All posts by Kris Vyas-Myall

Movies, Science / Space Race, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[April 28, 1967] Tempest in a Teacup (The Terrornauts)

1 Comment


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Next week will see the launch of third satellite in the British Ariel programme. Assuming this is successful, it will be significant for a couple of reasons.

UK3 Satellite, hoping to become Ariel 3 if it gets in orbit
UK3 Satellite, hoping to become Ariel 3 if it gets in orbit

Firstly, whilst it is being launched in partnership with NASA in California, it will be the first satellite to be entirely made and tested in Britain, whereas the first two were made in the US. In cooperation between the Royal Airforce, British Aircraft Corporation and General Electric Company, its success would help show that Britain can, if not exactly compete in the space race, at least get a nice chance at a bronze medal.

Secondly, it is carrying five different experiments for UK research facilities, from measuring electron density to atmospheric noise, all of which are going to be important for a more detailed understanding of our world.

One of the most interesting experiments to me is that Jodrell Bank is using it to study medium frequency waves that occur in space. As well as helping understand radio transmissions better this may also help better detect signals coming from extra-terrestrial intelligences. Which is what The Terrornauts is concerned with.

Mr. Brunner…We’re Needed!

The Wailing Asteroid

Back in the ancient days of 1960 our esteemed editor gave a rather damning review of the original novel. However, largely this was due to the prose and the story being dragged out and it was noted that “the premise is excellent”. As such, if a good team was assembled it might well make a good motion picture.

John Brunner

Step forward the first member of this team, John Brunner. One of Britain’s brightest SF authors. Whilst, to the best of my knowledge, he has not written a film script before, he is adept at producing both readable space operas and extremely literary works. He reportedly wanted to remove all the dated pulp era material to concentrate on core science fiction ideas and character work.

Montgomery Tully

Next up, a steady experienced hand of a director is needed, enter Montgomery Tully. Director of over 60 films across 4 decades, including last year’s excellent horror thriller Who Killed The Cat? Although not experienced in SF, many of the best productions of recent years have come from experienced directors outside the field. I will take a Godard or Kubrick experiments over another Irwin Allen or Ed Wood picture.

Amicus Posters

This production is from Amicus studios, the main rival to Hammer studios, with the enjoyable horror anthology Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, the middling Dalek films and…. whatever The Deadly Bees was. Whilst they do not have the budget of their competitor, they have had ambition to try to do interesting films. Could this be their next success?

Added to this an array of talented actors listed on the cast sheet and things seem setup for a great cinematic experience.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

As it turns out, a lot!

Working in the Lab

Let us start with the plot itself. It begins with people working in a field of current interest to many SF fans, attempting to use high powered radio telescopes in order to attempt to find intelligence life outside of our solar system. Dr. Burke’s team have been working on the project for 4 years but failed to produce any results, to the frustration of Dr. Shore, who is annoyed they are using the equipment on the project. Having just 3 months left to discover a sign of life, they receive a repeating signal from an asteroid.

Finding the Cube in an Archeological Dig

What is particularly surprising is it is the same signal Dr. Burke heard as a child. At an excavation with an archaeologist uncle, a mysterious black cube was uncovered. He was given it as present and inside he found strange black crystals that hummed. Falling asleep holding one, he had a dream of an alien world. On that world he heard the same sound. As you can probably tell, this is going to require you to accept a lot of coincidences.

Lab is Taken

After sending a signal back, a spaceship comes and takes the lab away (although not the control room or telescope it was sent from), along with Dr. Burke, his assistants Lund and Keller, and two comedy characters, the accountant Yellowlees and the tea lady Mrs. Jones.

We do have to talk about the odd comic turns. There's no problem with having some light comedy to emphasise the drama and the use of ordinary characters out of their depth is a common charming feature of Nigel Kneale’s SF plays or Hammer Horror films. The issue here is that it is played so broadly in contrast to the po-faced stance of the rest of the cast it sticks out. Charles Hawtrey is a regular member of the Carry-On cast and Patricia Hayes is probably best known for her regular appearances on the Benny Hill Show. I could not help but wonder at times if they had just walked off of those sets temporarily. Just toning down their performances and lightening the others would have done wonders.

ultrasonic hallucination monster
A terrifying ultrasonic hallucination as part of the tests.

Our five space farers find themselves in a structure on the asteroid and spend a lot of time wandering about and solving a series of logic puzzles to prove intelligence (likely inspired by a similar sequence in The Dalek Invasion of Earth), they are given a cube like Dr. Burke received as a child. It turns out to be a store of information on their mission. An ancient race explored the stars and encountered a race only known as “The Enemy” that want to eliminate other intelligent life by using rays that reduce intelligence. The signal from the base indicates The Enemy’s signals are approaching Earth and it is up to these five to use the base to defend humanity.

There is also a brief side trip where Lund trips on to a ‘Matter Transmitter’ and gets sent down to a planet full of green people in togas and shower caps who want to sacrifice her, but this seems largely to be a way to have a traditional pulp action sequence more than anything else. In fact, for such a short film, there is enormous amount of time being wasted. Most egregious is a sequence where they are trying to find a cube to help them and spend ages sampling them all, only to have the real cube presented to them by the unconvincing robot of the base.

Wobbly robots and very unconvincing moons
Wobbly robots and very unconvincing moons

Although looks are not everything it has to be said this film looks cheap. Yes, the budget was smaller than Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. or Thunderbirds Are Go, but it is at a comparable level to Island of Terror and The Projected Man, neither of which look as bad as this (despite their many other faults). Even BBC episodes of Doctor Who or Out of the Unknown, which work on less than 10% of the budget for similar runtimes, rarely resemble this level of shoddiness.

The Torch of Doom vs. the Flappy Base
The Torch of Doom vs. the Flappy Base

At the end it looked like we could have a tense and exciting space battle, but instead we have the attacking ship opening to reveal a red torch light and the fortress flailing about like a drunken Octopus.

Finally, the attacking fleet is destroyed but not before the final ship comes to crash into the base. The team manage to use the Matter Transmitter to escape and land in the same archaeological dig the black cube was found by Burke’s uncle. However, not having passports, they are arrested by a local police officer. Given how much The Terrornauts tends towards terrible cliché, it, of course, ends on a bad joke from Mrs. Jones:

I never did much like foreign parts

Hilarious…

Naut The Best Film

Mrs. Jones brings lab techs tea
Why not have a cup of tea and read a magazine instead?

As you can probably tell, this is a poor picture. Logic is consistently tenuous. There is barely enough plot to fill a Ferman vignette, instead being reduced to run-arounds. If I didn’t know its origins, I would have assumed this was a fan’s attempt at a Doctor Who script that was rejected by the production team.

But I think its worst sin is it is just incredibly dull. I don’t think this is due to lack of incident, but it is not about anything. There are no themes or interesting ideas I can tease out, it is just some people from Earth put into space to fight invaders, which they do via following recorded instructions.

Even this might have been salvaged if we had good character work but they all as thin as cigarette cards. Burke is the hero who is always right and can apparently do anything. Lund is his assistant who does whatever he says or randomly gets into trouble so she can be rescued. Keller is there for Burke to talk to. Yellowlees is the fussy and cowardly comic relief. And Jones is the ordinary person who does not quite understand what is going on, also for humour value.

They do not have any growth or go on a real quest. There is no significant difference I can see between the people when they leave Earth and arrive back.

In the end I cannot give this production more than one star.

Future Terrors

2001 Set photo
Kubrick and Clarke, on the set of what we all hope is not The Terrornauts Raid Again

Coming out very soon (we are continually promised) is 2001, the collaboration between another British SF author and experienced British director. Will this end up meeting the same fate? We shall see…



1 Comment Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 18, 1967] From Both Sides of the Curtain (New Writings in S-F 10 & Path into the Unknown)

Leave a comment


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

The House That Socialism Built

21 years ago this month, Winston Churchill gave his famous lecture “The Sinews of Peace” at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Where he declared that:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Atlantic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent…this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of the permanent peace.

The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast.

Today Europe remains divided not just down the middle, but with the Northern states kept out of EEC, and right-wing dictatorships remaining in place on the Iberian Peninsula. However, so far warfare has remained largely absent from the continent and the debates within the Soviet Union do not seem all that different from those in Britain.

New council estate in Basford, England
New council estate in Basford, England

In the USSR, it has been announced 22 million people moved into new communal housing, but many of these higher paid workers are opting for new resident owned cooperatives instead. Whilst in England council house building has reached its highest level at 364,000, but that has been equalled by the boom in private housing.

New Khrushchyovkas in Moscow
New Khrushchyovkas in Moscow

Yet even with all this house building too many ordinary people have trouble getting a decent place to live. In Russia the necessity for putting up so many “Khrushchyovkas” is due to housing having been so poor for so long. In a survey in 1957, only 1% of the structures in Leningrad were given the highest rating by building inspectors, with more than half given the lowest. Whist in Kiev over 70% were given the lowest rating. In the UK the problem of the current housing crisis is perfectly illustrated by the harrowing recent film, Cathy Come Home.

Similar debates seem to be taking place in other areas, whether it is in as wages, healthcare and food prices. More and more it seems that sabre rattling and arguments over the best system of government are not dominating the headlines but, instead, how best to balance equality and pragmatism in the different economic systems.

With this alignment between the countries seemingly appearing, it is worth comparing two new anthologies, one from the UK and the other of writers from the USSR:

New Writings in S-F 10

New Writings in S-F 10

Carnell does not cite a theme for this collection, instead talking about breadth of ideas on display. For me, however, these all seem to be dealing with perspective and the nature of reality in some form. Unfortunately, these are not the best examples of this type of work.

The Imagination Trap by Colin Kapp

This is a sequel to Lambda One (which was also adapted for Out of the Unknown’s most recent season) where we get to see Bevis and Porter work on a new problem in Tau Research. Apparently not put off by the problems they encountered last time, a project is going ahead for “Deep Tau”, to use the same principle used to travel through inter atomic space within the Earth, to allow for a form of interstellar travel.

After last time, why would they agree to an almost suicidal trip into Deep Tau? On the Lambda II no less? Because of the titular 'imagination trap', which says that an expert in a field will always be compelled to follow a problem, no matter how dangerous to themselves. This kind of logic is the sort of thing which annoys me about this story, it continues to throw scientific mumbo-jumbo and ideas at you for almost 50 pages that don’t actually hold up to any scrutiny and expect you to go along with it.

My esteemed colleague Mr. Yon liked the original story significantly more than I did so there is clearly a market for what Colin Kapp is trying to do. But for me I will only give it two stars.

Apple by John Baxter

As a result of an unspecified war, all humans are now really tiny. Billings is a Moth Killer who goes into the tunnels inside an apple to slay the insect.

These kind of perspective stories have been with us throughout science fiction’s existence. From Voltaire’s Micromegas, through A. Bertram Chandler’s Giant Killer to Doctor Who: Planet of the Giants. And whilst this is very descriptive, I don’t see what this adds to the millions of other tales of this type.

Two Stars

Robot's Dozen by G. L. Lack

Unfortunately, G. L Lack continues to live up to their name with another disappointing story. In epistolary mode, we learn that Arthur Willis of Bath hires a robot duplicate of himself to watch his house whilst he is on holiday. The robot apparently takes to staring at the neighbours and so Arthur is forced to hire the robot again to prove it was not him. However, the robot rather insists on staying.

An obvious tale where the ending can be seen coming from the first paragraph.

Two Stars

Birth of a Butterfly by Joseph Green

For a century, humans have been exploring the galaxy trying to find intelligent life without success. However, it is a child travelling with his parents that discovers a unique form of intelligent life, small sentient stars that seem to resemble butterflies.

This could easily have been unreadable, but it ends up being a fascinating look at first contact with a totally alien form of intelligence and a rather sweet set of family dynamics. If nothing else, a definite relief after the first half of this anthology.

Four Stars

The Affluence of Edwin Lollard by Thomas M. Disch

Mr. Disch’s recent trip to England certainly seems to have been a success in terms of sales, for here is yet another tale from him appearing in a British publication. Unfortunately for us, this is not one of his best.

We follow the trial of the titular Edwin Lollard, who has fallen in love with the idea of poverty and a simple life of reading. However, in an affluent society obsessed with consumption this is hard to achieve and has to go to great lengths to try to get it.

This is the kind of dystopic satire I would expect to read a decade ago. You can see echoes of it in Brave New World, The Midas Plague, Fahrenheit 451 and a dozen similar works. The twist in the tale and courtroom proceedings aren’t bad but I cannot give it more than two stars.

A Taste for Dostoevsky by Brian W. Aldiss

Always a delight to see something new from Aldiss as, even if not successful, it will usually be different. This is a very strange type of time travel tale where someone seems to be jumping between different bodies throughout history or into alternative histories. Or possibly he is just an actor getting so involved in his roles he cannot determine the difference between fact or fiction?

This is certainly interesting, but I am also not sure what to make of it. Possibly if I was more a fan of Dostoevsky and familiar with the Freudian analysis of the texts that it seems to draw from I would possibly understand better what Aldiss was trying to say. Add into that that his attempts to explore ideas of race in it end up coming off as clumsy rather than profound, it ends up being a more middling tale to me.

Three Stars

Image of Destruction by John Rankine

Dag Fletcher first appeared in the opening two volumes of New Writings, but his subsequent adventures have been published in novel format. This picks up some time later in the series where Dag is now the chairman of Northern Hemisphere Corporation and is doing more work from behind a desk. The Interstellar Three-Four, captained by Neal Banister, is sent to Sabzius, a planet where the Commissar has recently disappeared. In order to oversee the situation, Dag heads to Sabzius with a skeleton crew.

This is 47 pages long, but it felt to me like 300. The prose was like wading through treacle and the story just kept dragging on. This could have been the kind of tense political thriller I enjoy but it didn’t go anywhere interesting and I failed to see any point to it.

I found the original stories dull and old fashioned so have not bought any of the continuing tales. This has not changed my opinion on this series.

One Star

So not such a good score from the capitalist society. Let’s see if the communist one can do any better:

Path into the Unknown: the best Soviet SF

Path into the Unknown: The best Soviet SF

The Conflict by Ilya Varshavsky

In a society where intelligent robots are employed as nannies, Martha feels threatened that her son Eric seems to prefer the robotic helper Cybella.

This is the kind of satirical vignette you would see as a space filler in F&SF. Add in that it is all layered with messages about a woman’s role and maternal instincts, and I found this to be a very poor start to the anthology.

One Star

Robby by Ilya Varshavsky

Another android tale from the same author. Here the narrator relates how he was given a self-teaching robot, Robby, on his fiftieth birthday, which he tries to use for household chores. However, it proves too literal minded for the tasks, cleaning shoes with jam if not given exact Cartesian coordinates or being unable to divide a cake into three because of recurring decimals. As Robby learns more about humans, he becomes increasingly difficult to live with.

This is a slightly longer story than the previous piece but no better. It is an incredibly simplistic machine logic narrative, more one I would expect in a children’s comic strip than as a piece of adult science fiction.

One Star

Meeting My Brother by Vitaly Krapivin

Three hundred years ago the Magellan photon space cruiser, captained by Alexandr Sneg, set off for another star system hoping to find an earth-like planet. They were never heard from again and assumed to be lost.

One of Alexandr’s descendants, Naal Sneg, is an orphan who sees the ship returning. With time only passing at one tenth the speed in cosmic space, Naal hopes to meet his ancestor and gain a brother he never had.

This is a slow meditative story, told in multiple parts, covering different facets of the tale to uncover the whole truth. I really liked it, if Robby feels like a story from a children’s comic, this feels like a strong novelette from Impulse.

Four stars

A Day of Wrath by Sever Gansovsky

A secluded laboratory developed a new kind of creature, the bear-like Otarks. They have a high degree of logic and intelligence but lack compassion, so will think nothing of attacking children, if the risk is not high, or just eating each other when hungry. Journalist Donald Belty is sent to investigate these creatures and to see whether they qualify as human.

This is an odd story. It is quite an engaging piece as it goes along but I struggle to understand quite what the point of it is. A criticism of unfeeling science, a satire on capitalism, or just a supposition extrapolated out? Whatever it is, the ending left me feeling quite uneasy and I am not sure if the author intended that or not.

A low three stars

An Emergency Case by Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky

The Strugatsky Brothers will be familiar to long time journey readers as we have covered their material twice before. This is first of two tales dealing with alien life.

After dropping off supplies to Titan, Victor Borisovich discovers a fly on board their ship. Initially the crew are uninterested but when Malyshev, the ship’s biologist, recognises it has eight legs he realizes it is an undiscovered extra-terrestrial life form. Soon, though, the ship is overrun in these flies which seem to be resistant to insecticide. Can they contain or destroy them before the crew runs out of air?

Once you accept the unlikely life form they encounter, it is quite exciting monster science story that reminded me a bit of Vogt's Space Beagle tales. What lifted it up more is the excellent character work done, where each of the scientists has their own personality and are believable individuals in a small space of time.

A strong three stars

Wanderers and Travellers by Arkady Strugatsky

This is predominantly a conversational piece. Stanislav Ivanovich and his daughter Masha are marking Septapods, a type of freshwater cephalopod, with a supersonic tracking device to try understand their behaviours. They meet an astro-archaeologist, Leonid Andreevich, who tells them about the problem of “the Voice of Empty Space”, an impossible sound that is picked up by auto-wirelesses on space voyages.

I feel like there are some interesting ideas touched on here, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, except to suggest that the universe is perhaps illogical and unknowable. If that is the point, I believe it could be presented in more interesting ways than as a trialogue.

Two Stars

The Boy by G. Gor

A surprisingly intelligent schoolboy named Gromov writes the stories of the sole child on a long interstellar voyage. When these are read out to the class, all the other students highly entertained by them, but are they just fiction? Or do they have some connection to his father’s discoveries of alien artifacts.

This is an incredibly complicated piece of fiction involving narratives about narratives, theoretical physics, music, identity and perspective. And yet, it is also a story of friendship, where two lonely children form a bond. Really impressed with this and I hope more works from this author are translated soon.

Five stars

The Purple Mummy by Anatoly Dnepov

An interstellar signal has been decoded and used to reconstruct what appears to be the body of a woman albeit all in purple. The head of the Museum of Regional Studies in Leninisk comes to Moscow and shows the team holding the mummy that (apart from the colour) it is the mirror image of his wife. This appears to prove the theory that this signal came from a mirror universe of anti-matter, and it may also contain the secret of how to save his wife’s life.

As you might expect from the title, this reads like one of reprints from the Gernsback era you might find in Amazing or Famous these days. Even discarding how nonsensical it all is, no one’s reactions felt realistic to me and the plot with the illness is poorly handled.

One Star

Two systems, similar problems

Brezhnev Dancing
Brezhnev, dancing for joy at Soviet success

Whilst this represents an overall win for Soviet architecture, in this case, both collections have their highs and lows, and there are definite areas for improvement. We will have to see if the next releases from either the UK or the USSR can build better structures.



No comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[March 12, 1967] Computerized Futures & Humanity (Out of the Unknown: Season Two)

Leave a comment


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Computers seem to be appearing in everywhere these days, and now are coming into our schools.

Brentwood School IBM 1800

For the last few months, the Brentwood School in Palo Alto, California have been spending 30 minutes a day being taught by specially rigged up IBM 1800s.

One screen is setup to display images, whilst information is relayed over the headphones. The children will then answer simple questions using their “light pen” to write answers on another screen. If they answer correctly, it will move on to the next problem. If they do not, it will attempt to reexplain the problem in a new way, to see if it can help the child understand.

This kind of teaching appears to be effective, although it is likely to be a while before it is commonplace. The computers are still very expensive and there were issues with them breaking down (even, if the kids brought in a “get well soon card” to one of them). However, this kind of future is exactly the type that is being talked about in the latest series of Out of the Unknown.

Returning to the Unknown

Out of the Unknown Title Card

It feels to me that Irene Shubik was paying close attention to the response to last season. The most beloved stories of 1965’s series were probably Andover and the Android and The Midas Plague. As such the plays we have this season concentrate heavily on robotics, changes to the nature of humanity and scientific control of people’s lives.

Return of the Robots

Starting with our mechanical friends we get 4 tales of robots (although one I will address in a different section as not to spoil the twist occurring later in the episode). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Shubik’s friendship and his fame in this arena, two of these tales are from Asimov which round off the season.

I have seen them both classified as comedies, however I would not place them within that genre. They are certainly not as laugh out loud funny as The Midas Plague was. Rather they are satires of human nature.

Satisfaction Guaranteed
Yes…definitely a robot!

The first is Satisfaction Guaranteed (originally a Susan Calvin story but she has been removed, apparently so she could be used in the second tale’s frame without confusing the viewer) and concerns the creation of a humanoid servant to a housewife. At first, she is reticent about his presence but, as time goes on, she finds herself developing feelings. I had not been a fan of the original short story, but I found this one engaged me, particularly as I feel the ending is made more ambiguous and downbeat.

The Prophet
“There is no master but The Master, and QT1 is his Prophet”

The second is even more impressive, The Prophet, adapted from Reason in Asimov’s famed I, Robot collection. In this episode, Susan Calvin tells an interviewer the story of robots on a space station developing a belief that the power source of the station is their Master and humans are merely inferior earlier models. The design work and performances on this are excellent, and the additions of the Calvin frame and religious touches to the robots’ ceremonies make for an interesting and thought provoking spin on an already much lauded tale.

Fastest Draw
The Marshall approaches…finally!

Less successful is the adaptation of Larry Eisenberg’s Fastest Draw. It wasn’t a particularly noteworthy story to begin with (our John Boston gave it just two stars) and it doesn’t amount to much on screen either. Having a millionaire want to relive a western using automata doesn’t end up being much more than a stretched-out version of a plot you might see on Gunsmoke or The Virginian. There is so much talking and padding the appearance of The Marshall is not so much a great reveal as just relief that events are finally unfolding. I think Robots and Westerns are just not meant to mix, on screen at least.

Whilst robots are a major part of the series, we also have Frankenstein-esque tales of scientists changing what it means to be human.

Frankenstein Marks 2, 3, 4 and 5

Frankenstein Mark II
If the Radio Times can show an image of the creature, then so can I!

The most obvious example being Frankenstein Mark II, and not just in name. It follows Anna, whose ex-husband has seemingly vanished. After investigating she discovers he has been part of an experiment to change his body to be perfectly adapted to spaceflight. The unfolding mystery and horrific elements of this episode are well done but there just isn’t quite enough meat on this story as I would have hoped.

Too Many Cooks
Yes, that is indeed a lot of Cooks!

Watching Too Many Cooks, part of me wondered if Larry Eisenberg came up with the pun first and built a story around it. Humanity is in competition with a race called “The Sentients” from Alpha Centauri, to improve the position of the Solar System a plan is put in place to secretly duplicate their most successful scientist, Dr. Andrew Cook. As with some of these other pieces it starts out strong but by the end, I am left wondering what the point of it all was. It raises a number of interesting moral questions but then just lets them sit there without any real exploration. I still enjoyed it overall, just feels a little like a missed opportunity.

Second Childhood
Charles regains his youth, but at what cost?

From duplication of an individual to a rebirth. Second Childhood starts out in a very memorable fashion with a game show, where the rich can risk a million pounds to win a prize money cannot buy. When Charles wins the jackpot, he is able to undergo an experimental operation to regain his youth. It then becomes an interesting morality tale following Charles, in some ways reminding me of Wells’ Invisible Man. Unfortunately, the ending is the kind of obvious twist that reminds me of the forgettable joke stories we used to get during Avram Davidson’s tenure editing Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Walk's End
A not quite so restful rest home

The final of this class of tales, Walk’s End, starts promisingly enough, with the unusual setting of an old people’s home, where something strange is happening to the residents. With the exception of some apocalyptic novels like Aldiss’ Greybeard, we don’t get many stories of old age in science fiction, here we get two. Whilst Second Childhood approaches it from the perspective of trying to recapture youth, this is about continuing old age, a very interesting topic given the current trend of people living longer. However, I felt it didn’t really develop anywhere and the ending was also less impactful than I believe was intended.

One interesting feature to note about these plays is they are all new for Out of the Unknown, even Too Many Cooks by Larry Eisenberg is an unpublished piece he submitted for adaptation. As in the first season, these seemed to also be the weakest of the stories, perhaps due to the writers not having as much material to work from?

However, the largest selection of tales this season are those where people find themselves in computerized futures, where their lives are no longer their own.

Tomorrow’s World

The Machine Stops
If wonder if you can pick up KGJ on this?

The Machine Stops opened the season and has rightly been acclaimed as among the best productions the show has yet done. Following closely E. M. Forster’s tale, humans live inside an environment completely controlled by The Machine, no one has to leave their rooms at all, they can make calls, learn, be entertained, give lectures and more all without standing up from their chairs. Whilst Vashti is content in this world, her son Kuno wants to explore life outside The Machine. It is a strongly constructed play, with beautiful design work, and a stand-out performance of Yvonne Mitchell as Vashti.

Curiously, in the Radio Times preview for this episode, it is stated that the set design was inspired by the Edwardian era as they felt the concerns were of the period. I personally think the idea of human disconnection due to over-reliance on machines has become more prescient, not less, as we enter the computer age, and this makes it even more a powerful piece for that.

Level Seven
Nice and safe down in Level Seven, nothing could possibly go wrong…

Level Seven has an interesting history. This script was written by the much-acclaimed J. B. Priestley (famed for such works as The Good Companions, I Have Been Here Before and An Inspector Calls) for an unmade 1960 film adaptation of Mordecai Roshwald’s novel. This was purchased for the series, but it was too long and had a number of elements which would not work on TV. However, Priestley refused to make the edits, so it was up to Shubik to make the necessary changes in-between her producing work for the series.

In spite of this troubled genesis, it is an incredible and powerful play. It is a story of nuclear war, yet for much of the episode it is all kept at a safe tidy distance, as this is meant to be an impenetrable base for launching nuclear attacks from. The people live in this bubble as the realities of war are merely seen through screens and computer displays and they try to go on with their lives as the world above collapses.

One issue is that I could not help but compare it to The Machine Stops at times. Take these two sections of dialogue. First from The Machine Stops:

You talk as if God made The Machine. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men but men.

And then from Level 7:

We built the machine. We were very clever people, and the machines told us what to do and we did it.

I still think they are both strong and worthwhile plays, but it does highlight the limitations of choosing to concentrate on such similar themes in a single run of episodes

Tunnel Under The World
Travelling through the titular tunnel

Talking of stories that feel familiar, I imagine anyone watching the series would be unsurprised to learn Tunnel Under The World comes from the pen of Frederik Pohl, responsible for last year’s Midas Plague. Rather than an unhappy man struggling to cope in a world where he is forced to consume, here he is forced to endure endless advertising. What makes the play interesting, from our perspective, is that we see the day repeats in almost exactly the same manner, only the nature of adverts he experiences changes, even if it is for the same few products. Mr. Pohl clearly doesn’t like the advertising industry much, but he knows how to spin a fascinating yarn about it and this goes in an unexpected direction for those not familiar with the original story.

The World in Silence
Hopefully Sarah learnt more from the teaching machines than I did from the episode.

On the other hand, I don’t have much to say about The World in Silence. Set at a Further Education College, students are now being taught by teaching machines. But following a realignment the students seem to develop a kind of hive mind and take over the college as part of a computer system in themselves. Much like the story it is adapted from, Six Cubed Plus One by John Rankine, I felt there wasn’t enough there to build a tale around and I had trouble maintaining interest in it (in spite of the wonderful Deborah Watling in the lead).

The Eye
Who watches the watchmen? Us, apparently!

I did wonder if the same problems would plague The Eye (adapted from Private Eye by Henry Kuttner) with a story that is just discussing a possible murder case by watching it on a TV screen. The premise is that with someone’s life completely observed, the investigators can determine the guilt of anyone by simply watching through the events as they see them. But what they cannot know is what is truly in someone’s mind.

It did manage to use its format to its advantage and kept me more engaged than I expected, even if I felt the ending was a bit weak. It was not the strongest play Out of the Unknown has produced, but still very tightly constructed and well worth your time.

Lambda 1
Try walking next time, much healthier!

Lambda 1 I have saved reviewing until last as it is easily the strangest. Transport in the future is being performed by Tau, international journeys barely take any time by travelling directly through the Earth via atomic space. On its way between New York and London, the Tau ship Elektron, slips into the theoretical Omega phase and becomes stuck in atomic space The controllers in London attempt to find away to retrieve them, whilst the passengers find themselves in a realm of nightmares.

Lambda 1 was not a short story I had personally rated highly (although Mark Yon gave it 4 stars) but the uniqueness of this play from the others in 1966 makes it memorable and shocking. It is probably destined to be one of the most controversial of the series entries, where viewers will either love or hate it. Personally, I came down on the positive side, appreciating the attempt to do something different, even if I didn’t quite understand all of it.

Into the Known

Irene Shubik
Irene Shubik

So, a strong season overall; however, I do believe it could have benefited from more variety as we had in the first run. Robots and Orwellian fiction are a key part of SF, but we have seen this show can do space voyages, time travel or alien encounters just as well.

Another season has been already confirmed and it is planned to be broadcast in colour later this year. Whilst news has emerged that Shubik is moving on to running the BBC’s top anthology slot, The Wednesday Play, she has said she will not leave her current post until all the scripts are in place for a third series. This should hopefully avoid any delays and the future looks bright for Britain’s premiere science fiction television show.

Doctor Who
Sorry Doctor Who!



No comments Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[February 18, 1967] Six!  Count them — Six! (February Galactoscope)

9 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Failing Fair

Three titles for you today across two books (reminds me of the old astronomical saw: "Three out of every two stars is a binary"). None of them are great, but one of them is surprisingly decent given the source.

Twin Planets, by Philip E. High

"Fast-paced, readable fun," pretty much describes everything Mr. High has written of late, and perhaps ever (my records only go back to 1961). His latest effort, Twin Planets, (from Paperback Library) does not break the mold.

It starts promisingly enough: A fellow named Denning is driving his car when it suddenly becomes very cold, the policemen are dressed quite oddly, and the sun is now a sullen orange orb on the horizon. Has he traveled to the future? Into another dimension?

Turns out, the answer is both. Earth has an analog that the natives call "Firma", with a slightly different history. Centuries ago, aliens appeared and froze the planet's rotation (with attendant momentum-related catastrophe). The world is now divided into a temperate zone, a hot zone, and a frigid region (where Denning had been transported).

Denning has a twin on Firma, name of Liston. Possessed of insatiable sexual desire that couples with his intelligence and strength, he is banished to one of the inhospitable zones early in the book, to be recruited by the resistance. Said resistance also taps Denning, who comes into his own superhuman powers–as well as a raging libido and attractiveness to women.

Turns out Denning and Liston are biological constructs, originally to be linchpins of the resistance, but by the end of the book free agents with a hankering to topple the aliens who run Earth from the shadows. Lots of running around, killing people, implied sexual exploits, and a happy ending.

This is a very old style of book. And while some of the ideas are quite interesting, for the most part, they are set aside for the action. Also, the competent women characters suffer for being hapless victims of their hormones, unable to resist the pheromones of their superhero companions. I raced through the first quarter of the book, but the last quarter took me several days, despite the novel's brevity.

Two and a half stars.

Envoy to the Dog Star, by Frederick L. Shaw, Jr.

Next up is Ace Double #G-614. Ace is known more for publishing "fast-paced, readable fun" than "thought-provoking classics" but you never know. After all, Tom Purdom's I Want the Stars and Terry Carr's Warlord of Kor both came out as halves of Ace Doubles.

Not so this first novel, I'm afraid. Mr. Shaw, whose name is completely unknown to me, starts off with a bang. If Anne McCaffrey wrote The Ship Who Sang, this book is the tale of "The Ship Who Barked". On board the inventively named "Spaceship-One" (presumably, Mr. Shaw is English) is a lone crewmember: a disembodied dog's brain. His mission is to scout out the Sirius system, which has been identified as a likely target to possess planets. Indeed, it has four planets, all identical copies. Only one of them is inhabited, by a Eloi-ish race of humans with Greek/Italian-esque names and blonde hair, who live symbiotically with a race of prehensile-handed dogs. Turns out the canines are the real power behind the throne (with truly groan-worthy names like "Chienandros" and "Perralto." Our hero, who calls himself "Ishmael", must work with them to secure colonizing rights while also delivering a message of warning to war-ravaged and overpopulated Earth.

There are things I liked about this book. Ishmael is a fun narrator, reminding me of Hank "The Beast" McCoy from Marvel's X-Men comic. The opening forty pages or so, before the ship gets to Sirius, are quite fun, indeed. The ship uses time travel as a space drive (letting the universe move underneath, as it were), which I've only seen once before, in Wallace West's The River of Time.

But the science is about thirty years out of date (planets formed by stellar collision, indeed), every gizmo is detailed for the pulp fans, and the setting and characters have as much subtlety as brutalist architecture.

Three stars for some vapid fun.

Shockwave, by Walt and Leigh Richmond

This is the one I was really worried about. The Richmonds, a married couple that (reportedly) collaborates telepathically, have heretofore been Analog exclusives. The best they've managed thus far are a pair of passable three-star shorts, the rest being bad to dreadful. And in contrast to the other three tales, it's the beginning that's discouraging. Terry Ferman ("Terran Freeman?") is an electrical engineering student who, upon twiddling with a certain radio transmitter, finds himself on a faraway planet. He is now a captive of a computerized jailer, who refers to him as a basic galactic citizen and impresses upon him a rudimentary knowledge of the star-spanning polity he is supposedly a member of. Terry is also given a set of nifty tools including a ray gun, X-Ray glasses, a pocket translator, and a compass. At this point, I was sure this was going to be some kind of interstellar spy story, thinly cloaked wish fulfillment for boys.

But as the book goes on, Terry's situation becomes more complex. He meets Grontag, a dinosaur-like alien, also a student of electricity, who was similarly summoned unwillingly. They befriend "Tinkan", a robot that has become independent of the computer and developed a will of its own. It becomes clear that some sort of catastrophe has befallen the galactic civilization, and the marooned team must figure out what happened, why, and who might be responsible.

It's a very technical story, with lots of doodads created by someone who clearly has a background in electrical engineering. The pacing is excellent, however, with each section more interesting than the last. The Richmonds also have interesting things to say about repressive civil relationships like slavery and marriage. After the slow start, I finished the book in just two sessions, which is saying something.

Three and a half stars.

Five out of Two


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

One of the little curiosities of the ease of getting American science fiction novels in Britain depends on whether they have a UK edition coming out.

If there is no UK publisher on the horizon it is a little harder to get hold of, but no one worries if a bookseller imports them. You may not be able to pick them up at WH Smith’s or your local library but most good booksellers with an interest in SF will probably be able to help you find a copy.

On the other hand, if it has a UK edition coming out, you will really struggle to get hold of an overseas version and have to wait for the local version to be produced. This is the case with both the books I am reviewing, and whilst I had a contact send me an early copy of The Einstein Intersection, I had to wait for The Revolving Boy:

The Revolving Boy, by Gertrude Friedberg

The Revolving Boy by Gertrude Friedberg

Thankfully, it is well worth the wait.

At the start of this book there is not much to suggest this is going to be science fiction. Yes, this is set very slightly in the future, but it is simply a slightly more conservative United States of the 1970s, not something requiring much imagination given signs of backlash like Republican gains in US midterms or Mary Whitehouse’s crusades over here. At first sight it appears to be about a good relationship between a mother and a child with autistic tendencies. The common depiction of autism in science fiction is often very negative.

Take, as an example, this passage from Disch’s recent Mankind Under Leash:

The nuts – in this whole cellblock you won’t find anything else. And these, I should point out, are only the worst, the most hopeless cases. ‘Autism’ is the technical word that the psychologists use to describe their condition.

Whilst in The Revolving Boy young Derv feels the need to spin around on occasion. His mother is willing to accept this as something he does. She only interferes when he is spinning on the stairs and so works for a compromise:

She told Derv in an offhand way that he must not spin on the stairs and why.
‘But what if I have to?’
Although she knew he thought of it this way, in terms of coercive psychological need, she was a little taken aback by the straightforward way he put it.
‘How many do you have to take?’
‘Just two on the stairs. I take another when I get outside.’
‘Then suppose you take the three when you get outside.’
‘All right,’ he said
It was as easy as that.

It shows such a mature and well-reasoned approach to a child with autistic tendencies. No suggestion it is caused by a ‘refrigerator mother’, not showing a complete inability to communicate with the outside world, but a child with a different perception and how you can work with them in a loving way to allow them to function in a world where most people do not have these tendencies. As someone who appears to have a lot of these tendencies, I was very heartened by this.

At the same time he makes friends with Prin, who is quiet and has perfect pitch. Together they are able to form a bond that allows them to connect in a world that can be hard for those that do not fall into patterns expected by wider society.

The source of science fictional content comes from the fact that Derv turns out to have been the first child born in space. When he was weightless and away from other signals he seems to have become connected to an electromagnetic signal from another solar system. As he gets older he finds himself leaning towards this signal whenever he is awake. This comes to the attention of Project Ozma who believe he may be the key to discovering extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Despite the concept of a child being able to point the direction for our radio telescopes, the whole story goes to great pains to appear realistic and make it seem less fantastical than most of what you would read in Analog or If.

But at its heart it is also a character story, the tale of him and Prin growing up. It is heart warming, clever and a real delight to read.

Five Stars

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany

All of us here at Galactic Journey see Delany as one of the brightest talents currently writing science fiction, so it is with great anticipation we wait for his next novel. He began with writing his tales of a fantasy-tinged future Earth with The Jewels of Aptor and the Toron novels, but more recently has moved to outer space tales such as Babel-17. He seems now to have come back down to Earth but is also attempting to do something more ambitious than before.

Greek myths have been a regular source of inspiration for writers of the fantastic. The tale of Theseus and the Minotaur itself has been retold by authors as different as Jack Williamson and Thomas Burnett Swann. Here Delany blends in a number of Greek myths into this tale, but adds a kind of Ballardian spin to it, where our popular culture is seen just as much of a myth to these folks. With The Beatles being seen as a later example of the Orpheus myth and advertising slogans used as nuggets of wisdom at the start of chapters.

The Orpheus myth is probably the most central of the tales here, for Lo Lobey himself is a musician and his driving force is to save his beloved Friza from Kid Death. However, the way legends are treated in this book is fascinating, that there is not really a distinction between truth and fiction, and it is entirely possible for one to imitate the other. I can’t help but wonder if Delany has some familiarity with the ideas of C. S. Lewis but is choosing to apply them in a non-Christian context.

In this future, humans have all left the Earth and others are inhabiting it in the remains of humanity. We are introduced to this concept so casually I almost missed it when it is stated by PHAEDRA (a computer with the kind of silly reverse acronym people are fond of these days). It is an interesting concept that manages to at once be central to the story but also you could enjoy without knowing. For this is what Delany does, carefully layering understanding so it can be read in multiple ways, just like the myths that are being imitated.

For there is so much more in here than I have space to elucidate. Among others it touches on areas such as racism, gender, ESP, colonialism, the nature of truth and more besides.

I have seen Delany’s earlier works compared with the late great Cordwainer Smith’s writing. The Einstein Intersection, I would posit, is much more reminiscent of Zelazny. As such it is less accessible than The Ballad of Beta-2 but also more ambitious and thankfully succeeds.

Delany continues to be one of the brightest new lights of science fiction writing and this continues to reveal new depths to his talents.

Five Stars


by Jason Sacks

Sometimes Too Much Plot is Too Much

One of the things I love about Philip K. Dick’s novels is how they always seem to be about one thing but usually end up being about something very different. Usually his fake-out strategy works brilliantly, but in his latest novel, Dick seems to believe his own fake-out.

Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick

Counter-Clock World starts with an idea which could inspire a full novel just in its implications: What if time, somehow, started rolling backwards? How would living in a counter-clock world affect human relationships, our relationship with history, families, the economy, society? Would rebirth be a horror or pleasure? How would those who mourned the dead, maybe even moved beyond their mourning, handle the change? What would be the implications to a society if a specific person was reborn, a person who might be especially evil or especially good or just especially controversial?

These are all tantalizing questions, and Dick does explore most of them in this fascinating book. Of course, Dick being Dick, he explores many of them obliquely, in veiled allusions and small asides in dialogue. Far from making his ideas feel weaker, though, this commonplace element gives the book a naturalistic feel (as outlandish ideas often do in Dick novels) while also feeling profoundly strange.

I gotta say, there are also plenty of ridiculous ideas in this book, like how he shows cigarettes are smoked from stub to full cigarette (with the odor diffusing as the cigarette grows), or the idea that food is regurgitated and reconstituted into its source foods (okay, rather a disgusting idea), or how eventually everyone reverts to baby age and then has to crawl back into a womb and be absorbed into a body (a surprisingly moving scene in the book).

But there are also plenty of eerie moments in Counter-Clock.  As the book begins, Officer Joseph Tinbane is cruising past a cemetery when he hears a voice beckoning him from a grave. Landing, he discovers an old woman has woken up in her coffin and is begging for help escaping her home six feet underground. Dick quickly establishes this as a normal part of Tinbane’s job, as Dick relates this event often becomes an all-night ritual which requires enlisting the services of something called a Vitarium.

Thankfully, the officer knows a man named Sebastian Hermes, reborn himself and the owner of The Flask of Hermes Vitarium.

This being a Dick novel, rebirth hasn’t been an ideal experience for Hermes. Sebastian is even more neurotic than he was when alive, haunted by nightmares of his awakening in his grave and stuck in a complicated marriage with someone who doesn’t quite understand him. Hermes sort of dreams of emigrating from California to Mars, but he’s literally grounded on Earth, digging up the bodies of those who died, more or less systemically since the Hobart Effect struck and changed everything.

So I’ve given you an idea of this book, and its world, and yeah, you say, I’m in. I'll buy the book because this all sounds fascinating.

Hold off for a second before running to the paperback stands at your local Korvettes, because all my setup is kind of prologue.

A rare photo of Mr. Dick, his wife and child

What if I told you Dick’s main topic for this issue is the idea of what happens if a popular religious prophet is reborn, and the prophet is in opposition to an evil Library?

Yep, it’s a Philip K. Dick novel, so you gotta be ready for a swerve.

See, Dick’s attention is really on the recently resurrected body of the Anarch Thomas Peak, dead prophet and founder of the Udi cult. The Anarch is articulate, philosophizing from the likes of Plotinus, Plato, Kant, Leibnitz, and Spinoza.  Naturally, a group of fascist librarians hate the Azarch, and somehow the book descends into being a crazy oddball escape heist which involves LSD bombs, the slowing down of time, nuclear weapons striking a library, and the odd paradox of what happens when you kill someone who was already dead.

Yeah, Counter Clock World is more than a little crazy, which is no surprise really. What is surprising, though, is how Dick never quite gives this book the usual foundation in humanity most of his novels contain. This book lacks the warmth of Dr. Bloodmoney, or the existential horror of The Transmigration of Timothy Archer or the deep empathy of Martian Time-Slip. Instead we get an inelegant jumble which never quite lives up to the considerable potential of its amazing premise.

Three Stars

 



9 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 16, 1966] The God Slayers (two computer-themed novels)

1 Comment


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Just as with the ancient Norse concept Ragnarök, it is inevitable the gods of music will fall. In America exciting new acts have been emerging to challenge the so-called British Invasion. The Grateful Dead appeared on an episode of documentary series Panorama, Otis Redding got a full dedicated special on Ready, Steady, Go and ? and the Mysterians have entered the top 40 with the bizarre Vox Organ sound of 96 Tears.

But none has been more dramatic than the dethroning of Eric Clapton by young James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix.

Clapton is God graffiti
Pro-Clapton graffiti

Eric Clapton has become a central figure of the London Blues scene.  Making his name with The Yardbirds, he has also recorded with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and The Powerhouse. He had become seen by many as the greatest guitarist in the world, with the phrase “Clapton is God” spray-painted in Islington.

When Former Animals Bassist-turned-Manager Chas Chandler brought Jimi Hendrix to England, he took the American guitarist to see Clapton’s new band Cream at the London Polytechnic. In the middle of their set, Hendrix went on stage and asked Clapton if he could play a couple of numbers. He then proceeded to play a fast-paced version of Killing Floor (A Howlin Wolf song Clapton has reportedly found difficult in the past) and then walked off stage—thereby managing to upstage this musical God at his own concert.

Jimi Hendrix on Ready, Steady, Go!
Jimi Hendrix on Ready, Steady, Go!

Since then, he has given a fiery performance on Ready, Steady, Go! and released his first single “Hey Joe”. Is this kind of Nietzschean destruction of the British musical gods to prove permanent? Only time will tell.

It is not just in music the old gods are being replaced by new ones. There are two books that have come out where scientists are forced to face new computer overlords:

TACT computers for dating, recently profiled on Tomorrow’s World
TACT computers for dating, recently profiled on Tomorrow’s World

Battle of the Computers

B.E.A.S.T. by Charles Eric Maine

Charles Eric Maine is one of the old hands of British SF, having begun publishing short fiction before the war and novels since the early 50s. However, he has never quite impressed me in the way others of his generation have, like Eric Frank Russell, John Wyndham or Arthur C. Clarke. His latest has actually managed to lower my opinion of his work further.

The first thing to note about B.E.A.S.T. is it is a pretty short novel. The print is rather large and the whole thing probably only amounts to around 50,000 words.

The author then proceeds to spend a large amount of time at the start of the book explaining in great detail what DNA is and how genetics works. Whilst Maine clearly delights in showing his knowledge it is largely extraneous (do we need to know the names of the nucleic acids for things to progress?)

The depiction of women is also appalling. The narrator spends his time dissecting the looks of each one he sees with an horrendous judgement on each. One extroverted woman is described as a “congenital nympho”; of an an introvert a few pages later: “If she wasn’t exactly fat, she was well turned. Her face wouldn’t have launched a dinghy, let alone a thousand ships…[yet] somewhere inside her was a woman waiting to get out.” This is proceeds throughout text whenever a woman is introduced and, even ignoring the tackiness of it, represents another waste of space.

What remains is a rather mediocre thriller where Mark Harland, a member of the Department of Special Services, is sent to investigate Dr. Gilley, a research director at a genetic warfare research division. It is discovered Gilley has been doing experiments in simulating evolution in accelerated fashion inside a computer and believes he has created a sentient machine. The whole thing is oddly paced, filled with long conversations, and it has an ending that is among the most cliched possible

B.E.A.S.T. is a jumble of the most fashionable current ideas in science fiction, sexual psychology and spy-craft, gene warfare and computer control, thrown together in an attempt to appeal to the current reader. But it is done so poorly, it comes off as amateurish and cynical.

One star for this mess.

Colossus by D. F. Jones

From an old hand to a new writer. To the best of my knowledge this is the first SF work of DF Jones, and little seems to be known about him from the people I have spoken to. However, this novel makes it seem like he will have a bright future in science fiction.

The plot: Forbin has spent years devoting himself to the project of making a computer powerful enough such that it can be trusted to control the USNA nuclear weapons systems, thereby removing the dangerous threat of someone launching an unnecessary strike. However, as the launch of this computer (named Colossus) approaches he becomes nervous of its power, worried they will have no way to stop it if something goes wrong. The USNA president dismisses this and sets it to activate, then putting it in an impenetrable location so no one can tamper with it.

Two unexpected things happen however:
1. Colossus proves to be even more intelligent than Forbin had predicted;
2. It turns out the Soviet Union have also been building their own computer system, and now both sets of nuclear weapons are in electronic hands.

Most fans of science fiction may well be able to guess where this story was going, I myself was particularly reminded of Doctor Who: The War Machines (albeit with more nuclear missiles and fewer giant plastic boxes roaming the streets of London).

However, Jones is a very capable writer and manages to keep the tension up even as we are just reading Colossus reel off simple sums or instructions. One of the least discussed truths of our world is that the most important decisions in life are just made by people talking in rooms and calculations being made. Yet this will rarely be shown in films in this manner as it is hard for even a skilled director to keep you engaged. This is one advantage that the written word has over the screen, which Jones puts to excellent use (and I fear what would happen if this was made into a movie: presumably a lot of noise and gunfire signifying nothing).

In a recent interview with New Worlds, Kingsley Amis criticizes Colossus for spending some of the early part of the book explaining how the computer works, on the grounds that the concepts would be well known to the average science fiction reader. As much as I respect Mr. Amis, I would like to disagree at the most basic level with his argument. Firstly, unless something has truly entered popular culture enough that it would not need to be explained to one's grandfather (e.g. the presence of a gun in a western) the facts should be laid out for the reader that will be pertinent to a later understanding. And in this case I believe what Jones laid out is necessary to the reader's comprehension of future plot points, (not merely the explanation for its own sake we get from Maine). Secondly, and relatedly, I think we should be careful not to make SF books opaque to the mainstream reader. Particularly with those being released by a mainstream publisher, one never knows when a book will be the first science fiction novel a reader will pick up. If we simply assume they will know what a given term means because A. E. van Vogt used the term in a novelette in 1948 the genre will become increasingly insular.

In spite of just being a computer who largely communicates in curt typed instructions, Colossus must rank among the more memorable of science fictions villains. It is at once both coldly utilitarian and has its own god complex. Based on its own assessment of the facts and a belief that its mission is to prevent war, it cannot understand why it should not control the world, be worshipped as a deity and kill millions of humans in order to achieve greater aims.

Unfortunately, something this book shares with B.E.A.S.T. is the poor treatment of women. Whilst it is nowhere near as bad as what Maine has published, we still get Dr. Cleo Markham, one of Forbin's team, having a scene where she is naked for no apparent reason other than to titillate the reader, and we hear more about her “female intuition” than her actual skills at her job.

In contrast to B.E.A.S.T. which feels complete, Colossus feels open-ended. I have not heard if Jones has plans for a sequel or if it is meant to simply suggest the horror of what might come (ala Asimov’s The Evitable Conflict) but in either case it finishes the book on a high note rather than a damp squib of an ending that Maine gave us.

A high three stars

To The Victor…

So, in the future cybernetic war of who will control us, it definitely appears Colossus is going to win out over B.E.A.S.T. Whether we wish to accept their dominance is another matter…

[Having read about two fictional computers, you might enjoy reading about the state of the art in real computers. The Journey has a great many articles devoted to the subject. Stay up to date and give them a read!]




1 Comment Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[December 10, 1966] Hot and Cold (December Galactoscope #1)

1 Comment

But first, please read this brief interlude!

As you know, in addition to Galactic Journey, I also run Journey Press, devoted both to republishing classics discovered while on this trek through time, but also to publish new works of science fiction in fantasy that (I hope!) live up to the quality and tradition of the classic works we offer.

If anyone would enjoy these works, we know it will be you.  This holiday season, pick up a title or three from Journey Press!  It's the best present you can give yourself, a loved one…and us!


Gideon Marcus

Moon of Three Rings, by Andre Norton

Andre Norton has maintained a steady output of books, mostly adding to existing series like Witch World and Crosstime.  With Moon, she opens up an entirely new (at least to me) vista, and it's a beautiful view.

Krip Vorlund is a Free Trader, one of two merchant leagues with stops at a myriad of planets through the galaxy.  Moon takes place on Yiktor, a backwards world at the edge of known space, where Vorlund's ships makes planetfall.  There, in the trading town set up for star merchants, he encounters Maelen, member of the native Yiktor race, living among the more primitive human settlers. 

Maelen is a beast tamer, with a menagerie of disparate creatures that can make the performances on Hollywood Palace look like child's play.  Krip is enchanted, with the show and the showmaster, but this causes the spaceman to become thoroughly embroiled in a local political struggle with galactic ramifications.

Before Krip now lies imprisonment, physical and then mental as the only way to avoid capture by rival factions is to transfer his consciousness into the body of a native animal.  So begins the parallel journeys of Krip and Maelen, one to return to his original form, and the other to weave a destiny that allows the aid of Krip while betraying as few of her race's principles as possible.

The more I think about this book, the more I like it.  Both Krip and Maelen get equal time as viewpoint characters, the perspective shifting every chapter.  Their "voices" are distinct, Krip's being straightforward (if a bit formal) and Maelen's more abstruse (yet eminently readable), as befits an alien.  Any animal-lover will find this book compelling, as the actions and feelings of the various beasts are integral to the story.  Norton is particularly good at having two characters of different sexes forming a deep bond without being lovers. 

In true Norton style, she's also set things up for this to become a series.  I don't know if further adventures of Krip Vorlund and Maelen will be quite as compelling as their first (you'll understand why once you're done with this book) but I'll probably read them, nonetheless.

Four stars.


Kris Vyas-Myall

Saga of Lost Earths & The Star Mill by Emil Petaja

Emil Petaja Saga of Lost Earths & Star Mill

The return of Emil Petaja to science fiction was a delightful surprise to me. A writer from the pulp era who I had no memory of, produced one of my favourite novels of last year, Alpha Yes, Terra No!, along with a number of other strong pieces. So, when I heard he was doing a science fantasy series for Ace, you can be sure I picked them up.

Let us start with a quick summary of the context of these books. In the future, the world has eliminated violence through selective breeding, in order to avert yet another atomic war. In Saga of Lost Earths, a strange metal is found that appears to be causing destruction. Into this situation comes Carl Lempi who, according to Dr. Enoch, has the three characteristics required to face this new threat: 1. The capacity for violence, 2. A high level of extra sensory perception, and 3. A knowledge of Finnish and early legends.

In The Star Mill, we meet Ilmar, man who is rescued from an asteroid by a space crew and finds he has no memory of his life before. But then the space crew start dissolving around him. Is he a weapon designed to destroy humanity? Or its saviour from the approaching black storm?

These tales most remind me of Andre Norton’s adventures. Like in her recent work Moon of Three Rings, Petaja blends the kind of fantasy tale you would expect from Moorcock, Lieber or Jakes with well-conceived futures, without it being the Burroughs\Flash Gordon style of Sword and Wonder tales. A fusion of spaceships and sorcery that does not sacrifice either. Perhaps the best equivalent is Anderson’s The High Crusade. A clash of genres that avoids feeling anachronistic.

If there is one concern I have, it is the tendency, which does occur in a number of fantasy stories, to imply there is something magical about Northern European DNA. Whilst clearly stemming from fairy stories, this has two flaws; one, these kinds of myths exist within a number of cultures and there's no reason to assume that people of African descent have fewer myths and legends. Two, and more problematically, it obviously links into a kind of Nordic racial superiority. I do not assume this was the intent, but it is something that should be acknowledged, and of which other fantasy writers should be wary.

Also, like the aforementioned Norton tales, they contain solid character work and entertaining plots. But, at least for me, they also fail to rise above the level of escapist adventures. They are fun books that I will read once, enjoy, and probably never pick up again.

The next book in the series is scheduled for March and I am certainly going to be ordering my copy. After all, as Prof. Tolkien said:

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory.

And, by that measure, these are indeed glorious

A high three stars for each volume.


Jessica Dickinson Goodman

From Carthage then I came by Douglas R. Mason

The first opera written in the English language is called "Dido and Aeneas" by Henry Purcell, based on Vergil’s 19 BCE epic poem The Aeneid. First performed by an all-women company in 1689, it is a love story of equals: Dido, the African queen of Carthage and Aeneas, the erstwhile Trojan hero. In the final scene of the opera, Dido holds her best friend and sister Belinda’s hand as she sings what is known as Dido’s Lament, before climbing onto a pyre and setting it alight (it’s opera; it’s always this dramatic). Purcell’s Dido is a complete person: a ruler, a lover, a strategist, a flawed and tragic figure. Singing her lament was what made me fall in love with opera when I was 14, and the hope that Douglas R. Mason’s From Carthage then I came might include references to her was what made me pick up this book.

None of the women in Mason’s piece live up to Purcell’s Dido; when Tania Clermont dies by fire, she dies simpering and the narration swiftly focuses on her abuser's pain. All of Mason's women are poorly written and one-dimensional; incapable of forming strong bonds with other women and only existing in the negative space that the male characters permit them. I found it telling that in two separate scenes I was unable to tell if one of the women characters was unconscious or not, given how much the men around her were tossing her body around like a sack of potatoes (in one scene a man had knocked her out; in another she was theoretically awake). In From Carthage then I came, one male hero gropes a woman he is holding captive and forces her to sleep in his bed. The author makes clear we are to read this as romance.

The best thing about From Carthage then I came is its premise. The book opens on a prelude to revolution. For 7,000 years a pocket of humanity has been frozen inside of a climate-controlled dome as an ice age raged around them. Gaul Kalmer believes it is safe to leave, and is gathering a group to escape the mind-monitors and electric sun of Carthage to form a more natural colony called New Troy past the newly iceberg-free but still wine-dark Mediterranean Sea. But the weak writing fails to live up to the possibilities of the plot.

Instead of reading From Carthage then I came, let me recommend hunting for a recording of last summer's London Philharmonic’s performance of Dido and Aeneas at Glyndebourne, with the incredible Janet Baker as Dido. I promise it will transport you just as far as Mason’s piece promised to, contain just as many classical references as Mr. Kalmer tried to shoe-horn into his many speeches, and give you a newly rich appreciation for the now-Tunisian island of Carthage. I hear that Mason will be publishing more soon; let’s hope the next women he writes aren’t so lamentable.

Two stars.

(Did you remember to check out Journey Press? I promise our offerings as good as the best books reviewed here!)



1 Comment Leave A Comment
Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 14, 1966] Alien Worlds in Precise Detail (Galactoscope)

Leave a comment

The Gate of Time by Philip Jose Farmer


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

SF books are like buses, you wait forever for one you want to pick up, then many come along at once. From the weird spy drama of Kingsley Amis’ Anti-Death League, to Andre Norton’s space fantasy The Moon of Three Rings. From Brian W. Aldiss’ collection The Saliva Tree & Other Growths, to expansions from Disch and Zelazny. However, our esteemed editor steered me towards Farmer’s new novel, and I am very glad he did.

Down the Path

I am starting to see through lines in the current crop of great SF writers. J. G. Ballard has been doing his cut-up explorations of Inner Space. Harry Harrison is involved in grim satires of conservative issues. Rosel George Brown has begun writing novels that put her own unique stamp on space adventures. Whilst Roger Zelazny is applying a literary and philosophical twist to the standard scenarios of science fiction and fantasy.

However, Philip Jose Farmer is harder to pin down. What connects the fabulous tales of Riverworld, the sword & wonder novels of Robert Wolff, and the religious exploration of Night of Light? Perhaps his latest novel,The Gate of Time, holds the key?

Through the Doorway

One thing that needs to be noted before I start. This cover bears no relation to the book itself, as best as I can tell (except the existence on men and women in the story). Possibly it was originally intended for another novel and reused?

Whatever the case may be, here is the actual plot of Farmer’s work: Lt. Roger Two Hawks is a half-Iroquoian pilot in WW2. He is going on a bombing raid on the oil fields in Ploetsi when his bomber and a German fighter crash land on a strange Earth. In this one there is another war going on between the Prussian-esque Perkunisha and the Anglo-Nordic Blodland, the latter in alliance with Eastern Europe states whose people seem to be Amerinds. Both sides are aware of these strange visitors and want the technology of their planes to tip the tide in the war.

(As an aside, Two Hawks names this world "Earth 2", which is how I will refer to it going forward. As he makes mention of comic books in the text, I am assuming this a reference to the Earth 2 seen in National Comics' Flash and Justice League of America.)

Earth 2 is built on an interesting premise: what if America had remained largely underwater? A lesser writer would probably do something like all of Europe submerged into a conflict of the totalitarian states of England and France, with the brave American outlander teaching the people the true value of democracy and leading them in a revolution, where he becomes the first president of the United States of Europe.

But not Farmer; he thinks things through in much greater detail. He considers how language and culture would change, the Amerind states that would exist in Europe and Asia, the weather patterns from the differing position of the Gulf Stream and much more. As Farmer posits what is missing from the Earth 2 without the Americas, he shows how pivotal the American continent has been to world history in a vast number of ways. In doing so he creates one of his most fleshed out worlds.

Two Hawks avoids being the kind of cliché you might find in, for example, a Mack Reynolds story. He says he is as much a part of mainstream White American culture as he is Iroquoian. And he regularly rejects people’s assumptions of him, such as believing he grew up on a reservation. His knowledge is of mechanics, history and science, not the kind of spiritual and earthy traditional you usually see depicted in Amerind characters.

Whilst, by necessity, large parts of the plot are told through long conversations about the nature of Earth 2 and how it compares to Earth 1 (Two Hawks’ Earth), I never found myself being bogged down. This is a pacey thriller where I was constantly engaged and wanting to know what happened next.

This does lead to my most major issue with the text: the simplicity of plot at times. Once you get past the differences in the world, it is largely a pulpy World War Two adventure. We have Germans (by geography if not ethnicity) who are committing genocidal acts against Eastern European populations and the British fighting them. Two Hawks allies with the British stand ins, not out of some moral sense (he says he doesn’t really think there is that much difference between nations in this world) but instead because he just doesn’t like Germans. At the same time the imported German pilot, Raske, is an opportunistic villain not given any more depth than being a tricky antagonist for Two Hawks.

Farmer would also have us believe history aligns on other Earths. If things are so different, why was there also a First World War where the Perkunishans were defeated? Why does Blodland have Dravidian (Indian) bases? Why are languages so similar between the Earths? The reason just seems to be, “because”.

I don’t want to be overly harsh. There is still a lot to like. I want to also note the framing device, which is used to pull off a final twist to great effect. The only other time I can think of a similar device being used is in Pierre Boulle’s Monkey Planet.

All of this adds up to another fantastic entry in Farmer’s bibliography.

On the Other Side of the Wall

But, to return to my original question: what is it that holds together the disparate threads of Farmers fiction? I think it is the worlds themselves. Earth 2 in The Gate of Time is just as well conceived and memorable as Riverworld or Okeanas.

As such I hope we get more tales in this setting. Whether that be Two Hawks visiting more timelines, or just more of the history of Earth 2.

A solid four stars

Planet of Exile by Ursula K. LeGuin


by Jason Sacks

Imagine a world that has been colonized – but the colonizers have lived on that world so long that their descendents have nearly forgotten their original roots.

And imagine those colonizers have the ability to communicate with each other using a kind of telepathy that always keeps them in contact with each other.

And imagine a world with a sixty-year rotation around its sun, a rotation so slow that seasons take years in our time. In fact, it's a rotation so slow that grown adults have no idea what winter will be like and have never seen snow.

And imagine on that world, there are groups who are at war with each other for the limited resources on that planet. And that the colonizers are caught in the middle of that war.

And finally, imagine an independent local woman and a passionate colonist meet, become fascinated with each other, get married impulsively, and become embroiled in a war.

Sounds like the recipe for a 400-page book, right?

And yet Ursula K. LeGuin creates a whole. compelling, intriguing  world in a mere 125 pages in Planet of Exile.

Earlier this year I enthused over LeGuin's debut novel Rocannon's World, praising the author for her strengths in building a complex fictional environment and for bridging the gap between fantasy and science fiction. Planet of Exile builds on those strengths, taking readers to a world that seems vivid on the page, with complex interrelationships, intriguing characters and a background which seems to go back hundreds of years.

LeGuin smartly starts the book by anchoring readers in the experiences of the independent woman, Rolery, who is wandering through a forest at the "last moonphase of autumn"  (as LeGuin states it) and is startled by a barefoot runner dashing through the woods towards her native town of Tovar. But Rolery goes the opposite direction, towards the village of the "farborn"; forbidden, mysterious, a place she could scarcely imagine but which holds great fascination for her. In that farborn village, she meets a farborn man named Jacob Agat whose life changes her and changes the city of Tovar.

Planet of Exile is an odd book in part because this relationship feels so insubstantial and unreal. This mismatched couple don't fall in love as much as they fall into admiration, or caring, or simply desperately feel the need for deep companionship. Lesser writers might have created a simple Romeo and Juliet type relationship between Rolery and Agat. But LeGuin's ambitions seem well beyond the obvious cliché and instead she explores more complex ideas like assimilation, battles for resources, and the complex struggles to thrive in an alien environment.

If LeGuin merely touches upon those ideas rather than dwells on them, well, blame that on the page length and consider this young author may merely need to grow into fully exploring these concepts.

Ms. LeGuin

About half this book is taken up with the battles between the barbaric nomads, the Gaal, and the people of Tevara. The battles are often seen as slivers, in fragments, through the eyes of the different characters of this book rather than in omniscient form. As such, the events feel extraordinarily vivid. I was deeply struck by a scene of the invading Gaal force and their supporters so large they filled one large valley from end to end, with more of them coming. And a rooftop battle reflected a wonderful combination of Errol Flynn style derring-do and alien landscapes.

All of this thoughtful inventiveness makes for a tremendously entertaining and tremendously dense read, accentuated by LeGuin's empathetic and often poetic writing which has a fantastic knack for bringing alien situations to life. There's a kind of ecstatic forward-hurtling beauty in a paragraph like this one that had me entranced:

She the stranger, the foreigner, of alien blood and mind, did not share his power or his conscience or his knowledge or his exile. She shared nothing at all with him, but had met him and joined with him wholly and immediately across the gulf of thier great difference: as if it were the difference, the alienness between them, that let them meet, and that in joining together, freed them.

Ultimately, Planet of Exile is a novel of aspirations not quite met. War is fought and attacks repelled at great cost.  Relationships start but never reach an emotionally satisfying happy ending. Many complex questions are raised but never quite answered. And the character of Rolery is intriguing in her independence and agency, in her impulsive decisions and her steadfast curiousity, but she never becomes the three-dimensional character LeGuin obviously saw in her mind.

I concluded my review of Ms. LeGuin's earlier novel with a wish to read more novels that would realize the promise of this exciting new author. I am left now in a similar position, albeit perhaps closer to that realization.

3.5 stars

[Note: the flip side of this Double, Mankind Under the Leash, is an expansion of the 1965 story White Fang Goes Dingo (Ed.)]




No comments Leave A Comment
Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 16, 1966] Is Censorship Heating Up? (Fahrenheit 451)

4 Comments


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Once thought to have died after the Chatterley trial, it looks like the Obscene Publications Act has risen from its grave and is out for fresh blood. Its latest target? Hubert Selby Jr.’s controversial Last Exit To Brooklyn, which has finally made its way over to Britain.

Last Exit to Brooklyn
British Hardback edition from Calder and Boyars Ltd.

A favourite novel of beatniks like Ginsberg and Burroughs, it tells unvarnished tales of lives of the poorest in New York in rhythmic prose. I really liked it myself, but it was clearly going to provoke a response. Australia had already banned its import last year, and Anthony Burgess said “American books like Last Exit to Brooklyn…go about as far as fiction may be expected to go.”

Cyril Black, MP
Cyril Black, MP

What is perhaps surprising is it did not come through the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney general, but rather is a private prosecution by Cyril Black, MP for Wimbledon. A Conservative and strict Baptist, Black has recently spoken out against Premium Bonds, decriminalizing homosexual behaviour and changing Sunday trading laws.

The trial is set for next month but, whatever the result, the debate over what is allowed to be published continues. This makes a new film release well-timed, the adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:

A Metropolitan Setup

Ray Bradbury is probably the most popular living science fiction writer, with his works being adapted for numerous television shows and even being able to demand higher rates for them than contemporaries such as Asimov, Pohl or Wyndham. There has even been an unofficial television adaptation Fahrenheit 451 which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit. However, his feature film works have been limited to the monster films of the 50s. As such there has been much excitement around putting his only adult (non-fixup) novel on to the big screen.

Director Francois Truffaut
Director Francois Truffaut

This is not, though, an American production, rather the result of a hodge-podge group of Western Europeans. The film is directed by French New Wave figure Francois Truffaut (most famous for The 400 Blows) with a script by French Actor/Writer/Director Jean-Louis Richard (who previously worked with Truffaut on Soft Skin). Given that we have also recently seen Goddard’s Alphaville and Marker’s La Jetee, there appears to be something about Dystopic fiction that attracts the French New Wave (maybe we will see Claude Chabrol making a version of The Drowned World in a few years?).

Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago
Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago

Unlike these productions, however, this is a British film production, made at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, with the hottest (pun-intended) British actress of the moment, Julie Christie, playing both the leading women. Already known to British SF fans for her wonderful performance in A For Andromeda, she led two of the most acclaimed films of last year, Darling and Dr. Zhivago.

Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools
Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools

Opposite her is the similarly acclaimed Austrian actor Oskar Werner. After appearing in Tuffaut’s previous beloved production, Jules & Jim, he last year appeared in both The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Ship of Fools. Add to this an equally impressive supporting cast, we have a confluence of talent from disparate sources.

Into The Fire

aerials in opening titles
The unusual opening credits

Rather than going for a point-by-point comparison of novel to film, I want to largely consider it as a work in its own right. I will touch on some changes where they deserve analysis but let us start with what actually happens in this movie.

After the credits being read aloud over a series of vibrantly lit TV aerials we see a group of firemen travel out to a flat in what appear to be very modern tower blocks. However, there is no fire, instead they are raiding the property for books to burn. We learn that in this world reading is banned and the role of firemen is now to raid properties (largely with the aid of informants) for this contraband and then burn it.

Montag and Linda watching an intersoap

Werner plays Guy Montag, a fireman on his way to promotion. His wife Linda (played by Christie) seems to be mostly obsessed with the interactive soaps on the TV and is regularly taking high amounts of medication. On a train he meets Clarisse (also played by Christie) a teacher who questions the world around her.

Montag’s first taste of Dickens
Montag’s first taste of Dickens

One day, curiosity gets the better of him, and Montag takes a book and begins to read it. Fascinated, he starts stealing more and more. One day he has to go to raid Clarisse’s house and finds her family have a secret library. A woman, possibly related to Clarisse, chooses to burn with the books rather than leave.

Horrified, he meets with Clarisse, who tells him he can run to The Book People, but Montag says he wants to take down the system from within. Unbeknownst to him, Linda has informed on him, and the firemen go to burn down his house. They order him to burn all his books but he keeps one and burns the other firemen.

Clarisse and Montag become living books
Clarisse and Montag become living books

Eventually fleeing to The Book People, he discovers each of them memorizes one book and become the living text of it so it cannot be destroyed. He does so with the book he stole and remains among The Book People with Clarisse.

Mixed Messages

Soviet Workers Poster
Soviet Workers Poster

The first question that arises is what is Truffaut trying to satirize with this? When I first started watching I was instantly reminded of the posters of workers I have seen from the Soviet Union. And the end with The Book People brings to my mind Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, which survived Stalin’s censorship by by her teaching it as a spoken poem to her friends.

Montag's secret collection of books is burnt
Montag's secret collection of books is burnt

But then there are definite allusions to contemporary capitalist culture. The profusion of television aerials appearing on otherwise picturesque houses, for instance. Further to this point about the profusion of television is the character of Linda, the soap obsessed and heavily medicated housewife. This is a dig not only at the prevalence of television, but the current phenomenon of the isolated housewife. In addition, in the shots of books burned, a number of works are shown that have only recently come out of censorship in our world.

f451 Burning

Additionally, the self immolation scene will surely remind most contemporary viewers of the death of Thich Quang Duc, who set himself on fire protesting the treatment of Buddhists in South Vietnam.

To add to the confusion, there is a reactionary point present here. When Montag and Beatty walk around the secret library, Beatty tells him that this all started because people were getting offended, citing complaints by minority groups about Nietzsche and Defoe (also including a copy of Mein Kampf in shot). This is further enforced by the TV screen, where the host is at one point emphasizing the importance of tolerating minorities and making sure they do not feel excluded. As a tool of the repressive state Montag and Clarisse are apparently fighting against, it seems logical that we are meant to take their pronouncement as wrong.

f451 hitler mein kampf
Sometimes this film is subtle. At other times… less so

I find this is a bit of an odd statement (and I found it so when I read it in Bradbury’s novel as well) as I have not come across the NAACP or the Anti-Defamation League leading the charge of banning books. Instead, it has seemed to be conservatives (like Cyril Black) who have been leading the charge out of prudishness or political beliefs.

Perhaps it is best to see it as a general libertarian argument about censorship coming from all sides and the need to be watchful for it. However, this does make the point more of a blunt one. And this bluntness extends to other areas of the production.

Translation Errors

Montag attending the unconscious Linda
Montag attending the unconscious Linda

I have heard much about Julie Christie’s performance in this film being poor, but I would push back on that somewhat. I think she is fine in the role of Clarisse, but for Linda she works hard to differentiate her characterization, playing it in a more heightened manner. This does make sense for Linda’s role in the story but it just seemed out of place as everyone else is so incredibly sedate.

One other complaint is that the picture is dull. I found it engaging enough, but I can see where this is coming from. Partially, I think this is the sedateness in performance I just mentioned along with Truffaut’s restrained film making. Against beautiful scenery, Fahrenheit 451 can feel more like looking at a painting than a motion picture. Partially it is trying to spend much of the time conveying the experience and the joy of reading, which can mean many scenes of people just reading books.

Then it is not aided by some of the dialogue, which can feel very unnatural at times. Apparently, this is the result of Truffaut not being strong in English and so some elements did not translate well.

A Case of Self-Censorship?

Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?
Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?

One change from the book that I feel needs to be called out is the book that Montag memorizes — literally becomes — at the end. In Bradbury’s novel it is the Book of Ecclesiastes, but in the film it is Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The change to a horror collection likely makes it more acceptable to a speculative fiction audience, but it is also a less interesting choice. Ecclesiastes, as many critics have noted, highlights the parallels between Montag and Solomon. If there is similar significance to Poe’s tales I cannot appreciate it.

Removing the references to the Bible means the filmmakers did not have to entertain complaints that might have arisen from both sides of the religious debate. A holy book at risk of being burnt that may upset some religious people, whilst having the person in pursuit of knowledge come to it through a book of belief might upset atheists.

But in a story about censorship, making a decision that is less brave feels disappointing and weakens the message of the film.

Accentuate The Positive

Fahrenheit 451 Book Cover

I have been predominantly critical so far, but it should be said there are some great parts to it.

Whilst a little confusing at times, the world Truffaut depicts is vivid and extremely intriguing. There are many great moments of the uncanny that are able to unsettle us. For example, the women who believe only “other people’s husbands” die in wars, or the neighbour who notes that Clarisse’s family are not really like them.

A commuter, desperate for connection?
A commuter, desperate for connection?

Many of the shots in it are also beautiful. One that stands out in my mind is when we see people on the monorail just silently running their hands over their bodies, as if they are looking for a connection they cannot find.

And the plot itself is engaging and pulls you through. So overall it is a good film. It is just it comes so close to being something great and reeks of a missed opportunity.

A high three stars

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest and best hits!




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 4, 1966] British Science Fiction Lives! (Alien Worlds #1 & New Writings in SF #9)

Leave a comment


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Move over James Bond and John Steed, there is a new dashing science fictional spy on the scene. I am of course referring to the latest hit from the team behind Doctor Who: Adam Adamant Lives!

Adam Adamant Lives

An old-fashioned Victorian swashbuckling hero, Adam Adamant is frozen by a masked supervillain and buried under London. After being found by a construction crew, he finds himself resurrected in the strange world of London in 1966. Teaming up with a young mod woman named Georgina Jones, they solve unusual crimes such as satanic aristocrats or a soap manufacturer drugging the nation with plastic flowers.

However, it is not just Adam Adamant who is returning from hibernation. An old science fiction magazine is returning to the print.

A Brief History of the British SF Magazine

Tales of Wonder

Unlike in the US, the UK did not have many SF specific publications before the war, with Walter Gillings' Tales of Wonder being a notable exception. After the war, Carnell, along with a group of other SF professionals, formed Nova publications and turned the former fanzine New Worlds into a professional magazine, beginning the market as we know it today.

British Science Fiction Magazine, Futuristic Science Stories, Authentic Science Fiction, Nebula Science Fiction
A few of the many former British SF Magazines

As in America, during the magazine boom of the 50s there were numerous UK science fiction magazines but like their American counterparts these too disappeared as the decade wore on. When Scotland’s premier SF magazine Nebula finally went under in 1959, the UK market was only left with Carnell’s trio of New Worlds, Science Fantasy and Science Fiction Adventures. And when he decided to step away from them it looked like the British market might disappear.

New Worlds, Science Fantasy, Science Fiction Adventures
What remained of British SF Magazines by 1960

However, recently this decline has been reversed. Whilst the US SF short fiction markets published around 750 pages of original fiction in July, the British equivalents managed around 450, for a country with only about a quarter of the people. Partially this is due to the continued success of New Worlds and Impulse, which have been able to go monthly and increase their page count. It is also due to other publications from the end of July; the latest New Writings anthology (which I will address shortly) and a new magazine entering the market, Alien Worlds.

The Former Fanzine

Alien Worlds Fanzine issue 15
Alien Worlds Fanzine issue 15

Much like the early New Worlds, Alien Worlds (previously titled Alien) was a British fanzine also featuring film details and some fiction. Last year at Eastercon, editors Harry Nadler and Charles Partington talked to various authors and artists about the possibility of a new professional fiction magazine with full colour illustrations. The result is the new Alien Worlds.

Alien Worlds: Semi Professional or Gifted Amateur?

Alien Worlds #1

I think we need to take a brief moment to talk about the design of this. It is not in the pocketbook style we see in the other British publications, rather a stapled higher end fanzine with colour offset litho printing. The text also looks like it is hand-typed with the occasional mistakes you would expect from an amateur publication. Perhaps a new term is warranted. “Semiprozine”? Doesn't quite roll off the tongue…

Looking inside:

Editorial

Inside Cover

Here Partington and Nadler lay out their complaints of the SF magazine genre. Namely that whilst everything else “from women’s weeklies to ‘build up’ encyclopedias” use full colour illustrations, science fiction publications simply look dull. They hope that Alien Worlds will change that with exciting artwork throughout and therefore make the most use of science fiction’s potential. It is an interesting point, albeit the counter argument is that it costs a lot more to do full colour art and you have to sacrifice space that could be better spent on words. But, then again, if the saying is correct that a picture is worth a thousand words, is this not also economical? It is not an argument I have thought about in depth but is certainly an interesting gauntlet to lay down.

Contact Man by Harry Harrison

Contact Man

Harrison is probably the most well-known contributor to the magazine, recently for his satirical Bill the Galactic Hero. Here he gives us another take on the Starship Troopers style of militaristic SF.

Chesney was found guilty of rebelling against the Admiral-Emperor, the military dictator of Earth, and was given a choice, the death penalty or service in the military. Choosing to sign-up he is made a contact man, whose role is to find natives on new planets and exterminate their villages.

Compared to relative zaniness of Bill, Contact Man is truly brutal. It gives an Orwellian take on militarism, positing a future where the “kill or be killed” mentality is extended to where people’s choices are genocide or suicide.

Disturbing but very worthy. Four Stars

Ken Slater’s Book Column

Slater is a major British fan personality probably best known for being one of the co-founders of the BSFA and producing Vector’s regular column on bookselling, General Chuntering.

In this column, he spends some time stating that this is a “book review column” and laying out his disdain for the field of literary criticism. He holds that the reviewer should simply lay out the facts of the book, if they liked it and possibly why “without being deeply Freudian or whatever.” He then goes on to state that he enjoyed Dobson’s two recent publications, Interstellar 2.5 by John Rankine and New Writings in SF 9 (reviewed below), whilst giving reasonably detailed summaries of the books. Personally, I do not find his style of reviewing that useful as I would rather be surprised by the plot and instead know why the reviewer did or did not enjoy it in depth. But perhaps there are a lot of Ken Slaters out there?

Flash by Allan Asherman

Terry Jeeves Rocket

A summary of the 1936 film serial Flash Gordon along with some set photos. I guess this might be useful for some as reference material if they have never seen the picture but, honestly, it feels superfluous.

Two Stars

Not Human by Ken Bulmer

Not Human

There is currently a major war between the Terrans and Reldans. Johnny Dent is crushed under a spaceship on the battlefield and will come to understand how far humanity needs to go to defeat the Terrans.

It is very curious they chose to put two such similar stories in the same issue. Of the two, this suffers in comparison to the Harrison. Not Human is over described, feeling less intense and bordering on pulpy.

Two Stars

1 Million Years BC

A small description of the upcoming film, two photos from it and (what I assume are) two pieces of concept art. Less an article and more an advertisement.

Two Stars

The Childish Fear by J. Ramsey Campbell

Childish Fear

J. Ramsey Campbell is a new name to me, but he has apparently had several pieces published by Derleth’s Arkham House imprint. This story convinces me he is one to watch.

In 1960 our narrator begins to become fascinated with horror films, particularly those from Hammer. They spend much of their time going to see them, but they begin to be frustrated with the disturbances from the rest of the audiences. Is it just teenagers or something more sinister?

The fantasy elements are almost tangential to this, it is one of those horror tales where it could be all in the lead’s mind. However, that does not make it any less atmospheric or interesting. As someone else who loves watching Hammer Horror films, it is great to see this creepy take on the cinematic experience.

Four Stars

The Vampire
Illustrating titular leads from, clockwise from top left: Brides of Dracula, Dracula (1958), Dracula (1931), House of Dracula, Nosferatu, Dracula in Istanbul, El Vampiro

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey is probably the most anticipated science fiction film at the moment, scheduled for release in early 1967 (whilst the book is meant to be coming out from Gollancz imminently). This short piece gives some nice insights into the behind the scenes, although it is very short.

Three Stars

In Conclusion

Textless Back Cover
Textless version of the front cover on the rear

Whilst not amazing, this is also not a terrible start for this short magazine. It contains an interesting mix of fact, fiction and illustrations, and certainly achieves its aim of never looking boring.

One of the biggest problems that needs to be mentioned is the cost. Not having the backing of any major publishers and relying on fan distribution networks, the cost is 2/6 for just 63 pages. By comparison New Worlds cost 3/6 for almost triple the length. If the publication is to continue, they are going to need to work out a way to achieve the economies of scale needed to get a price point that is efficient for the consumer without compromising the ideas behind the magazine.

New Writings in SF 9

New Writings 9

In stark contrast to Alien Worlds, New Writings stubbornly sticks to its unappealing covers, with Carnell instead concentrating on the contents. This quarter’s edition is focused on the problem of overpopulation, which seems to have become the idea of the moment. But what do Carnell’s crew make of it?

Poseidon Project by John Rackham

In this story, the best option for an overpopulated humanity’s future is to be able to live on the seabed. Much like the SEALAB experiments, a group of scientists are selected to live in an isolated habitat underwater. However, in this case it is a large and varied community for an entire year, with each of them paired off into married couples to better simulate future conditions. We follow Peter Sentry six months into the experiment, where he begins to wonder if the isolated conditions are causing psychological issues for some of those in charge.

This is quite old fashioned in its style, acting as an optimistic problem story. Each event is treated as a problem that can be resolved scientifically and a rational outlook can overcome any problem caused by humans. It is an interesting contrast to all the technophobic computer tales and apocalyptic visions of our future we are reading today.

It has one major flaw, however. For a story centered around psychology, Rackham does not fully develop his characters. They all feel like stock cliches. In particular the women characters fall far short. As such it ends up being much more of a surface level tale than it would otherwise have been with a little more depth added (puns-intended).

This could have been an interesting take on this theme, instead I will settle on giving it two stars.

Folly to Be Wise by Douglas R. Mason

Two partnered cave people, Zara and Kaalba, discover a spherical craft in the water. Inside they find a highly powerful and knowledgeable android, who Zara names Tros. Tros shares stories of humans who were able to build vast cities and travel to the stars. Zara wants to take it back to the tribe and use its knowledge, Kaalba is more wary of the android.

I found the story badly written, a cliched topic, and anti-feminist. Save yourself time and avoid it!

One star

Gifts of the Gods by Arthur Sellings

Sellings has not appeared in the New Writings anthologies before but has been in New Worlds several times, as well as being a successful author of SF novels.

In this piece, Brian Dudley and his wife Gwen have moved to the new town of Framley. In their garden Gwen finds a series of strange metal objects, shaped like skittles. After failing to turn up anything interesting in analysis he sells them to a local art dealer. More and more strange objects start appearing in town in larger and larger quantities. What could be causing these mysterious appearances?

There seems to be an interesting little subgenre appearing in the New Writings pages of late, telling of unnerving goings-on in the new towns. A kind of “Exurban Uncanny”. This is an excellent example of it, the premise is unusual enough to keep you intrigued and the end twist was a great one that I did not expect.

Four Stars

The Long Memory by William Spencer

Based in a future metropolis of ten billion people known only as the City, crime has been eliminated through the use of constant surveillance. The cost, however, is that this level of surveillance required on every citizen means that size of the records keeps increasing, and housing size is thus continually reduced as more space is made to store the recording tape of every person’s actions. Harben monitors the storage and equipment but appears to come across an underground conspiracy to destroy all the records.

There are definitely good parts to this story and the world is original. However, it also never quite feels like it elevates itself above an absurdist satire within the short word count.

Three Stars

Guardian Angel by Gerald W. Page

Returning after his excellent creepy tale in the last edition, Page gives us a tale of art and humanity.

Douglas Copeland is a very successful painter, and, like most rich people, he shares his home with a Guardian Angel, an AI known as Peter. Following the advice of Peter, Douglas has made a very successful career out of painting cogs. However, he is getting bored of the same design over and over again. When he meets a young woman named Philomene she convinces him to paint her, allowing Douglas to find a new passion in the human form. Peter, however, is not happy with this change.

This starts off well as an interesting debate on art and rationality. However, as it goes on it just fizzles out. Still, it is well written and very vivid tale.

Three Stars

Second Genesis by Eric Frank Russell

Second Genesis
The prior appearances of Second Genesis

Our first reprint tale in over a year. This one, from the famed author’s back catalogue, was first published in Blue Book in 1952 and then reprinted in his first collection, Deep Space. Neither has been available for some time so this will be many people’s first reading of it. Unfortunately, there may be good reason it has been largely forgotten.

Arthur Jerrold is to take part in a space voyage around the solar system that will take him mere moments, but two thousand years will pass outside. If he survives the journey, he is to return to wherever humans are in the solar system so they can collect the results of the experiment. However, that may be harder than he realized.
You can probably guess where this is going. It is such an old cliché some editors have included it on lists of stories they will not accept. It is fairly told but nothing special.

Two Stars

Defence Mechanism by Vincent King

Finally New Writings has brought in a new writer!
To the best of my knowledge this is Vincent King’s first published work and, based on this, I very much hope it is not his last.

In the City, society has broken down into a series of small family tribes. They fight each other through the Corridors (common nouns referring to places are sometimes capitalized and sometimes not, I cannot quite work out the pattern) for territory and resources. At the same time, they have to deal with threats from Aliens coming in from the lower Levels and the Green beyond the Edge.

Our unnamed narrator has heard Aliens are coming back so organizes a hunt to track them down. Enroute, he encounters a tribe of Dwarfs (they seem to be just shorter people but this is how our narrator refers to them). The two groups discover that they are both suffering from issues of inbreeding and agree to women mating between the tribes. As the hunt continues it goes to areas beyond the order of the standard Corridors and our narrator is the only one willing to travel onward. In doing so he will discover the truth behind the City and the Aliens.

This is a story that is in the telling. Many of the revelations I had expected but, by putting it through our narrator’s perspective, it allowed me to explore a fantastical world and come to interesting conclusions. It ends up falling halfway between a "Dying Earth" style adventure and Pohl-esque satire. My favorite story in the collection and one that will stick with me for a while.

Five Stars

Summing up

Overall, this is a pretty good edition of the anthology with both a four and a five-star story and only a couple of shorter pieces being poor. The biggest issue is a certain level of chauvinism in some of the writing, which is probably not aided by some of Carnell’s introduction and the lack of any women authors in the series so far.

Adam Adamant Lives Titlecard

Between these two publications they have more good than bad in them, continuing to show there is new life in British Science Fiction yet.

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest and best hits!




No comments Leave A Comment
Comics

[June 26, 1966] Justice League of Britain (New British Superhero Comics)

3 Comments


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

World Cup Stadium
Wembley, one of the main venues for the world cup matches.

World Cup excitement seems to have hit fever pitch in the UK. For the first time the international tournament is to be held in England and even non-sports fans, like me, are finding themselves caught up in the drama.

Pickles The Dog
Pickles the Dog being rewarded for the return of the World Cup trophy

It has certainly been an eventful run up. Whether it be the trophy being lost and then found by a dog, or the CAF refusing to play over the number of pre-agreed qualifiers, it seems like there is always a new twist in the story.

Whilst, obviously, I am hopeful that England will do well, I personally expect it will be West Germany that will retake the title. However, the Soviet Union are not ones to count out, with a lot of expectation for them to do very well this time around.

World Cup Willie
World Cup Willie plays a football match against The Martians

There are the even adventures of the mascot World Cup Willie appearing in TV Comic. This is not the only change happening right now in the world of British comics.

The Next Shift

Sometimes it seems the only constancy in British comics is change. Whilst there are some long running strips like Garth, Dan Dare and Roy of the Rovers, the contents of most magazines are largely revised every few years, whilst new comic books spring up and others merge.

Vic Gunn Final Strip

Recent excellent new publications Ranger and Champion are both coming to an end, being incorporated into Look and Learn and Lion respectively. Whilst in Lion itself, the excellent long-running dystopian series, Vic Gunn, has been wrapped up, with Emperor Rudolph imprisoned in exile and democracy restored to Britain.

But rather than talk about what is disappearing I want to talk about a new trend that seems to be appearing. The return of British superheroes.

Super Absences

Captain Universe Electroman Ace Hart Comic Covers
Just a few of the many short-lived British superhero comics, with plenty of WHAM! for your sixpence

Following the arrival of American superhero comics on British shores (and their subsequent disappearance) there was short lived explosion British superhero comics. However, most did not last more than a few issues.

Marvelman Family Marvelman Family Young Marvelman Covers
Some of the Marvelman titles

One of the few that stuck around was Mick Anglo’s Marvelman. Starting in 1954 , it was an intentional copy of Captain Marvel, designed to continue after the collapse of Fawcett comics in the US. However, even this ceased publication in 1963.

So, what remained of these kinds of marvels? Whilst British adventure comics moved to a mix of War, Crime, Sport, Science Fiction and Spy Stories, there are some which border on the superheroic.

The Steel Claw
The Steel Claw’s power, becoming invisible via electrocution!

The biggest are more anti-heroes than heroes. Louis Crandell is The Steel Claw, who after he had a series of accidents, became able to turn invisible if electrocuted. After originally becoming a criminal for a time, he has now begun to work for The Shadow Squad of the British secret service. Another is The Spider, a technologically advanced supervillain, who often battles other violent supervillains but more for control than out of a sense of altruism. Neither strip feels much like a typical American style superhero tale.

The Iron Man
Robert – The Iron Man surviving ray gun attacks

There are also some incredibly powerful robot titles such as Robot Archie and The Iron Man. In these the robot hereos will sometimes battle supervillains and display unusual powers.

Brassneck
Brassneck – “The funny adventures of a metal schoolboy”

However, these feel as much science fiction and colonial adventure tales as superhero stories. Also, robots are generally a pretty common feature of British comics, even starring in schoolboy humour series, like The Tin Teacher or Brassneck.

Kelly's Eye
Kelly demonstrating his invincibility by smoking a stick of dynamite like a cigar.

The closest hang-overs are probably Kelly’s Eye and Garth. In the former, Kelly has an amulet that makes him invulnerable while wearing it, allowing him to do outrageous deeds such as sitting on a lightning rod for charity. The stories are fairly repetitive and dull though, as they have to keep finding excuses to lose the eye temporarily, as a way of maintaining the tension.

Garth
Garth uses his sword to fight a sea monster on an alien world

In the latter, Garth is sometimes referred to as a superhero due to him being extremely strong, but his adventures tend to be more cosmic, much closer to a Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers character than Superman or Green Lantern.

Whilst there a few that could count, this set would make a very paltry Justice League of Britain. But we have just recently started to see the arrival of a new wave of British superheroes, who I am going to attempt to match with their American counterparts.

New Heroes

Smash Ads for Batman and Hulk
Ads for Batman and The Hulk comic strips in Smash!

Smash! comic was designed to be primarily another humour comic building off the success of superstar artist Leo Baxendale’s Wham!, combining cheap parodies like The Man from B.U.N.G.L.E. and Danger Mouse, with rip-offs of D. C. Thompson characters such as Bad Penny and The Swots and the Blots. But recently there has been more of a shift. First off, they have started reprinting US superhero comics which are hard to come by on this side of the Atlantic. Secondly, they have also produced their own superhero strip, Rubber Man:

Britain’s Elongated Man – The Rubber Man

The Rubber Man

Cursed by an Indian Fakir, Jim Hollis finds himself able to stretch himself like rubber. The series has only just started but seems to be following the standard superhero formula, as we follow Jim becoming Rubberman and facing off against Jonas Sleech, a super strong villain.

The Elongated Man

Apparently, these kinds of stretchy superheroes have been common in the US since Plastic Man appeared in the 1940s. However, I am reminded of the character I am most familiar with, National Comics Elongated Man, who appears in the pages of The Flash, with similar powers and even a similar look.

Britain’s Hourman – Thunderbolt The Avenger

Thunderbolt The Avenger

Mick Riley is a police constable considered too wimpy by his colleagues and consigned to desk duty. When escorting a Professor Markham he is given a wristwatch will give him a wide range of superhuman abilities but only for a period of 2 hours. With it he adopts the secret identity of Thunderbolt, a masked superhero.

Hourman

Thunderbolt seems most analogous to Hourman, recently revived in Showcase. He has his own source of power which gives him superhuman abilities for an hour. I would not be surprised if he was an inspiration on the Thunderbolt strip.

Britain’s Mera – Marina Girl of the Sea

Marina

Marina Girl of the Sea is a prequel to the Stingray TV series run in the Lady Penelope comic. Ostensibly we are told this will be the story of how the titular Marina became non-verbal, but it is more of a fantasy undersea epic about the Princess of Pacifica dealing with an invasion of her kingdom.

Mera

It could be argued whether this counts as a superhero tale, but I am definitely reminded of Mera in the Aquaman comics. These both share a sense of adventure and the mix of fantasy and undersea politics.

Britain’s Atom – The Mini-Men

The Mini-Men

The two Mini-Men are secret agents Pete Stevens and Tim Bailey, shrunk by shrinking gas to only two inches. They are sent into Scarvia to rescue Professor Hannah from the dictator general Borgos, who is forcing him to work on deadly mechanical rodents.

Atom

These two bring to mind National Comics' own shrinking hero The Atom. Although he tends to be more focused on crimes than spy missions, these kinds of scientifically focused tales are very much part of his repertoire.

Britain’s Kid Flash – Billy Whizz

Billy Whizz

More of a humour strip than a straight superhero adventure, Billy Whizz follows the comical antics of an incredibly fast boy dealing with ordinary life and its travails.

Kid Flash

Whilst he is slightly older, I am definitely reminded of the Wally West as Kid Flash, appearing in back up strips in some issues of The Flash. These have often emphasized his youth and sometimes show him dealing with real-life problems in the midst of heroics.

Britain’s Beast Boy – The Amazing Jack Wonder

Jack Wonder

Jack Wonder is the result of another scientific experiment. The evil scientist Varan uses him as a guinea pig and the result allows Jack to transform into any object, whilst still retaining his sentience. As a “freedom loving adventurer”, he uses his power to fight the evil dictator Quantro.

Beast Boy

Jack Wonder most reminds of The Doom Patrol’s Beast Boy. Rather than being able to transform into any object, Beast Boy can transform into any animal. Both also have rather a great sense of fun and make their adventures a joy to read.

Britain’s Thor – The Phantom Viking

Phantom Viking

New magazine Champion has produced some really innovative strips such as Return of the Stormtroopers and Hunters Without Guns. One less inventive creation is The Phantom Viking. Here mild-mannered school-teacher Olaf Larsen discovers an ancient Viking helmet. When he puts it on, he transforms into a superhero with superhuman strength and the ability to fly. He decides to use this power to confront evil.

Mighty Thor

Anyone vaguely familiar with North American comics will probably be aware of how similar this is to the Marvel character of Thor. In fact, the Marvel readers I have shown the strip to have commented how much it looks like they resemble Jack Kirby’s illustrations. But then, I guess if you are going to copy, why not copy from the best?

Britain’s ???? – Sugarman

Sugarman

Finally, from the unoriginal to the decidedly unique, this one coming from The Long-Hair Times, the recently launched alternative magazine filled with discussions of drugs and sex. In the centre of it we have the comic strip adventures of Sugarman. Here journalist Brad Calworthy goes into a fashionable boutique to try to find some hip new clothes. After ingesting a sugar cube left over from the night before he finds himself as Sugarman travelling through the cosmic consciousness. At the same time, we learn of an evil plan being brewed by Harry The Nit (who appears to be modelled on Harold Wilson) and his secretary (who seems to be Charlie Brown from the Peanuts strip).

I am not sure what to compare this to as it is probably the most bizarre use of the comic book format I have ever seen. Also, it is hard to get a handle on where it is going when I have only been able to acquire one issue of The Long-Hair Times so far. Perhaps more will be revealed as future publications come out? Alternatively, it could just be a single piece of bizarre satire, but still an engagingly made one.

Super Staying Power?

Justice League of America

With these new heroes, I am sure Britain is much safer against alien super menaces, not just having to rely on Dan Dare, Jeff Hawke and other space pilots. The question remains whether these heroes will stick around in these pages or disappear as we get more of the American originals arriving?

For now, I will keep reading both the import and homegrown caped crusaders.

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but super hits!




3 Comments Leave A Comment