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[July 6, 1964] Busy Schedule (August 1964 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

SFlying Eastward

Today saw the Journey in the wilds of Utah, attending a small science fiction conclave out in the lovely summer desert of Deseret.  What could have impelled us to make another plane trek less than a week after having returned from a long sojourn in Japan?

Well, we were invited.  The things one does for egoboo…

Nevertheless, duty continues, and so I find myself pounding the typewriter keys early in the morning (to the chagrin of the folks in the neighboring rooms, no doubt) so you can read all about the first SF digest of the month, the August 1964 IF.

The Issue at Hand


by Fetterly

The big news is that IF is a monthly now after years and years as a bimonthly.  Lord knows where editor Fred Pohl is getting the material for this increased frequency, especially given that he also helms the sister books, Galaxy and Worlds of Tomorrow. Let's see how the new mag holds up under the compressed schedule:

The Slaves of Gree, by C. C. MacApp


by Gray Morrow

Young Jen wakes up spluttering in a pounding sea, his memories forgotten, with the trace of a foreign name in the back of his mind.  Who is "Steve Duke" and what is his relation to Jen?  The hapless jetsam of a man is rescued by his own kind, fellow slaves to the great Gree.  Jen soon gets back his memories, remembering that he belongs to the happy, harmonious Hive, a burgeoning galactic power. 

Or does he?

Turns out Jen is a double-agent, quite literally.  He has two personalities, which swap as needed.  One is one of the Hive's most promising subalterns, a puissant veteran of the space corps.  The other is Major Steve Duke, a rather unsavory Terran sent to topple the Hive from within.

There are the makings of a great story here, but it needs a lot of polish.  So much of the tale is told mechanically.  At one point, I counted ten sentences in a row beginning with "He [verbed]…"  Plus, I kept expecting a twist at the end, but instead, it's just a straight adventure story with (I felt) the wrong personality winning. 

Two stars, just shy of three.

A as in Android, by Frances T. Hall

A middle aged rebel against the system encounters an android with his face and imprinted with his memories – memories he'd sold for some quick cash a decade and a half before.  Has the robot, who was exiled to the hell planet called Cauldron, come for revenge or something else?

Frances Hall's first SF story (to my knowledge) is a solid triple.  Four stars.

The Prince and the Pirate, by Keith Laumer


by Nodel

The latest Retief story sees our favorite interstellar diplomat/super spy thwarting the topple of a monarchy.  Neither the best nor the worst of the stories in the series, it entertains reasonably.  Three stars.

The Life Hater, by Fred Saberhagen

How do you convince a machine that biological life is superior?  And in the parley between human and sentient, life-hating battleship, who is playing who?

Fred Saberhagen continues to impress with his excellent tales of the Berserkers — sentient dreadnoughts who scour the galaxy, ridding it of biological infestations.

Four stars.

Farnham's Freehold (Part 2 of 3), by Robert A. Heinlein


by Jack Gaughan

Last up is the latest installment of Heinlein's most recent novel.  Last time, Hugh Farnham, a libertarian, nudist cat-lover (no resemblance whatsoever to his creator!) ducked into a bomb shelter with his family when the Russkies started to nuke America.  Instead of dying in the holocaust, however, Farnham et. al. found themselves transported to a virgin version of their world, one in which people had never existed.  Or so they thought.

At the beginning of this month's narrative, other people show up — technologically advanced black men who enslave the Farnhams (except for their house servant, Joe, who is black) and bring them to the Summer Palace of Ponse, Lord Protector of the region.  It turns out that this isn't an alternate universe, but rather some two thousand years in the future.  Descendants of the Africans now rule the world in a static society in which the whites are slaves.  Hugh must use his wits to carve a place for himself in this society before he is eliminated (or worse!) for trespassing.

This second part holds up a lot better than the first.  Near the end, we learn that there are still free savages hiding in the Rocky Mountains, an Part 3 will likely feature some kind of Farnhem-led insurrection.  All very patriotic and appropriate for Independence Day.

Four stars.

Summing Up

Truth to tell, I'd been dreading the Heinlein and leery of the rest of the issue.  In the end, though, Pohl managed to put together a readable (if not stellar) 132 pages of SF.  I will definitely be keeping my subscription!

Let's just hope that he…and I… can keep up this busy schedule.

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




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Book, Magazine

[July 2, 1964] Completing the Tour (July 1964 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Last Days

After three lovely weeks, our trip to Japan is sadly drawing to a close.  Someday, I can see relocating here for months out of the year — after all, my job really only requires a typewriter and access to a good postal service.  That's for the future, though, when the Young Traveler has finished school and left the nest. 

After Nagoya, we took a train to Hiroshima, the city made famous on August 6, 1945.

It has been nineteen years since the first atomic blast on Japan leveled a square mile of city and killed tens of thousands in an instant.  Hiroshima, a port city on the west end of the island of Honshu, has largely recovered since then, but the scars of that day still bear mute witness to the attack.

It is a sobering thing to visit a place of such megadeath, not dissimilar to the eerie feelings I experienced walking down "Bloody Lane" at Antietam, where thousands died in a few hours just miles away from where my wife's mother now lives.

Yet, life goes on.  Hiroshima is a vibrant city, peaceful and productive.  They're building a new train station that will further stimulate the local economy.  We like the people and the feeling here; this may well be come a standard stop for us in the future.

After several days in Hiroshima, we headed further south to our final stop, the island of Kyusuhu and the metropolis of Fukuoka.

Our main reason for stopping here was to visit our adoptive family, the Fujiis.  Just after the war, the Fujii family sent their teenaged daughter, Miwako, to the States for a few weeks as part of a student exchange.  The next year, my wife's little sister spent a year studying in Kyoto, where the Fujii's lived.  They accepted her into their family, even including her in the annual family photo.  Since then, Miwako, her sister Hideko, and their parents, Yuko and Yukio, have essentially become beloved in-laws, and we try to see them whenever possible.

Yukio, a former policeman, retired to his home town of Amagi, a little farm community a couple of hours from Fukuoka. He and Yuko reside in an ancient house there, a relic that dates back to before Commodore Perry sailed his black ships into Tokyo Harbor.

It's a beautiful, peaceful residence, and as luck would have it, Miwako, who had gotten married and moved to San Francisco, was also there for a visit.  With her adorable handful, Jin.

We all took turns playing with the tyke until he, in the way of small children everywhere, wore himself out and fell asleep in his grandfather's arms.

The Issue at Hand

It is appropriate that the end of our trip coincides with the wrap-up of the science fiction magazines for this month.  As always, the last magazine to be reviewed is this month's Analog.  So how did this oversized slick of a mag do this time?


by Kelly Freas

Origin of the Solar System, by William F. Dawson and Ben Bova

Opening up the issue is an informative piece on a rather unusual suggestion for how the planets came to be.  It lies somewhere between the Catastrophism of the stellar collision theory (which would make our solar system almost unique in the universe) and the Uniformitarianism of the "disk theory" which postulates that virtually all stars should be born with planets.  The hypothesis advanced by Bova and Dawson is that solar systems result in binary systems in which the second star is not of sufficient size to ignite and thus breaks up into a bunch of smaller worlds.

I don't know if I buy it, but since the article does a good job of presenting both this concept and more traditional ones, it's a decent read. 

Three stars.

Sleeping Planet (Part 1 of 3), by William R. Burkett, Jr.


by Kelly Freas

This new serial, written by a fellow I've never heard of, is a Mack Reynoldsy piece about an extraterrestrial attack on the Earth in the 26th Century.  The aliens use some kind of sleeping powder that puts all of humanity, save for a few immune holdouts, into a state of suspended animation.  Planet is the story of our resistance against the invaders.

I have to applaud Burkett for being willing to jump into the deep end on his first effort, turning in a novel-sized endeavor.  He's a good writer, too, with the first half of the installment quite vivid and engaging.  The aliens are just a bit too stupid, though (a big piece of the plot involves one of the survivors convincing the ETs that his dead grandfather will wreak vengeance on the invaders from beyond the grave…and they believe it!) and the light-hearted portions jar with the gritty ones.

Three stars so far, with a suspicion that this piece will end with a whimper, not a bang.

The Sea-Water Papers, by Raymond E. Banks


by John Schoenherr

An eccentric genius dies before he can explain how his desalination tablets work — is it the invention or the ingestion?

This is another too-cute piece starring clever garage-based scientists, the kind Analog editor, Campbell, loves.  The kind that champion dowsing, perpetual motion machines, and reactionless drives.

Two stars.

A Day in the Life of Kelvin Throop, by R. A. J. Phillips


by John Schoenherr

In this one, Mr. Throop, late of the Canadian Northern Territories Public Relations Division, tells the citizens what he really thinks of their letters.

Not particularly entertaining nor remotely science fiction. 

Two stars.

The Master Key, by Poul Anderson

Last up, we have the latest Let the Spacemen Beware.  This one is really Van Rijn's story, in which he tells of a frozen world that seemed ideal for trade, but the not-quite-human (or perhaps too-human) aliens become inexplicably hostile upon learning of our fealty to a God, ending the affair in tragedy.

With this piece, Anderson, who had been slacking of late, returns to form.  While the premise is a tad contrived, mainly so the reason for the aliens' change of heart can be explained neatly at the end, the telling is vintage Poul.

Four stars.

Doing the Math

On the whole, it's been a good month for SF.  Analog finished at 2.9 stars, just on the disappointing side of good, but that's more an artifact of the scoring system.  It's a decent issue, all things considered.  Decidedly worse were F&SF and Worlds of Tomorrow, both clocking in at 2.3 stars.

All the other mags were better, from the disappointing by comparison but still 3.1 stars earning Gamma, to the decent Amazing and IF (3.2 stars) up to the well worth reading New Worlds and Fantastic (3.5 stars).

It's enough to make me eager to go back home and collect my accumulated subscriptions for August! 

(Note: for those keeping track, women wrote 7 out of the 49 new fiction pieces published this month.  Not great, but not as bad as it has been previously.)

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




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Magazine

[June 30, 1964] A big Delta (June 1964 Gamma)

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by Gideon Marcus

Heading South

After four lovely days in the Japanese capital, we hopped the train for points southwest, toward the center of the country.  Sadly, we were just a few months too early to take the new "bullet train" which will be debuted in October in time for the Olympics.  The trip thus took many hours, but the scenery was nice (this year's "rainy season" hasn't been very) and I got a lot of reading done.

Nagoya is Japan's "fourth" city, after Tokyo/Yokohama, Osaka, and Fukuoka.  A drab, gray and brown place, it nevertheless was a must-stay location for us given its proximity to so many of our friends: A husband-and-wife couple teach at the local university, our dear friend Hideko (now recently married!) lives in Osaka, and a friend I met when she visited America, Juuri, lives in nearby Shizuoka.

And, of course, there is the super-energetic Nanami, who teaches schoolchildren in Nagoya.

Dan and Jen, whose nieces were visiting at the time, took us up to old Inuyama castle.  This is one of the few original castles still intact.  It gave us a commanding view of the area.

We also explored the nearby town of Oobu, and we were welcomed into a local home.  Here's the bedroom of a little boy who lived there.

The bustling, brash city of Osaka was as smoky and wild as ever.  Western culture has thoroughly soaked the place: clothing, music, and food.

The Issue at Hand

Somehow in the midst of all this, I found time to read and review the latest Gamma, a new magazine whose first two issues had greatly impressed me.  Sadly, it seems that the stock of great fiction the editors had accumulated prior to launch has been exhausted, and what's left is so much trunk work, the substandard stories by big names that hadn't sold elsewhere.  Pity.


by Morris Scott Dollens

The Girl of Paradise Planet, by Robert Turner

The first story illustrates my point well.  Here is a piece by a veteran, with a thousand stories to his credit, and it's just mediocre.  A fellow on vacation on a pleasure planet goes SCUBA-diving and encounters a young girl under the waves.  She's not a mermaid — she has a full complement of human limbs, yet she can breathe underwater.  The vacationer quickly falls in love, to the annoyance of his shrewish wife, and spends endless hours with his newfound paramour. 

Said romance feels solipsistic, like something a fourteen-year-old might come up with, including plenty of the protagonist's thoughts and precious few of the object of his intention.  In fact, near the end, we are led to doubt that the encounter was real at all, which would have made a lot more sense given the sketchiness of the girl's character, who prefers not to talk but rather mostly perform aquatic acrobatics.  And smooch.

Alas, it turns out the girl is real.  Joy for our hero, disappointment for us.  A weak three stars.


by Luan Meatheringham

(speaking of illustrations, Gamma has employed young Luan Meatheringham to produce drawings.  While the pieces are nice, in a fanzine-ish way, they don't relate to any of the stories, and I'm not sure why they're here, taking space.)

The Feather Bed, by Shelly Lowenkopf

Shelly (a man, despite the name) Lowenkopf writes of a future where, upon the expiration of copyright after 56 years, literary works are destroyed to a copy, and replacements commissioned as a kind of artistic welfare.  When a writer refuses to finish his assignment to rewrite King Lear he is fired, eventually becoming a plumber — an industry in which pipes are torn out and replaced every three years.

I like stories about a future with rampant unemployment and the need for makework, but this one doesn't make a lot of sense, even by its own rules (no good argument is made against creating new works) and the piece doesn't work as satire, either, because I'm not sure what it's supposed to be satirizing. 

Two stars.

Angel Levine, by Bernard Malamud

A down-on-his-luck tailor is visited by a shabby, black Jewish angel, who (eventually) eases the man's pain.

Not much to say about this one.  Three stars for atmosphere and dialect.


by Luan Meatheringham

The (In)visible Man, by Edward W. Ludwig

Here's a piece about a man who is such a nonentity that the world completely ignores him, and he is able to lead a life of crime.  That is, until the fellow finds love and confidence, causing him to become visible again.

I might have enjoyed this story more had Ellison not done it so much better in The Forces that Crush six years ago.

Three stars.

Inside Story, by Miriam Allen deFord

From the pen of one of the genre's most venerable creators comes the tale of a sentient world and the tsuris of a cold given it by a four-being scount team from the Galactic Federation.

Cute, but this is the sort of thing Bob Sheckley used to do, and much better.

Three stars.

The Birth, by George Clayton Johnson

We've seen a lot of Johnson on TV, particularly us fans of The Twilight Zone.  This forgettable piece, a first person account of the creation of Frankenstein's Monster, does not even have a Serlingesque twist to redeem it.

Three stars for competent writing.


by Luan Meatheringham

The Gamma Interview: Soviet Science Fiction

The most worthy piece of the issue is an interview with "Ivan Kirov", editor of a Moscow publishing house that produces science fiction.  It is worth picking this issue up just for this piece, even though it has an unfortunate ediorial accident that omits a crucial line.

Five stars.

Buttons, by Raymond E. Banks

Along similar lines, Banks offers up the story of a dying spaceman who transfers his consciousness to a set of computerized buttons until such time as his persona might be restored to a human body.  Said spaceman decides he likes being a disembodied being better.

It's well-written, but like the rest of the pieces in this magazine, it doesn't really go anywhere.

Three stars.


by Luan Meatheringham

Society for the Prevention, by Ron Goulart

Goulart is known for writing humorous pieces, so this light-hearted tale of the fortunate intersection of an interstellar merchant, his shipment of alien pots which are actually extraterrestrial invaders, and some rabid anti-capitalists is right up the author's alley.

Entertaining, though frivolous.  Three stars.

The Snail Watcher, by Patricia Highsmith

Finally, mystery writer Highsmith presents the tale of a man whose love for snails ultimately proves his undoing.  The moral: molluscs are for eating, not voyeuring.

Yet another atmospheric piece that doesn't do much.  Three stars.


by Luan Meatheringham

Summing Up

Thus ends one of the most mediocre collections of digest-sized pages I've ever read.  I have to wonder if this is a momentary blip, or if Gamma is doomed to be short-lived.  Only time will tell.

And now, off to Hiroshima!  See you in two days…

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




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Magazine

[June 20, 1964] How low can you go?  (July 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

SFlying West

Once again, the Journey is brought to you from Japan!  Specifically, the nation's capital, Tokyo.  We've become old hands at making the trk across the Pacific, especially since Pan Am inaugurated direct 707 service from Los Angeles to Tokyo International.

This time, we stayed at a new hotel, in the shadow of the recently completed Tokyo Tower.  From the observatory deck of the hotel, the often elusive Mt. Fuji was clearly visible, thanks to a heavy rain that had occurred the night before.

Tokyo remains as it has been for the past 16 years (our first visit was in 1948!) Bustling, filled with energy and cigarette smoke.  There is a particular focus on renovation what with the Olympics coming to town soon.  Nevertheless, life otherwise goes on normally in the thoroughfares, wide and narrow.

TV cartoons have become a big deal here, with the recently debuted "Mighty Atom" inspiring tons of merchandise.

It's not all roses, though.  Up on the other side of the country, an earthquake struck off the coast of Niigata.  Then, a tidal wave swept in.  The property damage was immense and at least two dozen people have died.

More personally, though my tragedy hardly compares, this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction managed to limbo below the low bar recently set by Editor Avram Davidson (who fled Mexico and apparently now resides in my home state of California).

With a sigh, here we go again:

The Issue at Hand


by Ed Emshwiller

Cantata 140, by Philip K. Dick

It is said that too many cooks spoil a broth, and the SFnal corollary is that too many ideas spoil a plot.  Indeed, Dick's newest novella, the third in the "News Clown" series set late in the 21st Century, has so many handwaves that I could have used the magazine to fly to Japan.  The piece's 60 pages contain:

  • An overpopulated world with abortion but not Enovid (birth control medicine).
  • A satellite of prostitutes to relieve proceative tension.
  • A super cheap way to get to said satellite.
  • Precious few other satellites.
  • Teleportation.
  • Teleportation (accidental) to another world.
  • Suspended animation as the standard treatment for excess, unemplopyed population.
  • An American population that is more "Colored" than "Caucasian".
  • The Presidential campaign of the first "Colored" candidate (the "Event of 1993" caused the demographic shift such that Whites were outnumbered, yet it is not until 2080 that a Black candidate has a chance).
  • A two-bodied, one-headed mutant human crime lord.

For the most part, the plot follows Jim Briskin as he tries to become the first "colored" President of the United States.  Other things happen, including the "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" incident in which a balky teleporter somehow links Earth to a far-off, virgin planet.  It is very quickly taken as read that this is the solution to Earth's frozen overpopulation problem (creating the excuse for the rather esoertic title — it probably refers to Bach's "Sleepers wake!" composition).  I suppose if the story stuck to these two threads and developed them in a satisying manner, this could be a good read — especially since it's written by Dick, one of the genre's masters.  Instead, the piece is a jumbled mess, stuffed with clumsy jargon, and combining both implausible and contradictory elements with several overly conventional ones.

For example, race relations appear to be stuck in the 1960s even though the story takes place more than a century later.  The overpopulation angle makes no sense.  At first, I thought there might be moral objections to abortion and/or medical birth control, but given that state-assisted suicide is a sanctioned population stabilizer, I doubt it.  And how do the prostitutes not get pregnant?  And how do 5000 of them satisfy Earth's billions?

Inconsistencies aside, the narrative is neither interesting nor comprehensible.  If I can't have good SF, I'd at least like good satire.  If I can't have that, I'll settle for decent writing.

And if that's lacking, there's no rating I can give a story other than…

One star.

The Second Philadelphia Experiment, by Robert F. Young

From the lost pages of Ben Franklin's diary comes an account of the great scientist's further explorations into electricity.  It's a facile reproduction of Franklin's style but really just exists to set up a fairly flat joke.  I was feeling more charitable when I read it, but now I think it's fair to give it just two stars.

Balloon Astronomy, by Theodore L. Thomas

This month's nonfiction seed for science fiction articles suggests using balloon-mounted instruments to provide constant weather reports.  But don't they already do that?

Two stars.

The Scientist and the Monster, by Gahan Wilson

Wilson offers The Twilight Zone episode, "Eye of the Beholder" virtually unchanged except for a slightly improved moral message at the end.  Still just worth two stars.

A

The Happy Place, by Toni Heller Lamb

Ms. Lamb's first published story is a dark piece involving a young girl who finds the cemetery a more hospitable residence than any place of the living.  There is a nice final line, and the story is nice in a macabre sort of way, but otherwise it is unremarkable. 
Three stars.


by Ed Emshwiller

The End of the Wine, by C. S. Lewis

This poem, which follows a bedraggled Lemurian as he makes landfall in Stone Age Europe, is made all the more poignant by being the author's last creation (he died last year, same day as JFK).  Thus, the double whammy as we realize what we've lost as the man from Atlantis rues over same.

Four stars.

The Salvation of Faust, by Roger Zelazny

An interesting inversion of the Faustian Bargain, it entertains and then disappears.  Three stars.

All-Hallows, by Leah Bodine Drake

A tiny poem whose message is that nothing dies — it just becomes part of the world around you.

Three stars.

Nothing Counts, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor regales us with a nonfiction article on the evolution of Roman numerals and the utility of the zero.  It's well-written but there is very little useful information, and in particular, almost no history of the zero itself.

Three stars.

The Struldbrugg Reaction, by John Sutherland

New author Sutherland brings us a pointless Sherlock pastiche, the gimmick being that Holmes and Watson ("Bones" and "Dawson") are in their 90s and immortal (thanks to the Struldbrugg Reaction — see Gulliver's Travels to understand the reference). 

It's no Lord Darcy.  Two stars.

The Girl with the 100 Proof Eyes, by Ron Webb

Some schlubb decants a genie named Jeanie and coerces her to love him.  A delightful rape fantasy.  One star.

We Serve the Star of Freedom, by Jane Beauclerk

This final story, the first from Ms. Beauclerk, features a clever native of an alien world (inhabited by quite human extraterrestrials) who gets the best of traders from Earth.  It's a pleasant story, though more fable than SF.  Probably the best prose piece of the issue.  Three stars.

Summing Up

Good grief.  I do hope Avram Davidson's tenure at the helm of this once proud magazine will soon come to an end.  It's either that or my days of subscribing will.

Oh well.  At least I'm in Japan!

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




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Movies

[June 10, 1964] What washed up (Horror at Party Beach)

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by Gideon Marcus

Natalie Devitt, bless her soul, is a good sport.  When even my own wife and daughter won't come to the Drive-In with me, I can count on the Journey's resident film and TV expert to share the popcorn. I'd learned that Del Tenney had a new double-feature of schlock presenting at the local spot, combining The Horror at Party Beach and The Curse of the Living Corpse.  The newspaper even said you had to fill out a waiver so you wouldn't sue if the films gave you a heart attack (an old Castle Films gimmick).

When Natalie came over for our monthly record-listening date, I showed her the clipping.  How could she refuse?  So, we trundled down to San Diego (I understand they might build a Drive-In in Oceanside soon, which would be nice) and promptly became the one pair of moviegoers that wasn't necking. 

I'm shocked, I tell ya.  How could they fail to be entranced by Tenney's brilliant fusion of the beach and horror genres?  Well…it wasn't that hard.  Read on and find out.

First up, we get a jazzy soundtrack and the rumble of engines.  Our hero and his current flame are toodling along in a very nice convertible.  Main Man is not too thrilled by the biker gang escort, nor his girlfriend's making of the goo-goo eyes at the head cycle enthusiast.  A race ensues, which the car handily wins.


"Hey!  No passing on the right!"

Meanwhile, out to sea, we witness a conscientious barge crewman dropping canisters of clearly labeled radioactive waste into the water.  It turns out that he is not depth charging a German U-Boat but simply getting rid of the stuff in as cost-effective a manner as possible.  It's too bad we don't have laws against this kind of thing.  Maybe LBJ can make it part of his Great Society.


Making The Enemy Below.

Main Man and his +1 arrive at their destination, the swingingest beach party ever filmed in monochrome, without the benefit (liability?) of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.


Hey!  It's Hank Marvin of The Shadows


Just your typical beach party.

The movie was billed as "The First Horror Monster Musical", but it really just had a lot of beach band scenes played by a weird cross between the Beach Boys and the Shadows.  I was perfectly fine with this.  In fact, I probably would have watched the forty-five minute short film that could have been stitched together from the party footage; they looked like they were having fun.

At least until the bad guys showed up…


Beautifully choreographed entrance by the Charter Oak Motorcycle Club of Riverside, Connecticut.

Main Man's fickle flame does a passion dance for the leather jacketed biker hunk, and of course, a the male domination ritual ensues.


I know I packed my muscles in here somewhere.

The fight is soon over, brain having triumphed over brawn.  I guess.  Interestingly enough, the biker turns out to be a swell fellow about it. 


This is the most romantic tension in the film.

Fickle Flame (you can see how much of an impression the movie made on me — I can't remember any of the names) decides she can't compete with a couple of Real Men and goes off to swim on her own.  This is a Bad Idea.


As seen on The Outer Limits


Being smeared with chocolate syrup is painful and lethal.

This murder is big news.  The local law enforcement gets involved and quickly realizes this is above their pay grade, so they contract out to the local scientist, the Platonic ideal of an egghead.


Glasses and pipe, Eric Dolphy's latest hit.

Cecil the Seasick Sea Monster, in the meantime, somehow spawns a buddy, and they attack a local slumber party.


"Wanna come over and eat S'mores and hit each other with pillows?"


"NEVER MIND!"

And then three ladies get stranded on the side of road with a flat tire.  For some reason, the shortcut to New York City from Connecticut runs through a roadless forest.  Too bad for them.


"Is it the Auto Club man?"  No.

After that mauling, we get a romantic interlude between Main Man and Egghead's Daughter.  This scene is welcome because it features more music by the Pseudows.


"It's so good to just relax after all the mass murder that's been going around."

Cut to a hungry Sea Zombie who, after missing out on his chance to eat another pair of women, decides to try his luck on a store window mannequin.  Instead, the monster slices its arm off on the glass.  This proves fortuitous, for it gives Doc Egghead the opportunity to probe into the monsters' nature.  He determines that they are revived corpses, mutated from skeletons (!) by radiation.  As former humans, only one substance is sufficient to sustain them — human blood.  Apparently the array of sausages in the monsters' mouths is actually a set of suckers.  Not that this is ever made clear in the action.

Eulabelle, the superstitious, Voodoo-worshipping maid (because, of course she is), spills a beaker of sodium on the arm, and it bursts into flame.  It's all the water in its make-up, apparently.  Now the good guys have a defense against the Cecils!


"But how will we get the stain out, Eulabelle?"

But how to find them?  Despite being shambly and not terribly bright, they are somehow impossible to find.  That is, until Egghead's Daughter hatches (haha!) the idea to use geiger counters to track their radioactive trail.  With no time to lose, given that the population of the small town has already shrunk by about half, everyone disperses to track the Uranium traces.

Alone.


I generally have better luck with a jig or a spinner.

This puts Egghead's Daughter at risk.  In fact, she is soon assaulted by not two, but a full dozen monsters (but we never see more than two at a time close up, probably because Tenney only had two suits).


One fish, two fish, gray fish, gray fish.

Luckily for her, the MEN arrive in time, sodium grenades in hand, and torch the bad guys.


In a scene right out of Zulu!

The seven remaining townsfolk live happily ever, and the credits roll, made all the better by a return of the band.


No kidding — they're called the "Del-Aires"!

Post-mortem

That's the plot.  How was the movie?  From my sardonic description and the attached clips, I imagine the movie looks pretty bad.

That's good.  It was pretty bad.

However, schlock it might have been, but it wasn't entirely dreck.  Sure, it was no Psycho, but someone on their team was a decent editor, keeping the scenes and the overall movie trucking right along.  I was flabbergasted, I was made to roll my eyes, but I was never bored.  And while the film's score was no great shakes, consisting of one vibrato-laden underwater sting, the band was good in a "high school kids making ends meet over the summer" kind of way.  Plus, I got to see what all the kids were wearing to the beach last year (the movie has a 1963 copyright date).

If there was a disappointment it's that the film missed an opportunity.  At one point, the Cecils decide to prey on a pair of affable drunks (two of the three men slain in the film, as opposed to at least twenty women).  I had hoped they'd show the Sea Zombies stumbling around in a drunken stupor, but nothing doing.

Bugging Out

Anyway, neither Natalie nor I were enthused about watching the second flick of the double feature.  Luckily, the new Paramount technicolor flick, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, was playing on the Drive-In's other screen.  After a brief stop at the concession stand for more popcorn, we decided to give the bigger budget film a try.

But that's a story for another article…

(Note: you can buy the 8mm prints of both Tenney movies, with sound, here.)

Speaking of films, enjoy this latest appearance by the Traveler and Young Traveler — this time, we're talking about the Van Allen Belts!





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Book, Magazine

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

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by Gideon Marcus

In Preparation

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

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

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

What If?

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

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

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


by Gray Morrow

The Issue at Hand

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


by Jack Gaughan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weetl, by Jack Sharkey

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

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

Three stars.

The Mathenauts, by Norman Kagan


by Nodel

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

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

I still don't like it.  Two stars.

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

Old Testament, by Jerome Bixby

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

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

The Silkie, by A. E. van Vogt


by Gray Morrow

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

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

Four stars.

Summing up

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

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

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 2, 1964] June Gloom (June 1964 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Open Your Golden Gate

This weekend, the family and I took a trip to San Francisco for a small pre-Pacificon fan gathering. Well, not so small. By the end, attendance was measured well into the hundreds, and the informally dubbed "Baycon" boasted much the same schedule as any normal convention: panels, parties, even an exhibit hall and art show!

Of course, yours truly and co. were drafted to give a State of the Union on fandom as of May 1964. We were pleased to accept, and the resulting show was one of our best (we think). See for yourself!


The event by the Bay was the highlight of an otherwise dreary month, sfnally. Indeed, June 1964 (by cover date) may well be the worst month in the history of SF mags. Read on to understand why…

The Issue at Hand


by John Schoenherr

John W. Campbell's Analog, once the clear flagship of the SF mag fleet, has become a rusted shell of itself.  From a distance, it still retains the proud lines of the S.S.Astounding (as it was once known), but up close, one can see the degradation of years of neglect.  Though many of the crewmen are the same, their uniforms are shabby and their work lackluster.  It's a depressing thing.  Witness this month's issue.

Plowshare Today, by Edward C. Walterscheid

The one truly bright spot of this issue is the nonfiction article.  Usually, the value of these pages is directly proportional to their absorbency.  This time is different — Walterscheid has given us quite an informative piece on the where we are in regard to using nuclear weapons for "peaceful" purposes.  Earth moving, isotope making, Fourth of July demonstrations…that sort of thing.

I learned a lot.  I also know not to expect this project to come to fruition any time soon.  Four stars.

Stuck, by John Berryman


by Steven Verenicin

Exactly one year ago, Berryman wrote a nifty piece called The Trouble with Telstar, a hyper-realistic tale of satellite repair in the near future.  Stuck is a sequel, in which our intrepid space repairman is contracted to catch an enemy spy satellite as it whips past the Earth in a hyperbolic orbit.

The situation is mildly interesting, but the characters aren't, and the writing is workmanlike.  It's a shame — I was looking forward to this one.

Three stars.

Dolphin's Way, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Leo Summers

From the movie, Flipper, to the recent Clarke novel, Dolphin Island, our friends, the littlelest of whales, have been quite the sensation lately.  In Dickson's tale, humanity is on the verge of a communications breakthrough with dolphins.  This attempt becomes time sensitive as budgets are threatened.  Moreover, the principal investigator on the project has a sneaking suspicion that success will be the linchpin to acceptance into a galactic community.

Not bad, though I could have done without all the googoo eyes the scientist has for the journalist who arrives to cover his efforts.  Three stars.

Snap Judgment, by J. T. McIntosh


by Leo Summers

And then we hit the bottom.

The premise isn't bad: aliens come to Earth hoping to have us join their stellar Federation so that we'll vote for them in a pending referendum.  Through various contrivances, they never actually see humans — they only know of us from radio advertisements and from the luggage of a single space traveller.  From these scanty clues, they must craft a pitch that will win over all of humanity.

The thing is, the BEMs salvage a woman's luggage and, thus, deduce all the wrong things about humanity.  That we're frivolous, easily flattered, desperate for a protector.  The radio commercials only reinforce this view since they're aimed at the consumers of society.  You know.  Women. 

Their pitch falls flat when the MEN, who thankfully are in charge of society, are turned off by the aliens' appeal and respond in a way that maximizes Earth's gain over that of the extraterrestrials.

Lest you think I'm being touchy, and that McIntosh was not impugning all womankind, let me read you this tidbit from the end of the story:

"Why," Doreen said, "did women react one way and men another?"
Barker grinned.  "Because of you.  The Grillans only had time for a snap judgment.  they picked your ship and made a quick guess about us based on what they found onboard."
"What they found?"
"Feminine things.  The only personal things in the ship.  The only clues about the human race they had.  And what a mistake that was."
"Why?"
"However women may holler about sex equality, men will always decide things like what to do when contact with an alien race is made.  Right?"
Doreen shrugged.  "I guess so.  Women have other things to think about."
"As you say.  As you said — 'Nobody asks me when big things are decided.  I never expected they would.'  Women's goals are more personal.  More Earthbound."

It goes on from there.  It could not be more offensive if McIntosh had written the BEMs finding a Jew's suitcase and determining that humanity was grasping and miserly.  Or deducing from a Black person's luggage that humans just really love to be enslaved.

One star and 1964's winner of the Queen Bee Award.

Undercurrents (Part 2 of 2), by James H. Schmitz


by John Schoenherr

I left Part 1 of this story none too enthused about where the novella was going, and all of my suspicions were confirmed.  To sum up, 15 year-old Telzey Amberdon is a psionically adept young woman sent off-planet to college.  Her roommate, Gonwil, is about to come into control of great wealth as a result of her reaching majority.  When Telzey makes telepathic contact with Gonwil's giant dog guardian, Chomir, she discovers a plot to kill Gonwil.

Two things made this promising story an utter disappointment.  For one, it was obvious that the dog was going to be the tool of Gonwil's attempted assassination.  But worse still was the writing.  We hardly see Telzey do anything.  There are just endless pages of exposition, introducing and then disposing of plot points, or even just irrelevant information.  It's like Schmitz wrote an outline and then neglected to fill it in with a story.

Two stars, and what a shame.  I haven't been this let down since Podkayne of Mars.  Two stars.

Mustn't Touch, by Poul Anderson


by Michael Arndt

The first hyperdrive test is recovered from the orbit of Neptune after just 60 seconds of operation.  Unfortunately, all the biological specimens on board are dead or dying.  What caused this lethal event, and what does it mean for humanity?

Poul Anderson tends to vacillate between genius and garbage.  This piece falls smack dab in between, featuring some nice writing and a lot of good ideas, but failing to land any punches.  He's got a novel's worth of concepts in here: sentient robots, hyperspace, genetic manipulation.  But with only ten pages to get his point across, it all becomes a muddle.

Three stars. 

I, BEM, by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond


by Michael Arndt

Finally, the Richmond twins (I kid, they're probably married — of course, they could also still be twins) offer up yet another turgid short, this one on how robots will ultimately make all humans unemployed — but what happens when the robots have their work done for them?

Written like that, I actually kind of like the concept, but it's not very well done.  Two stars.

Doing the Math

Analog clocks in this month at an unimpressive 2.6 stars, tied with Amazing and beating out Fantastic (2.4).  But even the mags that beat Analog didn't do so by much: Galaxy scored 2.7 and F&SF got 2.8.  In fact, the best parts of the magazines were the nonfiction articles this month.  Only Kit Reed's Cynosure (in F&SF) and Harlan Ellison's Paingod (in Fantastic) merit much attention besides.

Of the 34 new fiction pieces, only two of them were penned (in whole or part) by women. 

Now, to be fair, I have not yet read the June 1964 issue of Gamma, but that's only because the magazine has such spotty distribution that I didn't get a copy until recently.  So it'll get lumped in with July's stuff.  I can only imagine that will be for the good!

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




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Science / Space Race

[May 30, 1964] Every journey begins… (Apollo's first flight!)

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by Gideon Marcus

One Step

Humanity took its first halting steps toward the Moon with the (mostly) successful launch of the first Apollo spacecraft into orbit on May 28, 1964.  Blasting off from Cape Kennedy's Pad 37B, the sixth Saturn I, biggest rocket in existence, carried a boilerplate, non-functional spacecraft. 

The mission marked firsts in several ways.  Whereas the previous five Saturns had been topped with Jupiter-C nosecones, SA-6 was the first to prove the actual Apollo structure.  Less auspiciously, the flight also marked the first malfunction of the Saturn rocket: 122 seconds into its mission, 24 seconds before planned cut-off, engine #8 prematurely shut down. 

But out of the jaws of failure came ultimate success.  The other engines continued to fire an additional two seconds, the four inboards shutting down shutting off 142 seconds into flight, the remaining three outboards going dark at Launch + 148.  Despite these compensations, AS-101 (the name for the spacecraft) was still flying "low and slow"; the second stage then ignited and compensated for the balky first stage, ultimately delivering the Apollo spacecraft almost perfectly into its planned orbit. 


That's Wernher von Braun in the middle; next to him, with the glasses, is George Mueller, who used to run the Pioneer lunar project at STL

Thus, the failure of engine #8 actually proved a blessing in disguise — we now know that the Saturn guidance system works quite nicely.  Moreover, given the excellent track record of the first stage's H-1 engines, I suspect the causes of the shutdown will be determined and remedied in short order.

AS-101 will be in orbit about one more day before it plunges into the atmosphere.  Like the first Gemini mission (last month), the spacecraft will not be recovered. 

SA-7/AS-102 will be a largely identical mission that will test the escape tower, the little rocket that will rescue Apollo astronauts in the event of a launch failure.  It is due to go up at the end of August.  Crewed spaceflights should happen as early as 1966!

No News is…

In other news, there isn't much news.  Since our last update, the Soviets launched Kosmoses 29 and 30 (April 25 and May 18), both of which landed just a week after launch, which suggests they were really spy satellites a la our Discoverer program.  Meanwhile, the United States Air Force lofted two birds of its own, a small one on April 27, and a big one on May 19.  I'd bet the first one was some a traditional film-return spy satellite (the kind that snaps photos in space and then sends the shots down to Earth for development in a little capsule).  As for the second, either it carries multiple canisters, or it's some kind of advanced system — maybe a real-time TV eye in orbit?

By the way, on April 21, I understand an Air Force rocket went boom, and the satellite it was carrying, a navigational Transit was on board.  That'd be no big deal…except this Transit was powered by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238.  I haven't heard much reporting on the subject, but I sure hope the flyboys are more careful next time!

The Soviets did launch Polyot-2 on April 12.  This is a special satellite that is able to change orbits.  That could mean that it's a precursor to the next Communist space vehicle (that's the thought advanced in Martin Caidin's recent novel, Marooned) or it could be a spacecraft designed to intercept missiles or other vehicles in space.  We won't know for a while, if ever.

Coming Attractions

As we head into the summer, it looks like things will remain pretty calm, unless the Russians pull another surprise out of their hats.  The only big event on the horizon is the launch of Ranger 7 in July.  After ten straight failures on the way to the Moon, I can't imagine the betting is particularly good for this flight.

But hope springs eternal…  See you then!

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




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Book

[May 26, 1964] Stag Party (Silverberg's Regan's Planet and Time of the Great Freeze)

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by Gideon Marcus

Science fiction is a hard business to make it in.  Back in the early '50s, during the post-war revival, there were some 40+ monthly magazines authors could send stories to.  It was pretty easy to get published back then although the quality was often…shall we say…indifferent.  By the end of the decade, with the fall of the largest magazine distributor and the public getting, perhaps, more discerning, there were just six mags and sff book publication was pretty slow, too.

A lot of authors left the genre to try their luck in the mainstream world.  That's why we lost Bob Sheckley, Ted Sturgeon, and Philip K. Dick for a while.  But times are tough in the real world, too.  Plus, of late, sff seems to be picking up again: IF is going monthly, we've got a couple of new mags in Worlds of Tomorrow and Gamma, books are coming out at an increasing rate.  And so Dick is back in force, and others who have left the field are nosing their way back in.

Robert Silverberg is another one of the authors who wrote sff like the dickens back in the '50s and then disappeared.  He's still writing and writing and writing, but most of his stuff doesn't end up on our favorite shelves or in our favorite magazines.

But sometimes…

In fact, in just the last three months, two Silverberg science fiction books have hit my to-review pile.  And since Silverberg writes the "Spectroscope" book review column for Amazing, it is apt that this edition of the Journey's book review column, the "Galactoscope", be Silverberg-centered.

Regan's Planet

The New York World's Fair has captured the hearts and minds of America this spring, an exposition of modern technologies, wild speculations on the future, and cultural displays from all over the globe.  Silverberg's latest adult science fiction novel, Regan's Planet, is billed as "The wild and wacky novel of the next World's Fair."  As it turns out, this is a bit of false advertising.

It is the end of the 1980s, and corporations are virtually states unto themselves, and the CEO of a sprawling enterprise wields more power than even the President of the United States.  Our protagonist is Claude Regan, head of Global Factors, one of the world's great corporate conglomerates.  At the ripe old age of 35, Regan is bored with success.  Like Alexander, he weeps for a lack of worlds to conquer.

Thus, he conceives a brand new kind of World's Fair, one to take place on the quincentennial of Columbus' first landing in the New World, one that will establish a permanent foothold for humanity in the next frontier. 

Yes, he wants to hold the event in space.

Most of the slim book's 140 pages features the organization and funding of the event.  There's not much wild about it and certainly no wackiness.  In fact, the whole thing reads like an account of a fairly normal, if grandiose, business venture. 

And though Regan's Planet is putatively science fiction, it's really sheer fantasy.  Silverberg posits that we'll have colonies on Mars in just a couple of decades, and that a the cost of sending dozens of Saturn-class rockets into orbit to build an Expo satellite (not to mention the dozens more rockets required to stock it and send attendees) is a significant but not overly expensive endeavor.

The premise doesn't work in a lot of ways.  Firstly, I don't know if Bob reads Aviation Weekly, but I do, and I know what NASA's budget is.  There's no way spaceflight is going to be as cheap as he thinks it is, not in less than thirty years.  Moreover, if space is that cheap, then there should be lots of satellites already in space, whereas Regan's Planet suggests that the Expo is the first, and it is being built precisely as a vanguard space settlement.

On a personal note, I was turned off by the inclusion of precisely one (1) female character in the story (out of a dozen or so), Regan's conniver wife.  In this future, men still rule, and women are graspers and not even good marital partners.  Also, you may be unable to stomach the way that Regan ultimately gets the Fair to be an unqualified success (to be fair, Regan himself isn't able to, either).

All that said, I've seen flashes of brilliance when Bob applies himself, and even when he doesn't, he still puts out workmanlike stuff.  The book does move along pretty well, and I had no trouble finishing it.  Silverberg himself has described this book as "a minor work".  Perhaps he spent a week cranking the thing out; thanks very much for the paycheck, on to the next "under the counter" book.

Two and a half stars.

Time of the Great Freeze

In the late 20th Century, a mysterious galactic cloud obscured the sun.  Not entirely, but enough to send the Earth into another Ice Age.  The tropics became temperate, and the temperate zones became glaciated.  The population of the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, and China, rushed southward only to be rebuffed by the emerging world, offering the industrialized nations a taste of their own anti-immigrant medicine.  And so the northerners either crowded into their barely inhabitable southern zones, or they established nuclear-powered underground cities, designed to be self-sufficient and protected by a mile of glacier ice.

Now, 300 years later, there are signs that the world's deep freeze is about to end, and a group of subterranean New Yorkers becomes curious about the half-forgotten world above.  After being cast out of the city by a paranoid oligarchy for making radio contact with underground London, nine men decide to undertake the trek to Europe.  Their goal: to see what civilization remains after three centuries of cold.

Time is a journey story, clearly written for a younger audience.  Along the way, we meet all manner of surface-dwellers, from illiterate hunters to half-savage bandits to civilized ice-dwellers.  There are exciting scenes of battle, of blizzard, of death.  In this book, we don't get a single woman, but I suppose no female characters is better than an unflattering single example. 

Again, I don't know if Silverberg put a great deal of energy into this book, but Bob writes like breathing, and there's a sort of a Time-Life The Poles feeling of realism about Time.  A kid (or kid-like adult, like me) will likely enjoy this combination of the Arctic expedition and post-apocalyptic genres.

Three and a half stars.

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Magazine

[May 18, 1964] Aspirations (June 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

At the Ballot Box

If you plunked down your $2 for a Worldcon membership (Pacificon II in San Francisco this year), then you probably sent in your nominations for the Hugo Awards, honoring the best works of 1963. Last month, you got the finalists ballot. Maybe, like me, you were surprised.

I'm happy to say that the Journey has covered every one of those nominations. However, with the exception of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Anderson's No Truce with Kings, none of the fiction entries made this year's Galactic Stars list. Also, I'm dismayed to find that neither Worlds of Tomorrow nor Gamma made the list of best magazines, though I suppose their being new precludes wide distribution as yet.

Anyway, they've made my choices very easy this year:

Best novel: Cat's Cradle (based on the review by Victoria Lucas – I haven't had the chance to read it yet, myself!)
Best story: No Truce with Kings
Best magazine: Galaxy
Best artist: Schoenherr (I've been liking his stuff more and more lately — don't get me wrong; I still like Emsh and Finlay, and Krenkel's done great stuff for the Burroughs books, but it's good to spread these things around)
Best amateur magazine: Starspinkle, which is really a fun mag, and good for keeping up on the latest Breendoggle mishigas (I note that Galactic Journey isn't on this list — surely a mistake. Please don't forget to vote for us!)

F&SF appears to be lobbying heavily for your Hugo vote, too, if the back cover of their latest issue be any indication. They've replaced the usual suite of pointy headed admirers in favor of a photo of one of their trophies (last one in the dimly remembered year of 1960).

So does this issue support their claim of being "the best"? Let's read and find out!

The Issue at Hand

The Triumph of Pegasus, by F. A. Javor

Now that Watson and Crick (and the tragically unsung Rosalind Franklin) have cracked the code of the DNA double helix, I am seeing more stories involving the precise engineering of genetics at a microscopic level. Javor's intriguing tale features the pair of scientists who run the shoestring operation "Animals to Order." After they showcase a fantastically fast, quick-grown horse, they are browbeaten by a powerfully rich bully of a woman into producing a winged version.

Here, the story loses its footing, as the new creature is made in an implausibly short time, and the grisly, if morally satisfying, end is thoroughly predictable.

Still, this may be the first story I've read that (to some degree) realistically portrays the art of genes manipulation. Three stars.

The Master of Altamira, by Stephen Barr

Not so much science fiction as historical extrapolation, author Barr depicts the sudden end of one of the world's first artists, the cave painter of Altamira. The piece is, at once, vivid and utterly forgettable.

Three stars.

The Peace Watchers, by Bryce Walton

In the future, murder is a forgotten crime. Literally — murderers are destroyed, and the memories of their crimes are erased from the minds of all affected, even the police! But when the grisly crime is committed, however rarely, how can it be dealt with when even law enforcement knows nothing about it?

I don't necessarily buy this piece, but it is interesting. Three stars.

Trade-In, by Jack Sharkey

Sharkey has been my whipping boy for a while, but he's recently shown a bit of promise. Sadly, while this story, about a prematurely aging husband and his unusually youthful wife, is well-written and properly horrific, it is also needlessly anti-woman.

Three stars for quality, but two stars after demerits applied.

Time-Bomb, by Arthur Porges

I cannot fathom the point of this short poem. One star.

Medical Radiotracers, by Theodore L. Thomas

Once again, Thomas serves up a mildly educational tidbit (this time on ingested radioactives that allow doctors to map certain organs) followed by a ridiculous SF story seed (we'll all be tracked by the Orwell-state via said radioactives).

I want Feghoot back. And I don't even like Feghoot. Two stars.

Cynosure, by Kit Reed

Ahh, now here's the highlight of the issue. Norma Thayer, newly divorced housewife, so desperately wants to impress her neighbors, especially the queen-like Clarise Brainerd. But whether her sink is too blotchy, her carpet too soiled with cat hairs, or her daughter too messy, Norma can't seem to win Mrs. Brainerd's heart and, more importantly, the right to invite the neighborhood wives over for coffee and cake.

That is, until she heeds the ad that states, simply:

END HOUSEHOLD DRUDGERY

YOUR HOUSE CAN BE THE CYNOSURE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The product she purchases, and its results, both foreseen and otherwise, I shall leave for the reader. Suffice it to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this delicious little satire, and I am freshly aggrieved that I do not have Ms. Reed's forwarding address since her latest move. I did so enjoy our correspondence.

Four stars.

The Third Bubble, by G. C. Edmondson

G.C. Edmondson lives in Mexico, like F&SF's editor, Avram Davidson (I wonder if he hand delivers his manuscripts), so it's no wonder that he has a series of stories set south of the border. This one involves a crazy time traveler who believes that space is a dream, that worlds are hollow, and that aliens kidnap our astronauts.

All of that takes up about one page of this eleven-page story, the other ten pages of which comprise a kind of travelogue. While there are a few bits of good writing and some genuinely clever lines, Edmonson makes the mistake of trying to make a meal composed solely of spice.

Two stars, and perhaps it's time to try something new.

The Search, by Bruce Simonds

Fourteen year-old newcomer, Bruce Simonds, has a prose-poem about how robots were evolved over time to be made perfectly in human image. I've read over the end a half-dozen times, and I still can't figure out what happened. Help a dumb reviewer out?

Two stars.

The Thing from Outer Space and the Prairie Dogs, by Gahan Wilson

Atiny piece in which we learn:

That prairie dogs are far more hazardous and organized a force than we could have imagined. The punchline isn't worth the half-page the story takes up.

Two stars.

The Heavenly Zoo, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A is back in form with this fine piece on the origin of the zodiac, in particular, and celestial calendars, in general. I learned several interesting tidbits to share at the next cocktail party (so as to appear far more intelligent and knowledgeable than I actually am.)

Four stars.

Forwarding Service, by Willard Marsh

This touching tale involves a kidney-stone afflicted man with a bad heart and the kindly nurse who also moonlights as a special kind of messenger. Pretty good stuff. Three stars.

The Unknown Law, by Avram Davidson

Last up, a tale from the near future, set in the Oval Office. A newly elected President, youngest in the nation's history, learns that he has a special, unwritten executive power. Since the days of Washington, three minor major (or major minor) federal officers have been entrusted with a sacred trust: once per term, they can be ordered to eliminate a foe to the Republic. This execution is strictly off the books, for the good of the Union.

Of course, having introduced Chekhov's Gunslingers, there is no doubt that they will be employed. And while it is somewhat cleverly laid out who will be the President's target, I felt as if the setup came far too quickly, chronologically, to be satisfying. That said, it is a well-written piece (all too rare for Davidson these days!) and I appreciated the oblique way he established the time setting of the story.

Three stars.

Summing Up

And so we have here a surprisingly decent issue of a magazine that has been in a downward spiral for some time. This installment of F&SF might not be Hugo-worthy, but it's definitely not bad. Then again, it's always brightest before dusk…

Fingers crossed for next month.

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




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