Welcome to the last of our three discussions about an anthology of original fantasy and science fiction that's drawing a lot of attention. Love it or hate it, or maybe a little of both, it's impossible to ignore. I showed you the full wraparound cover the the first time, and offered a closer look at the front the second time, so here's the back cover. It gives you a convenient list of the authors.
As before, I'll give each story the usual star rating as well as using the colors of a traffic light to indicate how dangerous it might be.
A woman desperately tries to escape her pursuers. Flashbacks tell us more about this dystopian world.
Saying anything more would lessen the impact of this intense little story. Ellison's introduction compares it to the work of Shirley Jackson, and that's a fair analogy. It's deceptively quiet and matter-of-fact at times, but full of icy horror at its heart.
Four stars. YELLOW for unrelieved grimness.
The Happy Breed, by John T. Sladek
In the near future, machines take care of all our problems, leaving us to enjoy a life of leisure. Of course, what the machines think is best for us may not agree with our own ideas.
This dark satire on automation isn't exactly subtle. It makes its point clearly enough, and follows it to its logical conclusion. The details of the characters' degeneration make it worth reading.
Three stars. YELLOW for cynicism.
Encounter with a Hick, by Jonathan Brand
Our smart aleck narrator tells us how he met a fellow from a less sophisticated background and what happened when he told the man something about the origin of his planet.
You'll probably figure out the punchline of this extended joke. Despite its predictability, I enjoyed the story's wise guy style. Others may find the narrator annoyingly smug.
Three stars. YELLOW for a wry look at deeply held beliefs.
From the Government Printing Office, by Kris Neville
Set at a near future time when childrearing has changed in an eye-opening way, this yarn is told through the eyes of a kid who is only three and one-half years old. Adults are bewildering creatures indeed!
The quirky choice of viewpoint, with its combination of precocity and naiveté, is what makes this story worth a look. I'm not quite sure what the author is saying about parents and children, but it's provocative.
Three stars. YELLOW for an unflattering portrait of Mom and Dad.
All over the world, people with Romany ancestors feel compelled to return to a place that vanished long ago. But what will disappear next?
This synopsis fails to capture the author's eccentric style and unusual combination of whimsy and oddball speculation. If you like Lafferty, you'll enjoy it. If not, you won't. Like many of his works, it's something of a tall tale and a shaggy dog story. I dug it.
The narrator witnesses a woman and a dwarf set up a strange menagerie at night, not far from where a carnival is in progress. The mystery of the cages deepens as visitors show up.
I find this story difficult to describe. It's quite a bit different from the author's jagged, chopped up pieces for New Worlds, and from his decadent tales of Vermillion Sands. It's very subtle, and there seems to be more than meets the eye. The premise evokes thoughts of Ray Bradbury, but only in an extremely subdued way. Maybe haunting is the word I'm looking for.
Four stars. GREEN for intriguing writing.
Judas, by John Brunner
A robot sets itself up as God. One of the people who created it sets out to destroy the false deity.
The plot is simple enough, and the analogy between the worship of the robot and Christianity is made crystal clear. You may predict the twist ending, given the story's title.
Three stars. YELLOW for religious themes.
Test to Destruction, by Keith Laumer
The leader of a group of rebels is captured by the forces of a dictator. They use a gizmo to retrieve information from his brain. Meanwhile, in what has to be the wildest coincidence of all time, aliens approaching Earth also probe his brain, in order to learn how to conquer humanity. The combination is explosive.
Looking at my synopsis, I get the feeling that this isn't the most plausible story in the world. Since it's by Laumer, you know it's a fast-moving adventure yarn. As a matter of fact, it's so lightning-paced that it makes his other stories look slow. The reader is left breathless. There's a serious point made at the end, but mostly it's just a thrill ride.
The delightfully named Harrison Wintergreen is a guy who has always gotten what he wanted out of life. As a kid, baseball cards. As a young man, women. As an adult, tons of money. Now he's got terminal cancer. Can he triumph over the ultimate challenge?
As Ellison says in his introduction, this is a funny story about cancer. Sick humor, to be sure. Bad taste? Well, maybe, but I think you'll get a kick out of it.
Replace a bullfight with a battle between man and car, and you've got this tongue-in-cheek tale. All the details of a traditional corrida del toros are here, transformed to fit the automotive theme.
Space explorers are raised from childhood to be absolutely free of sexual characteristics. It's impossible to tell if they started off as female or male; they are completely neuter in every way. People known as frelks are attracted to them.
Amazingly, this is the first short story Delany ever sold, although others have already appeared in magazines. It's superbly written, as you'd expect, and explores sex and gender in completely new, profound ways.
Five stars. RED for unimagined forms of human sexuality.
20 20 Hindsight
Looking back at the book as a whole, it's clear that the level of stories is generally high, with a few clunkers. Not all the stories are dangerous, and they could have been published elsewhere. A few are truly groundbreaking. The Silverberg, Leiber, and Delany are the best. The Sturgeon is the biggest disappointment. The Farmer is going to start the most arguments. Put on your reading glasses, fasten your seat belt, and give it a try.
According to a story that may be apocryphal, somebody in the crowd shouted the phrase I'm using for the title of this article during one of Harry Truman's campaign speeches. True or not, we'll see how it relates to a major change in Fantastic magazine. Just to build up the suspense, however, let me digress and talk about another big change.
A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss
The British rock 'n' roll band known as the Rolling Stones, famous for gritty blues-driven music, went in a different direction recently. The new album Their Satanic Majesty's Request, released just a couple of days ago in both the UK and the USA, is full of the surrealism and dreamy psychedelic tunes to be found in the Beatles' groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Even the cover looks similar. Note that lack of words. If you don't know who these guys are, you must not be a fan.
I don't know if this album represents the future of the Stones, or if they did it just to gather some green (and I don't mean moss.) At least the groovy song She's a Rainbow is worth a listen while you stare at your lava lamp.
With a new editor at the helm of Fantastic, there are certain to be changes coming, although it may take a while. The mills of the publishing world grind slowly, to be sure, so the latest issue probably doesn't yet reflect the taste of the current boss. If nothing else, however, it's got two new stories instead of the usual one. Thank goodness for small favors.
Cover art by Frank R. Paul.
One change that hasn't yet happened is using new cover art. This issue recycles the back cover of the July 1945 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Please excuse the faded, wrinkled, beat-up copy of the old magazine I had to use. Twenty-odd years haven't been kind to it. At least you can see the two big suns at the top and not just the two little ones to the side.
The fellow depicted above is none other than God. The God of the Bible, indeed, but also all the other deities. He hasn't checked on His creation for a while, and it seems to have been messed up by the Adversary, so he gets ready to take a look.
This version of the Almighty seems like a weary old man, wandering around His shabby surroundings, not sure what He should be doing. If you don't mind this kind of literary blasphemy, the main problem you'll have with this story is the fact that it comes to a dead stop when it becomes most interesting.
God never does take a look at things down below. It's almost like the first chapter of a much longer work.
Leiber is incapable of writing a bad sentence, of course, so it's not painful to read. I just wish there were more of it.
Three stars.
A Darkness in My Soul, by Dean R. Koontz
Also by Jones.
A fledgling writer — he's only had a couple of stories published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, both this year — offers this disturbing vision of the future.
After a quarter of a century and countless failures, a project to create superhuman beings has produced only two successes, if you can call them that. One is the main character, a outwardly normal man but with telepathic powers. The other is much more grotesque, a being that looks like a child with the face of a very old man. The latter is immensely intelligent, but his scientific discoveries are buried deep in his subconscious. The telepath dives into his mind in order to dig out vital information.
There's a lot more to the story than that. We've got the protagonist's Freudian sessions with a computer therapist, revealing the meaning of his dreams. The main character has a relationship with a woman who writes scandalous books. The author uses typographic tricks and symbolic fantasy sequences, adding more than a touch of New Wave writing. There's one heck of an ending.
The author displays great skill at creating an eerie mood. Maybe he should try writing out-and-out horror stories instead of creepy science fiction. In any case, this complex nightmare of neurosis shows great ambition for a newcomer.
From the May/June 1953 issue of the magazine comes this wry tale of the afterlife.
Cover art by W. T. Mars.
A teenage girl is dying. She's not at all upset about this, because she's absolutely certain she's going to enjoy the bliss of Heaven. For some reason, the ghost of a slightly older woman appears.
Illustration by Charles J. Berger.
The dead woman has taken a peek at the various paradises created by men, and she doesn't much care for them. This changes the dying girl's attitude.
This featherweight jape has a pleasing feminist aspect to it. (Despite the fact that the ghost is wearing only a brassiere and underpants.) Like the Leiber and the Koontz, it may raise the hackles of folks who take their religious faith very seriously.
As I mentioned last time, this serialized novel first appeared in three issues of Amazing Stories back in 1932. Dig through the archives if you want to see the covers of those old magazines.
Illustration by Leo Morey.
Last time we saw how civilization fell apart when all metals dissolved into dust. Some folks set up strongholds in the country, where they could defend themselves against packs of desperate criminals.
This half of the novel wanders around quite a bit. One sequence involves a group of female physicians and other professionals living on their own. As soon as one of the male characters meets them, you know we're going to have a love story. You may not predict the fact that it involves a tiger.
In the most bizarre plot development, a horde of Tartars shows up, and we get a big battle scene. There's an explanation, of sorts, for how these landlocked nomadic warriors wound up in New England. The way the good guys defeat the bad guys is implausible, to say the least.
Eventually, our heroes figure out how to turn the dust back into metal. You'd think somebody would have discovered the secret long before, but what do I know. Interestingly, the main motivation for producing small amounts of metal is to make surgical instruments so childbirth isn't so dangerous for mother and baby.
The author seems to believe that city life is inherently corrosive to the human spirit, and suggests that society was ready to fall apart even if metal things hadn't crumbled away. I'm not convinced.
Overall, I didn't find the development of the apocalyptic premise as interesting as its introduction.
This early work from a writer who is now something of a household name comes from the December 1944 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by James B. Settles.
A handful of the people killed when a German submarine destroyed their passenger ship turn into water-breathing ghosts or zombies, for lack of a better word. They spend their non-lives preventing Nazi subs from attacking Allied ships.
Illustration by Arnold Kohn.
This is something more than just wartime propaganda, although there's certainly some of that. The undead characters have their own motives and personalities. The most interesting are two women, one of whom is out for revenge, gleefully killing Germans, the other trying to protect the man she loves, who is sailing on a convoy.
We don't get much of the Bradbury touch, love it or hate it, with the exception of a few metaphors here and there. If I hadn't see the author's name, I never would have suspected it was his work.
Three stars.
They Fly So High, by Ross Rocklynne
This outer space yarn comes from the pages of the June 1952 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Walter Popp.
A spaceman holds a Mad Scientist prisoner aboard his vessel. The taunting genius has already rigged the ship to blow up, so the two of them go flying off towards Jupiter in their spacesuits.
Illustration by David Stone.
What follows is a strange odyssey on the surface (more or less) of the giant planet, and a change in the relationship between the two characters.
This is an odd story. It combines melodramatic space opera, vistas of a bizarre environment, and philosophical dialogues. I suppose the author is trying to say something about human thinking while telling a rattling good yarn, but much of its meaning escapes me.
This tale of love, death, and biology comes from the Fall 1952 issue of the magazine.
Cover art by Leo Summers.
The plot begins in gruesome fashion, as a couple are murdered by street thugs. A coroner (male) reveals the weird thing about the bodies to a reporter (female). (I mention their sexes because it's relevant to the story.)
The two victims are Siamese twins, bound together at the chest. (You may have already guessed that this isn't quite true.) When an eerie, inhuman scream draws the protagonists out of the building, somebody destroys the bodies in a blazing fire.
Also by David Stone.
The coroner meets a woman with whom he shares an intimate but nonsexual evening. The reporter has the same kind of encounter with a man, but we only get to hear about it second-hand. What does this have to do with the bodies? And why should the reader run to the dictionary and look up the various definitions of the word syzygy?
This is an intriguing work that always keeps the reader's interest. It's a mystery, a romance, and good science fiction to boot. Maybe you should stir in a touch of horror as well. In any case, it's a solid work from one of the masters.
The magazine finishes with this time travel story, reprinted from the August/September 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Gaylord Welker.
A guy goes back in time to prevent a childhood friend from drowning. The weird thing is that there's no sign of his own younger self, and even his mother denies such a child exists. When he returns to his own time, the scientist he worked with claims he never saw him before. What the heck is going on?
Illustration by Ernie Barth.
The author makes up some pretty weird rules about time travel. I have to admit they're unique, even if they don't make a lot of sense to me. The ending is gruesome enough for any horror fan.
That's an overstatement, although I am hopeful that the new editor will bring some freshness to a magazine that has been dragging its feet for a while. This issue doesn't show any evidence of a major shift in policy yet. Time will tell. Meanwhile, just having double the usual amount of new fiction is enough to make me want to be kind to small animals.
I can't tell you anything about this drawing, which follows the Sturgeon story, except that it doesn't appear with the original publication of that work. It's probably a reprint from somewhere, but I have no evidence for that one way or another.
A couple of months ago we looked at the first third of a massive new anthology of original science fiction and fantasy stories, put together by one of the most colorful figures in the field of imaginative fiction. Let's jump into the middle of the book and see if it maintains the same level of quality and controversy. As before, I'll provide traffic signals to warn you how dangerous each story might be.
A fellow with the incredible ability to throw small objects with extreme accuracy goes out to shoot dice at a very strange and disturbing casino. But is he ready to risk the ultimate bet with the Big Gambler?
I have to admit up front that I can't be objective here. I am head-over-heels, madly in love with this story. Leiber blends science fiction, fantasy, tall tale, horror, and every other kind of imaginative fiction you can name into a perfectly crafted work of art. Just read it.
Five stars. GREEN for fine writing.
Lord Randy, My Son, by Joe L. Hensley
A man dying of cancer has a very strange young son with seemingly miraculous powers. The boy observes a cruel world outside. What will he grow up to be?
The premise reminds me a bit of Jerome Bixby's story It's a Good Life and the Twilight Zone episode adapted from it. That was an out-and-out horror story, however, and this one is more ambiguous. Randy is capable of great good and great evil, and it looks like the people of Earth are going to get what they deserve. In a way, that's more chilling than Bixby's monster.
The protagonist is from a parallel world in which Alexander the Great lived to a ripe old age, and the Hellenistic culture is dominant. They've colonized other planets, and have even figured out a way to visit alternate realities. (There are hints that the main character explored our own world, and found it utterly repulsive.)
In a North America inhabited by a mixture of Norse, Magyar, and Native American cultures, he violates a taboo and is pursued by folks out to kill him. He makes a desperate attempt to escape, eager to rejoin his beloved in his own, much more civilized world.
Anderson has obviously done his homework. The various parallel realities we learn about seem very real. The plot follows the action/adventure/chase structure we're familiar with, and which Anderson can write in his sleep. The only dangerous part of the story comes at the very end, when we finally figure out what taboo the protagonist violated. The revelation is more of a punchline, really, and not a major part of the story.
Here's the first of two brief tales from one of the most debated authors of speculative fiction. As the title indicates, it's part of his series about the dystopian future world he calls Moderan, a hellish place where people who have replaced almost all of their flesh with metal and who live in heavily fortified strongholds wage endless wars with each other. In this story, one of these hate-filled semi-humans meets a more normal person, barely existing in the no-man's-land between fortresses. Typical of the series, it's a dark and bitter satire of humanity's evils.
Three stars. YELLOW for grimness.
The Escaping, by David R. Bunch
Here's the other one. The narrator is imprisoned, and spends time imagining the rolling and unrolling of the sky. Something like that, anyway.
Two stars. YELLOW for surrealism.
The Doll-House, by James Cross
A guy who is up to his eyebrows in debt goes to his father-in-law for help. The old man isn't very sympathetic, but he gives his son-in-law a miniature house that contains a tiny, immortal oracle, who can answer all questions. Can you guess that this won't work out well?
This is an efficient fantasy story of the be careful what you wish for school. There's nothing particularly distinguished about it, for good or bad. Worth reading, anyway.
Three stars. GREEN for being a decent, typical yarn of its type.
The narrator is a rather strange woman who is obsessed with a very fat man who lives in the same building. She hides in his room, watching him undress, in order to find out if he's a human being or an Other.
You can interpret the plot as science fiction or as the delusions of the narrator. In either case, what it's really about is the human body, particularly those parts we're not supposed to expose or talk about. It's the kind of thing you expect to find in New Worlds.
Three stars. RED for New Wave writing and sexual content.
Shall the Dust Praise Thee?, by Damon Knight
God and his angels show up at the end of the world, just like it says in the last book of the Bible. The only problem is that there aren't any people around to witness the Apocalypse. A little digging around reveals a final message from humanity.
Knight is thumbing his nose at traditional religion here. This tiny little story is basically a grim joke. Don't show it to your local cleric.
A guy figures out that valuable stuff is coming from a planet that official records claim doesn't even exist. Folks who know it's real make it nearly impossible to get there. On another world where just about all activities are tolerated, somebody who shows up from that planet is instantly attacked and is likely to be killed. The guy finally reaches the place, and finds out what the big mystery is about.
It's hard to talk about this story without revealing too much about the premise, although the title gives you a clue. It breaks my heart to have to give a poor rating to a work by one of the true masters of speculative fiction, but this is really a lecture in lightly fictionalized form.
The climax is nothing but a long discussion as to why one of the strongest of cultural taboos should be broken. Sturgeon makes his point carefully and logically, to be sure, but forgets to engage the reader with an honest-to-gosh story. Inevitably, this work is going to compared to his groundbreaking tale The World Well Lost, but that one worked perfectly well as fiction, and not just as a debate.
Two stars. RED for advocating something most people would rather not think about.
What Happened to Auguste Clarot?, by Larry Eisenberg
This is a madcap farce in which the main character tracks down a missing scientist. There's a lot of slapstick and general silliness. It's really out of place in this anthology. Even Ellison's introduction jokingly says he was crazy to buy it. You may get a few chuckles out of it. With the French setting, I pictured Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther as the protagonist.
Two stars. GREEN for wacky hijinks.
Ersatz, by Henry Slesar
In a future world devastated by war, a weary soldier reaches one of the few places where he can rest for a while. All he can get there is fake food, fake tobacco, and something else that isn't real.
This very short story depends on its ending for its impact. It definitely creates a grim, dystopian mood.
Four stars. YELLOW for unrelieved gloom.
Middle of the Road
The central portion of this massive volume isn't quite as consistent as the first part, although Leiber's story is the best in the book so far. Sturgeon's polemic is a major disappointment, and there are some other pieces that don't really work for me. Maybe the last third of the anthology will be better. We'll see.
There's a new anthology of original science fiction and fantasy stories in bookstores this month. It's certain to be the topic of a lot of discussion among SF buffs, and maybe even some arguments.
It's also big; more than five hundred pages, and it'll set you back a whopping seven bucks. It's so big, in fact, that Galactic Journey is going to slice it into three pieces and discuss it in a trio of articles. (Why three? Because it's got thirty-three stories in it, and eleven articles would be silly.)
Let's dig into the first part of this mammoth collection and see if it's destined to be the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of speculative fiction, or just another dud.
Wraparound cover art by the husband-and-wife team of Leo and Diane Dillon, who also provide an interior illustration for each story.
Before we get to the nitty-gritty of fiction, we've got no less than two forewords by Isaac Asimov and a lengthy introduction by the editor.
In The Second Revolution, the Good Doctor outlines the history of modern science fiction from Gernsback through Campbell, and into the New Wave. Astounding was the first revolution, you see, and now we're in the second one. That may be a little simplistic, but it gets the point across.
Harlan and I, on the other hand, is a personal essay about Asimov's relationship with the editor, ending with a teasing anecdote. Ellison adds a long footnote offering a different version of their first encounter.
More substantial is Thirty-Two Soothsayers, the editor's longwinded but endlessly entertaining and informative account of what this book is supposed to accomplish, and how it came to be. Ellison wanders all over the place in this piece, and it's a fun ride. In brief, the stories he chose are supposed to be both enjoyable and provocative, with new ideas that might not appear in the usual SF markets. We'll see.
(If you're wondering why thirty-two and not thirty-three, it's because one writer supplies two stories; but that's for another time.)
I should mention that each story comes with an introduction by the editor and an afterword by the author, except for the one case when those roles are reversed. You'll see what I mean in a while.
I'm going to do something a little different here. I'll rate the quality of each story with the usual one to five stars, but I'll also add an indication for how dangerous each one is. This will be determined by sexual content, violence, profanity, experimental narrative style, taboo subject matter, etc. GREEN = safe to proceed, YELLOW = caution indicated, RED = hazardous conditions.
An unnamed character flees through the universe in an attempt to escape those who have overthrown his reign. To say anything else would give away the point of the story, which is an allegory.
Three stars. YELLOW for questioning the deeply held beliefs of some readers.
In a premise similar to his excellent novel Thorns, the author presents a severely injured astronaut who has been put back together by aliens. In this case, however, his body has been restored to normal, but his mind has been made more sensitive to the emotions of others. That doesn't work out well.
Silverberg has become a fine writer, one of the best now working. Like Thorns, this is an uncompromising look at human suffering.
Five stars. YELLOW for scenes of extreme cruelty.
The Day After the Day the Martians Came, by Frederik Pohl
Set in the very near future, this tale deals with humanity's reaction to the discovery of ugly, semi-intelligent lifeforms on the red planet. Mostly, people make nasty jokes about them. The intent of the story is to expose human prejudices, in a way that's about as subtle as a brick thrown through a window.
Three stars. YELLOW for dealing with a major social problem in the USA today.
This is, by far, the longest story in the book. It is also incredibly dense and fast-paced, so any attempt to describe the plot would be a miserable failure. That said, I'll just mention that it takes place in a very strange future, involves an artist and his tax-dodging ancestor, and contains a ton of wordplay. There are scenes of slapstick violence that are simultaneously hilarious and offensive. It's a wild rollercoaster ride, so keep your seatbelt tightly secured.
Five stars. RED for a Joycean narrative style and Rabelaisian humor.
The Malley System, by Miriam Allen deFord
In the future, the worst criminals receive a very unusual punishment. This is a grim story, that doesn't shy away from the horrors perpetuated by human monsters.
In a decadent future, a man uses the only time machine in existence to kidnap people from the past, in order to satisfy the whims of his sadistic granddaughter. He picks the wrong potential victim. This is a spine-chilling little science fiction horror story with a twist in its tail.
This is a direct sequel to the previous story, with an introduction by Bloch and an afterword by Ellison. An infamous murderer finds himself in the far future, where the inhabitants enter his mind in order to enjoy his sensations as he kills.
Written in an experimental, almost cinematic style, this is an unrelenting look at the evil that lurks inside all of us. Not for weak stomachs.
People get so-called time gas supplied to their homes through pipes. It allows them to enjoy better times in the past. As with any form of technology, things can go wrong. This is a light comedy with a unique premise.
Three stars. GREEN for whimsy.
The Man Who Went to the Moon – Twice, by Howard Rodman
A young boy takes a trip to the Moon by holding on to a balloon, becoming a local celebrity. Many years later, as a very old man, his only claim to fame is not as valued as it once was. Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, this is a gentle, quietly melancholy tale.
The Communist East has won a hot war with the Capitalist West. The protagonist is a bureaucrat given the task to determine which of two term papers truly represents the Party line. Meanwhile, a seemingly harmless substance allows him to perceive what appear to be multiple and contradictory truths about the Mao-like Party leader.
That's a vague synopsis, because this is one of the author's stories in which you've never quite sure what is real and what is illusory. Ellison strongly hints that it was written under the influence of hallucinatory drugs. Be that as it may, it's a provocative and disturbing look at the possible nature of reality.
Four stars. YELLOW for politics, drug use, and existential terror.
A man is sentenced to death for his crime. His organs will be harvested for transplant. Through a series of unusual circumstances, he manages to escape from prison, but his troubles aren't over yet.
The full impact of this story doesn't hit the reader until the very end, when we find out the nature of the man's offense. Other than that, it's an ordinary enough science fiction action/suspense story.
Three stars. GREEN for futuristic adventure.
One Down, Two To Go
So far, this is a fine collection of stories, without a bad one in the bunch. Sensitive readers might want to stay away from the more dangerous ones, but most mature SF fans will enjoy it.
The seaside amusement area known as Pacific Ocean Park, opened in 1958, closed its doors forever a couple of days ago, due to decreasing attendance and failure to pay back taxes and rental fees.
Pacific Ocean Park in happier days.
This aquatic rival of nearby Disneyland offered such futuristic and nautical delights as the House of Tomorrow, a Sea Circus, Diving Bells, the Sea Serpent Roller Coaster, and even a Flight to Mars, to name just a few out of dozens.
Artist's impression of the entrance to the defunct wonderland.
Long Time Passing
The vanishing of this Southern California landmark brings thoughts of the way in which almost everything disappears sooner or later. Pete Seeger's classic folk song Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (perhaps best known in the version recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary a few years ago) could serve as appropriately melancholy background music for such meditations.
It's on the trio's first album, by the way.
Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic contains a number of stories dealing with the passage of time and the decay of technology and culture.
Recycled art by Johnny Bruck.
The painting on the cover, as usual, has already appeared elsewhere. In this case, it's from an issue of Perry Rhodan, the popular weekly German publication named for the heroic space adventurer who appears in its pages.
Working from a German/English dictionary, the caption seems to mean something like Robots Please Allow . . . Far Is The Way To Noman's Land — A New Arlan Story. I'm sure my German-speaking fellow Galactic Journeyers can supply a better translation.
The Housebreakers, by Ron Goulart
Before we get to all the doom and gloom stuff dealing with vast expanses of time and the breakdown of society, let's have a little comic relief from a writer who specializes in funny stuff. If nothing else, it's the only new story in the issue.
Illustrations by Jeff Jones.
A mercenary gets his latest assignment from a talkative computer riding in an unreliable automated car. It seems there's a planet that essentially serves as a suburb. Folks commute from it to other planets to work. Some of the inhabitants are criminals and other lowlifes dumped there. (That seems like a really bad idea to me, but it sets up the plot.)
Crooks are appearing out of nowhere, grabbing loot and then disappearing. Since they don't have the gizmo necessary for teleportation, this seems impossible. The last guy to investigate the case is missing in action and presumed dead. Our hero has to contact the wife of a fellow who has joined the robbers in an attempt to track them down. Could it have anything to do with the planet's only real city (as opposed to bedroom communities), thought to be abandoned?
And what about this guy?
Maybe this sounds like crime fiction or an adventure story, but it's almost pure slapstick. There's not a lot of plot logic. The bad guys show up on horses, which doesn't make any sense in this high-tech setting. I guess the author wanted to spoof Westerns. The explanation for teleportation without a device is completely anticlimactic. Without giving too much away, it boils down to plot convenience.
Two stars.
Hok Visits the Land of Legends, by Manly Wade Wellman
Illustrations by Jay Jackson.
Speaking of vast amounts of time, let's go way, way back to the Stone Age. We've met the mighty caveman Hok a couple of times before. This yarn comes from the April 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Cover art by Malcolm Smith.
Hok decides to kill a mammoth all by himself. He manages to wound the beast badly, and track it down through heavy snow to its place of dying. (This is similar to the legend of the elephant's graveyard.)
Note the very modern-looking snowshoes.
This turns out to be a deep valley, where the weather is nice and warm. The first thing you know, Hok is attacked by a pterodactyl.
Yes, this is an extreme anachronism; but what's a few million years between friends?
He also has to fight off a nasty critter, sort of like a rhinoceros, that doesn't belong in his time either. Poetic license, I guess.
A tribe of folks live in the treetops of this hidden tropical jungle. They're ruled by a brutal dictator. Hok has to deal with this guy as well as the animals that are out to kill him.
Even more so than in previous stories in this series, it's impossible to take this outrageous tale as a serious look into the remote past. The hot weather in the valley, the presence of beasts that died out millions of years before humans showed up; none of it makes sense.
There are tons of footnotes, as if we're supposed to accept this as scientific speculation rather than pure fantasy. These get in the way of just enjoying an exciting adventure story. Perhaps the most unbelievable thing about this exercise in pseudo-scholarship is the notion that Hok is the source of legends about Hercules.
Two stars.
That We May Rise Again . . ., by Charles Recour
Illustration by Julian S. Krupa.
From the remote past we jump forward into the extreme far future, in this apocalyptic tale from the July 1948 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Arnold Kohn.
A really long time from now, Earth is ruled by gigantic telepathic ants. They keep a few human beings around as servants. Our hero's master is a relatively kind ant, it seems. It lets him wander through a library of ancient books, learning how humanity used to dominate the planet. Apparently, the huge ants were created by radioactivity during the atomic war that destroyed civilization (The author anticipated the flick Them! by a few years.)
The ants want this fellow to take a ride in their only rocket ship, so he can act as a sort of double-check on their navigation systems. They don't want to go into space, but they want to take a look at things up there. Meanwhile, the guy meets the only other human being he's ever seen. Wouldn't you know it, she's a woman, and they fall instantly in love out of pure instinct.
Suddenly the prospect of taking a trip into the void doesn't sound so appealing. The lovebirds set out on their own, despite the opposition of the massive brain that rules over all the ants and their human slaves.
This is kind of a silly story that tries to create pathos in the fate of the two humans but winds up seeming ludicrous instead. The love story is implausible, to say the least, since these folks have never encountered one of their own kind before. It almost makes the giant ants seem realistic.
The May 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this story featuring one of the author's favorite themes.
Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.
As in his famous novel More Than Human (1953), Sturgeon presents us with a kind of group mind. Three college students form a triangular relationship. One, the only woman in the group, supplies the emotional and esthetic aspects of their lives. One of the men is an intellectual, and the other performs physical tasks. They drift apart over the years, but inevitably come back together. There's an unexpected reason for this.
An alien who consists of three symbiotic parts inhabits their minds. Those of its species have been acting as mental parasites on the simple lifeforms on the moon Titan. Now they intend to move to Earth, because the creatures they prey upon are running out. Working as one, the humans come up with an alternate plan to benefit everyone.
Despite its rather melodramatic science fiction aspects, this is a moving account of people who find themselves drawn together mysteriously, often against their conscious wills. As you'd expect from Sturgeon, the characters seem like real, complex people. It may be something of a stereotype to have the only woman be the emotional member of the group, but this doesn't seriously detract from the story.
Four stars.
Full Circle, by H. B. Hickey
Illustration by Ed Valigursky.
The premiere issue of the magazine (Summer 1952) is the source for this brief bit of irony.
Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.
Once again, we're in the very far future, after human society has disappeared. The world is inhabited by robots. After an extremely long struggle, they have finally produced the ultimate being.
Well, just a glance at the illustration gives away the story's twist ending. Despite that, it's fairly effective. A minor piece that nevertheless accomplishes what it sets out to do.
This Kelleryarn (Kellernovel?) originally appeared in three parts in the May, June, and July 1932 issues of Amazing Stories. All cover art also by Leo Morey.
Another physician in the issue.
This time there's a Ph.D. included.
Keller gets his name on all three covers.
For no apparent reason, all metal rots away. Naturally, this wipes out civilization. A husband and wife, with their infant daughter, escape the city early enough to find an abandoned farmhouse where they can live off the land.
A wealthy fellow not too far away sets up a group of folks who work together in order to fight off the bands of desperate criminals roaming around, now that no prison can hold them. After some violent battles, the first attempts to form some kind of loose confederation with other communities for mutual defense begin.
This is a grim story, not always pleasant to read. The main character changes from an ordinary citizen into somebody willing to kill dangerous people in cold blood. There's a disturbing subplot about the physician in charge of an institution for the so-called feebleminded, who has to make a terrible decision about what to do about them.
Three stars.
Order Out Of Chaos?
This wasn't a very good issue, with only the Sturgeon worthy of notice. I wonder if the magazine and its sister publication Amazing are going to slowly wear away into nothing, given the way they're both raiding back issues for the dregs. Maybe it's about time to look around for some better reading, like a classic novel.
From 1958, a groundbreaking work of modern African literature.
Or you could turn on the radio instead, and listen to KGJ for all the hits, all the time!
Tere Ríos is the name used by writer Marie Teresa Ríos on her books, such as An Angel Grows Up (1957), Brother Angel (1963), and the one under discussion, which came out last year. I haven't read those other two, but the titles suggest that they might have something to do with the author's Catholic faith, which is also reflected in her newest work. (Even the cover artist, who also supplies several interior illustrations, is a Catholic priest.)
The Fifteenth Pelican is a whimsical tale about Sister Bertrille, a nun newly arrived at a convent in Puerto Rico. The most notable thing about Sister Bertrille is that she is tiny; four foot ten and weighing only seventy-five pounds.
The nuns wear large hats that look like wings. Given the fact that Puerto Rico is very windy, you can probably already see where this is going.
While hanging laundry on the roof of the convent, a gust of wind lifts Sister Bertrille into the air. At night, she has what she thinks of as dreams of flying with a flock of fourteen pelicans. (Hence the title.) In fact, she is really soaring through the air with them.
During one of these nocturnal excursions, she lands at a hush-hush military base. Suspected of being a spy, Sister Bertrille has to prove that she just flew in by accident.
That's about all there is to this slim little book. There's some stuff about Sister Bertrille's work with the orphans at the convent, but that has nothing to do with the plot. It's made absolutely clear that Sister Bertrille's flight is not miraculous, but simply a matter of aerodynamics. We're told more than once that if lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, the result is flight.
I, for one, don't believe that a strong wind is enough to allow a seventy-five pound woman to fly, even with the help of wings on her head. Nevertheless, I suppose the attempt at a rational explanation makes the book science fiction rather than fantasy.
Like Sister Bertrille herself, The Fifteenth Pelican is as light as a feather, a bit of fluff best described as cute. I suspect it would quickly be forgotten, were it not for the fact that some television executive got ahold of it, and thought it would make a good series.
Gidget Goes To San Juan
Actress Sally Field, not yet twenty-one years old, got her start while still a teenager in the title role of the television series Gidget. By my count, she's the fourth actress to play the part of the petite surfer girl, after Sandra Dee, Deborah Walley, and Cindy Carol. (Yes, I know too much about beach movies.)
The series lasted only one season, but it became something of a hit during summer reruns. Eager to provide their young star with a new situation comedy, the folks at Screen Gems came up with something. It wasn't called The Fifteenth Pelican.
Field plays the part of Sister Bertrille. We're still at the same fictional convent in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's still really windy, and she still wears the big hat that looks like a pair of wings.
Field isn't quite as small as the character in the novel. She's about five foot two (but without eyes of blue) and is said to weigh ninety pounds. That makes her ability to soar in the wind even more unlikely, but that's television for you.
The pilot, which aired last Thursday, had a one-hour time slot. I think the show will normally be a half-hour series, which is typical for an American situation comedy. It was narrated by a new character, Sister Jacqueline, played by Marge Redmond. She recently appeared as a nun in the movie The Trouble With Angels, so I guess it's typecasting.
She's a friendly, down-to-earth type, who supplies wry commentary throughout the pilot. At her side is Sister Sixto, played by Shelley Morrison. She's a Puerto Rican nun who provides comedy in questionable taste with her mangling of English idioms.
Unlike the rather meek character in the book, the TV version of Sister Bertrille is a perky, outgoing, slightly rebellious sort. We're even told she spent time in jail for participating in a free speech protest.
She quickly tries to improve conditions for the young orphans at the convent by holding concerts and such. (This subjects the viewer to a cloyingly sweet song, which we'll suffer through twice. Believe me, it makes the saccharine songs in The Sound of Music sound like rock 'n' roll.)
This newfangled way of doing nun stuff earns the disapproval of the head of the convent, Reverend Mother Superior Placido, played by Madeleine Sherwood. She's a stern, old-fashioned type. Needless to say, she's not very happy about the fact that Sister Bertrille takes to the sky now and then.
As in the book, Sister Bertrille accidentally lands at a secured military base, and has to answer a lot of awkward questions. That's cleared up pretty quickly, leaving some military types befuddled.
More important is a subplot not found in the novel. Sister Bertrille keeps running into a new character, Carlos Ramirez, played by Alejandro Rey. He's a playboy who runs a discothèque/gambling den. Sister Bertrille first encounters him when she winds up on his yacht full of bikini-clad beauties, where Ramirez is busy trying to seduce one of them into spending the weekend with him.
This adds a tiny bit of sex appeal to an otherwise squeaky clean series. Given the fact that the Catholic Church provided technical advice for the pilot, I don't think we're going to see romantic tension between Sister Bertrille and the fun-loving bachelor.
Anyway, Ramirez owns a piece of land that the convent could use for a new school, but he doesn't want to donate it. When Sister Bertrille flies by his private airplane as he's on route to a weekend getaway with yet another gorgeous girlfriend, he thinks it's a religious vision and gives up the land.
The whole thing is very silly, of course. It takes the gentle whimsy of the book and turns it into broad comedy. Like many American sitcoms, it's ruined by an obnoxious laugh track. The hour-long pilot (forty-odd minutes without the commercials) really drags. Maybe it'll be more tolerable cut down to a half-hour (twenty-something minutes) next time.
Or you could turn off the television and listen to KGJ for all the hits, all the time!
I have lamented for some time that we've been at a nadir of female participation in our peculiar genre. If this month's clutch of books be any indication, that trend is finally reversing, to the benefit (for the most part) of all of us science fiction readers!
by Victoria Silverwolf
Wordplay
Two new science fiction novels arrived this month with one-word titles that don't show up in my dictionary. No doubt that's meant to intrigue the potential reader, and create the sense of strangeness associated with much SF. Let's take a look at them and see if we can figure out what the titles mean.
Sara is a very ordinary young woman, maybe a little less content with her life than most. She considers herself unattractive, and is particularly sensitive about her large nose. She runs off from an unhappy home to take a job in New York City.
While walking through Central Park one night (not a wise thing for an unaccompanied woman to do, I'd think) she is abducted and taken aboard an alien spacecraft. The opening of the novel is a chaos of strange and disturbing sensations, so we don't really figure this out for a while, but it becomes clear later.
In a way that isn't explained until late in the book, she winds up in a
new body. For some time, she's in a dazed, zombie-like condition, only slowly coming to full awareness. The good news is that she's beautiful, with golden skin and a perfect nose. The bad news is that she's enslaved as a sort of nursemaid to a fellow in a mindless state.
Eventually, she figures out that the fellow has been drugged into catatonia by the bad guys. She helps him return to normal by reducing the amount of drugged food he consumes. The two escape from the hospital/prison and a tale of palace intrigue and space opera adventure begins.
The plot gets pretty complicated, and there are lots of characters with odd names, so I got lost at times. (The drugged man's name is Harlan, by the way; a reference to one of the author's fellow writers? Anyway, he's got the only name I've ever seen before, other than the heroine's.)
Suffice to say that Sara is on another planet, although the inhabitants are completely human. Harlan is the Regent for the planet's young Warlord. The bad guys drugged him, faking it as insanity, in order to control the government in his place. Add in aliens that Harlan's people have been fighting for millennia and rival factions for the throne. A further complication is that Sara has to hide the fact that she's a restoree (there's that word!) or she is likely to be killed as an abomination.
Besides all this science fiction stuff, there are a lot of romance novel aspects to the book. The beautiful, virginal heroine and the dark, mysterious hero fall in love, finally consummating their passion in sex scenes that are far from explicit. I also found a fair amount of subtle humor in the novel, as if the author has her tongue firmly in her cheek. What the evil aliens do to the people they capture stirs in a bit of gruesome horror as well.
The characters, for the most part, are either all good or all bad. The only ambiguous one is the brilliant physician who gave Sara her new body, in the forbidden and universally reviled procedure that made her a restoree. (If he hadn't, she would just be dead.) He does seem to be genuinely concerned with healing the afflicted, but he also works with the bad guys.
Kind of a silly book, really, but mildly entertaining if you turn your brain off. It's the author's first published novel, so let's just say that she shows promise.
The explanation for the title is simple enough; Croyd is the hero's name. He has no other, as far as I can tell.
Croyd is some kind of agent for the galactic government. He is also a Van Vogtian superhuman, with a brain that allows him to do things like go back and forth in time. While waiting to hear the details of his latest assignment, he saves a lady in distress from an abusive man.
There's a lot more to the woman than he realizes. It seems that an alien from another galaxy, bent on conquering the inhabitants of the Milky Way, has her mind inside the woman's body. Next thing you know, her mind is inside Croyd's body, and his is inside the woman's.
The woman's mind is still inside her body as well, so she and Croyd share it as they track down the alien who stole Croyd's body. Meanwhile, a gang of beatnik terrorists are planning to send the asteroid Ceres crashing into Nereid, one of Neptune's moons, where there's a government base. The alien in Croyd's body has to deal with this, to convince people that she's really Croyd.
Things get really complicated. There are alien agents among the government staff, with the ability to hypnotize people into turning against humanity. There's another group of aliens that wants to destroy the entire Milky Way rather than conquer it. Both Croyd in the woman's body and the alien in Croyd's body have to fight their nefarious scheme. There's even a second Croyd mind that shows up inside his purloined body. This one is a stupid brute, intent only on animal pleasures.
With all this going on, and characters rushing back and forth in space and time, this is definitely a wild roller coaster ride. I didn't believe any of it for a second. If McCaffrey's book often has the feeling of a stereotypical woman's romance novel, with science fiction trappings, Wallace's frequently seems like a stereotypical men's adventure novel, with the same decorations.
Two stars.
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
With the New Wave such a strong force in British science fiction at the moment there is a real blurring of the boundaries of what is speculative and what is literary experimentation.
Science fiction or experimental literature? Which is which?
If they had not come of Science fiction publishers and\or from science fiction authors would we consider Squares of the City, Greybeardor Ballard’s cut-up tales to be speculative? By the same token if Fowles’ Magus, O’Brien’s Third Policeman or Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita had been published as Ballantine Paperbacks from Cordwainer Smith or Daniel Keyes, would they be on the Hugo Ballot?
This leads into probably one of the most interesting edge cases of recent years, where the author says she had no intention of writing science fiction but it is hard for the SF community to see it as anything else:
In contrast to some recent writers, Kavan’s move into the speculative realm is not as much of a leap. She has been writing since the twenties and her works have often made use of experimental and surrealist techniques, commonly looking at madness and incarceration.
As anyone who has read the stranger side of science fiction, such as Philip K. Dick, these kind of ideas are often played with in the speculative space. However, in this work it definitely feels like she walks over the 49th parallel into SFnal Canada.
In Ice we follow our unnamed protagonist (no one has names here) through a world where society is collapsing under the weight of a frozen disaster. Our narrator seems to be in pursuit of a young woman near the start but the full motivations remain obscure as, even though written in the first person, it is narrated in a very matter of fact style.
In many ways this reminded me of Ballard’s elemental apocalypses, where The Drowning Worldflooded the world and The Drought boiled it, this one has frozen it. And all involve the characters moving through the disaster riven Earth in a dream-like state, as we get to see insights into their state of mind.
However, where Ballard does more direct exploration of his inner-space, Kavan keeps everything very cold and clinical, written in sharp fragments such as this description of the aftermath of a rape:
Later in the day she did not move, gave no indication of life, lying exposed on the ruined bed as on a slab in a mortuary. Sheets and blankets spilled on to the floor, trailed over the edge of the dais. Her head hung over the edge of the bed in a slightly unnatural position, the neck slightly twisted in a way that suggested violence, the bright hair twisted into a sort of rope by his hands.
There is no mention of our narrator’s feelings on this, it is treated in a disassociated manner, as if he is outside the events being described. This in itself gives us insight, but predominantly by the absence of explanation than by the paucity of it.
Yet, it remains dreamlike in another way, for it follows through in a manner that feels coincidental and directionless. They move between scenes in a way that often led me to look back if I had missed anything. In addition there are regular hallucinations throughout, meaning that we have extra questions as to the reality of what we are seeing.
But I believe this is the point: we are meant to feel isolated and abstracted, just as the protagonist does. To see what we as the reader are appalled and terrified by this world, yet we see someone completely numb to it all as our guide.
I could take you through various sections but really it is one of those books you need to experience, to delve into the atmosphere and feelings (or rather lack thereof) in order to truly understand.
A very high four stars.
by Gideon Marcus
Bringing up the Rear
Ace Books, regular as clockwork, releases a monthly double dose of adventure in the form of the luridly composed Ace Doubles. In the past, these bundled short novels had a reputation for being rather shallow and adventure-focused, while also being subject to the mercurial editorial whims required to ensure the stories fit in the prescribed lengths. Over the last few years, however, these volumes have become some of my favorite sources of entertainment, and they've launched the careers of many a new and promising author. This time around, we've got a veteran paired with a newcomer:
Earl Dumarest awakens from cold sleep several days prior to his destination. He is one of the fortunate ones: 15% of the interstellar travelers who take Low Passage on a starship never revive. But Dumarest's luck ends there–instead of being dropped off at Broome, he must debark on the hell planet of Gath. On that tidally locked world, the Low Passage travelers are trapped without sufficient funds to leave, exploited by the Resident Factor of Gath despite the efforts of the local enclave of the Church of Universal Brotherhood.
What fuels the economy of this blighted planet? It is the winds that blow from the baked day side to the frozen night side. As they whistle along twilight mountain ranges, they set up resonances in the human mind, facilitating all manner of hallucinations: some pleasant, some insanity-inducing.
This natural phenomenon is the least of Dumarest's troubles as he has been plopped down into a budding conflict between the Matriarchy of Kund, the cruel Prince of Emmered, and other miscellaneous galactic forces. Can he thread the needle before the looming tempest envelops them all?
Truth be told, I was not expecting much from E.C. Tubb, a writer who almost invariably merits three stars. Even more so as the story reminded me strongly of Dune, with its sweeping setting, frequently shifting viewpoint, and its almost mythological character. The problem, of course, is that Dune was also a three-star tale for me.
So I was quite surprised that this tale grabbed me by the throat and did not let go until I finished, quite soon after I started. I think the main reason Tubb succeeds where Herbert does not is that Tubb can write! There are few wasted words, and his prose is sensual and visceral (perhaps he overuses "blood-colored" a touch; crimson would do occasionally). If Dumarest is a bit too superhuman, he is at least consistent in his abilities, and the limitations thereof. And such a vividly drawn world–it is clear that Dumarest will have more adventures in the future.
Carl Race is a Federation junior ecologist brought into investigate an agricultural blight on Cheiron. The garden-like world is home to a race of primitive but industrious centauroids working with the private enterprise Consolidated Enterprises (humorously abbreviated to "Con En"). There is concern that Con En caused the global catastrophe, which threatens the planet's legume and honey industries, potentially destroying the entire ecosystem. Should Con En lose its contract to trade with the Cheironi, its rival, Trans-Galactic, will swoop in.
Very quickly, Carl, with the assistance of a human teacher, Marcy, and a precocious Cheironi teen, Nubi, determine not only that the blight is artificially caused, but that there is a nefarious conspiracy involved. Much rushing around, near-miss assassinations, chase scenes, scientific explanations, and spelunking ensue. Don't worry–it's got a happy ending.
Author Juanita Coulson is probably better known to the world as half of the editing team of Yandro, a prestigious fanzine that has garnered nearly a dozen Hugo nominations and one win. This is her first foray into novel writing, and she's not nearly as polished as Tubb. The first 20 pages are quite rough sledding, and probably could have been pared down to perhaps a page. In fact, the whole first third is quite padded, and I have to wonder if this was an editorial decree to fill space (this particular Ace Double has very compressed pica, resulting in more words per page). But I stuck with it, and ultimately I found the book to be decently enjoyable. It feels pitched at a much younger audience, what was once called "juvenile" and is now coming to be termed as "young adult". You will probably guess the phenomenon that is the culprit before it is described, but that's fine. One should be able to solve a mystery from the clues provided.
I appreciate that Marcy is vital to the plot and Carl clearly finds her attractive, but no romance develops between the two leads. The aborigines are depicted as equals to humans (with good and bad examples of the species), which I would expect as Coulson has been a strident civil rights booster since her college days in the early 1950s.
As you may know, I am a big fan of Tom Purdom. He's a very nice fellow, and his first book, I Want the Stars, was a stand-out. Thus, I was quite excited to see that the new Ace Double at the local bookstore featured my writer friend.
The first two chapters do not disappoint. We are thrown into the action as Migel Lassamba (explicitly of African descent; no lily-white casts in Tom's books) holds up a rich man and his personal doctor. His goal: to get an artificial heart for his companion and love, Anata. Why doesn't he just get one for free from the government hospitals? Because Migel, Anata, and three others are rebels whose goal is to topple Jammett, dictator of the planet Arlane. Five against Arlane, you see?
Thus ensues a ever-widening conflict between the outnumbered but canny rebel troops and Jammett, who resorts to increasingly draconian methods to retain control. His biggest ace in the hole is his ability to slap mind-control devices onto citizens. These "controllees" are fully conscious, but their bodies belong to the dictator, obeying his every whim. As Migel's cadre begins to turn the tide against Arlane's leader, the abuse of the controllees gets pretty grim.
There's a lot to like about this book. Arlane is a nicely drawn world, mostly tidally locked so its days last forever and only the pole is inhabitable. The descriptions of technology and society are largely timeless. Purdom is excellent at conveying material that will not be dated in a decade. As in Tom's other stories, we have intimations of free love and even polygamy/andry, and there is no real distinction between sex or race.
Sadly, where the book falls down is the execution. After those exciting first chapters, the chess-like contest between the rebels and Jammett feels perfunctorily written, as if Tom had to get from A to C, and he wasn't particularly interested in writing B. It almost reads like a chronicle of a homebrew wargame (ah, what a wargame this novel would make!) If I'd been the editor, I'd have sent it back and asked for…more. More emotion. More characterization. More reason to feel invested. And a more fleshed out ending (but perhaps that was a fault of the editing, not the writing).
I noted that the weakest parts of I Want the Stars and Tom's latest short story, Reduction in Arms, were the curiously detached combat scenes. Where Tom excels is the thinky bits. I suggest he either work harder on the fighting pits, or stick to thinky bit stories (like his excellent Courting Time).
Emil Petaja is a new writer perhaps best known for his science fiction sagas based on the Karevala, the Finnish body of mythological work. Now, Petaja plumbs Irish myth for this truly strange, but also rather conventional science fantasy.
Diarmid Patrick O'Dowd (a fine Jewish name) is a scout captain for X-Plor, Magellanic Division. His flights of exploration frequently take him close to a mysterious, green-shrouded object. Finally unable to resist, he becomes the first of his corps to pierce the viridian veil. His ship crashes and disintegrates, leaving him stranded in a Celtic nightmare. On one side, the towers of the islands, inhabited by Irish lords whose beautiful works are created on the backs and tears of countless generations of peasants. On the other, the fetid swamps of the Snae–froglike magicians who seem to predate the human colonists. And up in the tower of T'yeer-Na-N-Oge resides the Deel, Himself, who rules over the world with a song whose lyrics none can deviate from, enforced by a panoply of beasts, flying, swimming, and creeping.
Of course, there is a personal element as well. The beautiful but utterly rotten-hearted Lord Flann plans to unite the islands and lead a crusade against the Nords. But first, he would marry his fair and kind cousin, Fianna. Fianna, on the other hand, has other designs. After rescuing Diarmid upon his arrival, she falls for the fellow, teaches him swordplay, and helps him fulfill his geassa to save the planet from the domination of the Deel. Along the way, there is plenty of swashbuckling, mellifluously articulate sentences, weird foes, and a twist.
It's pure fantasy, more akin to Three Hearts and Three Lions than anything else. But it's fun. And it has warcat steeds (Purdom's book has watchcats–I guess oversized felines are in this year).
Three and a half stars — and I'll wager Cora and/or Kris would give it four.
Triads
by Victoria Silverwolf
Two new science fiction novels deal with the relationships among three characters. As we'll see, in one of these the trio is very intimately connected. First of all, however, let's take a look at the latest book from an author known for prolificity.
The novel begins and ends with the same words, spoken by two very different characters and having different implications.
Pain is instructive.
In this way, the author announces his theme from the very start. Thorns is all about suffering. Physical pain, to some extent, but, more importantly, emotional pain.
Duncan Chalk is a grotesquely obese, incredibly rich man who controls just about all forms of entertainment throughout the solar system. Secretly, he is also a kind of psychic vampire, feeding off the misery of others.
Minner Burris is a space explorer who, against his will, was surgically transformed by aliens. His two companions died during the procedure and he barely survived, monstrously changed outside and in. As a result, he is a loner, seen as a freak by other people.
Lona Kelvin is a teenage girl who had a large number of her ova removed and fertilized outside her body. The resulting babies were developed inside other women, or in artificial wombs. Although her physical appearance remains unchanged, the resulting publicity made her as much of an outsider as Minner.
Duncan's plan is to bring these two miserable people together, both as a form of voyeuristic entertainment for an audience of millions and to feed on their suffering. To win their cooperation, he promises to give Minner a new body and to allow Lona to raise two of the infants produced from her eggs as her own children.
At first, the pair simply share their mutual pain, sympathizing with each other. As Duncan sends them on a luxurious vacation to all the pleasure spots in the solar system, they become lovers. As he predicted, however, their differences soon lead to ferocious arguments. Minner sees Lona as an ignorant child, and Lona comes to hate Minner's bitterness and anger. Can they escape from Duncan's scheme, and find some kind of peace?
Reading this book is an intense, almost overpowering experience. It is the most uncompromising work of science fiction dealing with human suffering since Harlan Ellison's story Paingod. Although set in a semi-utopian future, the settings — a cactus garden, Antarctica, the Moon, Saturn's satellite Titan — are almost all stark and bleak. There are other characters I have not mentioned — an idiot savant, abused by his family; the widow of one of Minner's fellow astronauts, obsessed with him in a masochistic way — who offer more examples of the varieties of pain.
In addition to offering a vividly described, detailed future, Silverberg writes in a highly polished style, full of metaphors and literary allusions. I believe this is his finest work since the outstanding story To See the Invisible Man. With this novel, and his highly praised novella Hawksbill Station, I think we're seeing a new Silverberg, adding greater sophistication and more serious themes to his inarguable ability to produce an unending stream of fiction.
Andrew Blake is a man with a problem. First of all, that's not even his real name. He picked it at random.
You see, Andrew (as we'll call him in this review) was discovered in deep space, after having been in suspended animation for a couple of centuries. He has no memory of his past, although he is familiar with Earth the way it was two hundred years ago.
In order to discuss this novel at all, I need to talk about something that the author reveals about one-third of the way into the book. I don't think that gives too much away, but if you'd rather dive into it without knowing anything about the plot you should stop reading here.
Still with me? Good.
Andrew is actually an android, an artificially grown human being with a mind taken from another person. He was designed to copy the mental and physical forms of aliens he encountered while exploring other star systems. The idea is that he would record this information, then revert to his previous condition. It didn't quite work out that way.
Andrew shares his mind with two other beings. One is a wolf-like alien, although it has arms that allow it to carry things and manipulate objects. The other is a sort of biological computer, a relentlessly logical entity that often takes the form of a pyramid.
Andrew's body changes shape, depending on which mind has control. After a brief period of confusion, during which these alterations happen at random, Andrew recovers some of his memory. The three minds and bodies work together, evading the folks who think he's some kind of monster.
There's a lot more to this book than the basic plot. Simak throws in a lot of futuristic details. Notable among these are talking, flying houses, and aliens who are essentially the same as the brownies of folklore.
Not all of these concepts mesh together smoothly, although they provide proof of a great deal of imagination. The overly solicitous robot house offers some comic relief, and the so-called brownies may seem too whimsical for some readers. Otherwise, the novel is quite serious, even offering a mystical vision of the unity of all life in the universe.
My major complaint is a plot twist late in the book, revealing the true nature of a character I haven't even mentioned. It comes out of nowhere, depends on a wild coincidence, and creates an artificial happy ending.
Despite these serious reservations, I actually liked the novel quite a bit. It's not a classic, but it's well worth reading.
If any more proof is needed that rock 'n' roll now dominates the American popular music scene, here it is: a couple of days ago, radio station KMPX in San Francisco (106.9 on your FM dial, for those of you near the city by the bay) started playing a wide variety of rock music (as opposed to the usual Top Forty hits) twenty-four hours a day. As far as I know, it's the first station in the USA to do so.
Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue, programming director for KMPX.
I live a very long way from Frisco, so I won't be able to pick up their signal.
Appropriately, the lead story in the latest issue of Fantastic features the inability to establish contact over a vast distance as a major plot point. As we'll see, other stories in the magazine also deal with difficulties in communication.
Cover art by Frank R. Paul.
As usual, the image on the front is taken from an old magazine. In this case, it's the back cover of the January 1941 issue of Amazing Stories.
The reprinted version omits the pink flamingo in the bottom right corner.
Three spaceships carry the first astronauts to Jupiter. Incredibly bad luck strikes the mission. Freak accidents destroy two of the vessels and badly damage the third, leaving only one person alive. Seriously injured, the fellow faces a slow and lonely death.
It seems the crippled ship is now in orbit around Jupiter. The sole survivor has enough food, water, and air to last many years, but no way to contact Earth. (As I've indicated above, he's as far out of range as I am with KMPX.) Can our intrepid hero find a way to make his way back?
He also grows a beard.
This technological problem-solving story would be right at home in the pages of Analog. The protagonist makes use of some basic science and a lot of tinkering to overcome a seemingly impossible dilemma.
It's pretty well written for this kind of thing. The author really made me feel the character's suffering and desperation. I'm not sure I believe that a future society advanced enough to send spaceships to the far reaches of the solar system wouldn't figure out a way to talk to them. Without that plot point, the story would boil down to the hero sending out an SOS and waiting for rescue.
Three stars.
Same Autumn in a Different Park, by Peter Tate
Illustration also by Gray Morrow; he seems to be the only artist doing new work for the magazine.
Remarkably, this issue actually has two new stories. This one comes from a Welsh author usually seen in New Worlds. As you might expect, it has more than a little flavor of New Wave SF to it.
In another example of limited communication, a mother and father only talk to each other via teletype. In this grim future, the authorities have decided that the way to prevent violence is to have children raised apart from their parents. For that matter, the boy and girl in the story don't have any contact with anyone except each other and the machines that watch over them.
The devices give the children dolls representing the victims of nuclear war and a sample weapon, in an attempt to warn them about the horrors of violence. It's no surprise that this idea doesn't work out very well.
Typical of the New Wave, this story isn't as clear or linear as I may have made it sound. You have to read carefully and be patient to understand it. The premise is more effective as dark satire than as plausible speculation.
There's a strange scene in which the girl turns into a bird made from a hedge, through some kind of technological miracle. This weird transformation doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the story, unless I'm missing something. It's a striking image, anyway.
This is an intriguing work, but one more to be admired than loved, I believe.
Three stars.
The Green Splotches, by T. S. Stribling
From the January 3, 1920 issue of Adventure comes this early example of interplanetary science fiction.
I'm guessing the cover artist's name is H. Tidlie, but maybe somebody with sharper eyes can make out the signature better than I can.
It was reprinted in the March 1927 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Frank R. Paul, of course.
The magazine is careful to tell me twice that Stribling went on to win a Pulitzer Prize after he lifted himself out of the pulps. For the record, it was for his 1932 work The Store, a novel about the southern United States after the time of Reconstruction.
Illustration by somebody called Gambee, about whom I have no other information.
A scientific expedition heads for a remote area of Peru. The place has a very bad reputation. So much so, in fact, that the only locals willing to guide them there are two condemned criminals who would otherwise face execution.
The first eerie sign that something strange is going on comes when they find a series of carefully articulated skeletons of various animals, including a human being. Pretty soon, one of the two criminals shoots at and chases after somebody, disappearing in the process.
The others receive a visit from a strange person, who treats them as inferior beings. You'll figure things out, from the illustration if nothing else, although the human characters never do.
Although it's a little old-fashioned (this is one of those stories where radium is pretty much a synonym for magic), this is a very readable yarn. What most distinguishes it is a subtle note of satire. Although not comic, and sometimes even horrific, there's a sardonic tone throughout. There's a running joke, of sorts, about the expedition's reporter and his self-published book about reindeer.
Three stars.
The Ivy War, by David H. Keller, M.D.
The May 1930 issue of Amazing Stories supplies this Kelleryarn.
Cover art by Leo Morey.
An aggressive, swift-moving, deadly form of ivy emerges from a pit and overwhelms a small town. Soon the seemingly intelligent plant invades larger cities, moving from place to place via water. Can anything stop it?
Illustration by Leo Morey also.
This reads like a science fiction monster movie of the last decade, with ivy taking the place of a giant bug or some such. It's even got one of those endings where Science discovers the only thing that will stop the menace. There's not much to it other than the premise. For what it is, it's adequate.
From the April 1954 issue of the magazine comes this work from one of the masters of imaginative fiction.
Cover art by Augusto Marin.
An astronaut seems to have betrayed Earth to invading aliens, making him the most hated human being in existence. A military type has the unenviable task of interviewing the traitor's wife, in an attempt to understand his actions. He learns of the man's unusual personality quirks, and of the couple's very strange marriage. With this knowledge, he tracks down the fellow when he returns to Earth and goes into hiding.
Illustration by Louis Priscilla.
I may have made this sound like a space war yarn, and there's certainly that aspect to the plot. However, the psychology of the characters is of much greater importance than the melodramatic aspects of the story. Sturgeon excels at this sort of thing, of course.
Four stars.
No Charge for Alterations, by H. L. Gold
The former editor of Galaxy offers this work from the April/May 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.
Cover art by Barye Phillips.
A doctor arrives on a colony world to study under a local physician. Medical technology exists that can change the patient not only physically, but mentally.
Interior illustrations by Henry Sharp.
He's shocked to see his mentor use the device to alter the mind of a young woman so she'll give up her dream of moving to Earth and becoming an entertainer, and instead be happy to do farm labor and raise children.
The After, in contrast to the above Before.
The new arrival decides to escape what he sees as an insane perversion of medicine and go back to Earth. The local doctor contacts the retired physician under whom he studied, in an attempt to keep the new guy from leaving. He learns something about his own time as a student.
I suppose this is supposed to be an ironic tale, maybe even humorous. I found the premise distasteful. The way in which the young woman at the start of the story is brainwashed to be a content farm wife is rationalized as being necessary to support the colony, but it gave me the creeps.
Two stars.
Signal to Noise Ratio
Well, that was a middle-of-the-road issue, rising above and sinking below average in a couple of places, but otherwise mediocre. It's notable not only for having two new stories, but for having only science fiction and no fantasy. The whole thing is like a radio station subject to bits of static now and then; worth tuning in for a while, but tempting you to turn the dial to something else. Something like a corny pun, that may amuse you for a while, but otherwise forgettable.
Like this one, from the same issue as the Sturgeon story, by somebody known only as Frosty.
Still, while I may not be able to tune in to KMPX, I can at least turn the dial to the similarly formatted KGJ. That's some comfort!
Two new science fiction novels feature protagonists who get into big trouble without understanding things until the end. They don't know who's fighting them or who's helping them, or why. One book comes from the pen (or typewriter) of a relatively new voice in SF, the other from an old pro.
F. A. Javor has published about half a dozen stories here and there, sometimes using the first name Frank instead of the initial. My fellow Galactic Journeyers have not been greatly impressed by his work. He's never scored higher than three stars, and sometimes earns two or one. That's not promising, but let's keep an open mind as we take a look at his first novel.
The book starts with the narrator running from an angry mob. He hides himself in a swamp by breathing through a reed. A flashback tells us how he got in this mess.
Our hero is a professional photographer down on his luck. He gets an assignment from a mysterious woman. It seems easy enough; just take pictures of her husband, a magician, performing his act.
Things start to go bad when it turns out that his camera has been rigged to kill the magician. As luck would have it, the assassination attempt fails. Our hero isn't out of the woods yet, however. Somebody takes a shot at him, barely missing.
On the run from the cops as well as the bad guys, the photographer tries to stay alive while figuring out what the whole thing is about. Along the way, a guy he never saw before offers him a bunch of money for information about the boy. The narrator doesn't have a clue what the fellow is talking about. It all has something to do with an incredibly valuable item.
You'll notice that the above synopsis doesn't contain any speculative elements. That's because this is a crime novel disguised as science fiction.
It takes place on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. (Hence the title.) The camera is rigged with a laser. The hero almost gets killed by a ray gun that leaves him with intermittent muscular and neurological effects. The thing that everybody is trying to get ahold of isn't the Maltese Falcon, but a matter duplicator/teleportation gizmo.
As a suspense novel, this is a decent if undistinguished example. The plot moves quickly, with plenty of twists and turns. As science fiction, it's so-so. I'll give the author a few points for considering the social, economic, and philosophical implications of the device that serves as the book's MacGuffin. Worth killing a few hours with, but forgettable.
Veteran author Jack Williamson hardly needs an introduction to SF fans. Suffice to say that he's been going strong for forty years, and shows no signs of slowing up.
His latest novel takes place in the fairly near future. There's a thriving colony on the Moon, but no mention (unless I missed it) of the rest of the solar system, and certainly not of interstellar travel.
The protagonist breaks off his engagement with his fiancée, instead choosing to take part in a long-term project on the Moon. This upsets the young woman, of course, but it also distresses the hero's family and acquaintances.
He's willing to turn his back on everyone he cares for in order to pursue a dream. A lunar facility is searching for messages from aliens. Our hero believes that contact with extraterrestrials would benefit humanity to an almost unimaginable degree. As a secondary motive, his father, who died before he was born, was killed in an accident on the Moon, and he wants to find out what happened.
His stepfather argues with the protagonist, believing that progress is inherently bad. This scene serves as the philosophical heart of the novel. The stepfather points out the many dystopian works warning against the advance of technology. He argues that an alien species would lead the human race into this kind of dark future.
The book's title appears to be an allusion to Aldous Huxley's famous novel Brave New World, and Huxley is specifically mentioned in the text. Bright New Universe is the antithesis of that work. The hero believes that progress is good, and Williamson is obviously on his side.
(An in-joke appears at this point. Among other books depicting technology as a threat, the stepfather mentions This odd old book about the perfect machines, the humanoids, smothering men with too much perfection. This is obviously a reference to Williamson's own novel The Humanoids.)
On the Moon, the protagonist meets an alluring Eurasian woman. Unfortunately, her mission is to shut down the project as a waste of resources. She is much more than she seems to be, however, and we'll see a lot of her, in different roles, throughout the book.
Complications ensue when the hero finds out what really happened to his father, and winds up accused of murder. Back on Earth, he discovers a secret organization dedicated to fighting off aliens. (This group also happens to be extremely racist. Williamson is stacking the cards a bit here, making the xenophobes completely evil. I suppose the point is to compare two different kinds of prejudice.)
It's probably not giving too much away to reveal that highly advanced aliens have, indeed, been in contact with Earth. The protagonist's struggle to find out why this fact has been kept hidden leads up to a climactic confrontation between the xenophobes and the extraterrestrials.
The author depicts the two sides in this argument for and against progress in black and white, with no shades of gray. The aliens are completely benevolent, their opponents absolutely in the wrong. Although this renders the book's theme somewhat superficial, it's definitely worth reading. In addition to an action/adventure plot, you've got some very interesting aliens, and an enjoyably optimistic view of the future.
Just to explain the odd title, in the US Doubleday published this as The Killer Thing. However, my UK edition, from Herbert Jenkins SF, changed the title slightly to The Killing Thing. I am guessing they believed it was moderately more grammatically correct, although to my ear both are just as odd phrasing. I suppose the phrase “The Killing Machine” sounds slightly better than "The Killer Robot" but if they were that concerned should they not have called it The Thing That Kills?
All clear as mud? Good, good.
Kate Wilhelm is an author I have enjoyed via her short fiction but have yet to be impressed by her novels. The Clone read as an unnecessary expansion of Thomas’ excellent short and, whilst my incredibly smart colleague Victoria Silverwolf gave it 4 stars, The Nevermore Affair’s description sounded exactly the kind of book I do not enjoy and so I am yet to pick that one up.
But will her third foray into full length works be a marked improvement?
From the beginning there is definitely a sense of strangeness and unknowability to the whole enterprise, giving you more the sense of Moorcock’s New Worlds then Lalli’s Fantastic & Amazing (which formerly published a number of her pieces). We are immediately thrown into the fight against the titular robotic “Thing”, but it is not setup as an action-filled running commentary, but instead concentrating on lush imagery and the thoughts and reactions of those encountering it.
Within the text, I cannot help but read this as an anti-war novel. By this I do not mean the absurdist comedies of recent years, such as Bill The Galactic Hero or Catch-22, but more of a traditional serious piece like Wells’ The War in the Air or All Quiet on The Western Front. Whilst people seem willing to write about the potential horrors of the atom bomb, authors since World War 2 have seemed to shy away from criticizing conventional warfare. I cannot help but think this is due to current attitudes about it. Most new war films seem to portray the whole experience as a jolly jape of fine upstanding fellows and, in spite of some protests, polls still show a majority of the American public support the current US involvement in Vietnam. I feel the general view is summed up by Ian Chesterton in Doctor Who:
Pacifism only works when everybody feels the same
Pro-Vietnam War marchers in New York last month
Therefore, it is a pleasant surprise to see a work that is so clearly pacifist. Whether it is in the clever title, the horror of the action, the horrified responses to what they are seeing or the brutal statements of the generals, e.g.:
You have to take lands with your blood, yours and theirs, mixing together in the dirt so that in the ages to come you can’t tell whose blood it is that nourishes the trees and grasses. Then you know it’s your world, Colonel, and not until then.
As a member of the Society of Friends, pacifism is part of my beliefs and understanding of the universe. Given how rare it is to see displayed in fiction (although Dickson did a very good anti-war novel a few years back), I found it warming to read.
However, more there is a significant flaw I found, one that overrides my appreciation for the whole work, that is in the style. It unfortunately engages in one of my biggest pet peeves, that of over-description. Where we will get one line of action or dialogue and then nothing but description for ages, on a loop. For example:
He turned to look about.
The carrier was on tracks that were six feet above ground level… [23 lines of description]…Their heads as well as their faces were clean shaven.
‘Nice isn’t it’ Duncan said, at Trace’s side.
He was tall as Trace, and a twenty-three, three years younger. Both were second lieutenants. His black eyes were shining with the excitement of leave after four months’ running battle with the fleet dispatched by Mellic. ‘You have any plans for the duration?’ he asked.
They had come to a large shopping area, where stores were open to the warm, air and sunshine, and good were spread out to be seen and handled.
‘No,’ Trace said. ‘You?’
It creates a sense to me of a picture book with a complicated painted image and a tiny description without any feeling of motion.
As such, in spite of the ambition, I could not really love this particular thing.
Three stars (four for effort, two for execution)
by Jason Sacks
The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker, by Otto Binder
No, this novel isn't an adaptation of the wonderful Avengers TV series starring Patrick MacNee and Diana Rigg as the eternally delightful John Steed and Emma Peel. Instead, it's an adaptation of those other Avengers, the Marvel super-hero team which features Captain America and his pals. (By the way, if you are looking for a good novelization of those British Avengers, I can recommend the book below. It's apparently written by MacNee himself!)
Written by longtime comics writer (and science fiction writer) Otto Binder, The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker had much promise. After all, Binder has written hundreds of comic book stories, including classic work on Captain Marvel as well as long runs at both National and Marvel, plus he's logged time at nearly every comic book company over the last 25 years. Beyond that, Binder has published dozens of prose novels, some under his own name and some under pseudonyms. Most of those books have been quick, fast reads.
Thus, with Binder at the helm, this book seemed like a big win for every Marvelite.
Sadly, though, Earth-Wrecker is pretty dire work. The book begins slowly and never improves from there, delivering a dull, sometimes campy work. This story likely would have been rejected by Stan Lee if it had been submitted for publication in the Avengers comic.
Earth-Wrecker begins as Captain America is leading a press conference to introduce his team of Avengers. The heroes quip and banter to the media in the most boring way (ten-foot tall Goliath complains about hitting his head, for instance) before the Avengers all agree to have a quick warmup battle for the media by playing their "Gladiator Games."
"Gladiator Games" seem like a combination of the X-Men's Danger Room and some arbitrary test of feats of strength. They also are something that never has appeared in any of the 43 issues of Avengers comics written by either Stan Lee or Roy Thomas. Mr. Binder obviously wanted the readers to get a sense of how the team bickers their way to victory, but the whole sequence falls completely flat. It's action for its own sake, without any consequences involved. Thus there's no reason for a reader to care about what they read.
And in fact, it falls even flatter as one of the Avengers suddenly realizes their teammate Iron Man isn't there with them and begins to wonder why that is the case. No member of the team thought they should try to get in contact with him or were keeping tabs on where Iron Man was. Maybe the team doesn't have telephones or telegraphs to stay in contact with each other?
Regardless, Binder's ramshackle plot has Iron Man flying over the Himalayas for some unknown reason when he's caught in a downdraft. That downdraft sucks our hero down towards Mt. Everest. Never mind that there's no explanation of how Iron Man can breathe in that thin Himalayan air, or even any good reason for the Armored Avenger to be there at all. No, the character just happens to be wandering through Asis so he can advance the novel's plot. And while at the roof of the world, Iron Man just happens to be attacked by a guy who wants to destroy the entire world.
That evil villain is called Karzz the Conqueror. He comes to our times from the 70th century. Karzzd has an extremely covoluted plan to conquer his future Earth by destroying it in the 20th century, and honestly his plans were so weird and complicated it gave me a headache to contemplate them. They verge on camp, on the sort of thing you can imagine the Riddler trying to do on the Batman TV series.
And that's on top of the fact that Marvel already have a a villain from the 70th century called Kang the Conqueror, who's been groomed for years to be the team's greatest enemy. Kang is fun, has a complicated backstory, and would have made comic readers smile. But no smiles are earned here. Nope: for no good reason, Binder decided to create an amazing facsimile of that real Avengers villain instead of having ol' blue-face appear in his novel.
Cynical me wants to say that's because Binder had never read an Avengers comic in his life, and was given a weekend to write this 120-page quickie. That complaint is certainly reflected in the book's pages. It may be why the book's plot seems to ramble and amble aimlessly, or why the Wasp is always described in the most sexist terms, or why Hawkeye is such a jerk, or why the ending seems so rushed and bland.
Oh heck, I could go on and complain more about this book, but perhaps I've said enough to persuade you to just give this one a pass. Roy Thomas and John Buscema are doing excellent comics in the monthly Avengers series (I'm very intrigued by the Red Guardian, an actual hero of sorts from the USSR!) So stick with that book and leave The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker for some other sucker to pick up at your local Kresge's.
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