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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[Oct. 31, 1969] Struggling to get out (November 1969 Analog)

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Science Fiction Theater Episode #10

Tonight (Oct. 31), tune in at 7pm (Pacific) for our special, Halloween-themed episode!

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Inside Lebanon

Feel that?  It's the calm before the storm.

For the past week, the nation of Lebanon has been rocked from within by "Palestinian" guerrillas.  Yesterday, at the behest of leaders in Cairo, Damascus, and Tripoli, the raiders settled down, awaiting what looks like will be a significant negotiation between Arab power brokers.

I'm no expert on the issue, but here's what I've gleaned.  When Israel declared independence in 1948, a significant percentage of the Arab population within the nascent nation's borders left the former mandate of Palestine.  Some fled violence, like that inflicted by classy folk such as Menachem Begin of the Irgun, a Jewish terrorist group.  Others left at the exhortation of their Arab brethren, who proclaimed that they were about to drive the Jews into the sea.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs ended up in neighboring countries: Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.  Indeed, exiled Arabs now comprise 12% of the population of Lebanon—fully 300,000 people.  They live in camps administrated by the draconian Lebanese Deuxième Bureau.

The "Palestinian Liberation Organization", founded in 1964 with the goal of "the liberation of Palestine", initiated terrorist attacks against Israel after The Six Day War in 1967.  Such are being carried out from enclaves in other countries with more or less tacit permission from those countries' governments.

The recent irruption in Lebanon arose from the Lebanese cracking down on these raids.  The violence, thwarted from heading southward, flooded internally—into Beirut, Tyre, Lebanese Tripoli, and other major cities.  Egypt, Syria, and Libya all leaned hard on the Christian Arab nation to let loose the reins on the guerrillas.  Lebanon has relented, and the negotiations will proceed shortly.  Participants will be Dr. Hassan Sabri El Kholi, personal envoy of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Libyan Interior Minister Mousa Ahmed, and guerrilla chief Yasser Arafat.  While there's no telling what the outcome will be, one has to imagine the Palestinians will be allowed to resume their raids into Israel again.

With the War of Attrition occupying Israel on its western and eastern fronts, it now looks as if the Jewish state is about to be busy defending from the north, too.  Most folk are betting on the Israeli Defense Force, but can the country survive under siege forever?

Time will tell.

Inside Analog


by Vincent Di Fate

Like Lebanon, the crisis facing Analog comes from within, as evidenced by the latest issue.  From without, the magazine looks like it always has—handsome, professional.  But within, one can see the rot.  Not that it's all bad; indeed, much of it is decent.  But what works is stagnant, and what doesn't work is very much the sort of thing we expect from long-toothed editor John Campbell.

Gottlos, by Colin Kapp

Starting off, we have what looks like a Bolo story—one of those Keith Laumer tales featuring a sentient, super-tank.  Unlike Laumer's stories, this one has a lot of action, with the Fiendish mauling dozens of opposing vehicles, overruning a command post, and then meeting its match with the arrival of the ebony Gottlos.

After Fiendish is destroyed, we learn that it was actually a remotely controlled tank.  Its pilot, Manton, had so thoroughly melded with the machine, that the result was a gestalt personality, one motivated by violence and vengeance.  With his vehicle destroyed, Manton falls into an apparent funk, shaken by the appearance of a more powerful machine.  The real terror of Gottlos is that it seems to need no radio controls at all.  Is it autonomous?  A kind of cybernetic beast?

Kapp has written more of a philosophical than predictive piece, describing how a society might decay under the strain of endless war and complete mechanization.  I appreciate Kapp's skill with English, but the story itself seemed a bit implausible in its setup.

Three stars.

Telepathy – Did It Happen?, by J. B. Reswick and L. Vodonik

Oh boy.  A pair of cranks conducted a telepathy experiment.  Here's the notion: telepathy is only reliable about 1-2% of the time.  But what's really happening, they suppose, is that there's just so much interference that the message gets clogged with static. If one conducts thousands of tests using a simple message, the errors will be reduced, and the message will stand out.

The setup they used involved a binary message and transmitter.  After many trials, the experimenters determined that had gotten the error down low enough to show that something had objectively been transmitted.  Of course, the researchers admitted that their data only supported this conclusion if you read the results backwards (i.e. if the 1s of the original message were logged as 0s and vice versa.)

Given the thin margins of success, if you gotta flip the results on their heads to get any kind of answer, I suspect it's all bogus.  Which is how I'm beginning to feel about psionics in general.

One star.

Weapon of the Ages, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

Humanity is hounded by vicious extraterrestrials when they try to go to the stars.  One pilot crashlands on a neutral world, is conducted to a mysterious weapon, and manages to wipe out a set of local marauders.  The weapon's use has side effects, one which the owner's race is prepared for, but not the human who fired it.

Macfarlane is trying for a cute sting-in-the-tail story, but the whole thing is nonsensical, so it lacks the desired impact.

Two stars.

The Ambassadors, by as by J. B. Clarke


by Leo Summers

A set of three disparate aliens makes contact with the galactic organization of which the humans are a member.  Said aliens claim to be vastly superior to our federation, but they say they'll be generous and give us a few technological wonders—if only we'll give them an example of one of our best starships, so they can gauge our level of progress.  Since homo sapiens has (per the story) an unique ability to sniff out a scam, a human is sent to investigate to see if the aliens are on the level.

Things that suggest the aliens are hoaxing: they showed up in a borrowed spaceship, no one has ever heard of their stellar confederation, and their "capital" planet is a smoggy wasteland.  Points in their favor: the three wear a common uniform and despite profound apparent racial differences, work together in perfect harmony.  Conclusion, they must represent an ancient and tight-knit federation!

Much is made of the fact that most species in the galaxy are bi-sexual.  Not that you'd know from this story, whose only female human is a "pert secretary."  The leader of the alien delegation is a female, to the surprise of the humans receiving them.  Cue the snide comments about how women always have to speak for the menfolk (the implication being that such arrogance is misplaced).  In the end, the gender of the aliens is the key to unpuzzling the obvious hoax.

Clarke spends a lot of time setting up a puzzle whose solution is apparent from nearly the beginning.  The characters have to be obtuse to make the story work.  Obtuse and sexist. 

One star.

Shapes to Come, by Edward Wellen


by Vincent Di Fate

A scientist in an isolated base on the Moon has completed his work: he has perfected a spore that will inject itself into any alien genetic structure, instilling an irresistible trust of the human form.  By seeding the stars with this spore, when we meet any extraterrestrials, they will necessarily greet us with love and affection.

But before the spore can be deployed, an alien armada shows up.  Can you guess what completely unexpected result ends the tale based on the story's setup?

This is comic book level stuff.  Two stars.

The Yngling (Part 2 of 2), by John Dalmas


by Kelly Freas

Concluding the two-part serial begun last ish, The Yngling latter half is choppy but worthy.

When we last left our hero, the psi-adept Nordic warrior, Nils Ironhand, he had been sent into the lion's den.  More specifically, to the domain of Kazi, an immortal (through soul transferrence into new bodies) who reigns through unbelievable cruelty.  His armies are poised at the doorstep of Europe, and in short order, more than thirty thousand of his "orc" hordes will sweep through the Balkans bent on rapine and ravagery.

Nils presents a condundrum to the psionic tyrant as his signature trait is the lack of an internal monologue.  Thus, his mind cannot be read, barely even sensed.  He also is completely without guile.  Interestingly, while this wordless mentality is portrayed as an unique characteristic, and perhaps a side effect of Nils' psi powers, it can't be that rare in the real world.  Indeed, one of the Journey's very own, Tam Phan, possesses this trait.  Now, Tam is also a fantastic warrior, so there may be a connection.


Tam and familiar faces at a local gathering of Vikings

In any event, after Nils gets to witness some particularly gruesome examples of Kazi's barbarism, he escapse, makes it back to Hungary, and organizes a resistance comprising Magyar, Ukrainian, Polish, and Bohemian knights…as well as hundreds of his kinsman, who have just crossed the Baltic, fleeing the impending Ice Age.  The resulting battle is lengthy, desperate, and strategic in detail.  Of course, you can guess who wins.

This is a tough book to rate!  It's firmly in the genre of magical post-Apocalypse, along with Omha Abides, Spawn of the Death Machine, Out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and so on.  I happen to like this genre, and while I'm growing to loathe psi stories, in these settings, I can just pretend it's a kind of magic, or maybe lost technology.

The key to writing this genre well, and Dilmas does, is to bathe it in sensuality and adventure.  In many ways, Nils is more akin to Conan than any scientifical hero you'd expect to find in Analog.  I also greatly appreciate that Dilmas manages to convey the most unspeakable of tortures completely obliquely.  A few artful words can chill far more than pages of explicit gore.

Too, I enjoyed the grand depiction of the battle, complete with fog of war and the uncertainty that accompanies it.  So vivid is this portion of the novel, that one could probably adapt a cracking wargame from it.  Jim Dunnigan, are you listening?

It's not all roses, of course.  As in the first half, the various sections of the novel don't quite hang together well, like bricks without mortar.  Much is bridged in shorthand.  Also, Nils having to retell the same story to half a dozen European lords to rally them against the orcs was a bit tiresome.  Perhaps all of these things will be smoothed when this story inevitably gets picked up by Ace.  Or maybe not—they like their books short.

Anyway, I'd give this installment four stars, three-and-a-half for the whole.  Fans of this sort of thing, like my nephew, David, may notch up their assessments a touch.

Doing the math

Boy, Analog has been bad lately.  I know it seems like I just keep saying it over and over again, but until these doldrums end, I'll have to find creative ways to repeat myself.

At 2.3 stars, Analog is by far the lowest in the pack.  IF got 3.1; Vision of Tomorrow got 3.2; even Amazing got 3.2; Galaxy got 2.9; so did Venture; Fantasy and Science Fiction got 2.7; and New Worlds got 2.8.

Women wrote about 10% of what was published this month, and you could fit all the four and five star stuff in two digests.  Given that eight came out for November, that's a pretty weak showing.

Perhaps if Ted White, Ed Ferman, Charles Platt, and Ejler Jakobsson went over to Condé Nast headquarters for a negotiation, Campbell might loosen the reins on his writers.  Couldn't hurt!




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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 4, 1969] Plus ça change (October 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

Silly season

It’s considered a truism in journalism that nothing happens in August, so the papers run filler stories about silly things to make up their page count. Sure, Hurricane Camille killed hundreds as it raged from Mississippi to Virginia, and China and the Soviet Union are on the brink of war, but that doesn’t sell papers. Madison Avenue also has a truism: sex sells. Now, the two have come together.

Newsday columnist Mike McGrady was disgusted by the schlocky, sex-obsessed books that regularly make the best-seller lists, so he recruited a bunch of fellow journalists (19 men and five women, by one count) to write a deliberately bad, oversexed book. The result is Naked Came the Stranger, in which the editors worked hard to remove any literary value from the tale of a New York woman’s sexual escapades.

When the book sold 20,000 copies, McGrady and his co-conspirators decided they’d better come clean. Nineteen of them appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, being introduced as Penelope Ashe (the book’s purported author) and walking out to the strains of A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody. As a result of their confession and discussion of their motives, the book has become even more popular. And as of last Sunday, it’s on the New York Times list of best-sellers. You have to laugh to keep from crying.

Penelope Ashe, in part, with the cover model superimposed.

This puts me in mind of a similar literary hoax with a more sfnal connection. Back in 1956, radio host Jean Shepherd was unhappy with the way best-seller lists were being compiled and urged his listeners to ask their local bookstores to order I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. He offered some vague hints about the plot, and many listeners who were in on the joke created references to the book elsewhere. Demand was so high, publisher Ian Ballantine convinced Theodore Sturgeon to knock out a quick novel based on an outline from Shepherd. Betty Ballantine wrote the last chapter as Sturgeon lay in exhausted sleep on the Ballantines’ couch after trying to write the whole thing in one sitting. The cover by Frank Kelly Freas is full of visual jokes and puns. The book is rumored to have gone to number one, but it doesn’t seem to have been on any lists, probably out of pique on the part of the list makers.


The pub sign features a shepherd’s crook and a sturgeon. Art by Frank Kelly Freas

New and old

I think we’re starting to see some of the influence of new editor Ejler Jakobsson. Editor Emeritus Fred Pohl doesn’t seem have ever had anything nice to say about the New Wave, while there is at least one story in this month’s IF with a nod in that direction. There’s a new printer, with a crisper typeface (though it seems better suited to a news magazine than fiction). No one’s mixed up their e’s and o’s, but instead of lines being printed out of order, some lines are just missing. Hopefully, that will be corrected in future issues.

Supposedly for Seeds of Gonyl. If so, it’s from later in the novel. Art by Gaughan

The Mind Bomb, by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert appears to have tried to write a Philip K. Dick story. There’s a computer that keeps changing the world in an attempt to carry out its function, an unhappy marriage, and an old man who gets a glimpse of why the world he lives in is the way it is.

Art uncredited, maybe by Gaughan

Unfortunately, none of it works. The lines of reality aren’t blurred; people know the computer is changing things, just not why. And the marriage isn’t as unrelievedly grim as in a Dick story (thank goodness). We’re left with none of the good things that either author brings, and the flaws of both.

Two stars.

By Right of Succession, by Barry Malzberg

A man named Carson shoots the occupant of a motorcade. As he leaves the building he fired from, he’s met by a policeman who escorts him to his next destination on a strict timetable. Eventually, all is explained. Sort of.

Is that Nixon? Art uncredited

Here’s our New Wave—or New Wave-ish—story. It’s fine for what it is, but I don’t quite see the connection between the events and the explanation.

Three stars.

None But I, by Piers Anthony

When last we saw him, interstellar dentist Dr. Dillingham had been accepted as an instructor at the galaxy’s top dental school. Now he’s off to cure the oral ills of a long-buried robot that has vowed to kill the person that frees it from 10,000 years of imprisonment.

Dr. Dillingham meets his patient. Art by Gaughan

Anthony is developing a reputation at the Journey, and not a good one. That’s largely down to the way he writes women. Fortunately, none of that is on display here, possibly because the only female character is a highly efficient secretary who looks like a giant spider. We’re left with an inoffensive and mildly entertaining story, whose only flaw is that it specifically makes note of the old tale it is clearly modeled on of a genie with a similar vow.

Three stars.

Survival, by Steven Guy Oliver

A day in the life of an old man living in the irradiated ruins of a city.

Ignore the blurb. These aren’t the last people on Earth. Art by Gaughan

This month’s new author offers us a grim tale of life after World War Three. It’s very well written, but also very depressing, what I believe kids these days call “a real downer.” I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing more from Oliver. But did I mention that the story is grim?

Three grim stars.

Down on the Farm, by W. Macfarlane

Three agricultural salespeople were brought from Earth to a distant planet. Now their contract is up, and the local autocrat who hired them struggles to find a way to pay what they’re due. Unbeknownst to him, they have ulterior motives.

Erasmus Ballod is having a bad day. Art by Gaughan

A bit old-fashioned, but otherwise an enjoyable enough story. Ask me what it was about a month from now, and I won’t be able to tell you, but it didn’t waste my time. For some reason, Macfarlane’s name was left off the first page; fortunately he was credited in the table of contents.

Three stars.

The Story of Our Earth: 2. The First Traces of Life, by Will Ley

The second part of Willy Ley’s sadly incomplete final book looks at the latest theories as to how life began. He discusses the idea of the “primordial ooze” and how and why it has fallen out of favor. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of continental drift.

While still very good, this chapter didn’t engage me quite as much as the previous did. I can’t say if that’s down to my interest in the subject matter or the quality of Ley’s treatment of it.

A very high three stars.

The Seeds of Gonyl (Part 1 of 3), by Keith Laumer

Jeff Mallory wakes up to discover that three months are missing, the house shows little sign of cleaning and maintenance, and his wife and two younger children are frightened and worn down. Worst of all, no one remembers his oldest daughter, and her room doesn’t even exist. He soon learns that the town has been taken over by things that are barely human, which force everyone to work on a mysterious project.

Remembering that his daughter was planning to stay with a friend who lives well outside of town, Jeff makes his escape. At the friend’s house, he finds only the friend and several unpleasant occupiers, who tell him that the United States has fallen to Russian forces and that his town is a bombed-out, plague-ridden ruin.

He and Sally, his daughter’s friend, move on and are arrested by Russian military. But the Russians are working together with Americans led by a Colonel Strang, who tells him that the Russians were called in to fight the real occupiers, the Chinese. As the installment ends, Jeff finds himself drafted into Strang’s army. To be continued.

Tonight, the role of Colonel Strang will be played by Ronald Reagan. Art by Gaughan

So far, so Laumer. He may be influenced by some of his work on those books he wrote based on The Invaders, what with people not believing in the invading aliens. Honestly, the main thing that stands out to me in this part is the way young Sally abruptly and quickly throws herself at our hero. Jeff put up at least a token resistance so far, though there is a vague paragraph that suggests things could be otherwise. It plays uncomfortably.

Three stars so far, if you like this sort of Laumer story.

To the Last Rite!, by Perry Chapdelaine

One-Girk-Two is undergoing a field test to see if he will be promoted to One-Girk-One. If he passes, he will become the thinking portion of a composite creature called a Unit.

Our hero. Art by Gaughan

This is probably the Chapdelaine story I’ve enjoyed the most. Unfortunately, like all of Chapdelaine’s work, it’s too long. On the other hand, it didn’t go where I thought it was going. Best of all, it has nothing to do with Spork.

Three stars.

Machines That Teach, by Frederik Pohl

Fred took a trip to Tennessee A. & I. In Nashville, where Perry Chapdelaine is a professor of mathematics and is running a lab researching computer aided instruction. There, through a computer in the lab, a computer at Stanford in California administered a test to measure competence in mathematics. Neat stuff, even if the headline is misleading. Maybe even more interesting is the simple fact that he was able to use a computer in Tennessee to interact with another computer a couple thousand miles away

Three stars.

Summing up

We’re starting to see some of the new editor’s influence, though things aren’t really that different. I’m wondering if Jakobsson is going to continue the IF first program, running a story from a new author every month. The issues he’s been in charge of have had such a story, but he hasn’t called attention to it the way Fred did.

The other thing that stands out to me is that the interior art is all uncredited. Where I’ve indicated it’s by Gaughan, it’s because his signature is visible either on the piece reproduced here or a different piece for the same story. I’m not too keen on all the art coming from just one artist (although if the alternative is “art” by Dan Adkins…). More importantly, they give out Hugos for art. If we don’t know who did it, how do we know who to nominate and vote for?

Tiptree is the only name that means anything to me. A bit of a coin flip as an author, but definitely improving with every story.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 31, 1969] Over (and under) the Moon (September 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Being #2, they try…harder?

Last October, just after Apollo 7 went up, it looked as if the Soviets still had a chance at beating us to the Moon.  Their Zond 5, really a noseless Soyuz, had been sent around the Moon two months ahead of our Apollo 8 circumlunar flight.  Just a month later, the similar Zond 6 took off on November 16 and zoomed around the Moon before not just landing, but making a pinpoint landing in the Kazakh S.S.R. (near its launch site) with the aid of little wings.  Apparently, the prior Zond 5's splashing down in the Indian Ocean was not according to plan.

Shortly after the flight, the Soviets dropped the bombshell that Zond 6 could have been manned—and the next one might well be.

Well, as we all know, the Communists didn't beat us around the Moon.  Moreover, they didn't beat us to the Moon, either.  Remember all that talk about Luna 15 during the flight of Apollo 11?  That was the probe launched just before Columbia and Eagle, rumored to be a sample-return mission.  Well, it crashed into the aptly named Sea of Crises about 500 miles northeast of Eagle's landing site on July 21.  Had its mission been successful, the Soviets might have had bragging rights about getting the first batch of Moon rocks.

But, as the Ruskies found out after who knows how many unsuccessful Luna flights, only succeeding in 1966 with Luna 9, complicated maneuvers rarely work on the first time out.

That said, even with the clear American victory in the Moon race, the Soviets appear to still be going strong.  Earlier this month, Zond 7 sailed around the Earth's companion, landing on August 14.  Still no people onboard, but perhaps they worked out the communications troubles that reportedly plagued the last two Zond missions.

Whether these Zond flights presage an upcoming attempt with people onboard remains to be seen.  According to former NASA chief Jim Webb, the Soviets are also building a super rocket, which they will use to put cosmonauts on the Moon.  Put two and two together, and perhaps the early 70s will see the USSR catch up to and surpass the US.

Unless we get to Mars first…

Being #1, they've stopped trying

Analog has, for decades now, kept the title of the most-read science fiction magazine on the market.  On the other hand, editor John Campbell has been sitting on his laurels for a long time, producing an unexciting periodical for the past several years.  The latest issue of Analog only adds more fuel to the argument that perhaps it is time for the old don to step down and let someone vigorous take his place—at least to bring the magazine into the 1960s!


by Kelly Freas

Your Haploid Heart, by James Tiptree, Jr.


by Kelly Freas

A two-man team is sent from Earth to the planet of Esthaa.  Their mission: to determine of the humanoid inhabitants are, well, human.  The results may put to bed the two competing theories that explain the ubiquity of the human form in the galaxy: common evolution and random scattering, or independent, convergent evolution.

The Esthaans are a robust, beautiful people, but there is something somehow phony about them.  Meanwhile, they seem to be on the verge of completing a genocide against the primitive Flenns…who also appear to be a type of human.

What is the connection between the two races?  And why have the civilized Esthaans developed such an antipathy for the pathetic Flenns?  And is an earlier Terran expedition somehow the cause of all this?

There's some interesting biology wrapped up in this story (as suggested by the title), and since biology is not my specialty, I can't even begin to speculate how plausible it is.  But it's an interesting story, well-written, and easily the best I've read from newcomer Tiptree.

Four stars.

Starman, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

The assistant fifth mate on an interstellar tramp freighter decides to jump ship on a backwater world.  The natives have reverted to savagery after once having broadcast power and space travel.

Said starman soon learns that Stone Age living isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Luckily, there are a few relics of the old days left at his disposal.

This is a fun, if inconsequential, story.  The writing is breezy, fun, and tongue-in-cheek, though the casual slurs are somewhat offputting.  I'm also getting very tired of humans, humans everywhere instead of true E-Ts.

Three stars.

The Big Boosters of the U.S.S.R., by G. Harry Stine

Speaking of the Soviet super-booster—amateur rocketeer Stine conjectures as to the configuration and capability of the USSR's rocket stable.  Of course, given how secretive the Russians are, there's a lot of guesswork involved.

I appreciated it, but I have to wonder how accurate he is.  In particular, I'm not sure why he believes that Soyuz 1 was launched on a different rocket from the later Soyuz missions.  I've seen nothing to that effect.  Maybe he's talking about whatever is shooting up Zonds around the Moon.  Those are, after all, just stripped down Soyuzes.

Anyway, four stars.  We'll see how right he is in a decade or so…

Damper, by E. G. Von Wald


by Peter Skirka

A tyro hotshot joins the Weather Control Bureau and is dispatched to a small, Arabian country.  When a Soviet incursion threatens the peace, he shifts the focus of his rain-making efforts from irrigation to interdiction.

Aside from the casual and constant male chauvinism, I have a hard time buying weather control as an SFnal theme, particularly so thinly sketched out as it is in this story.  Orbital lasers (don't those count as space-based weapons?) pumped a lot of heat into the atmosphere to evaporate ocean water and create onshore winds—that heat doesn't go away.  What happens when the Earth warms up by several degrees thanks to all that extra heat?  Beyond that, the technique wouldn't work anyway: it takes more than wet air to make rain; you need some kind of condensate material.  That's why planes seed clouds with silver iodide so the water has something to coalesce around to make droplets.

Two stars.

Stimulus-Response, by Herbert Jacob Bernstein


by Kelly Freas

A trio of scientists are using electrodes and encephalograms to record brain patterns.  The goal is to train a dog to use specific thoughts to trigger its food dish.  In the process, the researchers accidentally teach the beagle how to telekinese.

Not only is this story a turgid bit of pseudo-engineering, but then it abandons science entirely to enter the region of Campbell's beloved psi.  Look, I can sort of enjoy psionics if I treat them like a kind of magic, but when they're mixed in with engineering to get a patina of respectability—and the story is deadly dull to boot—well, there's only one score for it.

One star.

In His Image, by Robert Chilson


by Leo Summers

A biologist synthesizes the first androids—they are human in all respects, save for their satyr-form lower halves.  Bred to be performers, they have been conscious just six months, but have the minds of college professors and the bodies of nubile goddesses.  When the Actors' Guild sues for an injunction against their use in the entertainment business citing unfair competition, a friendly reporter purchases one of them despite the fact that they are sentient and, for all intents and purposes, human. The goal is to force the courts to declare the androids fully human and thus exempt from measures against discrimination.

The question of whether or not androids are people has frequently been explored in science fiction, from the sublime Synth to the less than perfectly successful Trek episode Requiem for Methuselah.  Chilson's tale is… well, it's dull and kind of stupid.  The androids have no personality save for interchangeable sex kitten, the writing is uninspired, and the universe implausible.  It's not even clear what point Chilson is trying to make, so muddied are all the story's elements.  In the end, the plot of the story, such as it is, seems only to exist so we can have a trio of jiggly goat girls mincing around.

One star.

The Visitors, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Terrans land on the first inhabitable world ever found and make first contact with the natives.  Turns out "primitive" doesn't mean "defenseless."

This would be a two-star story, inoffensive but not noteworthy, except for the sheer number of words Wodhams wastes getting to his point.  Twenty pages that could easily have been condensed to, I dunno, five.

One star.

Crashlanding

Well, like the Soviets, Analog is churning issues out that look like winners, but really are just unimpressive retreads.  This one clocks in at 2.4, which is higher than Galaxy (2.2), but lower than Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.7), Visions of Tomorrow (2.8), Amazing (2.9). If (3.0), New Worlds (3.3).

Only one new piece of fiction was written by a woman, and if you took all the decent stuff published this month, you'd only be able to fill two digests—and that's with the extra paperback anthology this month.  Whither short SF?  Whither the Soviet space program?

I guess we'll see what happens next month…




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Magazine, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 28, 1968] Impressive at first glance… (November 1968 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Up and over

Just as America returned to space in a big way with this month's flight of Apollo 7, the Soviets have also recovered from their 1967 tragedy (Soyuz 1) with an impressive feat.  Georgy Beregovoi, a rookie cosmonaut (ironically also the oldest man in space thus far, surpassing 45 year-old Wally Schirra by two years) has taken Soyuz 3 into orbit for a series of rendezvous and perhaps dockings (TASS is being vague on the issue) with the unmanned Soyuz 2.


Comrade Beregovoi in training

We've seen flights like this before, but this is the first time there has been a person involved.  Many are calling this a harbinger of an impending lunar flight, though NASA is adamant that this particular flight won't go to the moon.  Indeed, Dr. Ed Welsh, Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council says Soyuz and September's Zond 5, which went around the moon, are completely different craft and the Russians aren't even close to fielding a lunar mission.

We'll have more on this flight in a few days.  Stay tuned.

On the ground

Like the flights of Soyuz 2 and 3, this month's Analog is outwardly impressive, but once you dig in, it's not so great.


by Kelly Freas

The Infinity Sense, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Centuries from now, after the fall of the Age of Science, humanity is divided into two camps: the "Olsaparns", who dwell in isolated technological camps and retain a semblance of the original technology and society, and the Novos—psionically adept savages who live in conservative Packs.  One of the Pack members is Starn, who possesses a brand new ability that allows him to best even the telepathically and premonitionally blessed.  He runs afoul of Nagister Nont, a highly adept, highly disagreeable trader, who kidnaps his wife.

After a raid on the Olsaparns leaves Starn close to death, the technologists remake him into something more machine than man, like Ted White's Android Avenger.  The Olsaparns want Nont out of the picture, so they help Starn in his quest to defeat the mutant and get back his wife.

I have no fault with the writing, which is brisk and engaging.  I take some issue with the pages of discussion on whether or not psi powers be linked with primitiveness, or the concept that humanity could regress to Pithecanthropy in a scant few generations (or the idea that evolution must be a road that one goes forward and backward on; I thought we gave up teleology last century).  But I blazed through the novella in short order, so… four stars.

The Ultimate Danger, by W. Macfarlane


by Kelly Freas

In which Captain Lew Frizel takes a shipload of eggheads to a hallucinogenic planet.  He is the only one who, more or less, keeps his head.  The message appears to be that LSD can be employed by aliens to judge our character.  Or something.

Three stars?

The Shots Felt 'Round the World, by Edward C. Walterscheid

This piece, on atomic tests, was much easier reading than Walterscheid's last article.  Do you realize that we have detonated half a billion TNT tons worth of nuclear explosives since 1945?  It's a wonder there's anything left of Nevada.

Four stars.

The Rites of Man, by John T. Phillifent


by Rudolph Palais

A scientist is working on rationalizing the art of interpersonal relations (because in Phillifent's universe, no one has invented sociology).  About twenty pages into that effort, humanoid (really, human) aliens show up and ask to be allowed to compete in the Olympics.  They do, but they lose on purpose so we won't hate them.  Then we interbreed.

Possibly the dullest, most pointless story I've ever read in this magazine.  One star.

The Alien Enemy, by Michael Karageorge


by Leo Summers

Humanity is a resilient creature, tough enough to tame any world.  Except that planet Sibylla, with its poisonous soil, extreme axial tilt, thin atmosphere, temperature extremes, high gravity, and violent weather may actually be more than Terrans can handle.  What does one do when a world is too minimal to sustain a colony?  And what is the value of 10,000 settler lives against the teeming, impoverished billions of Earth?

This is a vividly written piece with some excellent astronomy.  If I didn't know better, I'd say Poul Anderson is writing under a pseudonym.  I felt the solution to the colonists' problem, though reasonable, was not sufficiently set up to be deduced.  Also, I felt Karageorge missed the opportunity to make a more profound statement at the end than "well, humanity can lick almost all comers."  I'd have preferred something on the point of colonization or the shifting of priorities on a racial scale.

Still, a high three stars.

Split Personality, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Mauger, a homicidal brute, agrees to be split in two for science instead of getting the chair.  Instead of this resulting in two new individuals, it turns out that the two halves remain connected, the gestalt whole.  Thus, Maugam can literally be in two places at once.

This is timely as the first interstellar drive has had teething troubles.  Two test ships have gotten lost, unable to communicate with Earth.  Now, half of Maugam can fly on the ship while the other stays home and reports, since telepathy, for some reason, is instant.

It's actually not a bad story, though it's really just a bunch of magic and coincidence.  It works because Wodhams has set it up to work a certain way, not because this is any kind of realistic scientific extrapolation.  Also, it's hard to work up any sympathy for a homicidal brute.

Three stars.

Doing the math

When everything is crunched together, we end up with Analog clocking in at exactly 3 stars—again, adequate, but vaguely disappointing.  On the other hand, it's been something of a banner month in SF (provided you're not looking for female writers; they wrote less than 7% of the new fiction pieces published).  Except for IF (2.6), every other outlet scored higher than 3.  To wit:

New Worlds (3.1), Amazing (3.2), New Writings 13 (3.3), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4), and Galaxy (3.9).

The stuff worth reading (4/5 stars) would fill a whopping three magazines.  Who says the science fiction magazine age is over?




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 31, 1968] Too much and too little (February 1968 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Too much

Last week, we watched the evening news with mounting dread and anxiety as President Johnson ordered 15,000 reservists into action in response to the seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea.  The U.S.S. Enterprise was already in the Sea of Japan ready to initiate a retaliatory strike.  It looked like the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again.  Lorelei turned to me and worried that things couldn't possibly get any worse.

Then the North Vietnamese launched an all-out assault on seven provincial capitals in South Vietnam.  Fighting reached the streets of Saigon, and the America embassy itself was overrun for six hours.  The conflict is still raging.  So much for the Tet holiday week of peace.  So much for armistice overtures.

So, 1968 is already shaping up to be a scary year in the mundane world.  Let's see how we're doing in the SFNal realm.  The latest issue of Analog starts off strong, from its Kelly Freas cover, to Harrison's name on the masthead.  But does it deliver on its promises?

Too little


by Kelly Freas

The Horse Barbarians (Part 1 of 3), by Harry Harrison

Don't let the title or the cover throw you–this latest serial is, in fact, the third installment in Harrison's Deathworld series.  In the brilliant first story, we are introduced to Jason dinAlt, a psychically adept gambler and roustabout who comes to Pyrrus, the most hostile planet in the galaxy.  Using his ESP talents, as well as his fine brain, he deduces that the reason the world is so antagonistic to humans is due to a kind of psychic positive feedback loop: as the colonists came to regard the planet as their enemy, the planet's flora and fauna responded in kind.  The key to living at peace with the world is a change in mindset, to work with the planet rather than try to conquer it.  It was a lovely ecological message, predating Silent Spring by two years.

The second dinAlt story, The Ethical Engineer is a Deathworld story only in name, with dinAlt captured and taken to another world in Chapter One.  This novel, more than any other, caused me to confuse Harry Harrison for Keith Laumer (as dinAlt and Retief are rather similar in nature and tone) everafter.

This third piece is a little more closely bound to the original.  The premise: all of the city-dwellers of Pyrrus who could make peace with the planet have already left the original settlement for the countryside.  What's left is the hard-core who cannot change their mindset.  Eventually, the planet must defeat them.

Jason has a proposal that may appeal to this remainder.  The planet Felicity has resisted all attempts at establishment of a mining colony.  Specifically, the northern half of the planet's sole continent is peopled by savage horse barbarians who steadfastedly resist any attempt at civilization.  dinAlt suggests that the Pyrrans form a planetary exploration and pacification company; after all, who in the galaxy could be tougher than a Pyrran?  About 400 city-dwellers agree to the plan.

Upon landing on Felicity, Jason is immediately konked on the head and made a captive of Temuchin, leader of the dominant barbarian tribe.  This chief has slowly gained the vassalage of all of the other tribes, cementing his control over the windswept northern steppes.  dinAlt manages to escape, making a trek across the barren wastes.  But the trip back to his ship, the Pugnacious, is only the beginning of his worries.  In order to topple Temujin, Jason and his fellow Pyrrans will have to playact at being a new barbarian tribe, and subvert the chieftain from within…

The tone flipflops between light and deadly serious, and the horse barbarians are a thinly disguised retread of the Mongols (look in your encyclopedia for the birth name of Genghis Khan), though made redheads for some reason.  That said, I read the whole thing in two quick sittings, and I'm enjoying it more than Engineer so far.

Four stars for this installment.

To Make a "Star Trek" by G. Harry Stine

You know our favorite TV SF show has made the big time when Analog makes it the topic of the nonfiction science article!  Stine, a model rocket enthusiast, offers up a fascinating bit of background on the program, including praises of its implementation of technology, and some behind-the-scenes information that must have come straight from show-runner Roddenberry (indeed, this schematic of the Enterprise has been reprinted in current Trekzines.

Four stars, and a must read for Kirk/Spock buffs.

"If the Sabot Fits … " by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond


by Kelly Freas

The psychic man-and-wife author team returns with this mildly diverting piece.  A series of catastrophic computer failures in a Midwest town coincides with a particular broadcast at a public education station.  Could there be a connection?

I'm not sure if the science is sound, but it might be–Walt is an electrical engineer (Leigh, reportedly, just types his mental emanations, but I suspect she is actually the storytelling talent of the pair).

It's not bad.  Three stars.

Peek! I See You! by Poul Anderson


by John H. Sanchez

A freelance helicopter pilot spots a flying saucer out in the southwest desert.  The aliens, who have already made contact with a local population, do their best to avoid widening their diplomatic contacts.

I appreciate the idea of alien relations with individual nations/groups as opposed to with planets as a whole.  Science fiction writers tend to forget that planets are big places, and they can house more than one embassy/colony/climate.

But.

The story is twice as long as it needs to be, and Poul really doesn't do "light and funny" competently, certainly not in the same league as Laumer, Harrison, or Sheckley.

Two stars.

Dowsers Detect Enemy's Tunnels, by Hanson W. Baldwin

"American soldiers find tunnels in Vietnam, a country riddled with underground passageways.  ONLY DOWSERS CAN BE THE REASON!"

Seriously, John?  One star.

The God Pedlars, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

The ugh continues.  An interstellar corporation is selling computers to primitive tribesmen.  The pitch: they are actually idols representing a great and wise god.  These "gods" tell the indigenes how to live their lives, build technology, etc.  Of course, it's all for the good of the natives.

In addition to being a rather specious premise, this isn't really a story.  It's a mouthpiece and a straw man having a conversation such that the point is beaten into the reader with a mallet.

Editor Campbell would give this story five stars.  I give it one.

Optimum Pass, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

Last up, a sequel to Free Vacation, in which Layard and his fat partner (he never gets a name, but his girth is an important aspect of his character) manage to get themselves thrown in the pokey again such that they can get another free trip to an alien world.  Their official mission is to tough out 30 days to determine the suitability of the planet for colonization.  Their personal mission to look for evidence of "The Prodromals", the original galactic civilization.

More light fun, albeit a bit less coherent than the last tale.  Still, three stars.

Unbalanced scale

Despite the auspicious beginning, this month's issue of Analog finished at 2.7 stars, making it the least of the February 1968 magazines.  Even Amazing scored slightly higher (still 2.7 when rounded), followed by IF (2.8), Fantasy & Science Fiction (3.1), New Worlds (3.3), and Galaxy (a slightly higher 3.3)

It was actually a good month for good fiction: out of six magazines released, one could fill two, possibly three with exceptional (four and five star) stuff.  Women, on the other hand, continue to be underrepresented, with just 7% of published new fiction.

So, while Analog was a mixed blessing this month, all in all, the pages of the digests made for much more pleasant reading than the newspapers.  Would that we could have good news in both.  I guess we'll see how February fares.  It is my birthday month; surely that counts for something!

If you want to see more of my beautiful face (made for radio!) tune in for the latest edition of KGJ news!



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 30, 1967] Ain't that good news! (October 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

End of Summer

The long, hot summer is over, and with it a general cooling across the country, both in temperature and in tension.  While San Francisco enjoyed a summer of love, with folks as disparate as Eric Burdom and Scott McKenzie coming to just be-in, the rest of the nation was rocked by civil strife, strikes, and protest.


Ashes in Cambridge, MD


Teachers on strike

And why not?  The cities have been bubbling kettles for a long time, and too many mayors and councilmen are ignoring the problem.  Too many workers have been stiffed and neglected.  Too many young men, too young even to vote, have lost their lives in Vietnam.

Now, the strikes are largely settled in the workers' favor.  The racial problems, well they're still there, but harder to ignore, and with the departure of sultry weather, tempers are a little less frayed.  Vietnam…well, they had a free election didn't they?  Surely things must be getting a little better.

Surely.

In any event, enjoy the respite.  We're going to need our strength.

So goes the nation…

The nation of science fiction, that is.  SF had a rocky summer, with a slew of lackluster magazines, inconsistent books, and of course, endless reruns on TV.  I'm happy to report that the dog days are over, at least for now: not only has it been a good month for SF mags in general, but the latest issue of Analog is the best in more than a year and a half.


by John Schoenherr

Weyr Search, by Anne McCaffrey


by John Schoenherr

Jack Vance and Frank Herbert have made sweeping, quasi-fantastic tableaus the in thing.  Universes that feel thousands of years old, with venerable, somewhat tattered institutions vying for power in a decadent setting.  Now Ann McCaffrey, best known for her The Ship Who series, has tossed her hat in the ring.

Pern is a planet somewhere in the galaxy, once settled by Earth, but long since forgotten.  It is a verdant, pleasant world save for one feature.  Every few hundred years, a rogue planet comes close enough in its eccentric orbit to launch deadly spores of "thread".  These burrow into Pern's soil, destroying native life, scourging farms and people.

To combat them, humans formed a sort of treaty with the native intelligent life: sapient dragons, with whom their riders bond telepathically.  These dragons not only breathe fire, but they can teleport.  This makes them formidable defenders, indeed!  Clearly, they once dominated Pernian politics.  Long ago, there were six "Weyrs"–barren fortresses wherein lived the dragons and their human brethren.  From these strongholds, Pern was kept safe from the baleful "red star".

But humans have short memories, and when Weyr Search begins, it has been several centuries since the last orbital conjunction.  Human politics have supplanted other concerns, and the "Holds", fortresses against human incursion, reign supreme.  Only one Weyr, called Benden, remains in operation–a shabby shadow of itself.

Nevertheless, with the rogue planet approaching, and the queen of dragons recently dead, it is imperative that the Benden riders find a new rider for the next queen, one who has the requisite psychic talents and the necessary strength of character.  Can any such person exist in these fallen times, when even proud Ruatha hold, whose royal family's blood once ran with a strong vein of dragon talent, has become a wreck under the cruel ministrations of Lord Fax of the High Reaches?

Well, of course the answer is yes.  It's obvious from the first page, told from the point of view of Lessa, Ruathan scullery girl, who is secretly scion of the dead lineage.  Weyr Search is not a story to surprise, a tale of twists and turns.  It is not even really a complete story; it is clear there will be sequels.  What it is, however, is an intriguing setup for a story.

As such, it really succeeds or fails on its writing.  McCaffrey is better at her job than Herbert, whose reach regularly exceeds his grasp.  She is less talented than Vance (who wrote a somewhat reminiscent tale several years ago called The Dragon Masters).  The first portion of the story is a bit stiltedly told, and Lessa comes across as something of a caricature, a wish-fullfilment vehicle akin to Cinderella ("I may seem a nothing, but I'm really a secret princess-queen!") Not that this kind of character can't work–after all, look at Roan in Earthblood, but Laumer and Brown did a better job with it.  And, of course, there are the tics that sold the work to Campbell: psionics and the idea of people being genetically special.

Nevertheless, the writing gets better as it goes along, and the concepts are interesting.  I've read some great stuff by McCaffrey, and I've read some tepid stuff by McCaffrey.  This installment gets four stars.  We'll see how the serial (in all but name) does as a whole when its done.

(Note: There's a bit in the prologue where Pern's "Yankee" colonists are mentioned.  I'll bet my bottom dollar this was a Campbell edit, as nowhere in the rest of the story is the race of the colonists suggested.  Heaven forbid anyone but WASPs settle the galaxy…)

Toys, by Tom Purdom


by Leo Summers

I'm always happy to see a piece from my good friend, Tom.  This one involves a cop duo (male and female) taking on a gang of pre-teenage kids, who have taken their families hostage using a host of homegrown weapons: genetically engineered apes and tigers, chemistry-set psychedelic drugs, erector-set shock guns.  The work of the police is complicated by their standing directive to minimize casualties.

A little insight from the author:

I have a lot of thoughts on Toys. I gave a talk on it at a Philadelphia Science Fiction Society meeting this month.

Basically, it's built around three ideas.

The first came from a John Campbell editorial I read around 1950 or 51.  What are you going to do, Campbell asked, when an angry teenager can blow up a city merely by twisting a pair of wires in a certain way?  It's a thought experiment that gets at the heart of some of the issues raised by technology.  I reduced the problem to a world where children have access to all kinds of potentially lethal technologies.

The second big idea is economic growth.  I got interested in that years before, and it figures in many of my stories. The standard of living in the industrialized nation has been doubling two or three times per century since about 1700.  The children in my story are lower middle class or might even be considered poor, but they have access to things like home genetic kits.  They are poor in land, however, living in a five story house on a narrow plot.  And lots of other kids have a lot more.

The third element is a Utopian police force.  In a world with so much potential for violence, you need a first class police force and a society willing to pay for highly trained, well educated cops.  Edelman [the viewpoint character] understands that he is supposed to resolve this situation without harming the kids.  He takes bigger risks than he has to because he is responsible for the kids' welfare.

Thus, both utopian and anti-utopian predictions.  Purdom excels at these concepts, painting a future world with realistic touches.  For instance, complete equality of the sexes (exemplified by the cop partners), and one of the few stories that takes monetary inflation into account ($50,000 a year is a poor salary; $200,000 is pretty good.)

Where Tom always has trouble is combat scenes.  It's no coincidence that his best works, like I Want the Stars and Courting Time, focus on people rather than fighting.

Toys is essentially a non-stop fight sequence.  Thus, three stars.

Political Science—Chinese Style, by Research Group of the Theory of Elementary Particles, Peking

Editor Campbell offers up the preamble to a Chinese paper on subatomic particles, the realm of the "quark".  The actual paper is not included; instead, we get many pages of explanation as to the philosophy that let to the composer's discoveries–all guided by the pure thought of their leader Mao Tse Tung.

It's pretty obvious that such folderol is necessary to get anything published in China.  I'm sure the Nazi and Stalinist publishers had to do the same.  What's special about this paper is that the science is reportedly "first-class".  Which makes me sad that the whole paper wasn't included.  Subatomic physics is fascinating stuff.

Anyway, it's short and interesting for what it is.  And given the quality of fiction in this mag, I didn't miss the (hit and miss) science column too much.

Three stars.

The Judas Bug, by Caroll C. MacApp


by Kelly Freas

C.C. MacApp, using his first name rather than an initial for some reason, offers up this tale of a colony in peril.  Two settlers of a new planet have been found dead in the field, their faces, throats and hands gnawed away.  The fauna of the planet just don't seem harmful enough to be the culprit; Mechanic James Gruder worries that a human conspiracy is involved.

This is a perfectly competent story, although I found the resolution a little rushed.  Three stars.

Free Vacation, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

I really liked the concept behind this story: Terran convicts are offered a choice–imprisonment, or teleportation to a roughhewn world as conscripted explorers.  Day Layard, a brand new draftee, is paired with an old hand, who proves invaluable in keeping him alive.  It turns out Layard's partner is particularly happy with his lot in life; it gives him the opportunity to seek out signs of the "Prodromals", the race of beings that preceded humanity in the galaxy.

This is another tale that runs along just fine until the somewhat rushed ending.  An extra page or two would have perhaps garnered a fourth star.  As is, a pleasant three.

Pontius Pirates, by J. T. McIntosh


by Leo Summers

The planet of Molle is a rich, advanced world, with nothing to hide.  So why is it the moment Jack Sheridan makes planetfall from Earth, he is under 24 hour surveillance?  Nothing formal, mind you–just subject to the attentions of four jovial fellows eager to get him drunk, and a pretty young girl employed to spend the night with him…or at least tell him she did when he wakes up with no memory of what went on the previous day.

Could it be that Molle is actually the home base for the piratical Buccaneers, and the surveillance is to make sure no one gets too close to the secret? That's certainly why Sheridan, actually an Interstellar Patrolman, was dispatched to the planet.

On the surface, this is just a secret agent thriller.  The plot is interesting, but nothing noteworthy.  The average reader will probably enjoy it and move on.

As a writer, I found much to admire.  The thing is, Jack Sheridan is never wrong.  He has his working theories, he tests them, and they always turn out to be more or less as expected.  There are plenty of stories with characters like these, from Retief to James Bond, and they quickly run into one or both of two issues:

1) When you know the hero is always right, where's the tension?

2) When the hero knows he's always right, he tends to become insufferable.

McIntosh, who has been writing for two decades now, neatly avoids both pratfalls.  The mystery is unfolded piece by piece, and at each juncture, Sheridan is plagued with doubt.  He doesn't know if he's right, he lists all the reasons he could be wrong, and he explains what he'll do in that event.  The thing is, he isn't some schnook like Bond who stumbles upon the truth.  He lands on Molle with enough information to be pretty sure it's the Buccaneer base.  After that, it's logical and plausible deduction.

We also learn a lot about Sheridan, his character and his values, without ever explicitly being told about them.  It's a lovely piece of oblique writing, all showing and no telling.

So, well done, Mr. McIntosh.  Perhaps others in Campbell's stable can learn from your example (*ahem* Chris Anvil).  Four stars.

Doing the math

With a star-o-meter rating of 3.4 stars, Analog tops its competition.  But competition it did have!  New Worlds and Fantasy and Science Fiction both scored 3.3, and even Amazing got 3.0.  Only IF and
Galaxy lagged, with 2.8 and 2.7, respectively.

If you took all the four and five star stories, you could fill two slim digests.  The only really sad statistic is that, out of 33 new pieces of fiction, just one was written by a woman.  Looks like women have struck out for books and screenplays, where the money's better.  A smart move, but not a happy sign for magazines in general.

Nevertheless, let's dwell on the positive.  Good job, Analog, and thanks for a happy punctuation to the month of September!

Speaking of books by women…

You've probably heard of Marie Vibbert, one of the biggest names in SFF magazines (of the far-future year 2022).  Her book, The Gods Awoke, is what I've been calling "a new New Wave masterpiece":

Do check it out.  You'll not only be getting a great book, but you'll be supporting the Journey!




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