxl, who tries to trick her into revealing her lack of divinity. However, Barbara’s sharp wit parries every one of his jabs.

Meanwhile, Ian's with Ixta, and he has a trick up his sleeve; or rather, at the end of it: his thumb.

By pressing his thumb into the back of Ixta’s neck, Ian manages to knock him out cold.

I want to know both how he can do that, and how to do it myself. It’d come in handy. My brother can be quite annoying sometimes.

Ixta is humiliated, but he has one chance left to prove himself: a duel with Ian, at sunset.

Meanwhile in the garden, the Doctor enjoys the company of Cameca very much. For all his early causticness, it looks like the Doctor’s becoming a bit of a softie.

Cameca arranges for the Doctor to meet with the son of the architect who designed the pyramid. As it turns out, it’s Ixta! He agrees to meet the Doctor, and cryptically remarks “What better way to destroy your enemies than to let them destroy themselves?”

Sounds rather Sun Tzu.

Susan, meanwhile, is learning how to be a good Aztec housewife. It is not very interesting. I’m not going to even ask how she’s reading Aztec writing, let alone apparently speaking fluent Nahuatl.

Ixta tells the Doctor about his upcoming fight, but leaves out the fact that it's to be against Ian. Assuming that he wins, he’ll bring the Doctor the plans for the pyramid after the fight. In order to ensure Ixta's victory and continued assistance, the Doctor offers to help him. He gives Ixta a little concoction: a cactus spine stuck into a leaf. Impressive. The poison won't kill his opponent, but it'll slow him down.


Don’t look quite so pleased with yourself, Doctor.

When the Doctor tells Barbara what he’s been up to, he’s shocked to discover that he’s actually helped sabotage Ian’s chances of victory against Ixta. However, he’s unable to warn Ian in time, and in the heat of the fight, Ixta pricks Ian with the cactus spine.

The poison overcomes Ian, and he’s completely helpless as Tlotoxl urges Ixta to finish him off.

It looks like Barbara’s going to have to cook up a bit of divine intervention.


Just look at this costume, though. Isn’t it marvellous?

This was rather a good episode, possibly my favourite of the serial. 4 out of 5.

THE BRIDE OF SACRIFICE

Real or pretend, it’s a bad idea to mess with Aztec gods.

Sadly, Barbara doesn’t have the ability to call down bolts of lightning and start smiting people, but she finds herself the next best thing: a knife. With the dagger pressed to Tlotoxl’s throat, Barbara orders Ixta to leave Ian alone, or she’ll kill the high priest.

With Ian safe, Barbara talks with Autloc, who seems to be coming around to her way of thinking. In a few days there’s to be a sacrifice to the sun god, as there’s going to be an eclipse, and only blood will bring back the sun.

Ian wakes up from his little drug-induced nap to find Ixta standing over him with a knife, which is mildly alarming. Luckily, Ixta doesn't fancy killing him right now. He'd actually like to be friends, at least for the little while Ian has left to live. Next time, Ixta will kill him. Nice bloke.

Along comes Tlotoxl. He asks about the drawings Ixta has agreed to show the Doctor. It turns out he never had them! The secrets of the tomb died with Ixta’s father.

Back at the garden, Cameca's got some cocoa beans. The Doctor proposes that they take a cup of cocoa together. From the way she reacts, I think we're headed for a misunderstanding straight out of a romantic comedy.

…They do make a cute couple, though.

Ian sneaks up to meet Barbara and warns her that Tlotoxl is up to no good, as if she couldn’t have already guessed. In their conversation, Ian tries to convince Barbara that Autloc is the outlier among the Aztecs because he’s ‘civilised’ and not as eager for blood as the other Aztecs they’ve met. Um, what about Cameca? She seems nice and normal.

The conversation just leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Don’t get me wrong: the Aztec rulership and priesthood were incredibly cruel; it’s a big contributor to the neighbouring tribes turning on them with the arrival of Cortez. I just don’t like writing off an entire culture as Evil.

Along comes Tlotoxl, all smiles and friendliness, to offer Barbara a drink.

Barbara orders Tlotoxl to drink first. When he refuses, she flings the poison at his feet. He admits that he was trying to test her, and, furious, Barbara lets him in on her little secret. She’s not Yetaxa. She’s not any kind of goddess. But it’s her word against his, and if he tries any more funny business, she can have him killed.

Well, this has all taken a rather dark turn, hasn’t it? Let’s see what the Doctor’s up to.

The Doctor makes Cameca a nice cup of cocoa, but when Cameca delightedly says that she accepts his proposal, the look on the Doctor’s face is a joy to behold. Whoops!

Still, we can’t really blame the Doctor for this misunderstanding, and must instead shake our fists vigorously at whoever did the historical fact-checking here, because that’s not how the Aztecs proposed marriage. Marriages in Aztec society were arranged between the families of the couple-to-be, facilitated by an elderly female matchmaker.

I’m willing to forgive this outright fabrication, however, because it’s hilarious. And apparently the Aztecs did sometimes use chocolate as an aphrodisiac, so it’s not that far off.

Our two lovebirds retreat to the garden, where Cameca gives the Doctor a medallion with the seal of Yetaxa. It was given to her by Ixta’s father, who used to be in love with her. Oh my!

The Doctor shows Ian the medallion, and tells him of his suspicion that there's a tunnel linking the tomb and the garden; both have Yetaxa's seal on the walls. Oh, and he casually mentions his engagement. Ian's reaction is priceless.

The night before the ritual, Ian gets up, and sneaks off to the garden. However, he doesn’t go unnoticed.

Ian helps the Doctor pry open the seal on the garden wall, revealing a secret tunnel into the pyramid. Ian goes in to have a look, but while he’s in there, along comes Ixta, who blocks off the tunnel.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Ixta reveals another piece of information about the construction of the pyramid: these tunnels are used to carry water. A pretty impressive feat of engineering, but bad news for Ian! They’re bone dry at the moment, but not for long…

Uh oh.

This episode isn’t quite as good as the previous, but the hilarity of the accidental proposal makes up for the shortcomings. 3.5 out of 5.

THE DAY OF DARKNESS

Ian manages to lift up a slab in the ceiling and crawl through before the water takes him. Did you really think they’re going to kill off one of the main characters?

The Doctor begs Ixta to open the wall, admitting that Ian is in the tunnel. Ixta just laughs and walks off, leaving the Doctor thinking he's just got Ian killed.

On the contrary, Ian’s found his way into the tomb! He wastes no time rigging up some leather straps so that the door can be levered open from the outside.

Exiting the tomb, he runs into Barbara and the Doctor, who are very relieved to find him alive and well, if a bit dusty. All they need now is to get Susan and go, so Ian goes to look for her.

However, Tlotoxl has put Susan under Ixta's watchful eye. Ixta tells Susan that Ian is dead. We know better, but what Ixta doesn’t know can certainly hurt him, as Ian sneaks up from behind and subdues him with the old back-of-the-neck trick.

Off they go to leg it back to the TARDIS, but it seems that levering the tomb open is easier said than done. The door is just too heavy.

Ian and Susan head off to try the tunnel again, so that they can let the Doctor and Barbara through the other side.

However, on their way to the garden, they find Autloc on the floor, injured, and beside him is Ian’s club. He’s been framed! As Ian and Susan are hauled off, Autloc declares them servants of a false goddess. Our companions are fast running out of Aztec allies.

Up at the garden, the Doctor is whittling a wheel. He has an idea about making a pulley system to get the door open. The Aztecs don’t have the wheel, so he has to make his own. Cameca offers to intercede on Ian’s behalf. I like Cameca, and I like her dynamic with the Doctor. It’s a very nice relationship.

This makes it a bit confusing, then, when Cameca and the Doctor discuss the Doctor’s hopefully imminent departure. It’s rather cold and wooden, whereas their other scenes have been very warm and genuine. Maybe it was an attempt to show the pair of them putting on a brave face? I don’t know. I don’t know whether it’s the acting or the writing or what it is, but the scene doesn’t really work for me.

Autloc gives Cameca a Special Shiny Thing which basically represents all his wealth. She’s to give it to the man guarding Susan, in order to turn his head. Then, Cameca is to escort Susan up to the temple. Autloc, for his part, has a lot of thinking to do about his life choices, so he decides to leave the city and become a hermit.

We’ve all been there, Autloc.

The guard takes a while to think about the bribe, so Ian makes his mind up for him and clobbers his neck.

Cameca and Susan make a break for it, while Ian starts stripping the guard.

Cameca arrives at the tomb with Susan, and the Doctor sends her away. This farewell is a bit sadder and more sincere. Cameca only asks that the Doctor should think of her.

Let’s try not to think about what the likely consequences are for Cameca’s aid to the false goddess and her servants.

The ceremony arrives, and Tlotoxl tries to kill Barbara. However, he should have taken a closer look at the guards first, as one of them turns out to be Ian! Tlotoxl calls for Ixta’s aid, and it’s time for the ultimate showdown.

They fight atop the pyramid and unfortunately there are so many close shots that it's really hard to tell what's going on. That is, until Ixta has Ian on his back at the top of the steps. As Ixta goes to make the killing blow, Ian succeeds in throwing him off balance, sending Ixta tumbling down the deadly steps of his father’s pyramid.

Victorious, Ian rejoins the others, who have managed to get the tomb open with the Doctor’s pulley system. They all rush inside, and the Aztecs turn up too late to stop them.

Tlotoxl allows them to go. The eclipse has arrived, and the victim’s heart isn’t going to rip itself out.

Inside the tomb, Barbara is depressed about failing to save the collective soul of the Aztecs, and making Autloc doubt his faith. The Doctor tries to reassure her. She couldn’t save them all, but at least she saved Autloc.

It’s not really much comfort, is it? The sacrifices are going ahead, a good man has had his life ruined, goodness only knows what’s to become of Cameca, and in a few short decades, this civilisation will fall, and the native population of Mexico will decline over the following century by as much as 90%.

With a sense of defeat, the companions head off in the TARDIS once again, but it looks like they aren’t safe after all. The ship starts to make a funny noise, and one set of instruments says they’ve stopped, but another says they’re moving.

How can this be?

Perhaps they’ve landed on something.

Or…

In something.

Not a bad one, but lacking the intrigue of the earlier episodes, and a pretty lacklustre climax, I think I have to give this 3 out of 5.

Final Thoughts

In editing down the frankly absurd word count I had for the initial draft of this review, I found myself having to excise commentary on entire plot threads in order to get the article down to a reasonable length. It was while doing this that it occurred to me, that as I could excise these scenes from the review, a lot of them could have been taken out of the serial itself, and the story still would have made sense. There’s a fair bit of wheel-spinning (well, the Aztecs didn’t have wheels, but you know what I mean) in this serial. A lot of quite similar scenes keep popping up. Barbara talks to Autloc about human sacrifice. Tlotoxl tries to unmask Barbara as a false god. A companion is arrested, and released a scene or two later. I cut some of these out of the review because they just didn’t go anywhere.

That’s not to mention the many scenes where characters discuss in detail their plan to do something or other, then are shown doing that something or other. It just seems redundant. Just show the latter.

There’s clearly a lot of interest in Aztec culture on display here, though I do think there’s more interest in the more bloody aspects of Aztec culture and religion than there is in the more mundane side of things. That’s a bit of a shame, really, because I like seeing the aspects of a society that are often left out of the popular narrative. However, the Aztecs as depicted here are certainly interesting, so I hope that this serial prompts a young lass or lad to crack open a history book– provided that their parents let them watch the story in the first place!

That’s about all I have to say on The Aztecs. I hope you enjoyed my rambling and armchair history, and I’ll see you next month, when I’ll be reviewing the first part of the next serial of Doctor Who.

My overall rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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Science / Space Race

[June 6, 1964] Going Up from Down Under (The launch of the Blue Streak rocket)

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by Kaye Dee

I’m so excited at the moment because, after several cancelled launch attempts, the first test flight of the Blue Streak rocket went off successfully yesterday (June 5) — it makes me wish I was back at the Weapons Research Establishment right now working on the trials computing! This is the first time such a large rocket has been launched at Woomera. The Blue Streak is just on 70ft tall and 10 ft in diameter, so it made quite a sight sitting on the launchpad at the edge of Lake Hart, which is a salt- lake that only occasionally gets filled with water. I went out there a few times when I visited Woomera and the contrast between the red earth, the deep blue sky and the white salt-lake is quite striking.

The Blue Streak rocket has something of a chequered history. When it started development in 1955 as a long-range ballistic missile for Britain’s nuclear deterrent, I don’t think anyone imagined it becoming a satellite launcher. The idea then was to fire it at targets in Eastern Europe or the USSR from either Britain or British-held territory in the Middle East. In fact, the Blue Streak design was based on the American Atlas missile, although Rolls Royce developed its new RZ-2 LOX/Kerosene engines for the British version.

When the Commonwealth Government agreed in 1956 to allow Blue Streak to be tested in Australia, it led to a huge development programme to open up the full length of Woomera Range for use, because the trial flights were planned to cover well over one thousand miles, travelling north-west from Lake Hart almost to the Indian Ocean! From Lake Hart, tracking, measuring and recording instruments had to be installed across the deserts of central Australia all the way to the Talgarno impact area in Western Australia. They even built a small town at Talgarno to house the researchers who would examine each missile when it impacted at the end of its test flight. Mr. Len Beadell, who is a real character and an incredible bush surveyor (he actually surveyed the area for the Woomera Range when it was first established), put together a road building team and they have graded hundreds of miles of new roads through the outback, along the length of the downrange to Talgarno.

So it was a big shock to us here in Australia when Britain decided that Blue Streak was already obsolete as a weapon and cancelled the programme in April 1960, without any real consultation with the Australian Government. As you can imagine, this caused a major outcry here and in the UK and there was a lot of political embarrassment all round. 

But as early as 1957 I was reading articles in British aerospace magazines about the possibility of turning Blue Streak into the first stage of a satellite launch vehicle using a Black Knight, which is a large British sounding rocket used for defence research at Woomera, as the upper stage. This sounded like a great way for Britain to develop its own launch capability, but the UK Government wasn’t interested until it started looking for a way to recoup some of the enormous investment in Blue Streak after they cancelled it as a missile. The initial idea was for a Commonwealth satellite launcher to be developed and used by Britain and other Commonwealth nations. However, New Zealand was the only Commonwealth country that expressed any interest in that project — even the Government here didn’t show any interest, which really surprised me given how much work we do with sounding rockets at Woomera and space tracking for NASA. Anyway, with so little interest that idea went nowhere.

However, Britain wasn’t giving up on the satellite launcher idea and started to canvass European nations for their interest in developing a European launch vehicle so that they would not have to rely on the Americans to launch satellites for them. Of course, the British probably also thought that this project might help to smooth its way into the European Economic Community, which they are very keen on joining. By 1962, France, Belgium, West Germany, Italy and the Netherlands all agreed to participate in the rocket project. This has led to the formation of the European Launcher Development Organisation, which we call ELDO. Because of the complexity of the international negotiations needed to ratify its charter, ELDO didn’t formally come into existence until 29 February this year, but work has been going on since 1962.

Under its charter, ELDO is going to develop an independent, non-military European satellite carrier rocket, to be called Europa. The Blue Streak will be the first stage of the rocket. France will provide the second stage, which is going to be called Coralie (and I’m told that’s partly because Coralie rhymed with Australie, the French word for Australia). West Germany is going to produce the third stage: I think is going to be called Astris. The test satellite that will be launched by the Europa is being developed under the leadership of Italy, while The Netherlands and Belgium will be responsible for the development of telemetry and guidance systems. So all the countries in ELDO will have a part to play in the programme.

Australia’s part will be to provide the launch site for the Europa rockets. Since the Blue Streak is the first stage, it makes sense to use the launchpad and other facilities already built at Woomera for ELDO’s launch operations. This makes us the only non-European member of ELDO. In fact, the Commonwealth Government has insisted that Australia be considered a full, but non-paying, member of ELDO, contributing the Woomera facilities and their operation in lieu of the financial commitment that the other member states are making.

Because Britain and France are the two largest contributors to ELDO, both English and French are working languages in the consortium. The official ELDO logo carries the acronyms of both its English and French names. The French version CECLES stands for Conseil européen pour la construction de lanceurs d'engins spatiaux, which is a bit of a mouthful! It’s going to be really interesting to see if all the member countries can overcome their different national rivalries and their different languages to make the complete Europa rocket successfully come together.

At least yesterday’s first test launch of the Blue Streak was a success. Although there was a problem with sloshing of the propellant as the fuel tanks emptied which caused the rocket to roll about quite a bit in the last few seconds of its flight and to land short of its intended target zone, the instrumentation along the flight corridor acquired a huge amount of useful information about the rockets performance. I was so thrilled with the news of the Blue Streak flight that I even phoned my former supervisor Mary Whitehead last night to hear more about it (and I’m going to have to give my sister the money for that long-distance trunk call, which I’m sure will be expensive).

Mary was at the Range for the launch and she told me that the rocket looked spectacular as it rose up into the blue sky out of its cloud of orange exhaust. She’s especially proud of the fact that the zigzag pattern you can see on the Blue Streak was her idea. It enables the tracking cameras to make very accurate measurements as the rocket rolls after leaving the launchpad. Using the pattern, the cameras can easily measure if, and how far, the rocket rolls depending on where that diagonal was relative to the top and bottom stripes. I know she’s looking forward to seeing how well this worked.

I’m looking forward to the next test flight, and Australia's further involvement in the Space Age!

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Book

[May 24, 1964] The Darkest of Nights… ( June 1964)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

With New Worlds magazine turning bi-monthly last month I find myself in the position of having nothing particular to report this month. I could talk about what I’ve seen at the cinema (Becket, with Peter O Toole and Richard Burton — very good) or on television (I’m still enjoying Doctor Who), but I usually turn to something to read for my entertainment.

So, what I’ve decided to review this month is perhaps something I should have commented on before. I am a subscriber to the British Science Fiction Book Club, and have been for many years. The club has been sending me a hardback book since 1953 for the princely sum of 6s and 6d (six shillings and sixpence, about $1.50?) a month. Initially it was bi-monthly, but has been so popular it soon changed to monthly.

The books are selected for readers by a panel, which has included at various stages Arthur C. Clarke, Kingsley Amis and coincidentally John ‘Ted’ Carnell, the recent editor of New Worlds.

Not all choices have been what we would call ‘current’ – some have been published elsewhere a year previously, for example – but in my opinion, they’re usually a good affordable read, or a chance to catch up on something I might have missed when first published.

This month’s selection (the 83rd!), The Darkest of Nights, is one you may not know in the US, but you may know the author.

Charles Eric Mayne is a British author who has transcended the boundaries of genre to become attractive to mainstream readers as well. I understand that “Charles Eric Maine” is the pseudonym of David McIlwain, a writer of science fiction novels since the 1950s. Like The Beatles, he’s from Liverpool. Previous novels that you may know include Spaceways (1953), Timeliner (1955) and High Vacuum (1956). His stories are usually fast-paced and combine current contemporary themes with the latest ideas in science and technology.

In terms of science-fictional themes, you may have noticed that British sf has taken some interesting developments in recent years. We’ve had the so-called “New Wave”, that I’ve spoken about here before, but perhaps less remarkably but more enduring has been the trend of apocalyptic novels, which have become popular with mainstream readers. Led by authors such as John Wyndham with his novels The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Kraken Wakes (1953), there has been a burgeoning of similar stories in recent years. John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956) and The World in Winter (1962) are superior examples, in my opinion. Even J G Ballard has been tempted to go there, with his novel The Drowned World (1962).

At first glance, The Darkest of Nights is another of those end of the world stories.


(the Book Club covers are very, very dull – compare this original first British edition cover with the Book Club version above)

The story begins with a bang, although it is written about in that understated British way that downplays it.  A mutated virus has been spreading across Asia. The Hueste Virus begins with a sudden rise in body temperature to above one-hundred-and-five degrees before the victim lapses into a coma. The skin then goes dry and appears both grey and glossy. It seems to be fatal once caught, at least initially.

As the first recognised cases are in Japan, at first the virus is relatively unnoticed by the general public in Europe and North America.  Our lead character is Dr. Pauline Brant, who works for the International Virus Research Organisation in Japan and has first-hand experiences of the epidemic. Separated from her journalist husband Clive, she returns to England and begins work on an antivirus vaccine in England. She also begins a tentative relationship with fellow Doctor Vincent, despite not yet being divorced from Clive.

If you are a reader accustomed to the novels of John Wyndham, you may expect that when the virus eventually spreads to England, the nation shows the resolve and ‘stiff-upper-lip’ mentality that is typically expected – the so-called ‘Dunkirk Spirit’, shown in World War Two.

This doesn’t happen.

Being mainly set in England, there is an unsurprising focus on the consequences of the virus on social order. In such a stratified social situation, it may not surprise you that as the deaths mount up, the working-class feel that they are deliberately being abandoned by those in power whilst the rich entrepreneurs and higher elements of society are rumoured to be hoarding a cure in admittedly limited supply. 

We see the consequences of this when in the middle part of the novel the focus shifts to Pauline’s estranged husband Clive. He has decided to take up the offer of a new job given by his new girlfriend’s father, and leaves his journalist position at the Daily Monitor newspaper to become a reporter who, as part of a mobile film crew, will film the events to create movie records for official archives. When his team, including his girlfriend, arrive from the USA, we see through them the consequences of the world falling apart.

In London there is panic, looting and a breakdown of social order that is horrifying to read. With most of the politicians and decision makers locked away in bunkers, new secrecy laws are introduced. A public militia is formed to reflect the dissatisfaction of the general public who take on the police and the military across many cities, including London. This leads to armed battles and tanks on the streets of the British capital whilst many workers strike, objecting to the situation.  Would the fabric of society collapse as quickly as it is shown here? Perhaps not – it may be accelerated for the sake of entertainment – but it does read surprisingly realistically.

The idea of a ‘cure’ is more than a rumour. When research discovers that there are two forms of the virus – a lethal version referred to as AB virus and a harmless alternative called BA virus – the story becomes a race to create a vaccine from the BA virus that will cure without killing the host. This is a major development early on in the novel, although estimates suggest that even with the BA virus isolated, the deaths amongst the general population will be approximately fifty-per-cent. Pauline is given a difficult choice to make – should she try and help the masses with limited hospital care and a fifty-fifty chance of survival, or should she take the offer given of a position looking after the privileged decision-makers kept in protected underground bunkers?

The ending is perhaps the book’s weakest element, with a rather convenient meeting of the main characters that stretches credulity a little. It should not be too much of a surprise to the well-read s-f reader that things do not end well for everybody. Whilst the final battle is quite exciting, the story leaves things rather open-ended. Some characters, having seemed crucial at the beginning, become unimportant at the end. At least one appears to have been left redundant, with some other characters' fate left undisclosed. It seems a little rushed and a bit forced, which is a shame after such a good start.

Summing up

It's not the first time that Charles has written about global catastrophes – this bears some similarities to his novel The Tide Went Out (1958), which covered similar themes of global crisis around a nuclear weapon test that cracks the Earth open. One of the key characters there was also a reporter who had an extra-marital affair.

Similarities aside, I must say that The Darkest of Nights is engaging and at times even a little too close for comfort. It reads as if real, the plausibility enhanced by the scientific explanation given to describe the cause and effect of the virus, which to me, as a non-scientist, all sounds remarkably possible.

What is perhaps most scary is the bigger picture — that the source of the virus seems to be a random development that in reality could happen at any time. Whilst it is possible that it's a mutation created by nuclear testing or biological warfare, the most likely is that that it is an accidental, yet natural, evolution. It happened by chance, not deliberately.

Despite the unconvincing ending, I enjoyed a lot of this novel, which was a grisly, entertaining, and occasionally chilling read. Like Wyndham’s stories it is remarkably English in its style and tone, although darker and grimmer than anything Wyndham has written. In the end, perhaps the book’s biggest strength is that it made me appreciate that for all of our social ills, things could be a lot, lot worse. It’s not a New Wave story but it was grimly engaging.

4 out of 5.

And with that, I’ll leave it until the next issue of New Worlds arrives through the letterbox, which is probably when I’ll speak to you next. 

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TV

[May 20th, 1964] Completing The Collection(Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus, parts 4 to 6)

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By Jessica Holmes

We’re halfway through our adventure across the planet Marinus, and we’ve seen some extraordinary sights so far: acid seas, screaming trees and brains with weird eyestalk things. Soon to come is a lot of snow, caves of ice and most extraordinary of all…a courtroom!

Let’s get stuck in, shall we?

THE SNOWS OF TERROR

We rejoin Ian and Barbara freezing on the mountainside. Fortunately for them, a trapper finds them and brings them to his cabin, where he gets them warm drinks and gives Barbara a rather tender hand-rub, ostensibly to stave off frostbite.

I don’t know enough about frostbite to say whether that’s a good treatment or not, but it did strike me as creepy.

I can’t speak for Barbara, but if I passed out on a mountainside, woke up in the cabin of a complete stranger, who then started caressing my hand, I wouldn’t have alarm bells going off in my head, it’d be an air raid siren.

They learn from the trapper that they aren’t the first to come to his cabin. He saw Altos not long ago, and aided him as he went up the mountain to look for Sabetha and Susan.

Off Ian goes to look for him, leaving Barbara with the trapper.

‘There,’ he says. ‘We’re alone.’

Oh, boy. Looks like my misgivings weren’t unfounded. Ian soon finds Altos slumped unconscious in the snow, with his wrists bound.

Back at the cabin, things are getting uncomfortable. Barbara, growing wary of the trapper, finds Sabetha’s chain as she pokes around the cabin, along with a number of wrist dials.

Barbara is ready to defend herself if the trapper tries anything, but she's got nowhere to go, and he has all the time in the world. Is this really appropriate for a family show? It’s giving me a bit of a queasy feeling.

Thankfully, Ian and Altos get back to the cabin just in the nick of time. With the trapper overpowered, Ian forces him to lead the way to where he last saw the girls, who are trapped up the mountain in an ice cave.

The group arrive to find the cave empty, so they head deeper into the labyrinthine passages to discover where Sabetha and Susan have gone. The trapper is reluctant to enter; there are demons in these caves.

Crossing a wobbly rope bridge over a crevasse, Susan and Sabetha come to a chamber, within which is a bunch of what look like medieval knights. Are these the demons the trapper was talking about? They don’t look demonic to me. The second group arrive at the same bridge, and all but the trapper cross over, meeting the girls as they come back the way they came. Hurrah!

You can see where this is going.

The trapper sees an opportunity. Everyone else is on the other side, so there’s nothing to stop him untying the other end of the bridge, leaving the others stranded.

I am shocked, shocked at his betrayal.

The group decide to look for something they can use to make a makeshift bridge, which leads them right back to the cavern with the knights/warriors/extras from the set of Becket.

They're all stood around a block of ice, and in the middle of the ice is the key. That’s handy. Half of the group work on sorting out the bridge problem, while the others see if they can find a way through the ice. Running around the ice block is a pipe which brings up hot water from volcanic springs under the mountain, melting the ice in a jiffy. Funny how these things work themselves out.

However, the key isn’t the only thing to thaw out. The knights wake up from their nap, and advance on the intruders.

Very…

Slowly.

Ian fights to delay the warriors while the others cross the crevasse with the newly-restored bridge, which seems a bit pointless given that I’m pretty sure I could outpace the warriors, and I’m barely mobile!

Back at the trapper’s cabin, he’s admiring his trinkets when the others return to reclaim their property. Fearing the consequences of his actions, the trapper flees, then comes charging back inside, screaming that the devils are on the march, and they're coming here!

The trapper gets his comeuppance at the end of a sword, and with no time to spare, it’s off to the next destination: the inside of a bank vault.

Well, that’s a bit dull.

What’s not dull, however, is what’s in it: the key!

Oh, and also a dead body.

Ian, having arrived alone (why? I’m not sure), notices the key, but as he investigates, someone clouts him over the back of the head, plants a club in his unconscious hand, and steals the key.

I didn’t enjoy this episode as much as the previous few.  It’s fine, but it’s nothing special. A lot of it felt a bit clunky, and in what is perhaps only an important metric for me, but something I weigh quite heavily in my ratings, it wasn’t as fun to write about.

3 out of 5

SENTENCE OF DEATH

Ian wakes up with a hell of a headache to find out that he's not alone. In the vault with him is a man, Tarron. However, this isn’t a friendly wake-up call. Tarron’s an investigator, and Ian’s under suspicion of murder.

Unable to convince Tarron that he didn’t commit the crime, Ian finds himself charged with murder. I was quick to yell at the television that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and do you know what, I think it must have worked, because a moment later Ian says so too.

However, we are on another planet. Here, Ian’s guilty until proven innocent.

Ian’s not totally out of luck. The others manage to find him, and what’s more, the Doctor has been brushing up on the local legal system and will serve as his representative.

Proceedings commence, and no matter where in the universe you go, the officials of the court will always wear very silly head coverings. Proceedings halt a minute later, when the Doctor submits a motion to examine the evidence before proceeding with the trial, which is granted.

I adore a good legal drama, but is the average young member of the audience going to be quite as enthusiastic?

It turns out that the murdered man was Altos' friend. He’d met up with the Doctor earlier. They'd met and arranged to get the key, but for some reason he went early. Someone else must have known about the plan and killed him before he could.

But what happened to the key? If it had been taken from the room, it would have been detected, wouldn’t it?

The Doctor has an idea about who did the killing. The solution lies in the escape plan. Rather, that there wasn’t one. The killer didn’t get away, but instead, pretended to be first on the scene. So, who did the deed? The relief guard, Ayden.

Now they've got to prove it.

Ayden’s wife Kala can’t give them any information, but when Ayden arrives home, he promptly puts his foot in his mouth by denying the amateur detectives’ assertion that they know where the key is hidden.

This is why you don’t talk to any sort of police without your solicitor with you. After Ayden’s dreadful impression of an innocent man and their ejection from the house, Susan and Barbara listen at the door, and hear Ayden strike his wife for having the gall to talk to them.

What a charmer.

The Doctor, relishing his role as lawyer, treats the court to a dramatic opening statement, then calls Sabetha to the stand. He asks if she knows where the key is, and in a clever bit of trickery, she produces one of the other keys from her pocket, bamboozling the audience.

Cue a stunned courtroom, and a flabbergasted Ayden, who Sabetha identifies as the man who gave it to her. He denies the accusation, insisting that she can’t have found the stolen key, before stopping himself with his foot already firmly lodged in his gob. He might as well run around screaming ‘I’m guilty!’

Caught up in his lie, Ayden attempts to flee the courtroom, but the guardians catch him, and as he is about to confess, there’s a bright flash, and Ayden drops down dead.

Have their hopes of finding the final key died with Ayden?

That’s something to worry about later. Let’s keep Ian’s head off the chopping block for now.

The prosecution submits that Ian made Ayden help in his scheme, and killed him to protect the secret. The judges concur, and it looks like Ian’s fate is sealed.

While this is going on, Barbara and Sabetha leave the chamber with a guardian, who delivers a message: there will be another death if they disclose where the key is truly hidden.

The phone rings, and it’s Susan on the other end. She’s in trouble!

This part of the serial had some nice twists and turns, but again I have to say I’m not sure how much a child would be likely to enjoy the courtroom scenes. Also, it rather disrupts the pacing of the story, as all the little adventures up to now have been wrapped up in a single episode, yet this story doesn’t seem to be anywhere near its conclusion.

All the same, I liked it a lot, and I’m the one with the power over the ratings, so I’ll give Sentence Of Death 4 out of 5.

THE KEYS OF MARINUS

With Susan’s life hanging in the balance, Barbara, Altos and Sabetha must find her, ideally before Ian is executed.

Ayden’s widow denies knowing anything and breaks down in tears in a touching display of grief, which ceases the moment they leave. She struts over to the closet, opening the door to reveal Susan tied to a chair. I wasn’t expecting Kala to be involved, to be honest, but that’s what makes it a good twist.

Clever Barbara realises that Kala somehow knew that she’d spoken to Susan on the telephone. But how could she? Barbara never mentioned the call to her, and Kala wasn’t with Barbara when she received the call, therefore she must have been with Susan. Barbara goes dashing back, arriving just in time to stop Kala putting an end to Susan’s short life. 

Things aren’t looking so good for Ian, however. The Doctor is all out of options. While speaking with the prosecutor, complimenting one another on their legal skill, one of the court officials enters the room, bringing the evidence for storage. There's a lingering shot of the murder weapon, the club.

Is it bad that it took up to this point for me to twig where the key is hidden?

Barbara contacts the authorities, and Kala is arrested. However, in her statement she states that Ian was her accomplice.

It’s not over yet. Susan has an ace up her sleeve: she overheard a telephone conversation between Kala and her true accomplice while in captivity. The accomplice is coming to the court to collect the key. There's an opportunity to catch him red-handed!

The Doctor watches, hidden, as an unknown figure comes into the courthouse, unlocks the evidence cabinet, and retrieves the murder weapon, inside of which is the key. I am very pleased that I managed to solve a mystery aimed at children after being all but told the answer. I am very clever.

And who is the mystery figure? None other than the prosecutor himself.

Ian’s free to go, the court allows the group to take the key, and now it’s back to Arbitan, but I don’t think they’re going to like what they’ll find.

Sabetha and Altos arrive ahead of the rest of the group, and are quickly apprehended and interrogated by the Voords. They do what they can to resist, but when Sabetha’s life is threatened, Altos cracks and admits that the Doctor has the final key.

The leader of the Voords, Yartek, begins inserting the keys into the Mind of Marinus, while another Voord heads out to find the Doctor. He’s no match for them, and the Doctor and company realise that something has gone terribly wrong. The Doctor entrusts Ian with the key, and the group splits.

Ian and Susan head to the main chamber, where they meet Yartek, who has disguised himself as Arbitan. Poorly.

To my great frustration, Ian hands him the key. I spent a good while shouting things at the television, things which I had better avoid repeating here.

So, I felt quite the fool when Ian reveals a few minutes later that he knew full well that he wasn’t speaking to Arbitan and gave the imposter the fake key he found back in The Screaming Jungle.

Inserting the key into the machine causes things to a tad wrong, by which I mean it goes boom.

With the threat dealt with, it’s time for the (frankly boring) goodbye scene. The Doctor imparts a few words of encouragement to Sabetha, who doesn’t seem as upset as you’d expect about the death of her father, and the inherent terror of the Mind of Marinus is left unexamined. The closest we get is the Doctor saying that machines shouldn’t rule over men, but that’s it.

I find that disappointing. Perhaps if the murder mystery had been confined to a single episode, there could have been a chance this episode to see the Mind of Marinus in action, and have an exploration of its virtues and drawbacks.

So, this was not the most satisfying conclusion to the story. It did the job, but that’s all.

3 out of 5 for the episode The Keys Of Marinus.

Final Thoughts

Here we are at the end of another adventure. So, what do I have to say about The Keys Of Marinus?

We’ll start with the good. I did genuinely enjoy this serial. It was a fun story, with lots of twists and turns, and for the most part very well paced, with some interesting and creative concepts on display.

However, it lacks the depth of Nation’s previous work in The Daleks. I think that this may be due to the fact that the Daleks had a Big Moral Question: is pacifism always the right choice? However, it only sustains this question because we have the same enemy and the same setting throughout, keeping the question always relevant to whatever situation the characters found themselves in.

With the exception of the first and last episodes, The Keys Of Marinus has little to do with the machine at the heart of everything, other than the keys to make it work being ‘plot tokens’. It feels like a tease to make the machine so interesting and leave it by the wayside. There aren’t even any thematic ties between the episodes that I could see, which could have served to add some depth to the story.

Is it fair to compare the two? I don’t really know. Part of me says no, that this story is meant to be more like an old adventure serial, but then another part of me asks why these thrilling adventures can’t also have depth or make us think.

I also found the first half of the serial more engaging than the second half, and I must add that I found the characters of Altos and Sabetha quite boring. They certainly participate in the plot a fair amount, but I couldn’t tell you anything about them.

Still, I did like the serial despite the issues I had with it, which are quite minor in the grand scheme of things (it’s certainly no The Edge Of Destruction), and I don’t think they’d make a lick of difference to the younger members of the audience.

Time to tally up the scores, leaving us with 3.75 for The Keys of Marinus as a whole.

Until the next adventure then, and looking forward to more stories from Terry Nation, ta-ta for now.

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1964, dr. who, the keys of marinus, jessica holmes, science fiction, television, united kingdom, terry nation

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Book, Magazine

[April 28, 1964] Out With the Old…. (New Worlds, May-June 1964)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would have anything to report to you this month. The changes in ownership and editorship at New Worlds last month had left things in a fair degree of confusion and chaos. Although new hands were at the wheel, it wasn’t clear when exactly we would see the fruits of their labours. Well, here we are, with an issue that seems determined to ring in the changes and make a dramatic impact.


cover by James Cawthorn

The issue at hand

This is a magazine with surprises from the start. The first shock I noticed when I unwrapped my copy, freshly delivered by the postman, is that the magazine has physically changed shape, from the traditional pulp digest size format to a more shelf-friendly paperback size. This strikes me as a good idea, possibly prolonging time on the newsstands or even in the shops where it can sit happily with the latest paperbacks at W. H. Smiths or John Menzies. 

I was also surprised that the magazine/paperback is cheaper than the old magazine, from 3/- to 2/6 [that's from about 72 cents to 60 cents for the Americans in the audience (Ed)]. This might make new readers more willing to ‘give-it-a-go’.

The next immediately noticeable change is the cover. Gone are the bland old unicoloured covers with boring type, replaced by something that immediately catches the eye. It’s deceptively simple, yet immediately striking. Whilst the artwork by James Cawthorn is not like that created by older artists such as Brian Lewis, Gordon Hutchings and Gerard Quinn, it is a very welcome alteration from those of late. Perhaps more importantly from a practical perspective it is also immediately recognisable, as different from the previous covers as it is from Astounding, Galaxy and the like, which should generate a much-needed unique identity.

The cover also highlights that the lead story is one written by one of the vanguards of this New Wave of stylish fiction. J. G. Ballard made quite an impression with his last story, The Terminal Beach in the March issue – astounding many and confusing and confounding others. Equinox thus arrives with high expectations.

But first, new editor Michael Moorcock sets out his stall with a bold mission statement in his editorial, A New Literature for the Space Age.  Quoting “controversial” American writer William Burroughs, Moorcock states that the new New Worlds will emphasise literary merit over science which suggests to me a focus on softer science fiction based around the social sciences rather than the old-style cliches of spaceships and planetary exploration. More inner space than outer space, perhaps! The choice of Burroughs as a quoted influence (and as an article later in the issue) is a clear sign that things are being deliberately shaken up. It also highlights that the expansion of consciousness through drugs is now part of the British mainstream – or at least amongst the young. To this we can add sex and what some might consider obscene language in order to, as Moorcock puts it, ‘(provide) a kind of SF which is unconventional in every sense and which must be recognised as an important revitalisation of the literary mainstream.’

This ambitious aim seems new and original, but actually is not that different from what previous editor John Carnell was attempting to achieve, admittedly with varying degrees of success. Perhaps with such a bold statement and a newer, younger, fresher face at the helm, the new New Worlds might just reverse the present trend of declining sales.

To the stories themselves. 

Equinox, by J.G. Ballard

And so, in this new age of literary SF, we begin with a bang. The latest in J. G.’s stories here in Britain is more straightforward than his last (The Terminal Beach, March 1964) and more similar in tone to his previous take on a disaster novel, that of The Drowned World (1962).
It’s all rather grim to begin with. Doctor Sanders is on a boat travelling up the Matarre River in the Cameroun. We discover that this is not a journey for leisure. He is in search of an old friend, Suzanne Clair, another doctor working at a leper colony and much of this first part of the story is about his journey into the unknown.
All of this is most un-science-fictional. It reads more like a tale of colonialism in the Third World, combined with the physical and metaphysical journey taken in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.  This first part of Equinox builds the tension to create the now standard Ballard tone of grubbiness and decay, a world in decline.
And then it takes a left turn into the strange. The Ballardian twist is that the jungle is somehow changing things into crystal, by means and for reasons unknown. It’s both beautiful and yet also odd. Nobody writes like Ballard, which is why this is a good start for the new order.  4 out of 5.

[This story is definitely in the same universe as this month's The Illuminated Man. (Ed.)]

Never Let Go of My Hand, by Brian Aldiss

Aldiss’ latest gives us his usual sense of humour but this one also has a serious element towards the end. The beginning of the story starts like a comical Aldiss story.  Two humans, an elderly mother and her middle-aged son, are abducted by aliens and kept for observation. There’s some initial amusement over the strange nature of the aliens, which are weird. I feel that Aldiss has been staring at his fruit bowl too long for inspiration – one being banana shaped and the other pear-shaped! The humans discover that in their new environment normal laws of physics do not seem to exist and that time appears to run backwards. This has the result of them getting younger, which has consequences at the end of the story. It is also weirdly Freudian, up to the unconvincing end, which loses the story a point. Overall it feels like two ideas jammed together that don’t work well together. As an attempt to be different it’s OK, but not one of his best. 3 out of 5.

The Last Lonely Man, by John Brunner

Above this story, there’s a blurb that says that John is perhaps bigger in reputation with you in the States than here. That may be true, but this story doesn't represent his best work.

There’s a great idea within: in the future, instead of dying, people can choose to be transferred to another person’s body in a process known as Contact. People make contracts with family and friends so that they can continue after death, eventually being assimilated into the other person’s body. Where this one gets interesting is that there is a plot point where Mr. Hale, our main protagonist, has a chance meeting in a bar with someone who persuades him to take on a Contact contract as he has no one else to Contact with. It’s an intriguing premise, though the consequences of this arrangement seem too convenient and the ending is rather predictable.  3 out of 5.

The Star Virus, by Barrington J. Bayley

And here’s another author we know already, though the name may not be entirely familiar. ‘B.J. Bayley’, as his name is written on the contents page, is perhaps better known to you as Barrington J. Bayley, who has frequented New Worlds before, last as “P. F. Woods” in the April 1964 issue. He has had many pseudonyms – even the editor states at the beginning of this story that he has been ‘hiding his light under a bushel of pen-names’. 

The Star Virus is a space opera story involving space pirates and an alien artefact. Initially, it is strangely old-fashioned, to such an extent that, at first, I wondered if the author’s intent was to parody the old-school pulp SF story. It involves Rodrone, a space-adventurer, and his latest find, The Lens. (I’m sure that the Lens artefact is something that EE ‘Doc’ Smith may have misplaced or has had borrowed for a while.) Escaping arrest on a planet called Stundaker, with The Lens he rocks around the galaxy in a tale that feels like it would not be out of place in the Golden Age of the 1940’s. Where this tale is made more contemporary is by making the characters quite unpleasant and the story grimmer and more downbeat than anything from the Golden Age. It’s fast moving and feels like an attempt to tap into the old sense of wonder but with a modern, grittier perspective, which is admirable but didn’t quite work for me.  High marks for effort but I think for me it’ll depend on where it goes in the second (final) part next issue. 3 out of 5.

(Turns out I was wrong — this is a single-parter, and earns just 2 of 5 for it [MY 6-8-64])

Myth-Maker of the 20th Century, by J.G. Ballard

We finish with an article penned by J.G. Ballard, this time giving a non-fictional account of someone who both Ballard and Moorcock feel is a major new influence in the genre: William Burroughs. It’s a little generous in its hyperbole, but it is clearly heart-felt. As an agenda for the new style magazine it makes a good case.

As might be expected, there is no Book Review section and a very brief Letters page. I’m sure these will be added over time as the new magazine settles into its new form. It’ll be interesting to see what readers make of these changes and whether they agree with these major changes in direction.

Summing up

And there we have it – the first issue for a new age. Moorcock has pulled out all the stops here, managing to bring in many of his friends, the people who are reshaping the genre, in order to send out a clear message: this is new, this is different and they’re not afraid to take risks.

The future of British science fiction is uncertain, but based on what I’ve read here, it does appear to be vibrant, exciting and guaranteed to create a response. This issue is reflective of the current state of the British genre scene – very different to what has been before. It is hoped that such a bold statement will also pick up additional readers responsive to that, but only time will tell. 

This issue makes me realise that things at New Worlds have needed a jolt for a while, and this issue shows what can be done with new energy and enthusiasm. It’s not perfect, but I’ve not been as excited over an issue as this one for a long time. New Worlds is dead – long live New Worlds! Now it remains to be seen if this standard can be maintained or improved.

One last wrinkle – the magazine has changed from a monthly issue to a bimonthly release – at least for now. The next issue will therefore be out at the end of June (fingers crossed!), which is probably when I’ll speak to you next. 

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TV

[April 26th, 1964] The Start Of A Wild Ride (Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus, parts 1 to 3)

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By Jessica Holmes

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to my monthly ramblings on Doctor Who. We’re in for a treat this time: Terry Nation’s back with another serial! This story sends the companions zipping about a planet with screaming forests and acid seas in a twisted scavenger hunt where the prize is a bit more special than a bottle of bubbly or a box of chocolates: the TARDIS.

THE SEA OF DEATH

Our journey begins on a pretty beach, and being interplanetary tourists, the companions immediately set out to explore. However, they aren’t alone on what turns out to be an island. A small fleet of one-man submarines makes landfall, and soon they have an unwanted tag-along shadowing their steps.

That’s not the only danger on the island. When Susan tries to go paddling in a tidal pool, she loses her shoe. No, it didn’t wash away: it dissolved!

Well, the sea doesn’t seem quite so appealing any more, does it?

One of the poor chaps in the mini-submarines learned that the hard way. One little crack, and all that’s left of him is his rubber suit.

Spotting a pyramid-like structure in the distance, the group investigate. Time for the educational content. This time, we’re looking at architectural history!

When Ian and Barbara notice that there's no mortaring on this pyramid, because the stonework is so precise, Barbara offers up real-world examples in the Egyptians and the peoples of central and south America. I wonder if it’s in the contract that the writers have to include an educational element, because it does feel a bit shoehorned.

Meanwhile, Susan’s off in her own little world, and her uncanny knack for putting herself in mortal peril sends her falling straight through a wall. Moments later, the Doctor enters the pyramid the same way.

Susan narrowly avoids death when a knife conveniently finds itself buried between the shoulderblades of her web-footed assailant, but she’s not out of the woods yet; there’s someone else in this pyramid.

Ian makes it through the spinning wall too, and to Barbara's surprise, so does she, with an unsettling shot revealing the hooded figure to be waiting just on the other side.

Moments later, Ian comes to the defence of the stranger when one of the web-footed invaders tries to kill them, and their tussle ends with Ian shoving him into a pit in the floor, which leads right to the sea.

The sea of acid.

So, I have to linger here for a moment, because I have a couple of things to say.

For one, who on EARTH (or rather, Marinus) put that in? If I built a house over an active lava lake, which is of course my life's ambition, I wouldn't put a great big hole in the floor where anyone could fall or be pushed in, for heaven’s sake.

For two, Ian just killed someone. A family show!

We finally get to meet the hooded figure, whose name is Arbitan, and it seems that he’s friendly. Or at least friendlier than the wetsuited invaders, who are called the Voord. Ian says he should have thought the pyramid impregnable, to which I say: pardon? Ian, the whole lot of you breached the outer walls by accident.

Arbitan shows the companions the device this pyramid was built to hold: the Mind of Marinus, which Arbitan’s people used as a moral arbiter, and later, a moral enforcer, actively manipulating the minds of men to force moral correctness.

Well, that is extremely creepy.

I don’t care that everything was supposedly hunky dory. Taking away the free will of a populace, even for a noble goal, is a genuinely frightening concept. However, unlike with The Daleks, it doesn’t appear, for now at least, that Nation is interested in interrogating this idea as he did with the virtues and pitfalls of absolute pacifism.

No, instead the companions are roped into a plot to restore this machine to full functionality, but not of their own free will — Arbitan holds the TARDIS hostage.

Oh, and the Voord came to be when one person managed to resist the machine, and freed a bunch of other people from its control.

Are we sure the Voord are the baddies, here?

There are five Keys Of Marinus, scattered far and wide, and they need to be retrieved if the Mind Of Marinus is to regain control of the Voord. Arbitan provides the companions with a set of teleport dials, worn on the wrist like a watch, and asks them to keep an eye out for his daughter while they’re looking for the keys.

And because Doctor Who is surprisingly comfortable for a family show with showing on-screen death, no sooner have the companions departed than Arbitan gets knifed by a Voord.

The Doctor, Susan and Ian arrive at their destination to find that Barbara has vanished. Ian finds her travel dial on the floor. And there's blood on it!

Fun episode, this one. An easy watch.

4 out of 5.

THE VELVET WEB

This is where things get weird.

Very weird.

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the group to track Barbara down. What fate has befallen her? Oh, it’s simply dreadful.


Honestly. Leave her alone for five minutes and she turns into Cleopatra.

She’s lounging on a daybed, dressed in fine silks, while servants feed her fruit.

Along comes a young man to hopefully clear a few things up. In this city, everything is perfect. It’s a post-scarcity society. Everyone is perfectly content, because you can get whatever you want, whenever you want. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is. That’s both commentary on the episode and life advice.

Once the group have gone to sleep, one of the servants comes back into the room and places a mysterious device on each of their foreheads. However, Barbara’s device falls off, and when she awakens, she sees this place for what it really is. The fine silks? Rags. The crystal glasses? Dirty old mugs. This city of luxury? A trap that’s about to snap shut.

Barbara flees, unable to convince the others, and their host reports her perception to his own masters…who are brains in jars. With eyestalks, no less. They look silly and unsettling at the same time. These are the true rulers of this society, all the humans in the city being mind-controlled slaves.

The inherent horror of mind-control aside, it’s funny to watch the others fall over themselves in amazement when presented with worthless junk.


"Never seen anything like it!"

Barbara runs into the servant who placed the devices, Sabitha, and quickly works out that this is Arbitan’s disappeared daughter. However, though she remembers that Arbitan sent her here, she can’t remember anything else. She manages to save Barbara’s life, however, when the creepy host attacks her. She can’t save her from a brainwashed Ian, however, who drags her before the rulers of the city.

Then they order him to kill her.

Barbara manages to escape his grasp, but does she make a run for it? No way! She goes straight for the brains in jars, who for all their intelligence, haven’t accounted for the fragility of glass, or how good humans are at breaking things when we feel like it.

With the brains all smashed up, the humans of the city are freed, and what’s the first thing they do? Burn the place to the ground!

Barbara, you sparked a revolution…and found a key!

It turns out that the young man is actually one of Arbitan’s folk, and he was sent out to complete the same task that has fallen to our companions: recovering the keys. A friend of his was also sent out, but it appears he has got into trouble. The Doctor volunteers to see if he can track the friend down, and if not him, the key. The rest of the group decide to look for the other keys, and they agree to meet up in a week.

I’m sure it’ll go fine.

Susan, not one for long farewells, is the first to leave, but to her detriment, for she winds up in the middle of a forest…and all the trees are screaming.

This was a real cracker of an episode. Loved it.

4.5 out of 5.

THE SCREAMING JUNGLE

As the forest quiets down, the rest of the group catch up with Susan, but she’s still in a state of terror.

I think Susan could do with a bit of toughening up. For someone who ends up in trouble so often, you’d think she’d be a bit harder to scare. Apart from being a poor example to set for girls her age, it’s just getting to be a bit annoying.

Barbara spots a strange idol down a dark, almost hidden path, and in her infinite wisdom goes and starts poking at it. She finds the key attached to the statue, but as she attempts to retrieve it, the arms of the idol come to life and grab her, and the wall swivels, taking away both Barbara and the statue.

Well, at least they got the key. Or did they?

It’s a fake! The others go on ahead to look for the next key, leaving Ian to stick around to recover Barbara, and the real Key of Marinus.

Still, this is Ian we’re talking about. He makes his way to the other side of the wall the same way Barbara did, and on the other side finds another statue, this time wielding an axe. Unwittingly triggering a pressure plate, it’s only Barbara’s timely intervention that saves his head from splitting like a watermelon when the axeman takes a swing at him. It looks like this whole place is booby trapped!

The pair start looking for a way out. A door opens, and Barbara, channelling the first person to get bumped off in any horror flick, goes inside, promptly gets trapped in a net, and then the wall above, covered in bamboo spikes, starts to descend.

For goodness’ sake, Barbara, don’t just bleat at Ian for help. It’s a fishing net. I’m sure you can manage.

Luckily for Barbara, before she can become a human pincushion, a hooded man intervenes. However, while he’s trying to confirm that Barbara isn’t a Voord, an inconvenient vine pops through the window and starts strangling him.


You just can’t trust nature. This is exactly why I never go outside.

Ian and Barbara save him from the overgrown ivy bush, but it’s too late. The old man holds on just long enough to give Ian a cryptic string of letters and numbers, then drops down dead.

So, they have a code, but what for? A safe? It doesn’t look like it. They get to combing the room, and Ian finds the old man’s diary, learning from it that he was working on growth acceleration, speeding up the natural world. Well, I think we can guess as to why the forest is so weird. When night falls, its growth accelerates so much that it can overrun the building within minutes.

That doesn’t really explain why the plants have minds of their own, or why it’s just at night (unless I missed something), but there you go.

As the plants are on the verge of overwhelming Ian and Barbara, they realise that the code is not a code at all, but a chemical formula, and when they find the right jar, they find the key. In the nick of time they hop to their next destination: a freezing mountainside.

I can’t wait to find out what happens next!

I don’t think I liked this episode quite as much as the previous, but it was still a jolly good romp.

4 out of 5.

CONCLUSION

In this serial, Nation seems to be going for a more episodic than serial format, stringing together a series of smaller adventures to build a greater whole. I think it works very well, building up a breathless momentum which I hope will hold with the next few episodes.

Doctor Who can sometimes suffer from slow pacing, and if that’s a problem for me, an adult, I can only assume it’s a problem for the younger members of the audience too. Nation has found a way to mitigate this problem, and while I don’t think it can be used for all stories (nor should it be), I do hope that Doctor Who makes use of this format more often.

All in all, I have thoroughly enjoyed these episodes, and I look forward to watching the rest with all of you.

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TV

[April 8th, 1964] Pooooolo! (Doctor Who: Marco Polo, Parts 5 to 7)

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By Jessica Holmes

The caravan winds ever onwards across Cathay. Let’s catch up, shall we?

We’re a bit over halfway through our first historical serial, tagging along with Marco Polo as he travels across China to meet with Kublai Khan. With him are Tegana, a Mongol warlord and obvious baddie, Ping-Cho, a young lady from Samarkand on her way to be married, and of course, our Doctor and his companions. Tegana has been trying (and failing) to bump off our tag-alongs so he can nick the TARDIS for his master, Logai, a rival to the great Kublai Khan. And now a guard has just turned up dead. Could this journey be about to come to a sudden and bloody end?

RIDER FROM SHANG-TU

Our companions find the murdered guard, and are quick to raise the alarm. The men arm themselves, and prepare to fight. There’s a bandit attack coming (a gold sticker for whoever guesses who orchestrated that), and they’ll need all the fighters they can muster.

So they send the women into the tent.

On your own heads be it, lads.

The Doctor advocates taking shelter in the TARDIS, but to no avail, because Marco is just bit too stubborn for his own good. Tegana tries to convince Marco that the Doctor and his companions murdered the guard. To be fair, they did have the motive and opportunity, but what about the means?

I suppose Ian could have made use of the forgotten art of war crockery.

Marco doesn’t really listen to Tegana, so his stubbornness can be good for something, it seems.

Still, they’re going to need more than a few swords if they’re going to win against a pack of bandits. Ian comes up with the ingenious idea to throw bamboo on the fire. Bamboo is a hollow grass, so there’s air inside each stick. What happens to air when it heats up? It expands. And what happens if the grass can’t expand with it?

Pop!

The bandits turn up, and we’re treated to a bit of swashbuckling action as the battle commences. In all the hubbub, Tegana kills the leader of the bandits, sending his secret complicity to the grave with him, and the Doctor dusts off his fencing skills.

Ian’s exploding bamboo trick pays off, and the bandits scatter, leaving the caravan free to lick its wounds and get going again. The Doctor is smart enough to figure out that Tegana was in league with the bandits (well, duh), and Marco starts to warm to the companions again.

A courier from the great Khan arrives, to the surprise of everyone, for they are many, many leagues yet from Shang-Tu. He explains that he had a fresh horse waiting for him at waystations every league, and he wears bells on his clothing to let the ostlers know when he’s about to arrive, so as to waste as little time as possible.

You see, he had an extremely important message for them. A matter of grave urgency.

Kublai Khan says: Hello, how are you?

Oh. Nice of him, I suppose.

Then off we go to Cheng-Ting, the ‘white city’.

The set and costumes here are lovely. I’ll be waxing lyrical about this in a little bit.

What I will not be waxing lyrical about, however, is this fellow here, whose name I never did catch, because I was so distracted by how bizarre his intonation and mannerisms are. He’s the most pompous prat in all of China.

The Doctor’s uncharitable but accurate impression of him is very funny. So, perhaps it was deliberate.

A one eyed man, Kuiju, meets Tegana in the stables, and they strike a deal. Kuiju will steal the TARDIS for Tegana. In great trade caravans, it is so easy for things to be misplaced, after all.

I just had a thought. How heavy is the TARDIS? We saw a few additional rooms during The Edge Of Destruction, so we know that the TARDIS is at least the size of a house on the inside. So, does the weight of the TARDIS match the outer dimensions, or the inner dimensions, or both?

I’m just wondering how they’re managing to transport it. They seem not to have had any problems loading it onto the wagon, so perhaps it does only weigh as much as the outer dimensions. That’ll make it easier to steal, I suppose.

I feel like that probably breaks some law of physics. Don’t ask which. I’m not a Science Lawyer.

Well, it looks like it’s soon to be a moot point, because Ping-Cho’s stealing the keys to the TARDIS! She promised Marco that she wouldn’t reveal to the others where the keys were hidden, but she didn’t say anything about not taking them herself.

I would honestly love it if Ping-Cho came along with the companions as a permanent addition to the crew. Susan gets a friend her own age, Ping-Cho doesn’t have to marry a man old enough to be her grandfather, everybody wins!

But it’d also bring the serial to an end two episodes early, and I’m quite enjoying myself, thank you very much.

Let’s throw a Tegana in the works.

4 out of 5.

MIGHTY KUBLAI KHAN

Tegana foils the companions’ attempt to escape, and Ian ‘confesses’ to taking the key, to protect Ping-Cho. With that, the caravan moves on, and our next stop is at an inn between Cheng-Ting and Peking.

Ian tries once again to convince Marco to give the TARDIS back, and this time, he throws all caution to the wind and flat out tells him that he’s from the future, the TARDIS flies through time and space, and no, they can’t just hang about and get a ship back home from Venice.

Marco, though having seen some wild things in his travels across the far east (like a burning black stone!), has to draw the line somewhere, and the notion of travelling freely between tomorrow, today and yesterday is about a hundred leagues over that line.

What’s more, Marco figures out that Ian lied about stealing the key, and deduces that the only reason he would lie is to protect the real thief: Ping-Cho, who is nowhere to be found.

She has slipped out and is now making her less-than-merry way back to Samarkand, so Ian offers to ride back to look for her.

Ian, can you actually ride a horse? I mean really, properly ride a horse? No, plodding along the beach on a donkey when you’re holidaying in Blackpool doesn’t count.

Ping-Cho makes it back to the way station, and runs into Kuiju as he puts his scheme into action, posing as an envoy from the Khan and tricking that pompous official into letting him take possession of the TARDIS. Oh, and while he’s at it, he scams Ping-Cho out of all her money when she tries to book passage to Samarkand with his caravan.

Nice chap.

Just when it seems Ping-Cho is royally stuffed, along comes Ian! And with the arrival of the real envoy from Shang-Tu, it doesn’t take anyone long to realise that the TARDIS has been stolen.

I think I’d have really liked Ian if he’d been one of my teachers. In another life he’d have been a hero in one of those old adventure serials. Ergo, a cool teacher.

Ian figures the TARDIS is most likely being taken on the road to Karakorum, which was the capital of Genghis Khan’s empire, though by now it’s little more than a field. The Mongols were, and still are, a nomadic people, after all. Their cities don’t tend to stay in one place.

Meanwhile, in Shang-Tu, the companions have finally arrived!

The set for the summer palace is gorgeous. Throughout this serial the sets have been impressive, and the palaces are sublimely ornate. I’ve managed to procure a few colour images taken from production, so as we can see they’re even more beautiful when not viewed on a monochrome television set. The level of detail and care that’s gone into every inch of the production certainly shows, and sells the palace as the splendid heart of this mighty empire.

Still, for all the majesty of the Yuan dynasty, the Doctor isn’t about to kowtow to some puny Earth ruler. He has a bad back, anyway. Perhaps he should try a curtsey?

And now, dear readers.

The moment you’ve been waiting for.

Enter the mighty Kublai Khan!

Were you expecting him to come galloping in on horseback or something? That’s more his grandfather’s style. Kublai Khan is, as Marco Polo notes, ‘the greatest administrator the world has ever seen’, which is a weird boast, but I’ll take his word for it. His vizier is a bit uptight, but the Khan turns out to get along with the Doctor quite well, and it’s not long before the pair potter off to have a soothing bath in the local healing waters.

Back at the way station, Ping-Cho and Ian track down Kuiju (and also the TARDIS), and at knife-point the thief admits that Tegana paid him to steal the ‘caravan’.

And speak of the devil, here he comes!

3.5 out of 5. Nothing extraordinary, but not bad.

ASSASSIN AT PEKING

The confrontation turns deadly when Kuiju ends up on the wrong end of a knife, and moments later the courier from Shang-Tu arrives. Tegana claims Ian was trying to steal the ‘caravan’, Ian claims Tegana was plotting against the Khan, and the courier, having just come to deliver a message and being far too busy to play judge, more or less throws up his hands and says it’s up to the Khan, who has left Shang-Tu for Peking.

Speaking of Peking, we have a lovely set once again. I don’t know much about Chinese art, so I couldn’t say for sure if it’s appropriate to the right period of Chinese history, or whether it’d be like seeing a Norman Rockwell painting in George Washington’s study.

Period accurate or not, it sure does look pretty.

The Doctor and the Khan are getting along happily, drinking tea and playing backgammon. Oh, and betting colossal amounts of lands, goods and chattel on the outcome. I think the Doctor owns about half of the empire now. What’s more, the Doctor seems to have got over his aversion to bowing, as he manages just fine when the Empress shows up.

Lovely costumes once more. Very pretty fabric and some lovely cuts, as can be expected of Chinese textiles.

However.

They’re the wrong period.

Yes, they’re Chinese. They look very authentic. Some nice, authentic, Qing dynasty clothing. The Qing dynasty was last in power in 1912. The last Qing Emperor is actually still alive.

This serial is set during the Yuan dynasty, which ended in 1368. Oh, and we have the entire Ming dynasty separating these two periods.


Courtesy ofWikimedia Commons

This fresco, dated to the Yuan dynasty, shows some differences in the style of clothing. What jumps out to me most are the abundance of flowing fabrics and wrapped robes fastened with a belt. I could be wrong, but the costumes just don’t look like Yuan dynasty clothes to me.

I can’t claim any expertise but I think this might be comparable to seeing Charlemagne in a ruff.

The betting heats up when the Doctor asks to put up the TARDIS as stakes in their game. It’s a big risk, but it might be his best chance of reclaiming his ship. The Khan, however, would much rather he took something a bit less valuable, like the island of Sumatra.

I’m fairly certain that’s not yours to give, Kublai. Do you even have a navy? From what I know of the Mongols they were more into land-based empire building. Horses don’t do all that well on water.

Along comes Marco, and shortly after Ian turns up with Tegana and Ping-Cho, and I will give you three guesses as to whose accounting of events the court sides with. Because of course, Tegana is a Mongol, and Ian is not.

Oh, and Ping-Cho is getting married tomorrow. Now, I think weddings are great. Everyone has fun and you get free cake. But I’m also a big fan of this neat concept called ‘consent’ which seems to be glaringly absent in this marriage. Poor Ping-Cho.

Marco finally admits that laying claim to the TARDIS was wrong of him, but what’s done is done, and Kublai won the game of backgammon anyway.

A sentence ago I said ‘poor Ping-Cho’, but it looks like she’s in luck! Her husband-to-be? A little less so.

Her fiancé, so excited to get to spend the rest of his life with his pretty young bride, decided to try and extend his time on Earth with an ‘Elixir of Life’.

…Made of sulfur and quicksilver.

Something similar happened to the first Qin emperor, and the first man to unify China, Qin Shi Huang, who took mercury pills in the hopes he would live forever.

He did not live forever.

Ping-Cho is much relieved at the old man’s death, though she is smart enough not to be too open about that fact. She does, however, decide to stay in the court of Kublai Khan. Who knows, perhaps she’ll meet someone nice. It’s a bit too convenient for my liking, but still a nice little nod to Chinese history.

Marco, however, is feeling defeated. His gift didn’t work and the Khan no longer trusts him. It looks like Tegana’s won.

Good for him, but what does he want? What is Tegana’s game? Logai, his master, could attack Peking, but Kublai’s superior numbers would surely crush him.

But what is an army without a leader? Kublai is an old man, after all. It wouldn’t be hard to kill him. Especially if you’re a strong young warlord who has been welcomed into the city with open arms.

Oh, dear.

Realising the danger, the companions rush to the Khan’s chambers, warning Marco along the way, just as a messenger arrives and informs them that as they feared, Logai’s army is marching on Peking!

In the throne room, the Khan narrowly escapes death when Tegana kills his vizier by mistake, and it buys him just enough time for Marco and company to arrive, and we at last get the duel we’ve been waiting for, a thrilling clash of steel, a dance of blades, between the warlord and the explorer.

Marco succeeds in disarming Tegana, but before he can be brought to justice, Tegana grabs a guard’s sword and falls upon it, and all his schemes, along with the man himself, come to naught and slump onto the throne room floor.

With Tegana defeated, Marco hands the Doctor the keys to his TARDIS. Everyone says a hasty farewell, and the companions pile in, with the ship vanishing into the ether a moment later as the court looks on in astonishment.

Marco apologises to the Khan for giving away the gift from under his nose, but the Khan shrugs and quips that the Doctor would only have won it back in a game of backgammon anyway. Still, it’ll be quite a tale to tell everyone back in Venice. That is, assuming anyone believes it.

Well, poor old Marco Polo had great trouble convincing any of his contemporaries that most of what he wrote was true. Even the bit about seeing unicorns. Look it up.

4.5 out of 5, largely for the swordfight.

CONCLUSION

So, that was Marco Polo. I quite enjoyed our journey across China, though the serial is not without its flaws. It drags in places, I began to find everyone’s obliviousness to Tegana’s obvious scheming quite irritating after a while (the perils of invoking dramatic irony), and as I noted last time there’s the disappointing casting choices, along with I think some issues of historical accuracy when it comes to design. Also, the ending is a bit abrupt.

However, this is the most impressive production the Doctor Who team have put on for us yet, bringing the grandeur of a Hollywood epic to the small screen. It’s not quite Cleopatra in terms of scale (or budget), but I definitely feel a similar sense of ambition in this story of great journeys, great rulers and great treachery.

All in all? Well worth the watch, and more of this sort of thing, please and thank you.

THE SCORE

Now, the maths says (factoring in the score I forgot to include for The Wall Of Lies) that this serial gets a 3.57, but I’m feeling generous, and because of the quality of the latter half I’ll be nice and bump it up to a 4.

4 out of 5 stars

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Book, Magazine

[March 27, 1964] The End of an Era? Not With a Bang…. ( New Worlds, April 1964)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

Well, here we are, with what at one time would have been the last ever issue of New Worlds. Since this was announced in November last year, I have flip-flopped between resignation and despair.

With the time arrived, I must admit that I was curious to see what the final issue would be like. Would it go the way of many others before it, in that typically understated British manner, with a polite “Thank You” and a cheery wave? Or would it rage against the unfairness of it all, snarling and roaring like a wounded animal, determined to show everyone in a dazzling blaze of glory that the decision to cancel was wrong?

Interestingly, last month’s issue had given a few hints that it was going to be more of the latter than the former. Editor Mr. John Carnell had accused the genre of being dull, of producing little that was memorable, and yet in the same issue given the rallying call of The Terminal Beach, an undeniably memorable yet undefinable piece of what now seems to be called “New Wave” science fiction. As a result, I wasn’t sure how this one would go. (And as it turns out, there is a lifeline, of which I will explain more later.)

The issue at hand

To begin with, we have Mr. Carnell’s full description of the state of the genre at the end of 1963, as hinted at last month.
It shows some interesting results, if a poll of about 350 correspondents tells us anything. Sf readership is getting older, presumably as readers stay with the genre, but there is an intriguing development with an increase in younger readers – much needed, perhaps, and also reflecting the sea change in the genre. Perhaps most importantly, with the improved accessibility of paperbacks it is perhaps no surprise that magazine sales are down and book sales are up. The summary ends on a positive note, that sf is now perhaps more mainstream than ever before – but it does make me wonder what those who like their sf to be off-kilter and underground think about it.

To the stories themselves. 

beyond the reach of storms, by Mr. Donald Malcolm

We begin the stories in this issue with the last in Mr. Malcolm’s Planetary Expedition Team (P.E.T.) stories. The most recent was in the March 1964 issue. In the tradition of many old-style s-f stories, it starts with an unusual astronomical discovery – that of a star with a hole in the middle! Of course, our team have to travel through it. I’m not sure about the scientific plausibility of such a thing, but the novelette is pretty traditional s-f – entertaining yet nothing particularly startling. I have grown to like these stories, but they are not especially memorable. 3 out of 5.

megapolitan underground , by Mr. William Spencer

And this is this month’s attempt to be Ballard.  After Mr Spencer’s tale of automotive madness last month, this is another story about urban angst, this time created by travelling on moving walkways and being bombarded with advertising images. It made me think of a never-ending journey on the London Underground, although it is really an alternative take on Mr. Robert Heinlein’s The Roads Must Roll. Again, it’s not something particularly new, nor particularly original. It seems that we have had a few of Mr. Spencer’s stories from the left-over pile. 3 out of 5.

now is the time , by Mr. Steve Hall

As computers in the future may become part of everyday life, here we have a story of another potential use: the manipulation of a political election by computers. The premise seems a little far-fetched to me – who would have thought such things were possible? In any event, the story does little more than illustrate the idea.  3 out of 5.

Farewell, Dear Brother, by Mr. P.F. Woods

As the last ever short story of New Worlds (at least, so we had been led to believe until this month), I’m pretty sure that this story by Mr. Woods (also known as Mr. Barrington J. Bayley) has been deliberately placed here in the magazine because of its title. It is a story of the broken relationship between a twin and his feckless brother, the more reckless of whom has been in a space accident and is now kept at home in the attic, out of the way of visitors. It’s meant to be creepy and despite the dodgy science (a planet with no temperature?) is quite readable in its portrayal of a dysfunctional family. But is it really sf? 3 out of 5.

open prison , by Mr. James White

And now the last installment of the final(?) serial in New Worlds. Following on from last month, we’re back to our story of civilians and military personnel trying to escape from a planet they’ve been imprisoned upon. Usually in such a story, the last part of this three-part escape story is meant to be the exciting bit, where our heroes and heroines leave the prison planet despite all the odds and return to normality. The problem is that it ends without too many surprises. With three weeks to go before E-Day there’s tension between the military group and the civilians, not to mention between the men and the women, but in the end, guess what happens?

This feels like a bit of a damp squib to finish a rather disappointing tale. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, except perhaps for that whiff of male-chauvinism that pervades the pages occasionally and that I felt more sorry for the alien Bugs killed than the humans trying to escape. But it’s a frustratingly mundane tale with a weak ending that is not up to the standard of Mr. White’s Sector General stories, which I enjoyed much more. In short, I pretty much worked this one out from the start, and barely got what I expected. 3 out of 5.

At the back of this issue we have the tying up of loose ends. There’s a Farewell Editorial, which gives us the news that although Mr. Carnell is moving onto pastures new, we will see the return of New Worlds and Science Fantasy, but under new editorship. For New Worlds, Mr. Michael Moorcock is to take the reins in a new incarnation of the magazine, which I think should be interesting and different.

There’s another short set of Book Reviews by Mr. Leslie Flood. This is one part of the magazine I will miss most, as Mr. Flood’s brief yet insightful comments have led me to try many books I might have missed otherwise over the years. This time he looks at Mr. Robert Sheckley’s ‘mordantly successful’ Journey Beyond Tomorrow, Mr. Robert P. Mills’s “superlative collection” The Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction 11th Series (really?) and two new books in a new series, which confirm what we have said earlier this issue, that the future of sf may be in book form rather than in magazines. Even when one of them is Mr. E.C. Tubb’s Window On the Moon, which ironically was serialised in New Worlds last year.

Lastly, we have a final Postmortem letters page, which reflects the plaudits and dingbats showered upon the magazine in its coverage of sf over the last few years. It is noticeable that one of the letters is from new editor, Mr. Michael Moorcock, and another from Mr. Moorcock’s artist friend, Mr. Jim Cawthorn, gestures which bode well for the future, perhaps.

Summing up

This last issue of New Worlds in its present incarnation is sadly not what I hoped it would be. It’s an issue which feels tired and rather beaten. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, yet it is not as memorable as last month’s issue. Whether this is because of money, because of a lack of interest or just that Mr. Carnell has run out of steam, I do feel that the magazine is leaving not with a bang but with a whimper. It is just not as good as some of the issues that preceded it, although it reflects the transition taking place in some quarters of the British genre scene.

Which then leads me to consider where we are in Britain with sf in 1964. As the Survey at the beginning of this issue shows, the reading habits and even the readership of sf are changing. We are in a very different place from where we were a decade ago, and whether we like it or not, much of this change is as a result of the work of Mr. John Carnell here at New Worlds. I think that it’ll be interesting to see where this goes with new leadership, although at the same time I suspect that not everyone is going to like it.

What I don’t know at this stage is when the new New Worlds will appear. Settling into a new form may take time, although it seems Mr. Moorcock has had a couple of months to get things together. I did notice that the magazine didn’t say anything about an issue next month, so nothing is definite about when I actually get the next one.  If and when a new issue does appear, you'll be hearing from me about it here on the Journey, so watch this space!

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