All posts by Gideon Marcus

Science / Space Race

[June 8, 1965] A Walk in the Sun (the flight of Gemini 4)

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by Gideon Marcus

Coming of Age

The second age of American human spaceflight has begun.  Until this month, the US' steps into space have been tentative.  The longest Mercury flight lasted just one day, and at that, stretched its capabilities to the limit.  The first crewed Gemini, launched in March, completed just three orbits — the same duration as Glenn and Carpenter's Mercury flights.  In the last five years, the Soviets, on the other hand, hit the day-long mark in 1961 with Titov's Vostok 2 mission, and since then have launched two dual Vostok flights, a three-man Voskhod mission, and in March, conducted the first walk in space during the two-man Voskhod 2.  The current "winner" of the Space Race was evident.

But on June 3, 1965, Gemini 4 launched into orbit, and everything is different now.

Dress Rehearsal for Moon Trips

Gemini is America's first real spacecraft.  Unlike Mercury, which could do little more than spin on its axis and carry a human in space for 24 hours, Gemini has the ability to maneuver.  It can rendezvous with other craft in orbit, change orbits to a degree, can stay in space for up to two weeks, and it seats two.  Because of this last, an astronaut can be deployed for extravehicular activity.  All of these capabilities are vital prerequisites for any Moon-bound craft, and the lessons learned in operating Gemini are directly applicable to Apollo, the three-seat spacecraft destined to reach Earth's celestial companion.

This fourth Gemini mission, the second to be crewed, was the first to really put the spacecraft through its paces.  And boy did it ever.  There's a reason the flight dominated the news before, during, and after the event.

Into the Wild Black Yonder

At around 8:00 PM Pacific Time (as all times shall be rendered; pardon my San Diego bias) on June 2, ground crews began fueling the repurposed Titan II ICBM that would carry the Gemini 4 capsule.  Note that the ship did not and still does not have a name.  This is a first, and I think it a rather sad state of affairs.

At 1:10 AM the following morning, Majors James McDivitt and Ed White, command pilot and co-pilot respectively, were awoken; whereupon they feasted on the "low residue" breakfast that has become traditional: steak and eggs.

By 5:20 AM, they were suited up and installed in their craft, take-off scheduled for 7 AM.  But the red rocket erector would not come down, and for more than an hour, the astronauts waited.  Would the flight be scrubbed?

Luckily, a reset of the structure freed things up, and at 7:40 AM, the Titan was clear, ready for launch.  And launch it did at 8:16 AM, guided for the first time from the brand new Mission Control in Houston, Texas.  The complex had been staffed for the previous two Gemini missions, but this was the first time control was formally transferred from Cape Com in Florida.

Once in orbit, the Gemini astronauts wasted no time.  By the time the spacecraft had twice circled the Earth, astronaut White was already planning his jaunt into history.  As Gemini 4 whizzed over North America, the co-pilot opened his hatch and stepped out into the vacuum of space.  For a good twenty minutes, as the blue of the Earth slowly unfolded beneath him, Ed White was the first American human satellite. 

Only a tether and a rather Buck Rogers-looking nitrogen gun for maneuvering kept him in the proximity of his mothership.  And like a recalcitrant child, White did not want to come back inside when called.  "This is the saddest moment of my life," he lamented.  But return he did, and safely.

Much to the relief of the astronauts' wives, coincidentally both named Patricia.

Anticlimax

What do you do to top that?  Well, while the rest of the flight might not have matched the drama of the main event, the remaining four days of the mission nevertheless were important, too.  Not just for what was accomplished, but for what failed to be mastered.

For instance, Gemini 4 was supposed to get some rendezvous practice in, using the spent second-stage of the Titan as a target.  Try as he might, McDivitt could not accomplish the task.  Future pilots will be aided by radar; orbital mechanics are tricky!

Also, on the second and third days of the mission, McDivitt reported spotting and snapping shots of two satellites, one of which was just 10 miles away and had "big arms sticking out of it."  However, the developed pictures do not show these mysterious craft.

On the other hand, the Gemini crew did take amazing photos of the Earth, offering a sneak preview of the kind of gorgeous albums we can expect once human presence in space is firmly established.  I will let the following sequence speak for itself.

Actually, I'll make a note on the following: the darkened area is rain that had recently fallen on Texas.  This kind of Earth monitoring from orbit will be invaluable to science and business.

Trouble at the End

Gemini 4 was the first American (and possibly human, period) spacecraft to carry an onboard computer.  This device was designed to provide a smooth and automatic landing.  But on June 6, the day before landing, the computer became balky after receiving a software update, eventually quitting entirely. 

A manual, Mercury-style reentry had to be done, which was begun around 9:45 AM on June 7.  McDivitt was about a second late on the start of the procedure, and Gemini 4 ended up about 50 miles off target.

But the recovery fleet was already on hand when the parachute of McDivitt and White's capsule appeared in the noon-day blue, and within an hour of splash down, the astronauts and their ship were already onboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp. 

The doomsday predictions that long-term exposure to orbital radiation and weightlessness proved largely unfounded.  The two astronauts were a little tired and wobbly, but on their own two feet, they marched below decks for a well-deserved shower.

Double is Something

In just a single flight, Gemini 4 more than doubled the accumulated American hours in space, quadrupled if you count them in human-hours.  Gemini has demonstrated that the U.S. can deploy free men into space for extended periods of time, both inside and outside a capsule.  And given the current flight schedule, with at least two, possibly three longer flights planned just for this year, there's no question that the American stride in the space race is lengthening.

Will the tortoise take the lead?  Or is a bunny in the shape of Voskhod 3 about to upset the contest once again?  Only time will tell.

Did you miss our stellar show on Gemini 4 and the Space Race? Tune into this rerun of The Journey Show!




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Science / Space Race

[May 30, 1965] Ticket to Ride (May space round-up)

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by Gideon Marcus

It's been another exciting month in the realm of spaceflight.  We're between crewed missions, what with Voskhod 2 and Gemini 3 having flown in March and the next Gemini due in a few days.  Nevertheless, it has been a field day for robotic spacecraft, with a number of civilian and military packages booking passage aboard a plethora of satellites.  Take a look:

The Shape of Things that Came

Yuri Gagarin soared into history in April 1961, becoming the first human space traveler.  His face became known worldwide. His spacecraft, on the other hand, remained shrouded in mystery. For four years, the shape of the Vostok capsule remained a secret, with only a few dubious artists' conceptions offering any clues to its configuration.

That changed suddenly last month when the Soviets displayed the complete Vostok spacecraft at an exhibition in Moscow.  Now we know that the fanciful cylinders and bullet-shaped craft were completely off the mark — Vostok was spherical.

This is significant.  A sphere is a simple shape, mathematically, and it is not hard to weight a ball such that one end always points down.  In the Vostok, that point is where its heat shield was mounted.  A similar concept was employed with America's Mercury capsule, but the back end of the Mercury is only a small arc of a circle.  That's because American rockets were too weak to loft a full sphere.  Vostok is clearly a much heavier spacecraft than Mercury, and this suggests that the Soviet Vostok rocket was much more powerful than the Atlas and certainly the Redstone that lofted the first astronauts.

The unveiling of Vostok affords us a look into a completely different space program, too.  Earlier in the year, American intelligence determined that the Vostok had been turned into a spy satellite.  Instead of cosmonauts, the new Vostok carries a camera.  After a week snapping pictures in orbit, the capsule parachutes to Earth, and the film is developed.  It's an elegant repurposing, though it has to be more expensive than the American analog, Discoverer.

While the Soviets do not announce their spy missions, it's not too hard to figure out which of their Kosmos "science satellites" are probably spy Vostoks.  Their orbits, sweeping them over Western targets of interest, and their short lifespans on the order of a week give them away.  In just the last two months, it's likely that Kosmoses 64, 65, and 66 were all spy satellites.  In a few days, we'll know if Kosmos 67, launched on May 25, is also a space shutterbug.

Softly, softly

Another probe about which the Soviets are being less than forthcoming is Luna 5.  Launched on May 9, the ton-and-a-half spacecraft was headed for the Moon.  Reportedly, it conducted a mid-course maneuver on May 10, directing it toward the Sea of Clouds — which it hit at 10:10 PM, Moscow time.  Per TASS, "During the flight and the approach of the station to the moon a great deal of information was obtained which is necessary for the further elaboration of a system for soft landing on the moon’s surface."

That might lead one to the conclusion that Luna 5 was the Soviet version of Ranger, a TV probe designed to take pictures until it crashed.  However, Western observers using telescopes saw the plume of dust that one would expect accompanying an attempt at a soft landing.  That such a landing did not occur suggests that Luna 5 was supposed to be an equivalent of our Surveyor, set to launch next year, and that things did not go as planned.  The lunar race thus remains neck and neck.

Exploring, Communicating

The last month saw two more entries into the Explorer series: Explorer 27, launched April 29, is a windmill-shaped little satellite that will measure irregularities in the Earth's shape; a secondary mission is probing the ionosphere.

Meanwhile, Explorer 28 was launched on May 28, and is the latest in the Interplanetary Monitoring Probe series, along with Explorers 18 and 21.  All three craft have high, eccentric orbits that allow them to thoroughly map Earth's magnetic field, though Explorer 18 went kaput earlier this month.

As we saw with last month's flight of Intelsat 1, space-based communications are now a fact of everyday life.  The USSR has now gotten in on the act, following up the flight of Early Bird with their own first satellite called Molniya, launched April 22, 1965.  It has a high, 12-hour orbit, not quite geosynchronous, designed to service the high latitude residents of the Soviet Union during the daytime.  European nations have already requested use of the Molniyas; they feel that the "international" Intelsat corporation too strongly favors the United States.


Finally, the Air Force's second "Lincoln Experimental Satellite," launched May 6, has been a success.  This next-generation communications satellite tests new technologies that will allow it to service hundreds of users at a time.  Its predecessor, LES-1 launched February 11, failed to fire its onboard engine that would kick it from its initial low orbit.  LES-2 had no such problems, and its orbit takes it more than 9000 miles above the surface of the Earth.

Of course, being a military satellite (as opposed to Telstar, Relay, and Syncom), it is possible that we civilians won't see immediate benefits, but I suspect they will trickle down in good time.

Another step Moonward

May 25 marked the ninth successful launch of the Saturn rocket, possibly the biggest rocket on Earth.  At its tip were boilerplates of the Apollo Command and Service Modules.  But these mock spacecraft weren't the stars of the show: inside the cylindrical Service Module was a giant satellite, the second Pegasus.  Appropriately adorned with a pair of enormous wings, Pegasus will stay in orbit for years measuring how many micrometeoroids our astronauts are likely to encounter on their way to the Moon.

The reliability of the Saturn is truly remarkable.  Remember the early days of the Space Race?  Chances were 50/50 then that any given rocket, Atlas, Juno, or Vanguard, would blow up on the launch pad, tilt off course, or otherwise fail.  We're now in an age of maturing space travel.  If Gemini's Titan rocket continues to do as well as the Saturn, I do believe that, by the 1970s, everyday citizens like you and me will be able to get tickets to ride into space. 

This week's Journey Show is a special Space Race episode!  Don't miss it!




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Magazine

[May 28, 1965] Heavyweight's Burden (June 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

How the Mighty have Fallen

Since 1953, Sonny Liston has been a big name in boxing.  Liston's spectacular career, marred by a prison hitch and rumored connections with organized crime, reached its pinnacle when he defeated Floyd Patterson in 1962 to become the world heavyweight champ.

He kept the title for two years, losing it in an upset to newcomer Cassius Clay.  In last week's rematch, Clay, now named Muhammad Ali, beat Liston even more handily.  Ali looks like he'll be keeping his title for a long time.

John W. Campbell Jr.'s Astounding was the heavyweight champion of science fiction magazines in the late 1930s, standing head and shoulders above its pulp competition.  It retained this title all through the Golden Age of SF, which lasted through the 1940s.

For the last fifteen years, Astounding (now called Analog) has maintained the highest circulation numbers, by far, of the science fiction digests.  It survived the mass extinctions of the late 1950s.  Campbell is still at the tiller.

But there are signs that the old champion could become easy pickings for a scrappy newcomer.  A recent flirtation with the "slick" format and dimensions was a dismal failure. The contents of the once-proud magazine have been staid for a long time.  Then, of course, there's Campbell's personal weirdness, his obsession with fringe sciences, his odious opinions on race relations.

That's not to say Analog is an unworthy magazine, but it's got its problems.  Exhibit A of Analog's vulnerability: the latest issue.

Handicapping the Reigning Champion


Did Campbell forget his is a science fiction magazine?

If I were a gambling house, I'd want to give my champion a thorough vetting, analyzing all of its strengths and weaknesses, and coming up with odds of victory accordingly.  Let's imagine the June 1965 issue as a kind of exhibition bout and see how it does.

The Muddle of the Woad, by Randall Garrett


by John Schoenherr

The bell rings, and our champion is looking good.  Randall Garrett is back with his third Lord Darcy story, a magical mystery series set in an alternate 20th Century in which England and France are united, Poland is the big adversary, and sorcery exists alongside technology.  The Lord Detective, along with his tubby Irish spell-casting sidekick, Sean, solve the murders of the Empire's most prestigious citizens.

In the deliciously pun-titled case, Lord Camberton of Kent is found dead in a coffin intended for someone else, his body dyed blue with woad.  Suspicion immediately falls on the Albion Society, a group of druids who reject Christianity.  But is this a red herring?  As with any good mystery, the cast of suspects is limited, and the ending involves the classic summoning of all to a room for a final deduction of the culprit.

Good stuff, as always.  A fine story and a rich universe.  Four stars.

Glimpses of the Moon, by Wallace West


by John Schoenherr

Oh, but now the champion is faltering.  Wallace West, who wrote the rather delightful River of Time offers up a clunker of a tale.  It is the late 1960s, and a three-way race to the Moon between American, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain has ended in something of a tie.  While the representative of the U.S.A. clearly landed first, the Soviets claim that the Moon is the property of whichever country whose skies it happens to be in at any given time.  Thus, ownership cycles with every day.  In the end, it turns out that a fourth power has a much earlier claim on the body.

It's all very silly, but not in a particularly fun way.  Two stars.

Hydrogen Fusion Reactor, by Edward C. Walterscheid

Last month, there was an article on magnetohydrodynamics — the use of magnetic bottles to contain thermonuclear reactions.  This month, the science fact article is exclusively on nuclear fusion.  Indeed, so proud is Campbell of this piece that he gave it the cover.

I was eager to learn about the state of development of this promising power source. Sadly, Walterscheid has not yet learned how to subdivide his points. Or write interesting prose. The result is an impenetrable wall.

Hmmm.  Perhaps the article could be repurposed to line the walls of tomorrow's fusion reactor…

Two stars.  Folks, the champion is staggering!

The GM Effect, by Frank Herbert


by Robert Swanson

Oh boy. Dune author Frank Herbert is back, and with another talking head story.  Unlike his last one, which involved a congressional hearing on a widely distributed superweapon, The GM Effect is about a drug that allows takes to experience former lives.  When it is discovered that this reveals all sorts of unsavory and forgotten tidbits of history (including that a Southern senator is one-quarter black), the drug's developers decide to cancel production.  Then the military comes in, shoots the drug creators, and appropriates their creation.

Not only is the story rather pointless, it's distasteful.  Herbert seems to be gleeful that Lincoln was personally no great lover of black Americans, and when the murdering general describes the erstwhile scientists as "N*gg*r lovers," I get less the sense that the utterer is supposed to be the bad guy and more that the author was delighted to be able to squeeze the word into a story.

One star…and our champion is down, folks!  He's down!

Duel to the Death, by Christopher Anvil


by John Schoenherr

Nearly 30 years ago, Analog's editor wrote Who Goes There.  One of the genre's seminal stories, it details the infiltration of an Antarctic base by a body-snatching alien, one that spreads via touch.  The result is that one cannot tell friend from foe anymore.  It's a chilling premise that has since been used to great effect, for instance by Robert Heinlein in The Puppet Masters..

Duel is a fairly straight entry in the genre.  A spacer on a new planet has his suit punctured by some sort of dart, and he quickly succumbs to alien control.  The purloined body becomes Ground Zero of an alien invasion that quickly takes over a nearby space fleet.  Thus ensues a race against time: can the Terran Navy defeat this scourge before it absorbs the whole of humanity?

Most of this story is quite good, with some very interesting story-telling, often from the point of view of inanimate objects: the space suit of the first victim, the ship's sensors of the investigating fleet, the communications devices employed by the humans.

But, to distinguish Duel from its predecessors, the author ends the piece with a twist that doesn't quite work.  I understand it, I think, but I don't quite buy it.

Three stars — good enough to bring our champion back to his feet, but flawed enough that he leaves the ring dazed.

Summing Up

Running our champion's performance through the Star-O-Vac, we come up with a rating of just 2.5.  That's pretty bad.  In a head-to-head against the other magazines of this month (and there was a bumper crop), how would Analog have fared?

Not well, it turns out.  Partly, it's because the competition was quite strong: Fantasy and Science Fiction ended up on top with an impressive 3.5 rating.  Worlds of Tomorrow garnered 3.2 stars and Galaxy got 3.1.  Both Amazing and New Worlds got three stars, while Fantastic and Science Fantasy finished at a sub-par 2.8.

Only If ranked lower than Analog, meriting just 2.2 stars (sorry David!)

So, a disappointing performance by Campbell's mag augurs poorly for it. Will there be a Muhammad Ali of science fiction publications?

(P.S. Women wrote six of the 55 fiction pieces this month; none appeared in Analog — connection?)




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 18, 1965] Rubber Ball (or Skip the End) (June 1965 Fantasy & Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Bouncin' Back to You

Cast your memories back to the distant past — about four years. Remember when Bobby Vee exploded on the scene with his first hit, Rubber Ball.

It's a song about a fellow who should know better than to stick with an untrue love but, like a rubber ball, keeps coming back to her anyhow.  The tune came to my mind more than once as I read this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction, a magazine that has plumbed depths often enough to tempt me to cancel my subscription, but on occasion (like this one) produces such an excellent issue that I remember the good times of the 1950s, and love is rekindled.

Is it the doing of new editor Joe Ferman?  Statistical variation?  Either way, it was a pleasure to read.  Come join me and see why:

Bounce my heart around


by James Roth

Admiralty, by Poul Anderson

We begin with an ending of sorts, the conclusion to the exploits of Gunnar Heim, late of the Federation Navy, now a privateer savaging the Aleriona patch of stars known as The Phoenix.  His goal, to prosecute an undeclared war to liberate the conquered human world of New Europe before its inhabitants run out of Vitamin C, is about to come to fruition.  But how can one ship achieve victory against a starfaring empire?  More personally, will an old flame of Heim's be waiting for him planetside when all is said and done?

Admiralty is Anderson near the top of his form, which, like a sine wave, has definite positive and negative amplitudes.  What makes the piece frustrating is its incompleteness.  This novella and the other two that have recently appeared in F&SF are about to be compiled into a book called The Star Fox, and I strongly suspect that there will be expansions above and beyond what has appeared in the magazines.  Indeed, some of the most exciting episodes in Admiralty, like the capture of the Aleriona prize, Meroeth, are dispatched in a paragraph or two of exposition.  What remains is something of a Readers Digest abridged version — entertaining but dissatisfying.

Also, I wish Anderson wouldn't assume that we all speak French; there are paragraphs and paragraphs of the stuff that go largely untranslated.  I'm going to start sending him letters in Japanese…

Anyway, four stars, for this and the whole sequence, and I suspect the book will be even better.  Certainly Hugo material.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, by Fredric Brown and Carl Onspaugh

Dooley Hanks, a clarinetist of modest talent but tremendous desire, scours the world looking (listening?) for The Sound.  When he finds it, in an obscure town in Germany, the temptation to claim it for his own becomes overpowering…and hazardous.

A powerful story, evocative and beautifully told, it's the kind of reworked fable Robert F. Young wishes he could write.

Five stars.


by Gahan Wilson — better than his previous ones

Books, by Judith Merril

Normally, I don't give inches to the book column, but Ms. Merril is cutting and insightful in a way I can only hope to approximate. Don't miss her take on the latest SF to cross her desk (many of which have been covered by the Journey).

Rake, by Ron Goulart

Ben Jolson, shape-changing agent of the Chameleon Corps, is back for another adventure.  This time, in the guise of a student, he's investigating the development of a super-weapon by an academic ensconced at a public college.

This tale is far more obviously slapstick than his previous one, which I had quite liked.  Rake is just too silly, too random to be very good, and there's no reason for such a short piece to begin in medias res followed by a flashback to How It All Began.

Two stars.

Phoenix (the Science Springboard), by Theodore L. Thomas

Normally, Thomas' non-fiction vignettes, more story seed than article, aren't worth the two pages they're printed on.  This time, I quite liked his postulation that at the center of every gas giant lies a terrestrial core.  I don't know if it's accurate; I don't know how we could verify the accuracy, but it is an exciting idea that the planets of the solar system all started out as roughly similar planetoids that grew atmospheres as time went on.  Only the inner ones lost theirs because it was too warm so close to the Sun.

Of course, it's easy to make models that fit the one set of data we have.

Four stars, anyway.

The Ancient Last, by Herb Lehrman

The first of two reader-submitted stories fulfilling the call for tales involving Univac and Unicorns.  This is the more poetic of the pair.  Interestingly, its poignant ending is somewhat marred by two additional paragraphs; because the offending superfluity occurs on a following page, I didn't originally see them, and I thought the ending was stronger than it ended up being.

Funny enough, I was recently rejected by F&SF, whose editor suggested I trim out my terminal line to give the ending more punch.  I did.  We'll see how it does.

Stand-In, by Greg Benford

Another first from a fellow San Diego native.  This Univac/Unicorn story is more swinging and fun, but not particularly consequential.

I give three stars to both.  I'm glad the authors got their breaks and I hope this sets them on their way to stardom.

Story of a Curse, by Doris Pitkin Buck

Earth spacers are forever restless in search of change, intolerant of stagnation.  But when Earth, itself, has changed, the astronauts see the folly of their wanderlust.

Long on emotion, short on coherence, Story is more prose-poem than science fiction.  I liked it well enough, though.  Three stars.

Nabonidus, by L. Sprague de Camp

Archaeologist meets a ghostly colleague of ancient vintage.  This poem has a strange meter, but again, it's appealing.  Three stars.

Future? Tense!, by Isaac Asimov

In a surprise disappointment, the science column is probably my least favorite piece of the issue.  The Good Doctor begins by relating how on-the-spot he feels when asked to predict the future, then says he'll do it anyway, and then doesn't really do it at all.

At a recent bookstore interview, I was asked if a science fiction story's value is based on its predictive accuracy.  I felt that the answer I gave ("No — its value is in how well it entertains; science fiction can't predict the future; it can only extrapolate current trends.") was better and more succinct than the one Dr. A offers.

Two stars.

Of Time and the Yan, by Roger Zelazny

The Last Man of Earth meets the Last Man of Mars; unfortunately, time is not on the side of humanity.

Zelazny increasingly makes his stories more affectedly "literate."  It may get his stories sold, but it's getting tedious.  Two stars.  (Your hue and cry tells me I'm a too-harsh boor.  I do not disagree.)

Jabez O'Brien and Davy Jones' Locker, by Robert Arthur

Lastly, here is the tale of a young New England fisherman who seeks to win fame, fortune, wisdom and happiness through the capture of a mermaid.  Instead, he winds up…well, best not to spoil this gem of a story.

It's an absolutely charming work, the best I've seen from Mr. Arthur, and made all the better for my imagining it being narrated by Fractured Fairy Tale's Edward Everett Horton (now you'll have his voice in your head, too!)

Five stars.

My heartstrings, they just snap

In the end, even this issue bounces around like a rubber ball, but the pages of quality far outnumber the momentary lapses.  The June 1965 issue of F&SF is a stand-out…and my love is rekindled.

Don't break my heart, Joe!

Don't forget to register for our show on May 23 at 1PM DT!  We really want to see you there and hear your questions.





https://event.webinarjam.com/register/34/3q3prsl6

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Science / Space Race

[May 10, 1965] A Language for the Masses (Talking to a Machine, Part Three)

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This is part three of our series on programming in the modern computer age.  Last time, we discussed the rise of user-oriented languages.  We now report on the latest of them and why it's so exciting.


by Gideon Marcus

Revolution in Mathematics

The year was 1793, and the new Republic of France was keen to carry its revolution to the standardization of weights and measures.  The Bureau du cadastre (surveying) had been tasked to construct the most accurate tables of logarithms ever produced, based on the recently developed, more convenient decimal division of the angles.  Baron Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony was given the job of computing the natural logarithm of all integers from 1 to 200,000 — to more than 14 places of accuracy!

Recognizing that there were not enough mathematicians in all of France to complete this project in a reasonable amount of time, he turned to another revolutionary concept: the assembly line.  Borrowing inspiration from the innovation as described in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he divided the task into three tiers.  At the top level were the 5-6 of the most brilliant math wizards, including Adrien-Marie Legendre.  They selected the best formulas for computation of logarithms.  These formulas were then passed on to eight numerical analysts expert in calculus, who developed procedures for computation as well as error-check computations.  In today's parlance, those top mathematicians would be called "systems analysts" and the second tier folks would be "programmers."

Of course, back then, there were no digital machines to program.  Instead, de Prony assembled nearly a hundred (and perhaps more) human "computers." These men were not mathematicians; indeed, the only operations they had to conduct were addition and subtraction!  Thanks to this distributed labor system, the work was completed in just two years.

The Coming Revolution

These days, thanks to companies like IBM, Rand, and CDC, digital computers have become commonplace — more than 10,000 are currently in use!  While these machines have replaced de Prony's human calculators, they have created their own manpower shortage.  With computation so cheap and quick, and application of these computations so legion, the bottleneck is now in programmers.  What good does it do to have a hundred thousand computers in the world (a number being casually bandied about for near future years like 1972) if they sit idle with no one to feed them code?

As I showed in the first article of this series, communication between human and the first computers required rarefied skills and training.  For this reason, the first English-like programming languages were invented; they make coding more accessible and easier to learn. 

But developing programs in FORTRAN or COBOL or ALGOL is still challenging.  Each of these languages is specialized for their particular function: FORTRAN, ALGOL, and LISP are for mathematical formulas, COBOL for business and record keeping.  Moreover, all of these "higher-level" programming languages require an assembly program, a program that turns the relatively readable stuff produced by the programmer into the 1s and 0s a computer can understand.  It's an extra bit of work every time, and every code error that stalls the compiler is a wasted chunk of precious computer time.

By the early 1960s, there were folks working on both of these problems — the solution combined answers to both.

BASICally

In 1963 Dartmouth Professor John Kemeny got a grant from the National Science Foundation to implement a time-sharing system on a GE-225 computer.  Time-sharing, if you recall from Ida Moya's article last year, allows multiple users to access a computer at the same time, the machine running multiple processes simultaneously.


Photo Credit: Dartmouth College

Kemeny and his team, including Professor Thomas Kurtz and several undergrads, succeeded in completing the time-share project.  Moreover, in the interest of making computing available to everyone, they also developed a brand-new programming language. 

Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC, was the first language written specifically for novices.  In many ways, it feels similar to FORTRAN.  Here's an example of the "add two numbers" program I showed you last time:

5 PRINT "ADD TWO NUMBERS"
6 PRINT
10 READ A, B
20 LET C=A+B
30 PRINT "THE ANSWER IS", C
50 PRINT "ANOTHER? (1 FOR YES, 2 FOR NO)"
60 READ D
70 IF D = 1 THEN 6
80 IF D = 2 THEN 90
90 PRINT
100 PRINT "THANKS FOR ADDING!"
9999 END

Pretty easy to read, isn't it?

You might notice is that there's no initial declaration of variables.  You can code blithely along, and if you discover you need another variable (as I did at line 60), just go ahead and use one!  This can lead to sloppy structure, but again, the priority is ease of use without too many formal constraints. 

Indeed, there's really not much to the language — the documentation for BASIC comprises 23 pages, including sample programs.

So let me tell you the real earth-shaking thing about BASIC: the compiler is built in. 

On the Fly

Let's imagine that you are a student at Stuffy University.  Before time-sharing, if you wanted to run a program on the computer, you'd have to write the thing on paper, then punch it into cards using an off-line cardpunch, then humbly submit the cards to one of the gnomes tending the Big Machine.  He would load the FORTRAN (or whatever language) compiler into the Machine's memory.  Then he'd run your cards through the Machine's reader.  Assuming the compiler didn't choke, you might get a print-out of the program's results later that day or the next.

Now imagine that, through time-sharing, you have a terminal (a typewriter with a TV screen or printer) directly attached to the Machine.  That's a revolution in and of itself because it means you can type your code directly into a computer file.  Then you can type the commands to run the compiler program on your code, turning it into something the Machine can understand (provided the compiler doesn't choke on your bad code).

But what if, instead of that two-step process, you could enter code into a real-time compiler, one that can interpret as you code?  Then you could test individual statements, blocks of code, whole programs, without ever leaving the coding environment.  That's the revolution of BASIC.  The computer is always poised and ready to RUN the program without your having to save the code into a separate file and run a compiler on it. 


Kemeny watches his daughter, Jennifer, program — not having to bother with a compiler is particularly nice when you haven't got a screen!  Photo Credit: Dartmouth College

Moreover, you don't need to worry about arcane commands telling the program where to display output or where to find input (those numbers after every READ and WRITE command in FORTRAN.  It's all been preconfigured into the program language environment.

To be sure, making the computer keep all of these details in mind results in slower performance, but given the increased speed of machines these days and the relatively undemanding nature of BASIC programs, this is not too important. 

For the People

The goal of BASIC is to change the paradigm of computing.  If Kemeny has his way, programming will no longer be the exclusive province of the lab-coated corporate elites nor the young kooks at MIT who put together SPACEWARS!, the first computer game.  The folks at Dartmouth are trying to socialize computing, to introduce programming to people in all walks of life in anticipation of the day that there are 100,000 (or a million or a billion) computers available for use.

Vive la révolution!


Photo Credit: Dartmouth College

If you've read it this far, do me a favor and GOTO here — it's important!




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Book, Magazine

[May 8, 1965] Skip to the end (June 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Impatience

Normally, I'd open up with a discussion at length of the news of the day.  Like how the United States is still knee-deep in the Dominican Republic, losing soldiers to snipers every day despite the ceasefire between the current military-civilian junta government and the supporters of ousted President Bosch.

Or that Collie Wilkins Jr. was acquitted by a 10-2 hung jury in a trial for the murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, shot in her car after the Selma rallies.  Wilkins' defense attorney's statements included language so profane and racist that I cannot transcribe them here.

Or that the comedy/news show, That was the Week that Was, had its final show on May 4th.

And then, having given my report, I'd tie it pithily to the subject at hand, namely the June 1965 Galaxy science fiction digest.  But the fact is, there's lots to cover and I'm anxious to get it all down while it's still fresh in my mind.  So, you'll just have to pretend that I was clever and comprehensive in my introduction.  On to the important stuff:

Bob Sheckley and friends


by George Schelling

As is happening more and more often, the king-sized bi-monthly, Galaxy, is dominated by a short novel this month.  This time, it's by a fellow who probably was the best SF short story writer of the 1950s.  Bob Sheckley has turned to novels of late with something less than (to my mind) great success. The Journey of Joenes, The Status Civilization, Time Killer — none of them were triumphs, though some disagree.  Will this time be different?

Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley

Young Marvin Flynn is bored to death of living in the bucolic New York town of Stanhope, desperate enough to risk "mindswap."  And so, Marvin exchanges minds with the Martian, Aigeler Thrus.  Unfortunately, Thrus' body was currently occupied by the unscrupulous Ze Kraggash, who had taken residency to elude the police after a crime.  Thrus is entitled to his body; Kraggash has Flynn's.  This leaves Flynn six hours to find a body, any body, or be extinguished forever.


by George Schelling

An increasingly frantic Flynn ends up bopping across the galaxy, first as a collector of sentient ganzer-eggs on Melde, somewhere near Aldeberan; then on to Celsus for a stint as a professional victim wearing a ticking time bomb gift; and ultimately to a reality-bending place called The Twisted World.

It's complete fluff, vaguely satirical and fun-pointing, but for the most part, pointless.  I went along with it, mildly amused for about 60 pages, before my tolerance ran out and I skimmed the rest.  Unlike Harrison's brilliant and cutting Starsloggers, Mindswap is just self-indulgent…and far too long. 

Two stars.

Servant Problem, by Otis Kidwell Burger

On the dreary, sandstorm-plagued planet of Dexter, there's little for the married couples to do but drink and kvetch about their house-servants, a race of off-putting aliens that only look like middle-aged spinsters.  After an endless seven pages of this stuff, we learn that the servants are actually the masters, and the humans are being evaluated for their level of social development.  Turns out they're in the emotional equivalent of kindergarten.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.  Two stars.

Blue Fire, by Robert Silverberg

Nat Weiner, visitor from newly terraformed Mars, the "Sparta of space," arrives on Earth to sample the luxuries of an overcrowded, decadent world.  Assigned to escort him is Reynolds Kirby, a "major bureacrat who gets paid like a minor one."  Together, they attend a spiritual gathering of the devotees of Vorster, a pseudo-scientific cult that preaches the unity of humanity and worships at the altar of the cobalt reactor. 

Vorsterism is just one of many avenues of relief against the physical and mental crush of living amongst 10 billions; hallucinogens are also popular, and the upperclassmen, like Kirby, favor the sensory deprivation "Nothing Chambers".  Cosmetic replacement of external features with metal and plastic substitutes is popular. 


by Jack Gaughan

As the tour of the once-proud homeworld progresses, Weiner becomes increasingly belligerent, resolved to steal a Vorster nuke and put it to "worthwhile use" as an energy-generating reactor on Mars.  Through Kirby's interactions with Weiner, and with the Vanna, a Vorsterian with a face modifed to inhuman grotesqueness, Kirby comes to see his own life as a hollow shell of an existence and reconsiders all of his carefully created precepts.

Blue Fire is a day-in-the-life of a fellow on the edge of a midlife crisis in a tired world.  With deft writing and vivid imagery, Silverberg accomplishes in 25 pages what usually takes Philip K. Dick a full novel.

Five stars.

Think of a Man, by Karen Anderson

Poetess Anderson offers up a latter-day space shanty.  It might make a decent filk, but it will likely leave no great impression on you.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Observatory on the Moon, by Willy Ley

Observatory on the Moon, by Donald H. Menzel

An Eye For Selene, by R. S. Richardson

The idea that astronomy is better conducted on the Moon than Earth is an old one.  Not only is Earth's celestial neighbor airless, but its slow rotation makes it much easier to do long film exposures.

This should be a fascinating topic; instead, this is probably the least interesting article Ley's ever written.  A truly disappointing development for a column that was a major selling point when I first began my subscription to Galaxy 15 years ago. 

The short counterpoint following the main article is equally undistinguished.  Richardson's comments, on the other hand, are interesting. 

Barely three stars for the lot.

Devil Car, by Roger Zelazny

Sam Murdock speeds across the Great Central Plain of a post-apocalyptic United States in his sentient car, name of Jenny.  His monomaniacal mission: to destroy the black Devil Car and his minions, who have been savaging the continent.  Though Murdock's conviction never wavers, Jenny is torn between her programmed loyalty to her driver, and to the Devil Car's sirensong call to join his pack.

Plausible?  Not for a second.  Slick and enjoyable?  Absolutely.  Four stars, and I'll bet this gets optioned for a movie or episode of a Twilight Zone revival.

One Face, by Larry Niven


by Nodel

Last up is the third short story from this promising new writer, which may or may not take place in the same universe as his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs.  The passenger liner, Hogan's Goat, has an accident in hyperspace on the way to Earth.  It ends up at the right place but billions of years in the future.  The Sun is a burned out husk, and humanity's home is an airless world with one face permanently locked toward its star.  With no way home and nowhere to go, Verd Spacercaptain, his crew and passengers, and their increasingly debilitated computer Brain must find a way to survive.

I'm not entirely sold on the science of this piece, but Niven has a way of creating a very rich world in just a few pages.  It's also obvious that Niven is a new writer: his cohort has no problem with presenting women as equal partners and in roughly equal numbers to men; moreover, he displays no preference in terms of skin tone or ethnicity.

Four stars.

Satisfaction

How to judge the latest Galaxy?  It contains a full issue's worth of slag, but then again, it contains almost a full issue's worth of gold.  Perhaps it needs to be a regular length bi-monthly?

Especially since editor Pohl is crowing about how next month's novel will be even longer, and by Frank Herbert.

God help us all…

Our last three Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




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Magazine

[April 30, 1965] Back-door uprising(May 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Dominican Republic, half of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, has never been a beacon of democracy.  The Trujillo dictatorship lasted three long decades, ending only in 1961 after his assassination.  The nation's first democratic elections, in 1963, brought Juan Emilio Bosch Gaviño to the Presidency.  In the same year, a military junta removed him from power, elevating Donald Reid Cabral to the position.

Reid was never popular, and on April 24, military constitutionalists and Dominican Revolutionary Party supporters launched a coup, José Rafael Molina Ureña taking the top post.  He lasted all of two days.  A counter coup restored the Reid government to power, although Reid, himself, had fled the country.

Meanwhile, the American military worked to evacuate some 3,500 U.S. citizens living in the country.  Just this morning, elements of the 82nd Airborne Division landed at San Isidro Air Base, on the outskirts of Santo Domingo.  Their mission is to enforce a ceasefire and guide the country back to democracy.

Thus, our nation is now involved in stabilizing missions on both sides of the globe.  Will this action mark a long term involvement?  Or, in the absence of a Communist menace (Haiti is not North Vietnam!) and with the aid of other O.A.S. nations, will this be a quick exercise to hasten Caribbean democracy?

Only time will tell.

Insurgency in the Old Country

At the very least, we can be certain that the Dominican involvement has no chance of developing into a nuclear confrontation (unlike Vietnam, where Sec. Def. MacNamara did not rule out that possibility).  So it's a conventional affair for now.

Appropriately, we now turn to the most conventional of science fiction magazines, the oft-hidebound Analog.  Like the Dominican Republic, it has been under a single strongman for several decades.  And yet, like that island nation, we occasionally see signs of progress.  Indeed, this latest issue has some refreshing entries, indeed.


by John Schoenherr

Trouble Tide, by James H. Schmitz

On the world of Nandy-Cline, herds of sea cows are abruptly and mysteriously disappearing from the costs of the Girard colonies.  Danrich Parrol, head of the Nandy-Cline branch of Girard Pharmaceuticals, teams up with Dr. Nile Etland, head of Girard's station laboratory, to find the cause of the vanishing food animals.  They suspect foul play from a rival company, Agenes.  The poisoning of a herd of mammalian but native fraya seems somehow connected, too.  The two embark on a forensic adventure that takes them across a thousand miles of coast and under miles of ocean.


by John Schoenherr

There are many features that make Tide stand out.  What a delightful story this is, with an interesting pair of protagonists and a cute scientific solution.  I appreciated the depiction of a planet as a big place, big enough to support many economies, colonies, and criminal activities.  I also particularly liked the appearance of female characters.  Indeed, Dr. Nile Etland is an equal partner in the investigation and is not a romantic foil — simply a competent scientist.

Why is this remarkable?  I had become so inured to the lack of female characters in my science fiction that I'd almost started to challenge my convictions.  Was it really fair of me to judge fiction (at least in part) by whether or not it included female characters?  Isn't modern SF just a reflection of the male-dominant society we live in?  Can we blame authors for writing "what they know?"

Yes, yes, and yes.  The erasure of women in any kind of fiction, particularly one that projects present trends into the future, is inexcusable.  Any portrayal of a world where women play minor roles or none at all isn't just unrealistic, it propagates a kind of ugly wish fulfillment.  That's why, when I get a story like Tide with realistic and positive representation of women (and, indeed, Schmitz has always been good in this regard) it's such a breath of fresh air.  Ditto the British import show, Danger Man, which regularly features competent professional women who are integral to the episodes.

It's what I want to see.  It's what I should be seeing.  That I'm seeing it in Analog of all places gives me hope.

Four stars.

Planetfall, by John Brunner


by Alan Moyler

A young Earth woman eagerly greets a young astronaut man, an ecologist on the crew of a starfaring colony with 2,500 residents that is making a brief stop.  She's set on falling in love with and departing with this exotic fellow, who represents freedom, the exotic, and most of all, purpose in life. 

He, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to jump ship, to escape the stultifying space-kibbutz life, to experience the beauty of humanity's Home.

Each of them poison each other's greener grass, and the encounter is an unhappy one.

If there's such a thing as a "meet cute," then this is a "meet ugly," but it's quite poignant.  Brunner does good work.  Four stars.

Magnetohydrodynamics, by Ben Bova

I really wanted to like this nonfiction article.  After all, it's about a genuinely scientific topic, a revolutionary one.  MHD allows the generation of power without moving physical parts, instead using magnetic fields and plasma.  It's the kind of technology required if we ever want to build fusion power plants.  Plus, Asimov likes the guy.

But boy is this piece dull.  It's not quite as dry as reading a patent, but it's in the same ballpark.  I've heard similar reviews of Bova's work in other magazines, so I can't be the only one who feels this way.

Anyway, two stars.

The Captive Djinn, by Christopher Anvil


by John Schoenherr

Captured human on a planet of cats at a 19th Century technology level outwits his jailers through the use of basic chemistry and the exploitation of the felines' stupidity.

If there were an award for "Story that best exemplifies Chris Anvil's work for John Campbell," this would win.  Two stars.

Beautiful art by Schoenherr, though.  He's definitely going to get a Galactic Star again this year!

The Prophet of Dune (Part 5 of 5), by Frank Herbert

And now we come to the greatest coup of all, the finale of the longest serial I've ever read in a magazine.

Technically, Dune is two serials, and there have been other five-part novels.  But Prophet of Dune is not a sequel to Dune World but the latter "novel's" conclusion.

It's been a long trek. It started with Duke Leto Atreides acquiring the fiefdom that included Arrakis, a desert planet and the only source of the spice melange. This cinnamon-smelling spice is an anti-agathic and also conveys a limited form of precognition.

For the Empire's rich, it livens food and lengthens lives.

For the Navigators' Guild, the spice allows its specialists to navigate the hazardous byways of hyperspace.

For the Bene Gesserit, a religious order of women, it facilitates their plans to manipulate history through the deliberate mixing of blood-lines; their hope is to eventually produce the "Kwisatz Haderach," a sort of messiah, a man with the powers of the Bene Gesserit.

Duke Leto was not long for his reign.  The Harkonnen family from whom Arrakis was transferred immediately schemed to regain it, attacking the planet, killing Leto, and forcing Leto's concubine, the Bene Gesserit Jessica, and their son, Paul, to go into hiding among the native "Fremen."  So ended the first serial.


by John Schoenherr

Baron Harkonnen installed a ruthless nephew on Arrakis with the goal of fomenting a rebellion. His plan would then be to take personal control, relax the tyranny, and turn the Fremen into the greatest army the Empire had ever seen, even more fearsome than the Saudukar, the Imperial guard.

Out in the desert, Paul spends a harsh two years learning the ways of the desert. Moisture is priceless, and all sand-dwellers wear water-recycling "still-suits."  The voracious sandworms are both a constant threat and a valuable commodity, for it is their waste that is refined into spice. 

While among the Fremen, Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, transforming poisonous sandworm effluence into a substance that allows her to commune with all of her brethren, living and dead.  Because she does so while pregnant, her unborn daughter, Alia, gains the wisdom of a thousand women and is born an adult in a child's body.

Paul is initiated into Fremen culture, eventually assuming the mantle of Muad'Dib, savior of the desert people.  Under his leadership, the Fremen are united.  They will revolt, as Harkonnen expected, but the event will not unfold as the Baron desires.

In this final installment of Dune, Paul launches his attack even while the Padishah Emperor, himself, has visited the planet with five legions of Saudukar, and all of the great families have surrounded Arrakis with warships.  But the hopeless position of Muad'Dib turns out to be unbeatable: for Paul controls the production of spice.  Without it, the nobility is crippled, space is unnavigable.  Thus young Atreides emerges utterly triumphant with virtual control of the Empire, a bethrothal to the Emperor's daughter, and freedom for the people of Arrakis.

I have to give credit to Frank Herbert for creating a universe of ambitious scope.  There's a lot to Dune, and the author clearly has a penchant for world-building.  He takes from a wide variety of sources, particularly Arabic and Persian, creating a setting quite different from what we usually see in science fiction.  The result is not unlike the landscapes generated by Cordwainer Smith, whose upbringing included time in China, or Mack Reynolds, whose writing is informed by extensive travel behind the Iron Curtain and in the Mahgreb.

But.

There's plenty not to like, too.  Herbert is an author of no great technical skill, and his writing ranges from passable to laughably bad.  There wasn't so much of his third-person omniscient and everywhere-at-once in this installment, but it wasn't completely absent, either.  The writing is humorless, grandiose (even pompous), and generally not a pleasure to read. 

Beyond that, the work is highly reactionary.  I was originally pleased to see several female characters in the story.  Lady Jessica often is the viewpoint, though given Herbert's love of switching perspective every third line, that's not quite so noteworthy.  But in the end, even the most prominent women are limited to their medieval roles, that of wife and bearer of greatness.  Dune is a man's world. 

Then there are the fedayken, the people of the desert clearly modeled on the Arabs.  And who should lead them to freedom?  Not a local son, no; only T. E. Lawrence Jesus Atreides can save them. 

It's an unsettling subtext in our post-colonial times: a galactic empire, decadent and crumbling, requires an infusion of European boldness to restore it to vigor.  Is it any surprise that this novel came out in Analog?

So, on the one hand, I give this installment four stars.  It kept me interested, and I appreciated the intricacy of the conclusion.  Looking over my tally for the other seven parts of this sprawling opus, that ends us at exactly three stars. 

I think that's fair.  Some will praise the book for its vision and be undaunted by the quality of the prose or the offensiveness of its underpinnings.  Those folks will probably nominate it for another Hugo next year.  Others will give up in boredom around page 35.  I read the whole thing because I had to.  I didn't hate it; I even respect it to a degree.  But I see its many many flaws.

Let the adulatory/damning letters begin!

Running the Numbers

Once again, Analog finishes at the top of the heap; at 3.3 stars, it ties with Science-Fantasy.  It's been a good month for fiction overall, with New Worlds and Amazing scoring 3.2. 

Fantastic gets a solid 3 stars, and IF just misses the mark at 2.8. 
Fantasy and Science Fiction disappoints with 2.7, though its Zenna Henderson story may be the best of the month.

While women may be making a comeback as fictional characters, as writers, they're still conspicuously absent.  Only 2 of the 38 fiction pieces were written by women.

Perhaps it's time for a coup.  Summon the 101st Airborne!

Our last three Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




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Magazine

[April 22, 1965] Cracker Jack issue (May 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

A surprise at the bottom

I'm sure everyone's familiar with America's snack, as ubiquitous at ball games as beer and hotdogs.  As caramel corn goes, it's pretty mediocre stuff, though once you start eating, you find you can't stop.  And the real incentive is the prize waiting for you at the bottom of the box.  Will it be a ring?  A toy or a little game?  Maybe a baseball card.

This month, like most months recently, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is kind of like a box of Cracker Jacks.  But the prize at the end of the May 1965 issue is worth the chore of getting there.

A handful of corn


by Mel Hunter

Mr. Hunter continues to make beautiful covers that have nothing to do with the interior contents.  Also, his spaceships look like something out of the early 1950s.  With so many real spaceships to draw inspiration from, it's sad that our rocketships still look derived from the V2.

The Earth Merchants, by Norman Kagan

As early as 1963, folks have been complaining about the space program.  In Kagan's latest work, there is a tight conspiracy to topple NASA through a comprehensive propaganda campaign.  On the eve of the launch of the Behemoth, the first commercially profitable spaceship, the media is filled with advertisements like this:

Dear Elder Citizen;

Hungry?  Too bad that your social security allotment is so small, but just think, six months ago an astronaut circled Mars.  He had a steak dinner the night before he blasted off–

And

Billions for the moon, because the work will have byproducts for medical research?  Why not billions for medical research–it's just as likely to have byproducts for space flight!

The inevitable result is that when things go wrong at launch time, the NASA engineers throw up their hands and let disaster occur.  The viewpoint character, a psychologist who initially leads the project with vigor ends the story with a migraine and a profound sense of guilt.

There are a lot of problems with this story, from its plodding, heavy-handedness to its utter implausibility, not to mention the casual male-chauvinism.  I'm not sure if it's being deliberately provocative to inspire support of the space program or if it's just being satirical for satire's sake.  Either way, its effectiveness is compromised by its inept execution.

Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The powers at F&SF have replaced the Feghoot puns with Wilson's art.  God help me, but I think I preferred Feghoot.

Romance in an Eleventh-Century Recharging Station, by Robert F. Young

The Master of Maudlin returns with a sci-fi spin on the Sleeping Beauty story.  Young is a great writer, but his Fractured Fairy Tales are always the least of his works.

I suspect John Boston would give this a one and Victoria Silverwolf a three.  I'll split the difference.  Two stars.

Mammoths and Mastodons, by L. Sprague de Camp

I'm not sure why F&SF included an article on extinct members of Family Elephantidae, but it suffers greatly for being in a magazine that eschews pictures.  It would have been far better suited to, say, Analog.

Three stars, I guess.

The Gritsch System, by Robin Scott Wilson

How to keep a dozen scientists disciplined long enough to put together an engineering project in space?  Give them a distasteful thirteenth teammate to be their scapegoat and whipping boy.

I really disliked the message of this one ("the best way to unite a team is a common enemy") and the one-note story didn't need nineteen pages to tell it.

On the other hand, at least it was actually science fiction taking place in space.  So, two stars.

Short Cut, by Deborah Crawford

Newcomer Deborah Crawford offers an odd poem about the lack of art appreciation in a computerized world.  It lacks much rhyme or meter, but I appreciated the joke at the end. 

Three stars.

Books, by Judith Merril

I normally don't include mention of F&SF's book column.  I just found it noteworthy as it appears Ms. Merril is now the regular reviewer (this magazine is a good home for her given her more progressive predilections), and two of the books she reviews have been reviewed here (Andromeda Breakthrough by Fred Hoyle and The Alien Way, by Gordy Dickson).

Sonny, by Robert L. Fish

SAC base gets a spiffy replacement for its IBM computer.  Between its alcohol-based coolant and a couple of prankster scientists, it proves less than a success.

If I never see a sentient computer gag story again, it'll be too soon.  I would like an author to appreciate that 1) computers will never be sentient, and 2) if they ever do obtain a kind of consciousness, it will in no way mimic that of humans.

One star.

To Tell a Chemist, by Isaac Asimov

In this month's (second) non-fiction article, The Good Doctor expounds on moles, the chemical kind, and the origin of Avogadro's number.  I found this article more disjointed than most, and it felt like, if I hadn't know most of the stuff already, I wouldn't have made much sense of it.

Three stars.

The Prize

No Different Flesh, by Zenna Henderson

Ah, but the last quarter of the magazine is sublime, passing the bedtime test (i.e. if I'm supposed to be asleep but I will not turn out the light until I finish a story, it's gotta be good).

This is a The People story, featuring an ordinary Terran couple with highly relatable sorrows.  They take in a seemingly abandoned child with extraordinary powers, a merciful act that is repaid in the most satisfying of ways.

The Journey's esteemed editor has a maxim: "Good writing is the art of making small things matter."  Zenna Henderson is a good writer.  One of the best.

Five stars.

Aftertaste

Cracker Jack really isn't that good, is it?  But that prize, though!  So even though the magazine scores just 2.7 stars overall, it might be worth picking up a copy for the Henderson.

On the other hand, since there's already been one anthology of People stories, there probably will be another.  In which case, you might well wait until then.  Better a box of prizes than a box of Cracker Jack!

Our last two Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, April 25 at 1PM PDT featuring flautist Acacia Weber as the special musical guest.





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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[Apr. 16, 1965] The Second Sex in SFF, Part VIII

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by Gideon Marcus

It's been almost two years since the last edition of ourThe Second Sex in SFF series came out.  In that time, women have only gotten more underrepresented in our genre.  Nevertheless, new women authors continue to arrive on the scene, and some who produced under gender-ambiguous names have become known to me:

Hilary Bailey

Bailey, a British writer whose name does not immediately bespeak a woman writer, marched onto the scene in 1963 with her laudable social satire story, Breakdown, in New Worlds, followed by her stand-out novella, The Fall of Frenchy Steiner, the following year in the same magazine.

She is one of the very few women to appear in British science fiction magazines.  She has also been married, since 1962, to fellow SF writer, Michael Moorcock, who is now editor of New Worlds.

J. Hunter Holly

Though the SF career of Michiganian J. Hunter Holly began in 1959 with the novel, Encounter, she did not get included in prior installments of this series for two reasons.  Firstly, I was not aware that Holly was a woman until a fellow fan noted that the author's real name is Joan Carol Holly.  Secondly, like Andre Norton (another woman author with a male pseudonym) Holly doesn't do magazine fiction.  Indeed, it wasn't until the aforementioned fan sent me a C.A.R.E. package of Holly books that I realized she's already had quite a career in the genre!

I've only reviewed her most recent book, The Time Twisters.  It's a flawed piece, plot-wise, but Holly's quite a good writer.  I'll have to finish her back catalog in my copious spare time — and I look forward to her next release!

A.M. Lightner

Alice Martha Lightner Hopf is another author whose gender disappears behind initials.  She tends to be a children's writer: two of her first three short stories appeared in Boy's Life and her first three novels are also aimed at younger audiences.  She also has written a nonfiction book called Monarch Butterflies under the name of Alice Hopf. 

But I know of her because her short story, A Good Day for the Irish, which appeared five years ago in IF.  A fair story, it stood out for being one of the very few that featured a female protagonist.

I'm keen to see if Lightner Hopf will return to the mature mags, or if she's found her niche just beyond my usual ken.  Either way, I wish her success!

Florence Engel Randall

Some authors erupt onto the scene with a bang.  We saw it with Ursula K. LeGuin in 1962 with her debut, April in Paris in Fantastic.  Similarly, New Yorker Randall knocked it out of the park with her first two stories, One Long Ribbon and The Barrier Beyond.  Like LeGuin, her first was published in 1962, and both stories came out in Fantastic — until recently, a magazine helmed by the only woman editor, Cele Lalli (ne Goldsmith). 

Jane Beauclerk

Some authors become associated with a particular series.  Jane Beauclerk, who has appeared twice in F&SF, is likely to be remembered for her Lord Moon stories. These are almost fairy-tale pieces that take place on an unnamed planet at the edge of a Terran empire.

Juanita Coulson

Last but not least is Juanita Coulson.  At first glance, Ms. Coulson has no published short stories or novels in any genre.  So why does she get included here?

Firstly, she is one of fandom's brightest lights, producing the fanzine Yandro with her husband, Robert, since 1953.  The 'zine has been on the Hugo ballot since 1957, and I suspect it's got a good chance at the rocketship this year.  Moreover, it turns out she does have at least a partial story credit: Another Rib is a four-star story that came out in F&SF in 1963.  Though it was published under the byline of "John Jay Wells" (and apparently co-written with the now persona non grata Marion Zimmer Bradley), I have since confirmed that Wells is actually Coulson.

Will "Wells" return?  Will Coulson flower in the pro arena under her own name?  Will Yandro finally win the Hugo this year?  Only time will tell…

——

When I began this list, we were in medias res with the careers of most of the women writing science fiction.  Now that we are covering new authors, it's impossible to tell which of those profiled will end up brilliant genre lights and which will simply fade away after a brief, bright career.  In addition to introducing recent writers in this series, future editions will cover dramatic changes in the careers of previously profiled authors.

I look forward to the day that women make up more than 10% (at best!) of the content printed in science fiction magazines.  Until then, it's important to remember that there are still dozens of women producing some of our best stories.  I hope this series helps bring that fact into public consciousness.

[If you're looking for more great science fiction by women, Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963) contains 14 of the best stories of the Silver Age.

Pick up a copy!  It'll support your local bookstore.




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Book, Magazine, Serial

[March 30, 1965] Suborbital Shots (April 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Mission Failures

It's been a tremendous month for fans of the Space Race. I won't go into detail here, since we already published an article on Voskhod 2, Gemini 3, etc. just last week.

Thanks to Newton's Third Law, or perhaps the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or maybe Finagle/Murphy's First, the science fiction mags have been correspondingly lousy.  If we call the 3-star threshold making it into orbit, then virtually every SF digest this month was a suborbital dud. John Campbell's Analog, which led the pack last month, is among the damp squibs this month.

T Minus Zero


by John Schoenherr

Goblin Night, by James H. Schmitz


by John Schoenherr

15-year old telepath, Telzey Amberdon, is back.  On a camping trip with her class in Melno Park on the planet of Orado, she makes psychic contact with a handicapped, housebound fellow named Robane.  He seems an innocent and lonely man, but he seems somehow connected with a lurking, murderous presence that Telzey and her classmates have sensed.  Can the young ESPer, with the help of her mastiff, Chomir, defeat this menace?

Scmitz keeps Goblin Night's pages turning, and there's no question but that Schoenherr illustrated it beautifully for the issue's cover.  But the story is several pages too long (not in plot, but in execution) and Telzey has absolutely no personality at all — she could be Retief or DinAlt or Steve Duke for all we get of her character.

So, three stars.  Still, it's probably the best story of the issue.

Fad, by Mack Reynolds


by Alan Moyler

Sometime a few decades from now (slang use suggests Fad is set in Joe Mauser's timeline) a pair of conmen decide to sell the ultimate product.  Joan of Arc will be packaged and pitched to be the avatar of a sales empire featuring medieval styles, Joan-inspired games, Jeanne D'arc themed automobiles, etc. etc.  High jinks ensue, and high profits are threatened by those uppity women becoming inspired by The Maid of Orleans to take their rightful place on the political scene.

In the right hands, this could have been an interesting, satirical piece.  As is, it's about as sensitive and palatable as Reynolds' atrocious Good Indian.

Barely two stars, and that only because it reads fairly briskly.

No Throne of His Own, by Lawrence A. Perkins


by Kelly Freas

Worse is the second "funny" story of this issue, by a brand new author.  Something about a human Private on an alien world whose experience with the local booze leads him to understanding how a Terran invasion was at first thwarted and later welcomed.  I think.  Truth to tell, it was a confusing mess, and I skimmed it as a result.

One star.

The Space Technology of a Track Meet, by Robert S. Richardson

A saving grace of this issue is the nonfiction article by the reliable Richardson.  He apparently spent a few weeks doing some complicated math to see how athletes might really perform at sports on planets of different gravities.

Useful, interesting stuff — I just wish he'd included more equations for easier following along.

Four stars.

The Prophet of Dune (Part 4 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by John Schoenherr

Last up, we have the humorless, plodding fourth installment of Part Two of the Dune saga.  With no transition whatsoever, the setting changes to two years after the last installment.  Paul Muad'Dib, son of the late Duke Leto Atreides, is still hiding out with the desert-dwelling Fremen, harvesters of the geriatic melange spice of Arrakis.  A vassal of the nefarious Harkonnen Barony, who usurped the Atreides claim two years prior, is slowly losing control of the planet, and the Fremen are anxious to strike.  But before Paul can lead his ragtag army in revolt, he must become a full Fremen, which requires that he mount the titanic Makers — the sand worms of Arrakis.

Meanwhile, Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, now the Reverend Mother of the Fremen, deals with the fallout of her transforming spice poison into liquor in her system after ingestion during her induction ceremony two years prior.  For her unborn daughter, Alia, was imprinted with all of Jessica's experience, which also includes that of all the Reverend Mothers of the Fremen before her.  Alia is, thus, a toddler burdened with several lifetimes of knowledge…much like her brother, Paul, due to his spice-given precognitive skills.  This makes her a feared freak, though what role she has to play in the saga is yet unknown.

There are some interesting bits, but for the most part, a could-be fascinating epic is marred by amateur writing, some laughable errors ("A head popped up into the con-bubble beside Gurney — the factory commander, a one-eyed old pirate with full beard, the blue eyes [emphasis added] and milky teeth of a spice diet."), and the damnable constantly switching viewpoint.

A very low three, I guess.

After Action Report

In the end, dreary as it was, Analog was far from the worst SF mag this month.  Though it only scored 2.6 stars, it was surpassed in lousiness by Amazing, IF (2 stars), and Gamma (1.9 stars).  Galaxy was a little better (2.7), followed by Science Fantasy and Fantastic (2.8), and then Worlds of Tomorrow (2.9).  Only New Worlds Fantasy and Science Fiction made it to orbit, and only just — 3 and 3.1 stars, respectively.

As with the real Space Race, women are mostly (though not entirely) unrepresented; only Jane Beauclerk and the amazing Zenna Henderson were published this month.  Perhaps more women astronauts…er…writers can rescue us from this dark chapter in our genre.

One can but hope!

We had so much success with our first episode of The Journey Show (you can watch the kinescope rerun; check local listings for details) that we're going to have another one on April 11 at 1PM PDT with The Young Traveler as the special musical guest.  As the kids say, be there or be square!

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