All posts by Gideon Marcus

Magazine

[August 13, 1961] Predicting the Future (September 1961 Analog)

6 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Everyone who writes has got an agenda, but Science fiction writers may be the most opinionated of authors.  That's because their pigeon involves prediction, which in turn, is a personal interpretation of current trends.  They can't help but express their own biases in their work.  And so we have Robert Heinlein and his penchant for plugging love of cats, libertarianism, and nudism (not necessarily in that order!).  Dr. Asimov denounces anti-scientific themes in his works.  It is no secret that I advocate for the equal representation of women and minorities.

John W. Campbell, editor of the monthly science fiction digest, Analog, is a big fan of psi – the ability of the human mind to alter matter.

Psi is one of those "pseudo-sciences."  To date, I don't think there has been a scrap of compelling research as to the existence of ESP or telepathy or precognition, save in the parlors of the less reputable carnivals.  Yet it can make for interesting storytelling, a sort of modern magic.  I don't mind it so much in my stories, any more than I mind Faster than Light space travel, which is just as baseless.

That said, Campbell, who has more power projection than a single writer, is a psi fanatic.  It's rare that an issue of Analog appears without at least one psi-related story, and most have several.

Like this month's, the September 1961 issue:

I'll skip over part 1 of Harry Harrison's serial, Sense of Obligation, saving its review for after its completion.  That brings us to Donald Westlake's short They Also Serve.  If you read Asimov's The Gentle Vultures, about a bunch of pacifist aliens patiently waiting for humanity to blow itself up so that they could take up residence on our planet, then you've essentially read Westlake's story.  It's exactly the same plot.  Convergent evolution or recycling?  One star.

Up next is a novella by an unlikely duo: The Blaze of Noon by Randall Garrett and Avram Davidson.  My disdain for the former is well documented, but I have also noted that, when he writes with a buddy, the results are often pretty good.  Set in the far future, after an intragalactic civil war has left Earth's outer colonies unvisited for three centuries, Blaze chronicles the attempts of a fellow named Tad to build a teleportation grid on the backward world of Hogarth.  Said planet was a metal-poor pleasure planet 300 years ago, and it has since regressed to rough feudalism.  The reasoning behind making Hogarth the first world to bring back into the fold is that, if reconnection can be accomplished under the least favorable of conditions, it can be done anywhere.

Teleportation grids require metal.  As all of Hogarth's warlords jealously guard their own meager hoards, Tad must resort to refining magnesium and sodium from seawater, a tedious process that takes the better part of a year.  During the grid's construction, pressure builds up between the area's political factions, each wanting control of the build site and its increasing trove of precious metal.  On the eve of the grid's completion, a struggle breaks out, and lusty warriors cleave into the grid's magnesium-clad sodium beams with stone implements, attempting to steal pieces.  During a rainstorm.  The result is a chemical inferno that devours the grid and its assailants.

A decidedly downbeat ending is averted when the head of the local Barons, who foresaw the grid's greed-fueled destruction, celebrates the fiery death of the most avaricious nobles.  Now, he believes, the stage is set for the more level-headed nobles to give up their stores of iron for the building a proper grid, one that can help everyone.

It's a good story.  I particularly liked that Tad is unable to maintain his smug disdain for the provincial Hogarthians (which might have been the case in other stories appearing in Analog; Campbell likes his smug).  One aspect of Blaze I found puzzling, however.  Throughout the story, there is absolutely no mention of any women.  Not a single one.  To write forty pages of prose, involving a cast of thousands, and not portray a single female requires serious dedication.  Perhaps this is not male-chauvinism but an actual prediction – in the future, humans will reproduce via a masculine form of parthenogenesis?  Four stars.

(Sadly, this is the one story in this issue on which I have been unable to secure reprinting rights.  I am in contact with the author, and I will notify you if and when this change.  Otherwise, you'll have to wait for its anthologizing, though there is no guarantee you will live to see it…

Captain H.C. Dudley is back with a science fact article, Scientific Break-throughs.  Unlike Dudley's last one, which was rather crack-pot, his latest is a genuinely interesting piece on the myriad sub-atomic particles that have been discovered in the last decade.  Beyond electronics, neutrons, and protons, there are even smaller neutrinos and mesons and who knows what else.  There may well be no end to the layers of atomic structure, at least until we get to the turtles.  Three stars.

I promised psi, and the last third of the magazine delivers.  Walter Bupp returns with Modus Vivendi, a continuation of his previous stories set in a future where a neutron bomb blast has caused the birth of hundreds of "Stigmatized" or psi-endowed people.  I like Bupp's take on the societal factors that stem from having a sub-race of different, superior humans; I appreciate the parallels he draws with our current inequality issues; I've enjoyed Bupp's stories in the past.  However, something about the writing on this one, a bit too consciously colloquial, made Modus tough sledding.  Two stars.

Finally, there is Darell T. Langart (Randy Garrett, again) and his Fifty Per Cent Prophet.  This is also a sequel, featuring The Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research: an agency of psi enthusiast kooks with a secret, truly psionic society within.  Prophet is about a parlor prognosticator who turns out to have a true touch of second sight.  The story's first few pages, told from the point of view of the not-quite-sham, suggest we might be treated to a nuanced character study.  Sadly, Garrett abandons the clairvoyant for his more typical omniscient and (Campbell's favorite) smug style. 

I wonder if Davidson wrote Prophet's beginning.  Two stars.

I'm not a psychic, but I'm willing to make a prediction about the October 1961 Analog: It'll be another middlin' quality issue, and it will feature at least one story about psionics.  Anyone want to take that bet?

6 Comments Leave A Comment
Fashion, music, politics, sports

[August 10, 1961] A Fair Deal for the Fairer Sex (Women, politics, and The Andy Griffith Show)

2 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

A woman on the City Council?  Say it ain't so!

It's not news that there just aren't a lot of women in politics these days.  Universal suffrage is now 40 years old, but women comprise just 18 out of 437 members of the House of Representatives and 2 of 100 Senators – about 4% and 2%, respectively.  For most of us, that's not an alarming statistic.  That's just the way it's always been.  But for some of us (including this columnist), equal representation can't come soon enough.  After all, when women make up half the population but only 4% of the government, that's a crisis of almost Revolutionary proportions.

I'm not the only one taking a stand, but sometimes support for the cause comes from the unlikeliest of places.

I watch a lot of television, maybe too much.  There's plenty of dross in this "vast wasteland" behind the screen of the idiot box, but there's also gold.  To wit: The Twilight Zone, Route 66, and, surprisingly, The Andy Griffith Show.

I didn't expect much when I started watching this strange little slice-of-life program set somewhere in the southern Appalachians.  It's a broad comedy on the face of it, with Sheriff Andy Griffith's drawl and wide smile and Deputy Barney Fife's pretentious bumbling, but after a few episodes, it became clear that the comedic elements are a sugar coating for deep thoughtfulness.

The other night, I happened to catch a summer rerun from early in the series, back when Griffth's stuttering yokelish portrayal was at its least subtle.  It opens on a picnic where Elinor Walker, the town's new pharmacist (and Andy's recently acquired sweetheart) articulates her disappointment that there are no women running for city council.  Andy slights her concern, noting that the position is called "Councilman," and it'd be silly if a woman held that title.

Ellie, no timid soul, is emboldened rather than discouraged by Griffith's disparagement.  In short order, she acquires the 100 petition signatures needed to put her on the ballot, the first provided by none other than Griffith's own Deputy Fife (speaking of unlikely support)!  The affronted men of Mayberry, North Carolina attempt to stop Ellie's candidacy through supra-political means, refusing the women access to charge accounts at local businesses.  This tactic backfires when the women stop cooking, washing, ironing, and mending (and presumably work a little Lysistrata action in there, too).

The episode's climax begins with a rally downtown.  The women (and a few supporting men) wave signs and shout "We want Ellie!"  Most of the men jeer.  Upset at the strife her running has caused, Ellie visits the Griffith home and tells him, “You won,” and that she will withdraw her candidacy because, “It's just not worth it…when I decided to run I had no intention of starting a Civil War in Mayberry.”

Young Opie Griffith, steeped in his father's latest comments, cheers, "We won, we beat them females!  We kept them in their place.  Us menfolks don't want women running our town, do we, Pa?"

It's a powerful moment that sharply drives home the effect of Andy's ill-considered words.  Ashamed at the example he's set, instead of accepting Ellie's surrender, he heads to the rally in support.  Addressing the assembly, he notes significantly: "We men are against a woman running for council."  The men cheer and applaud, but the sheriff continues, "The woman in this case being Ellie Walker.  Now we're against her because she's a woman.  But, now, when you try to think of any other reason, you kind of draw a blank."

This proves the shot that deflates the balloon, the men acknowledging the point.  Ellie wins the election – how could she not with all the women and many of the men backing her? 

Now, if you're from one of the more progressive parts of the nation that happens to have women in government, you might think the whole problem silly and overblown, the events of the episode a caricature.  But think about the 96% of the country without female representation.  Remember that, in Alabama, women aren't even allowed to serve on a jury!  It's not the situation in The Andy Griffith Show that's implausible — it's the happy ending.

So let's applaud Andy Griffith for showcasing the bias against women in government, and then let's keep working to overcome it, so that one day, some little girl who saw Ellie Walker win a seat on the Mayberry City Council might be inspired to run for Representative or Senator or, dare I say, even President of the United States. 

It's an outcome worth the long fight, even if it takes half a century.

 

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Science / Space Race

[August 7, 1961] Day-O!  (Vostok 2 spends day in orbit)

2 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

For a few bright weeks, it looked as if the United States might be gaining in the Space Race.  Now, the Reds have pulled forward again with a most astonishing announcement: their second cosmonaut, a Major Gherman Titov, orbited the Earth in his "Vostok 2" for an entire day before coming safely back to Earth this morning.

As usual, details of the launch were not divulged until Comrade Titov was already in space.  He circled the globe a record 17 times (compare to his predecessor, Gagarin's, single orbit).  The flight lasted long enough that Americans had the unique, if not entirely pleasant, opportunity to both go to bed and awaken with the knowledge that a Russian was whizzing just a matter of miles over their house.

This flight comes almost on the heels of that of our second spaceman, Captain Gus Grissom, who flew into space for a comparatively puny 15 minutes on July 21.  For a few short weeks, the free world held the lead, if not in time in space, then at least number of astronauts.  The Soviets have now made that success look feeble.  In fact, I am now hearing rumors that astronaut John Glenn's suborbital Mercury flight, scheduled for next month, will likely be canceled.  There is no propaganda value left in half-measures, and besides, Shepard's and Grissom's flights taught us all there was to be learned from the Redstone launched missions.

Now, there is a whole lot of worry being dispensed by the newspapers over Titov's flight.  Many speculate that there is no way we can catch up to the Communists in our race for the Moon.  After all, our first orbital flight is still untold months away; before an American ever orbits the Earth, the Russians may have a space station or even a foothold on our nearest celestial neighbor.

I think these fears are unfounded.  Vostok 2 was almost assuredly the same type of ship as Gagarin's Vostok 1.  It was designed, like our Mercury, to endure several days in orbit.  The increase in orbits from 1 to 17 does not reflect a seventeen-fold increase in Soviet space capability – merely greater use of Vostok's full potential.

Similarly, the 15 minute flights of Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7 reflect but a tiny proportion of the Mercury spacecraft's endurance.  When the Atlas booster is on-line in a few months, you will see the American program accomplishing the same feats as that of the Soviets.  I'm willing to bet our lunar ship, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration began work on earlier this year, will be done before its Russian counterpart, too.

We have to remember that the timing of the Soviet missions is designed for maximum psychological effect.  Without taking anything away from the 26-year old Titov's noteworthy trip, I note that it occurred just as tensions over Berlin reached their highest since the Commnunist blockade of 1948.  Khruschev is flexing his muscles, both on the land and in space, hoping that Kennedy will blink if the Soviets carry out their threat to wall off their side of Berlin from ours. 

Now is not the time to get discouraged.  Not in the Space Race, not in the Cold War.  As I've said before, the Race to the Moon is not a sprint; it's a marathon.

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[August 5, 1961] In the good old Summertime! (September 1961 IF science fiction)

6 Comments


Gideon Marcus


by Ron Church

Summer is here!  It's that lazy, hot stretch of time when the wisest thing to do is lie in the shade with a glass of lemonade and a good book.  Perhaps if Khruschev did the same thing, he wouldn't be making things so miserable for the folks of West Berlin.  Well, there's still time for Nikita to take a restful trip to the Black Sea shore.

As for me, I may not have a dacha, but I do have a beach.  Moreover, this month's IF science fiction proved a reasonably pleasant companion during my relax time.  If you haven't picked up your copy yet, I recommend it.  Here's what's inside:

Keith Laumer has made a big splash in just the last few years.  He wrote a fine three-part alternate Earth novel that came out in Fantastic earlier this year.  I look forward to covering it when it's novelized in a few months.  Meanwhile, this month he offers us a prequel to Diplomat-at-Arms, starring his interstellar man of mystery, Retief.  It's called The Frozen Planet, and while the setting is interesting (a quartet of frozen human worlds on the edge of the evil Soetti empire), I found it a bit too smug.  When the secret agent is too powerful, where's the drama?  Two stars.

Mirror Image is a Daniel Galouye's story, about a raving (but not necessarily mad) man who claims to have built a bridge to the parallel universe behind every looking glass.  It's a B-grade plot, something you might find in the lesser annals of The Twilight Zone, but I found it engaging, nonetheless.  Three stars.

It looks like Lester del Rey has returned from vacation.  His story in August's Galaxy, was his first in a few years.  Now, hot on its heels, is Spawning Ground, about a startling discovery made by a colonial group upon planetfall.  The set-up is good, and I greatly appreciated the inclusion of a mixed-gender crew, but the ending was too mawkish and abrupt.  Three stars.

H.B. Fyfe, whose byline can be found all over the magazines of the pulp era, has been a consistent Analog and IF contributor for the past couple of years.  None of his stories have been strong stand-outs, and this month's Tolliver's Orbit is no exception.  It's a thriller set on the wastes of Ganymede featuring a pair of an interesting characters: an honest space pilot who wants no part of the graft rife in the local commercial concern, and a woman vice president of said business, sent to investigate wrong-doing.  In the hands of an expert, it could have easily garnered four or five stars.  Sadly, Fyfe phoned this one in, telling rather than showing at too many critical junctures.  Two stars.


by Ritter

On the other hand, the succeeding novella, by newcomer Charles Minor Blackford, is solid entertainment.  The Valley of the Masters depicts a space colony generations after establishment.  Its people have forgotten their technological past, and the automatic machines are beginning to fail.  Without them, the community will be swallowed by a hostile environment.  Is an enterprising young couple the only hope?  If Valley has any faults, it is that it is too short.  Four stars.

Robert Young's The Girls from Fieu Dayol presents us with a cautionary tale: be careful when eavesdropping on a note-passing conversation — You just might end up embroiled in an interstellar husband hunt!  Cute.  Three stars.

Full disclosure: Any story with my daughter's namesake is subject to extraordinary scrutiny.  Thankfully, Charles de Vet's Lorelei, featuring a seductive shape-changer who haunts the stranded crew of the first Jovian expedition, is good stuff.  Three stars.

Wrapping up the issue is Donald Westlake's novella, Call him Nemesis.  If you're a fan of child superheroes, you'll like it; it's a simple story, but the execution is charming.  Three stars.

All told, the September 1961 IF clocks in at 2.9 stars out of 5.  That's pretty respectable for this magazine, and certainly good enough for a couple of hours of summer lolling. 

6 Comments Leave A Comment
Book

[August 2, 1961] Between Two Worlds (Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions)

8 Comments


Gideon Marcus

Have you ever wanted to throw yourself into a fantasy world?  Tour through Middle Earth?  Plan a trip in Narnia?  Who hasn't imagined themselves rubbing elbows with Robin Hood or Jason's Argonauts?

Some folks have gone so far as to write their own cross-world adventures, much to the delight of their readers.  L. Frank Baum made it a common practice to feature immigrants from the "real world" to Oz.  L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, in their Incomplete Enchanter, detailed the travels of Earth-dweller Harold Shea through Norse Mythology and The Faerie Queen.

And now, the esteemed Poul Anderson has taken a stab at the genre with Three Hearts and Three Lions.  Our protagonist is Holger Carlsen, a broad-shouldered but bashful engineer from Denmark who joins the resistance when his country is invaded in World War 2 by Germany.  At the peak of a pitched battle with Nazis, Holger is explosively propelled into another world. 

At first blush, it is a world remarkably like our own, though in an earlier time.  How else to explain the identical constellations, the existence of France, Spain, Saracens, and the Holy Roman Empire?  But then, what business do real witches have in medieval Europe?  Or, for that matter, trolls, dwarves, Morgan le Fay, and a swan-may named Alianora? 

Holger, it seems, has taken on the role (if not the memories) of The Defender, this world's greatest hero.  As on Earth, a war is brewing between the forces of Law and Chaos, and Holger is somehow the key to both conflicts.  Through a series of adventures, the inadvertent (but capable!) Sir Holger must wend his way through the lands of Faerie and humanity on a quest to save the day.

Anderson demonstrated his knack for archaic language in his recent The High Crusade.  He uses it to good effect in Hearts, though the thick Scottish accents, rendered faithfully, can be a bit confusing at first.  The setting he paints and the characters we meet are portrayed as vividly as ere we saw them in The Song of Roland or The Death of Arthur.  Many of the chapters are almost stand-alone stories, by turns hilarious and gripping.  I usually find scenes of battle to be tiresome, but Anderson knows how to make them exciting.

A fun thread that runs through Hearts is its scientific consistency.  While fantastic, magical things indisputably exist in Holger's new world, most rules of science still hold, which the engineer-protagonist uses to good advantage.  For instance, who knew that faeries' aversion to sunlight was a simple UV-allergy?

I won't spoil another inch of Hearts.  Suffice it to say that it only gets better as it goes along, and Anderson has done a splendid job of translating traditional medieval fantasy for a modern audience. 

Four stars.

8 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies

[July 30, 1961] 20,000 Leagues in a Balloon (Jules Verne's Mysterious Island)

11 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Jules Verne, the father of scientific adventure, has probably inspired more movie spectacles than any other writer.  Verne's characters have conquered all areas of the globe, from the center of the Earth, to the heights of the clouds, to the bottom of the ocean. 

Perhaps the most famous of Verne's protagonists is Captain Nemo, skipper of the magnificent submarine, the Nautilus.  In 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, adapted to film in 1953, Nemo led a one-man crusade against war, sinking the world's warships in the cause of pacifism.

My daughter and I just came back from the premiere of Mysterious Island, the latest translation of a Verne novel.  It is a sequel of sorts to 20,000 Leagues, though this is not immediately apparent from the beginning.  The initial setting is the siege of Richmond at the end of the American Civil War.  Four Yankee prisoners make a daring escape in a balloon along with an initially wary, but ultimately game, Confederate prisoner.  The film begins with no indication of where it's going other than the title (and the unfortunate mention of Nemo in the cast list).

This first act sets the pace for most of the movie – fast and exciting.  It continues for a good twenty minutes before the balloon crash-lands onto the movie's namesake, a volcanic spot of land in the South Pacific.  In this span, we get a good feel for the characters, all of whom are interesting and likable.  We have Captain Harding, a brusque, efficient sort who has little trouble commanding authority.  Neb is his aide-de-camp and good friend, a Negro soldier who's clearly served with Harding a long time.  Young Herbert is another of Harding's men, an ashamed coward who wishes he could be a better man (and gets the opportunity!).  The captured Rebel, Sergeant Branson, is an amiable sort.  After some initial mistrust, he falls in line with Harding.  The last of the adventurers is Gideon Spillet, a cynical and jaunty war reporter.  It is, perhaps, no surprise that the middle-aged journalist named Gideon is my favorite character…

Once upon the island, the band discovers a host of extraordinary features.  The volcano is ominously active.  Many of the flora and fauna of the island are unnaturally large.  Yet, despite these dangers, the castaways seem to have a guardian angel, always providing aid at the brink of catastrophe.

The oversized critters are beautifully brought to life by the master of stop-motion effects, Ray Harryhausen.  We've seen his work before in films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and this may well be his most impressive outing.  Not only does he do a wonderful job of rendering a giant crab, a Diatryma, and a swarm of outsized bees, but their interactions with living actors are convincing. 

Not long after my daughter lamented the lack of women in the movie, two were thoughtfully provided.  The shipwrecked duo are the Lady Mary Fairchild, and her niece, Elena.  I greatly appreciated that the newcomers were treated, as characters, with dignity.  They quickly become members of the team, the noble Mary proving to be quite resourceful, indeed. 

Island maintains its tempo and excitement for a good 75 of its 101 minutes, prematurely climaxing with the introduction of the party's benefactor, Captain Nemo.  The final act, depicting Nemo's plan to leave the island in a captured brigands' vessel (the Nautilus having been crippled in the last movie), is somewhat inconsistent and expositional.  We lose a bit of the character interaction that made Island so entertaining. 

Nevertheless, there's no question that Island, despite its simple, linear plot and its uneven ending, is a delight.  It's a lovely film with a fine cast, yet another success in the long line of Vernian films.  Perhaps what I enjoyed the most about the movie, aside from the diverse cast, was its lack of an opponent.  So many films involve some degree of treachery or antagonism, an enemy to overcome or a traitorous party member.  I find that rather tedious.  In Island, all of the cast are basically good, and they work together to master their situation.  The setting, itself, provides enough drama to hold interest.

Moreover, the only animals we see killed and eaten are ones that attacked the party.  No goats or Gertrudes lose their lives in this film.

3.5 stars.

—


by Lorelei Marcus

Today we watched Mysterious Island, which was a pretty good movie, I would say.  Like most of the Verne movies we've watched, it has an exciting setup.  The special effects were amazing, as to be expected from Ray Harryhausen.  I loved seeing all of the creatures they'd come up with and seeing them turned into giant forms. The stop motion was meshed so well with the actual footage, it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't!  I can't pick a favorite creature — they were all so good.

The acting was also very good, and there was a lot of attention to detail on the actors.  I particularly liked the strong relationship between the Captain and Neb.  I'm not surprised that neither of them got involved with the castaway women as they had each other. 

My favorite thing is seeing people surviving and rebuilding, and this movie really scratched that itch. They came up with a lot of creative ways to create modern implements in the wild, from the goat pen to the shell bowls.

Overall the pacing was very good, until around the end where it slowed down a bit, but otherwise it was a fun movie.  It's hard to describe a plot because there wasn't much of one. They escaped from prison, they found an island, they built on the island, they escaped the island, The End.  Despite this though, I still thoroughly enjoyed the movie.  The sets were all very beautiful, and it was edited very well.

I think I would give this movie a 3.5 out of 5.  It was very good, but kind of lost me at the end. Still, I highly recommend you go see it yourself, if not for the story, then for the amazing special effects.

This is the young traveler, signing off.

11 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[July 27, 1961] Breaking a Winning Streak (August 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

17 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Take a look at the back cover of this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction.  There's the usual array of highbrows with smug faces letting you know that they wouldn't settle for a lesser sci-fi mag.  And next to them is the Hugo award that the magazine won last year at Pittsburgh's WorldCon.  That's the third Hugo in a row. 

It may well be their last.

I used to love this little yellow magazine.  Sure, it's the shortest of the Big Three (including Analog and Galaxy), but in the past, it boasted the highest quality stories.  I voted it best magazine for 1959 and 1960. 

F&SF has seen a steady decline over the past year, however, and the last three issues have been particularly bad.  Take a look at what the August 1961 issue offers us:

Avaram Davidson and Morton Klass's The Kappa Nu Nexus, about a milquetoast Freshman who joins a fraternity that hosts a kooky set of time travelers.  Davidson's writing, formerly some of the most sublime, has gotten unreadably self-indulgent, and William Tenn's brother (Klass) doesn't make it any better.  One star.

Survival Planet, by Harry Harrison, features the remnant colony of the vanquished Great Slavocracy.  It's not a bad story, but it's mostly told rather than shown, the book-ends being highly expositional.  Three stars.

Vance Aandahl, as one of my readers once observed, desperately wants to be Ray Bradbury.  His Cogi Drove His Car Through Hell has the virtue of starring a non-traditional protagonist; that's the only virtue of this mess.  One star.

Juliette, translated from the French by Damon Knight (it is originally by Claude-François Cheiniss), is a bright spot.  It's a sort of cross between McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang and Young's Romance in a Twenty-First Century Used Car Lot.  I found it effective, written in that Gallic light fashion.  Four stars.

For the life of me, I couldn't tell you the point of E. William Blau's first printed story, The Dispatch Executive.  Something about a bureaucratic dystopia, or perhaps it's a special kind of hell for office clerks.  Hell is right, and here's hoping we don't see Blau in print again.  One star.

Then we have another comparatively bright spot: Kit Reed's Piggy.  Per the author, it is "the story of Pegasus, although I don't remember that his passengers spouted verse, and a mashup of first lines from Emily Dickinson, whom I admired, but never liked."  There's no question that it's beautifully written, but there is not much movement as regards to plot.  Three stars.

A Meeting on a Northern Moor, Leah Bodine Drake's poem on the decline of Norse mythology is evocative, though brief.  Murray Leinster's The Case of the Homicidal Robots is a turgid mystery-adventure involving the spacenapping of dozens io interstellar vessels.  Three and two stars, respectively.

Winona McClintic is back with Four Days in the Corner, some kind of ghost story.  It's worse than her last piece, and that's nothing to be proud of.  Two stars.

Then we have Asimov's science fact column, The Evens Have It, on the frequency of nuclear isotopes among the elements.  The Good Doctor's articles are usually the high point of F&SF for me, but this one is the first I'd ever characterize as "dull."  Three stars, but you'll probably give it a two.

Rounding things up is Gordon Dickson's The Haunted Village, about a traveler who vacations in a village whose inhabitants are hostile to outsiders.  The twist?  There is no outside world – only the delusion that such a thing exists.  Dickson is capable of a lot better.  Two stars.

I often say that I read bad fiction so you don't have to.  This was especially true this month.  While Galaxy was quite good (3.4 stars), both Analog and F&SF clocked in at 2.2. 
For those of you new to the genre and wondering why they should bother (why I should bother), I promise – it's not all like this.  Please don't let it all be like this…

Coming up next: The sci-fi epic, Mysterious Island!

17 Comments Leave A Comment
Conventions/Performances

[July 24, 1961] COMIC CON 1961!

4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

1961 has definitely been a fine year for fan gatherings, thus far.  It doesn't seem like a month goes by without one fan circle or another throwing a science fiction convention.  Some are tiny affairs, little more than an expanded club meeting.  Others, like WorldCon (coming up in a little over a month, in Seattle), clock in attendances of several hundreds.  It's a great way to pass the time, learn inside dope on the doings of fans and writers, alike, and it sure beats the Summer reruns!

I've just come back from "Comic Con," a San Diego convention of considerable size.  A good many notables from both the comics and science fiction genres were there including Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and Allen Bellman (he drew Captain America during the Golden Years), D.C.'s Ramona Fradon (Aquaman), superfans Trina Robbins, Bjo Trimble and John Trimble, and Twilight Zone actor William Shatner (who you may recall from the excellent episode, "Nick of Time"). 

There were at least a hundred fans there, many of them in costume.  Guarding us all was the U.S.S. Midway, a modern aircraft carrier:

For your viewing pleasure, here are all the shots I managed to snap before my Kodak ran out of film:

Conventions, for me, are a place to meet folks and share my love of things scientifictional.  I'm hoping the friendships I made there will last a good long time.  See you next year…1962!  (Drop me a line if you'd like an original photograph…)

4 Comments Leave A Comment
Science / Space Race

[July 22, 1961] Into Space – and the Deep Blue (The Flight of Liberty Bell 7)

9 Comments


by Lawrence Klaes

After three failed attempts just this week, yesterday (July 21, 1961), astronaut Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom finally became this nation’s second (and the world's third) man to reach outer space.  Grissom achieved another sort of milestone when his spacecraft unexpectedly sank after splashdown – and almost took the astronaut with it to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean!

Following a very similar mission profile to that of his predecessor, Alan Shepard, back on May 5, Grissom rode his Mercury vessel, which he christened Liberty Bell 7 (complete with a painted white crack on the hull) in an arcing flight across the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) in Florida.

The reliable Redstone booster hurled the ton-and-a-half craft, some 262.50 nautical miles downrange and 102.76 nautical miles above the Earth’s surface Grissom’s 15-minute suborbital flight lasted just nine seconds longer than Shepard’s.  Of course, both flights were far shorter than Cosmonaut Gagarin's 90-minute flight in April.  That's because the Redstone simply isn't powerful enough to send a Mercury into orbit, unlike the unnamed ICBM the Soviets are using. 

Grissom’s flight was relatively short in both duration and distance, but our second American astronaut did get to experience a few moments of weightlessness, move his ship around, and view our home planet and the blackness of space as few have yet to do.  His view was better than Shepard's: The two portholes on Freedom 7 were replaced with a larger single window. 

The other improvement on Liberty Bell 7 was an explosive side hatch, to be activated in the event of emergency after landing.  It was a wise precaution, but it almost caused the Mercury program's first fatality.

After Grissom's splashdown in the Atlantic, while he waited inside his space vessel to be rescued by four Sikovsky UH-34D helicopters dispatched from the aircraft carrier USS Randolph, the explosive release on the Liberty Bell 7 side hatch suddenly activated, blowing the heavy metal door across the water like a skipping stone.  The Atlantic Ocean rushed into the now open spacecraft.

The Mercury astronaut prudently abandoned his vessel and waved frantically at the hovering helicopters to hoist him out of the drink: Grissom’s spacesuit was filling with sea water due to an open oxygen inlet connection and it began weighing him down.  The rolls of Mercury dimes Gus had taken along in his suit to later hand out as souvenirs were also contributing to his inexorable dip beneath the ocean surface.

Unfortunately, the lead helicopter pilot interpreted Grissom’s reaction as an indication that he was okay, so they focused on trying to rescue the sinking Liberty Bell 7 by attaching a cable to it>.

The flooding Mercury spacecraft soon became too heavy for the helicopter to lift from the water, and it threatened to bring down the chopper and its crew as well.  With no other choice, the rescue team detached Liberty Bell 7, which quickly sank to the bottom of the ocean over seventeen thousand feet below. 

Attention finally returned to the desperate astronaut.  Grissom grasped for the lowered harness.  Exhausted, he slumped in the harness as he was retrieved for his trip back to the rescue ship. 

It remains to be determined whether the premature explosion of the side hatch was caused by a mechanical defect or by manual release by Grissom, perhaps in a momentary panic.  Gus himself swears he was lying calmly inside the spacecraft when the incident occurred.  Whatever the real story, engineers will need to check the hatch escape system thoroughly to make sure it does not happen again – especially in space!  Perhaps this system will be more fully tested during the next Mercury mission, another suborbital flight scheduled for September, with John Glenn the anticipated pilot.

Intriguingly, in his post-flight briefing this morning, attended by his family and fellow astronauts, Grissom admitted to feeling “scared” when his vessel lifted off towards space.  The Mercury spacemen were chosen for their exceptional bravery and flying skills.  Yet, in the end, they are human.  Did Gus, who flew 100 combat missions during the Korean War and has had a long reputation as a top-notch pilot, have a moment of weakness when confronting the unknowns of outer space?  Is this what contributed to the release of the spacecraft hatch that caused the loss of the Liberty Bell 7 and nearly the astronaut as well?  Are there aspects about the vast realm beyond Earth that may make it impossible for a man to extensively explore and colonize space?

At the moment only three human beings have actually ventured into the alien void.  All have returned alive and unharmed; however, in all of these cases they made only the briefest of ventures into space.  Can someone survive the longer durations entailed in extended orbital missions?  What about manned expeditions to the Moon and other worlds in our Solar System?  Can man make it to those places in person and live to tell the tale?

In the end, there can be only one way to find out: by sending qualified men and eventually even women into the Final Frontier to confront what may be there and conquer it for the good of humanity. 

9 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine

[July 15, 1961] Saving Grace (The August 1961 Analog)

12 Comments

Recently, I told you about Campbell's lousy editorial in the August 1961 Analog that masqueraded as a "science-fact" column.  That should have been the low point of the issue.  Sadly, with one stunning exception, the magazine didn't get much better.

For instance, almost half the issue is taken up by Mack Reynold's novella, Status Quo.  It's another of his future cold-war pieces, most of which have been pretty good.  This one, about a revolutionary group of "weirds," who plan to topple an increasingly conformist American government by destroying all of our computerized records, isn't.  It's too preachy to entertain; its protagonist, an FBI agent, is too unintelligent to enjoy (even if his dullness is intentional); the tale is too long for its pay-off.  Two stars.

That said, there are some interesting ideas in there.  The speculation that we will soon become over-reliant on social titles rather than individual merit, while Campbellian in its libertarian sentiment, is plausible.  There is already an "old boy's club" and it matters what degrees you have and from which school you got them.  It doesn't take much to imagine a future where the meritocracy is dead and nepotism rules.

And, while it's hard to imagine a paperless society, should we ever get to the point where the majority of our records only exist within the core memories of a few computers, a few revolutionaries hacking away at our central repositories of knowledge could have quite an impact, indeed! 

Flamedown, by H.B. Fyfe is a forgettable short piece about a spaceman who crashes onto the surface of a Barsoomian Mars and is trailed by a lynch mob of angry Martians.  There is a twist at the end, but it's a limp one.  Two stars.

I don't know who Walter B. Gibson is, but his impassioned defense of psionics in our legal system, The Unwanted Evidence, is wretched.  It reads like a series of newspaper clippings from the back page of the newspaper, or maybe one of those sensational books on UFOs and mystic events that are in vogue.  One star.

Analog perennial Randall Garrett, an author I tend to dislike (yet one of Campbell's favored sons) gives us Hanging by a Thread, about an interplanetary ship holed by a meteor.  It could have been engaging, but the smug, detached tone, and the overly technical and uninteresting solution make this a dreary read.  Perhaps even Garrett knew he could do better; maybe that's why he penned this one under the name "David Gordon."  Two stars.


by Douglas

Laurence Janifer also appears a lot in Analog, often paired with Garrett (either as a true duet, or just side by side).  He's usually the better of the two, but Lost in Translation is a typical lousy "clever Terrans beat aliens" story, not worth your time.  Again, it's pseudonymous (Larry M. Harris), perhaps on purpose.  Two stars.

This is a pretty damning litany, isn't it?  A series of 2-star stories and a pair of 1-star "science fact" articles.  Is there any reason I don't just toss this issue into the kindling box?

There is.

Cyril Kornbluth shuffled off this mortal coil far too soon, some three years ago.  He wrote a lot, both by himself and with partners.  Perhaps his most famous partnership was with Fred Pohl, who now runs Galaxy and IF magazines.  The Pohl/Kornbluth pair is best known for their novels, including the acclaimed The Space Merchants, but they also produced a plethora of short stories.  Interestingly, many have only reached print after Kornbluth's death.  I can only imagine these were skeletal affairs that Pohl has recently completed.

The Quaker Cannon, their latest piece, is very good.  It's the story of First Lieutenant Kramer, a veteran of a war fought in the 1970s, between East and West.  In this war, he had been captured by the Communists and subjected to complete sensory deprivation as a torture and interrogation technique.  Unlike most of his captured compatriots, he neither went incurably mad nor held out until death.  He simply resisted as long as he could, then he cracked and gave up what he knew.  He was later repatriated.

Now 38 and still a First Lieutenant despite years of service, blacklisted from any significant role, he is suddenly recruited into Project Ripsaw: a new attempt to invade Asia.  As the commanding general's aide-de-camp, he oversees Ripsaw's growth from a cadre of three to an organization of hundreds of thousands, privy to all of the unit's secrets and plans. 

As the vast force prepares to invade, Kramer learns of "The Quaker Cannon," a parallel invasion unit that exists only on paper.  Its purpose is to serve as a blind to confuse the enemy as to the real plan.  The Soviets call this kind of deception maskirova, and it's worked time and time again.

Just prior to D-Day, Kramer is betrayed to the enemy.  In short order, the Lieutenant is back in the "Blank Tank," all of his senses completely deadened.  Hours pass by in seconds, each a drag on his sanity.  Though Kramer's defiance is admirable, his ultimate submission, as before, is only a matter of time.  He, of course, divulges the Ripsaw plan in its entirety.  When Kramer returns to coherence, he is back home.  Rather than being punished for his lapse, he is given a high honor.

Ripsaw was the ghost.  "The Quaker Cannon" was the real invasion.  Kramer's confession was all part of the plan.  The story ends with that reveal.

In the hands of Randall Garrett, or even Mack Reynolds, the focus would have been on the gimmick, to the detriment of the story.  Pohl and Kornbluth let Kramer be the narrator, albeit in a third person fashion.  They paint a vivid portrait of a battle-fatigued soldier, almost numb to life (as though he never left the Blank Tank) until Ripsaw gives him purpose again.  We are made to feel his anxiety at the thought and ultimately the reality of returning to the Blank Tank.  We feel disgust at his being used as a tool, yet we also fundamentally understand why.  Cannon is not a triumphant story.  It is a beautifully told, weary story of a weary man, not only capturing the psyche of a battered soldier, but also the perversity of the military structure and mentality.

Hard stuff, but it deserves five stars. 

So, as a whole, the issue gets just 2.2 stars.  Nevertheless, thanks to that half-posthumous pair, the August 1961 Analog will be reserved a place on my shelf, not in the garbage. 

12 Comments Leave A Comment