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[October 4, 1963] A Story Turned Inside Out—the movie of Burning Court

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by Victoria Lucas

Now here's a word you don't see every day:  "evert." It's used in biology or surgery to mean turning something inside out.  

That's what the movie by director Julien Duvivier, “inspired by John Dickson Carr's novel, The Burning Court,” did to the book.   

No one ever accused Carr of being less than ingenious, and the movie is ingenious too,  changing the topography of the book so thoroughly that it can only be compared to peeling off a glove by starting at the arms and pulling it back over the fingers.
 
If you read my review of the book (and radio program) you might remember that I asked, "Can a detective story have elements of the supernatural?  Can a mystery also be horror fiction?" The answer, for the movie, is still "yes," but instead of being a horror tale that shadows, overtakes, and finally transforms a detective story as in the book, it is a detective story that dispels the supernatural elements and turns the whole thing back into a murder mystery ending in a police inspector's office.
 
What is a 'burning court'?   It was a secret group that met to try those accused of criminal acts; the guilty were punished by burning.  
 
The relevance of the burning court is briefly described in a scrolling text near the beginning of the film:   an ancestor of Marie d'Aubray, a main character in the book and film, was "burnt at the stake" for witchcraft and poisoning "after having had her head cut off."   After declaring that d'Aubray cursed her betrayer and his descendants, the scroll ends with "The following tells the story of that curse."
 

 
This is a truly international film made with French and Austrian actors and both French and Italian production companies, on location in Hesse, Germany, based on a novel written by an American writer who lived in England for much of his life and adopted the British style of detective novels, instead of the French style evident in the movie.  The French style of murder mysteries includes the disclosure of whodunnit early in the narrative, and that is what happens in the movie.
 
Instead of opening as the novel does in a Philadelphia commuter train, which makes succeeding elements of horror that much more unexpected, the movie is set in a stereotypical venue of horror films, a castle in the Black Forest.
 

The castle setting
 
The characters are altered to fit the new locale and also to fit the new topography by Duvivier and scenarist Charles Spaak.  Instead of Edward Stevens, the plodding neighbor of the Despard family (the Desgrezs in the movie) and husband of the less restrained Marie D'Aubray, there is the writer Michel Boissand.  D'Aubray's name and her position as the descendant (or ?) of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, a famous poisoner, does not change. Her character develops during the film (not the novel), and Nurse Corbett (Schneider in the movie) reveals her true self more and more throughout the film, again different from the book.  Whereas Stevens is an editor at a Philadelphia publishing company, Boissand is a freelance writer come to interview Desgrez, who was already dead at the beginning of the novel, there named Miles Despard. Desgrez's two nephews remain, and remain at odds, but the niece is eliminated. So is the writer Gaudan Cross, who provided the first element of horror in the book, with only a few bits of his contributions given to Boissand.  Cross also provides the second body in the book, which in the film changes sex and manner of death.
 

Marie D'Aubray
 
The changed nature of Stevens/Boissand/Cross is handy because Boissand can do exposition in the film that would be more awkward for other characters, although D'Aubray's distress, the curiosity of the elder Desgrez, and a doctor with a revoked license (Partington in the novel, Hermann in the movie) provide excuses for revealing some things about the relationship of D'Aubray's and Desgrez's ancestors.  
 
Further signs of “eversion”: although certain elements of horror were added (a ride through and setting in the Black Forest, to start with), others were subtracted.   For instance, the story of the housekeeper about seeing a woman in 17th-century costume give Desgrez his poisoned drink and then disappear through a wall is kept and made a plot element, the most horrific part of the description in the book was discarded:  "The idea was that the woman's neck might not have been completely fastened on." A mysterious silver cup and a dead cat are also cut from the narrative.
 
The changes make sense if, whereas the novel is a detective story shot through with elements of horror, the movie is a horror tale shot through with elements of a detective story.  Once the movie scene is set for horror, it is increasingly degraded into an ordinary murder mystery, while the book added elements of the supernatural. But at the very end of both the book and the movie, a little stroke of horror enters to leave a question in the mind, just as, whether removing or donning gloves, the fingertips are the last to touch the gloves.  At the end of the movie, it is a most ordinary character, a police inspector, who adds his own element of gothic horror.
 

Police Inspector with Skull
 
There are some interesting cultural features of the movie versus the novel.  One is the fact that Partington, a friend of Mark's, is clearly identified in the book as a doctor who has been driven from his practice by having performed an abortion.  In the movie Dr. Hermann (a friend of Mathias Desgrez) says that he took pity on a young pregnant girl who would have otherwise drowned herself. This narrative is clearly meant to show the doctor in a more favorable light, but it also avoids the word "abortion," the procedure, and the social/religious controversy over it.  The former doctor does requite himself better in the movie than in the book, though with a German accent and a preference for psychoanalysis.
 

Dr. Hermann  
 
And then there is Mark's brother Ogden Despard/Stephane Desgrez.  In the book Ogden is a brooding, sardonic presence who is beaten up by Mark.  In the movie Stephane (a unisex name) is a more sympathetic character; and he gives signs of being a homosexual.  A masked ball occupies most characters the night of the first murder, providing some alibis. Stephane attends the ball in a dress that he also uses with a mask to gain admittance to his uncle's unwilling presence to ask for money.   He is practically disowned by his uncle, who dislikes him, and in the movie Marc refers to "the life you've been leading" as the reason for the dislike.
 

Marc, Stephane, and Lucie  
 
A strangely modern feature of the new topography is the body of Nadja Tiller, who plays Nurse Schneider in the film.  She is an Austrian celebrity whose increased role is congruent with her stardom. As is usual with female film stars, Tiller is a beautiful young woman, and the film shows her off to an extent one doesn't expect in a horror film (unless a monster is about to eat or kidnap her).  Marc's relationship with her in the movie (not the book) provides opportunities to see her in her underwear.
 

Nurse Schneider  
 
Other bizarre features that show up in the movie but not in the novel:  the funeral for the elder Desgrez, which he has decreed should be in the great hall of his castle (actually Castle Hohenbuchau in Hessen, Germany), with an open coffin and a sextet, which apparently (the instrumentation is too full for a small group) plays a Strauss waltz for everyone to dance.  A band playing Sousa follows the funeral procession to the mausoleum, through the gate of which Mathias is later seen seated on a chair.
 

Mrs. Henderson, Marc, Stephane, and Mathias laid out
 
Stephane's impatience with Boissand's speed in front of him, while he himself drives a customer's Porsche on a narrow, winding mountain road, is a bit of strange character revelation of Boissand's odd sense of humor, D'Aubray's passivity, and Stephane's over-the-top personality.
 
The roles of both D'Aubray and Dr. Hermann are much enhanced in the movie, and much changed.  The change is typified by a scene in which Dr. Hermann points out to D'Aubray after Desgrez's death that this time (under the curse), here she is alive and Desgrez is dead instead of the other way around, when her ancestor was executed.  D'Aubray is quite upset by this, says, "Why do you hurt me?" and runs away, emphasizing the difference between the D'Aubray of the book (self-assured, mostly uninvolved, coming into her own at the end) and the timid, pale woman of the movie who is subordinate to her husband and relies on Dr. Hermann to help her.
 

A view of a courtyard in the Schloss
 
Like the book, though, the movie defies classification.  Director Duvivier is best known for "Pepe le Moko," which came out in 1937, the same year as Carr's novel.  For both of them, that year was the heyday of their work. I repeat the recommendation I have seen before and made in my review of the book: don't see the movie first because it may spoil the much more detailed and structured book for you.  I would give both the movie and the book 4 out of 5 for ingenuity and hope you find an opportunity to enjoy them.
 




 

 

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[September 25, 1963] The Old School (Margaret St. Clair's Sign of the Labrys)

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by Gideon Marcus

Just ten years after the coming of a virulent yeast-based plague, nine tenths of the world's human population and much of its wildlife is gone.  What's left of humanity survives on vast stores of canned food and spends its time burying the dead and still dying.  The disease has altered our race physically and psychologically, rendering us unable to stand each other's company for a great length of time.  Only the plum-uniformed agents of the FBY make any attempt to impose order on this shambling parody of society.

Enter Sam Sewell, an unprepossessing soul who dwells in the upper levels of a vast set of subterranean shelters designed to house the American leadership in the event of war — now, it is a decaying home to thousands, offering rude shelter and sustenance.  One day, an FBY man calls on Sam, desperate to know the whereabouts of the mysterious and beautiful Despoina, who may have the cure not just for the lingering plague but for the social maladjustment it has wrought. 

This triggers Sam's descent into labyrinthine shelter complex, each successive level containing encounters more dangerous and weird than the last: mad scientists, herds of white rats, and countless blind alleys filled with technological and human detritus.  Underneath this monument to the old world lies evidence of a world older still, one that preserves the ancient pagan teachings of Wicca first promulgated at the mosaiced halls of Minos.  In his journey through the maze, Sam finds himself not just seeking out Despoina, high priestess of the Wiccans, but also his forgotten Wiccan identity that is the key to humanity's revival.

Author Margaret St. Clair is one of the titans of SFF.  Under both her name and the pen name, Idris Seabright, she has enriched several magazines and publishing houses for two decades.  Her work is powerfully and uniquely written, never quite striking familiar chords.  Sign of the Labrys, St. Clair's latest, displays her talents in full.  She perfectly captures Sam's initial disaffection with spare, detached prose.  Later, as Sam first explores the labyrinth and suffers from an unknown fever, St. Clair conveys with dreamlike prose the protagonist's loosed hold on reality.  The settings the author created, both the moribund world above ground and the fascinating den of mysteries beneath, are vividly drawn.

But about halfway through, the car begins to wobble on its rails.  The skein that holds the book together is woven from Wicca, a modern-day myth cobbled in the last decade from various sources by Englishman, Gerald Gardner.  It features nature worship, a god and goddess pair, and it claims the ill-fated witches of the 17th century as earlier practitioners.  In Labrys, Wicca's adherents gain all sorts of superpowers, from clairvoyance to invisibility.  I don't know if St. Clair personally buys into this old/new religion, but given Wicca's recent surge in popularity, I wouldn't be surprised if Labrys isn't intended as a kind of introduction to the creed. 

Some may find the mythology at the heart of Labrys refreshing and delightful, quite different from the wells fantasy generally draws from.  I found it a distraction, particularly by the end.  After all, this book was billed as science fiction, and the first half of it gives no indication that it is anything but.  The latter half is so larded with occult magic as well as superscience like anti-gravity and matter transmission that it becomes a comic book.  A very well-written comic book.

And to be fair, one is told what they're going to get right on the back of the novel:

Wow.

Now, that's some awfully sexist language, and it has caused justified outrage.  On the other hand, I can almost understand (if not excuse) its provenance.  Sign of the Labrys is a weird, woo-woo book, and whomever wrote the blurb was clearly trying to make lemonade from the lemons.  I haven't seen this ridiculous tack used to advertise any of the other woman-penned stories this year, so I feel safe in concluding that this cover is (thankfully) not typical.

Copy-writing blunders aside, I did enjoy this book from cover to cover.  As a showcase of St. Clair's ability to turn a compelling phrase, Sign of the Labrys is as good as any of her works.  Had I known what I was getting into, I might well have been less off-put by the book's ultimate direction.  Maybe.  The fact remains that the novel isn't science fiction, despite its trappings and its billing.  Moreover, any book that suggests that humanity is doomed, and that only one cult has the key to its salvation, is going to turn me off — whether it be Sign of the Labrys, Dianetics, or the New Testament.

Three and a half stars.

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[September 3, 1963] An unspoken Bond (Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty’s Secret Service)

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By Ashley R. Pollard

Last month I talked about spies. Spies that were cool, and those who betrayed their country. With the Profumo affair still rattling around the news, I opined that spies and spying would sweep into the public consciousness. Scandals have a habit of doing that.

So, please excuse me, while I take the time to talk about another spy-centric non-SF book for this month's episode on Galactic Journey.

With the success of last year's film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Dr. No., I continue to predict that the next James Bond film, From Russia With Love, which is coming this October, will further raise the public's interest in the heady delights of techno-thrillers featuring spies. So far all I’ve seen are a couple of stills from the set, so it’s hard to make any judgment on the adaptation of the story by the filmmakers.

But until the film arrives on the big screen we have a new Bond novel to sate our appetites.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the tenth James Bond novel, a sequel to the previous novel (once removed), Thunderball. I was lucky to get hold of a copy of OHMSS when it came out at the beginning of April, because both the first and second print runs, totaling over 60,000 copies, sold out in the first month. This should give readers some insight into how popular James Bond has become in Britain.

Since OHMSS is a sequel to Thunderball, a quick reprise of the former novel's plot is in order.

Thunderball centred on the theft of two atomic bombs stolen by a shadowy organization called SPECTRE: SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.  SPECTRE is the replacement for SMERSH, MI-6's nemesis organization that appears in the earlier novels. These villains were originally loosely based on the real life Soviet counterintelligence organization SMERSH.

The name is a Russian portmanteau, created by Stalin from the words SMERt and SHpionam. Translated it means "Death to Spies."

Why the change? My understanding is that the film producers and Fleming decided to make the villains apolitical. In an interview Fleming said that he wanted to show that the cold war had thawed and changed the name to reflect this.

This criminal organization is led by the nefarious villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who returns in OHMSS to cause our hero more pain and suffering. This time round Fleming fleshes out his hero with some fascinating revelations about Bond's character. For example, he discloses that Bond visits the grave of Vesper Lynd every year.  Lynd was a character that appeared in Fleming's first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, where she kills herself rather than betray Bond.

James Bond's relationship with women also breaks new ground, but I don't want to spoil the plot by giving anything away. All I'll say is that OHMSS deals with grief and loss. And most affecting it is too.

As is usual in an Ian Fleming novel, real places are used to add verisimilitude to the narrative, though some of the names are changed. In this case, the description of Piz Gloria makes clear that it is based on the Nazi German eugenic research facility Schloss Mittersill.

Its inclusion as a setting for the plot therefore adds a certain emotional darkness to the story. It's a chilling foreshadowing of the reveal about the purpose of the centre. We later discover that the villain is brainwashing young women he's treating for food allergies. Blofield's plan is to send them home to Britain where they will release a bioweapon to destroy our crops.

Cue loud cackling.

OK. That was probably a tad unfair of me, but the plan strained my credulity to its limits. James Bond stories are not subtle. However, OHMSS is a lot of fun to read. Once I started I had to keep turning the pages to find out what happened next. OHMSS demonstrates Fleming's increasingly assured touch and storytelling confidence.

I will freely admit that the SF trappings are not strongly in evidence in this novel. However, the machinations of the plot are driven by technological developments driven by science. Had this novel been written before the war, it would have been derided for its fanciful SF trappings. Ideas that SF fans take as a given, like rockets, robots, and ray-guns, are now taken for granted.

All right, perhaps not ray-guns, but the terms that used to mark out the genre are now increasingly appearing in everyday usage. In a few short years, SF ideas have moved from the pages of the Pulps and post-war magazines into everyday life. Therefore, in the wake of the success of Ian Fleming's "Bond", what I predict we will see is more techno-thrillers, spy stories with futuristic trappings.

After all, why should Ian Fleming have all the fun?


The Jamaica home where Fleming wrote OHMSS during the filming of Dr. No

[Want to talk to the Journey crew and fellow fans in real-time?  Come join us at Portal 55! (Ed.)]

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[August 18, 1963] The Grass is Redder in the Future (Yefremov's Andromeda: A Space Age Tale)

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[The Journey always delights at the opportunity to broaden its coverage of current science fiction.  So you can imagine how blessed we felt when we discovered a stunning new talent fresh from the city of Leningrad.  We are certain you will enjoy what we hope will be the first of many articles from 'Rita…]


by Margarita Mospanova

A journey of a thousand books begins with a single page, a single sentence, a single word. And happy is the reader that can travel more than one language in his lifetime. Often, your journey happens without you taking a single step, but sometimes it can lead you halfway around the world, a single suitcase and a loudly hammering heart in tow.

The Iron Curtain may not be a physical thing but it is a perfectly tangible one nevertheless. Especially when you’ve lived your whole life on the Soviet soil and the thin trickle of Western literature could hardly slake your bookish thirst for science fiction and fantasy.

So, dear readers, you can imagine my joy when I first stepped off the ship in an American harbor and felt my literal literary horizon expanding before my eyes. A friend of a friend of a friend, that so courteously provided me with lodgings while I tried to get my wits around me and carve myself a piece of Western life, had only been too happy to encourage me.

I have to confess that in beginning I practically devoured the bookshops, without much care to what I read as long as it was halfway interesting. But that initial fever has long since faded and, several new favorite books richer, I can now take a breath and approach the shelves at a more sedate pace.

And in a corner of a small bookshop of which I have a particular fondness, I encountered several copies of this very magazine that you’re holding in your hands right now. Delighted, I read them almost in one sitting and wrote to the editor to express my appreciation. A short and exciting exchange later, I was asked to share my thoughts on the state of Soviet science fiction.

Oh my, I thought. That would be easy, I thought. There are so many to choose from, I thought.

Well, dear readers, I’m very unhappy so say that reality does so like to burn and salt the bridge before you can even step on it. Because while Soviet science fiction and fantasy books are indeed many, the number of them translated into English is… far from desirable.

Still, Lady Fortuna was on my side. The same friend that welcomed me to America has managed to procure a translated edition of Andromeda: A Space Age Tale by Ivan Yefremov, a book I finished reading just before my rather unplanned one way journey to the west.

Almost a year ago, the Journey covered a collection of short stories by Soviet authors, featuring The Heart of the Serpent also by Ivan Yefremov. Both stories belong to the same universe, and while the timing is a bit tricky, Andromeda seems to be set slightly earlier. The novel was first published in 1957 and later translated into English in 1959 by George Hanna and printed by Moscow’s Foreign Language Publishing House. And despite my expectations, the translation itself is done fairly close to the original text, retaining its slightly cumbersome style.

The story, while not quite action driven, still has a few tense moments that might have you gripping the pages in excitement. But overall the author focuses more on the social and cultural sides of his characters’ lives, preferring to use the future Communist utopia as a background for various social and philosophical issues.

It has been several millennia since our time and the world has changed. Earth has joined the Great Circle, a collection of sentient races capable of space travel and communication, but more often than not, not yet advanced enough to meet their neighbours face to face. The spaceship travel takes centuries and faster than light speeds are still out of the scientists’ grasp.

One of the plot lines follows the crew of a spaceship sent to investigate another planet after it goes into complete and sudden radio silence. On the way back home they run out of fuel and have to make an emergency landing on a planet shrouded in heavy darkness.

I will refrain from spoiling their struggle for survival, but will say that for me that part of the novel is easily the most engaging. But that is most likely my fascination with horror stories rearing its misshapen head.

The second plot line is centered around the Director of the Outer Stations of the Great Circle (a mouthful, that’s for sure) and his life after he leaves the post to his successor and struggles to find a new job for himself. His deep and enduring love for space makes the search much more difficult than it might seem at the first glance.

The cast of principle characters also includes a historian that is also an archaeologist, a psychiatrist, a scientist, and a biologist.


In the preface the author warns the reader that the novel is full to the brim with science terms, ideas, and details. And, boy, he wasn’t kidding. If anything, he understated the technical aspects of the book. The characters spend almost half of the book going on various science-themed tangents or engaging in discussions of philosophy, sociology, or how the grass was definitely not greener back in our times.

Still, the world Yefremov built is wonderfully bright and optimistic. Despite my… differences with the regime of my home, Andromeda’s future is one I would be happy to live in.

The novel’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness, in my opinion, is its extreme attention to details. It is easy to get buried under all the little things Yefremov includes to paint the future, but the same small brush strokes eventually form a rich and fascinating world, that I, for one, would grab a chance to explore.

And I advise you to do the same. Andromeda is a book that might leave you with mixed feelings, but it will not let you remain unaffected. It challenges you to think and evaluate the world we live in today, draw your own conclusions, and imagine what your own utopian future might look like.

I give Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale four iron stars out of five.

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[August 10, 1963] The Future in a Divided Land, Part 3 (An Overview of Science Fiction in East and West Germany)

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by Cora Buhlert

In the last two entries in this series, I gave you an extensive overview of West German science fiction. Now let's take a look across the iron curtain at what is going on in East Germany. For while the inner German border may be nigh insurmountable for human beings, mail does pass through. A lot of us have family in the East, including myself, and are in regular contact with them via letters and parcels. Parcels from West to East Germany usually contain coffee, nylons, soap, canned pineapple and all sorts of other consumer goods that are hard to come by in Communist East Germany.

Unfortunately, we cannot send books and magazines, cause they will probably be seized at the border for fear of "dangerous" ideas spreading. East Germans, on the other hand, are free to send books and magazines to relatives and friends in the West. And since my love for reading in general and for "space books" in particular is well known to my aunts in East Germany, the occasional science fiction novel from beyond the iron curtain has found its way into my hands.

The collaborations of authors Lothar Weise and Kurt Herwarth Ball mostly seem to be fairly straightforward science fiction adventures aimed at a younger audience. Eberhardt del'Antonio's 1959 novel Titanus is set in a utopian Socialist future where humanity is united and war has been abolished. A spaceship with a multinational crew, commanded by a Russian, of course, leaves for a distant planet, only to realise that the aliens are in the middle of preparing for a devastating attack against their neighbours.

Our heroic space travellers proceed to warn the intended targets only to learn that the aliens have a defence system in place that will destroy the attackers, for war is bad. I certainly can't argue with that sentiment, though the novel itself is rather wooden and unimaginative.

Als die Götter starben (When the gods died) by Günther Krupkat, which only appeared this year, is a variation on the ancient astronaut concept. An alien spaceship is found on the moon and records indicate that the aliens first landed on Earth in Mesopotamia millennia ago. It's not exactly an original idea, but it is certainly well told.

The ancient astronaut idea certainly seems to be popular in East Germany, for another science fiction novel published this year, Der Blaue Planet (The Blue Planet) by Brazilian born author Carlos Rasch, used the same concept. Two years ago, Carlos Rasch also published Asteroidenjäger (Asteroid hunters), an enjoyable romp featuring a spaceship with a multinational crew that is supposed to clear the asteroid belt, when the ship receives mysterious signals that might be evidence of alien life or might be something else.

What makes Asteroidenjäger remarkable is that there is an interracial romance on board between a white German doctor and a black African mathematician. Somehow, I don't see something like this happening in American science fiction anytime soon.  

However, the most exciting of those voice from beyond the iron curtain is not German at all, but a Polish writer, Stanislaw Lem, whose work I encountered via East German translations. I particularly enjoy Lem's humorous stories about the adventures of a space traveller named Ijon Tichy, which have been collected as Die Sterntagebücher des Raumfahrers Ijon Tichy (The Star Diaries of the Spaceman Ijon Tichy).

Lem's more serious works include the novels Eden with its fascinating portrayal of a truly alien society, Planet des Todes (Planet of Death), which was even filmed in 1960, and the generation ship story Gast im Weltraum (Guest in Space), which is currently being filmed in Czechoslovakia.

When comparing East and West German science fiction, the most striking thing is that in spite of all the superficial differences, the underlying themes and concerns are remarkably similar. Of course, West German science fiction tends to be set in capitalist futures, which somehow have managed to abolish all the negative side effects of unfettered capitalism, while East German and East European science fiction tends to be set in utopian Socialist futures, which have somehow managed to abolish all the negative side effects of real existing Communism.

However, it is notable that both East and West German science fiction tends to feature spaceships with multinational and multiracial crews, that it is set in futures where the world and humanity are united as one, where war and strife are but a distant memory. Whether it is Perry Rhodan single-handedly ending the Cold War and uniting humanity or Stanislaw Lem's and Eberhard del'Antonio's space travellers horrified by the relics of past wars they encounter in outer space, German (and Polish) science fiction clearly expresses the desire for peace and unity, a desire that is only too understandable in our divided country.

And that's it for now. In a future article, I will take a look at science fiction film in East and West Germany, where we are currently seeing some very exciting developments.

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[August 4, 1963] Little Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky: Carr's The Burning Court

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by Victoria Lucas

Those who think that the title of The Burning Court refers to a physical court in the sense of a courtyard or an ordinary courtroom haven't read the book.  In fact, there is no particular enclosed space that can be more than peripheral to it, with the exceptions of a train car, a bedroom and a crypt.

It's really a quite interesting tale just from the point of view of the controversy surrounding it.  Can a detective story have elements of the supernatural?  Can a mystery also be horror fiction?  Or, as one of the main characters opines,

"Ghosts?  No; I doubt it very much.  We've managed to struggle along for a very long time without producing any ghosts.  We've been too cursed respectable.  You can't imagine a respectable ghost; it may be a credit to the family, but it's an insult to guests."

The sort of society pictured in this odd short novel/long short story is just exactly one that is based on respectability, things that are "a credit to the family," and not insulting guests (at least not to their faces).

But what kind of book is it?  I'm not going to put it in a little box.  Or even a big one, no matter whether they're made of ticky-tacky or marble.  Malvina Reynolds may be referring to look-alike townhouses (with a hint of hasty construction) in Daly City, California, but there are boxes in the head as well, and I don't want to call them into service.  They're flimsy and inadequate.

I first heard of this book when a friend sent me a tape of the radio program based on it.  My friend is an old-time-radio buff and collects this sort of thing.  This one intrigued him, because he couldn't figure out what it is.  Knowing that I'm a mystery fan, he sent it to me.  When I sent it back I could not ease his perplexity, because I don't know in what genre it should belong, and I really don't want to confine this work to any of those little boxes in peoples' heads .

The mystery is first presented as a puzzle: a series of apparently unrelated events that must fit together somehow but don't make sense, as protagonist Edward Stevens sees it.  In fact, there is some misdirection as Stevens is introduced as a man who has had a lot to do with courtyards.  The first puzzling clues are the nervousness of the head of the editorial department in which Stevens is employed in Philadelphia, a photograph, and Stevens's wife's plea that he not "pay any attention" to their neighbor who wants to see him.

Well into the first chapter (entitled "Indictment"), I had the impression that a gothic novel had been set down in a 20th-century railroad smoking car, and had followed Stevens home.

It is not until some pages later that we are given a single hint of the nature of the "court" in the title.  I think I cannot tell you more about that without spoiling the unfolding of the story as well as the ending.  There are milestones as each puzzle piece fits into another, and the picture begins to hazily take shape, which is the main story arc.

That is the mystery part.  The horror part proceeds in jerks as horror movies do.  There is a scare, then a lull and life returns to normal for awhile, then another scare, and each heart-racing event ratchets up the levels of suspicion, fear, uncertainty, doubt of one's own perceptions, and anxiety, with suspense running through all.

Braiding the two threads of this story together are the ordinary trappings of life in upper-middle-class (or lower-upper-class) 1937 America.  Yes, the book is that old.  However, a movie was made based on it last year by a European collaborative group (France and Italy, among others, with French-speaking actors).  Now that I've read the book I'm hoping that the movie (due in September in New York City) will get here soon to my neighborhood foreign-movie theater and I can see the latest incarnation of the story after catching it in radio and printed form.

After reading the book I can say that the radio program did violence to it.  In shortening it to a half-hour format the script writers deleted and did a write-around of much of the explication, conflated some of the major characters, and cut out other characters and subplots, including a second murder!  The major cut, however, was done when they completely changed the ending.  The ending, mind you, is the part of the book to which most critics object the most.  Not only is it a denial and dismissal of the detective-novel solution of the previous chapters ("It's the easiest way out.  We're all looking for easy ways, aren't we?").  It is the most macabre and supernatural bit of the book–which is probably why the writers bypassed it with a bit of voiceover ghostliness that reminds me of nothing so much as the old "The Shadow" programs I used to listen to when I was a child.

I recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind suspense, jolts of unease, gothic-novel horrors, and mystery-like puzzles, and who does like surprises, piquant phrasing, and entertaining writing.  (I only have one nit-picking complaint: Carr uses "antimacassar" for "doily"–antimacassars are for seat backs, not tables–and compounds the error by misusing the word more than once.  I love words, you see, and it's sort of like seeing an animal abused to observe a misuse.  I find myself wincing.)

If the movie that came out last year comes to town I'll review it in light of the radio program and the book — since everyone says that one should read the book before seeing the movie.

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[August 2, 1963] Sinister Geometry (Daniel F. Galouye's Lords of the Psychon)

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by Rosemary Benton

Whenever we read the newspaper, listen to the radio or watch Walter Cronkite's trustworthy complexion on CBS, we are looking for answers to some very basic but very important questions that will help us break down and normalize that which we don't understand. In much of science fiction, that which we don't understand comes hurtling at us because some dramatic change and the utterly unearthly have collided. In equal parts fear and curiosity the characters react, but ultimately and almost unerringly, logical thinking and scientific reasoning are then able to parse out what the characters should do in reply.

But what if the shift in humanity's daily life is beyond explanation, bordering on paranormal? And what if the alien force that is bringing about that change is so far removed from known biology that it appears extra-dimensional? Daniel F. Galouye's new book, Lords of the Psychon, takes the reader to that terrifying reality with an invader that is unnervingly simple – a large, floating, metallic sphere – and their mission which can be surmised as absorbing compatible human minds and letting the rest die in the grip of mind shredding madness.

As the last aging remnants of humanity squeak out an agrarian living in sporadic villages, the remaining ranks of the US military are trying everything to disrupt the geometric cities made of “pink stuff" that are growing like tumors all over the Earth. There is little to nothing known about the aliens save for odd ritualistic behavior, namely The Selection, The Chase and Horror Day.

The free moving agents of these alien city structures, fittingly named Spheres, are regarded with terror. Not only will they defend themselves with bolt of electricity if intercepted, but they are seen as the harbingers of death. Seemingly at random, a person will be selected by a Sphere for absorption. The Sphere will proceed to hover slowly after them until it has driven them to exhaustion or death. What happens once the victim passes through the floating orb and reemerges a corpse is unknown. If the Spheres, the expanding cities, and the annual occurrence of Horror Day can not be stopped then humanity will be completely hunted down or driven mad within a few decades. But how do you fight an enemy that seems to be capable of warping the very fabric of reality?

Like H. P. Lovecraft, Galouye's signature style for science fiction leans heavily on pitting humans against a threat that can weaponize the evolutionarily lacking perceptions of humanity. In his previous novel Dark Universe (1961), it is reasoned that an underground-dwelling humanity would have no use for sight and instead perfect their sense of smell, touch and hearing to compensate for the loss of sight. Predators, both animal and competing branches of humanity with evolutionarily adventitious infrared perception, could gain an upper hand on distracted, sightless humans. But a human who had plenty of experience listening, feeling and tasting the air of the world around them could adapt to better survive.

In both Lords of the Psychon, as well as the short story that spawned it, The City of Force (Galaxy, 1959), a humanity that hasn't the innate mindset and will to manipulate the structural substance called “pink stuff" or “psychon" is powerless to stop an entity that is so far evolved beyond physical form that it can traverse space and dimensions. It is via self administered meditation and strict perception training that this difficult task can be achieved, and while not everyone who manipulates the psychon does so exceptionally well, their alternative option is too dire to leave much of a choice. 

This story progression through learning and self education is an aspect of Lords of the Psychon that is very true to Galouye's style. In any of his writing Galouye does not initially arm his characters with much innate experience and knowledge. In the very first chapter of Lords of the Psychon we follow Jeff Maddox and his team into an alien “City of Force" on a self described suicide run to desperately try and do something to damage the aliens. The language and brevity of sentence structure only serves to drive home the desperation of the situation and how little they know compared to the knowledge they will need to again:

“On the Eve of Horror Day, 1993, Geoffrey Maddox, Captain, USA, lead a suicide detail from Headquarters, Third Army."

Some authors would have their protagonists win the day through cleverness, observation, and scientific evidence, and to be sure Jeff Maddox and the young lady, Eddie, do employ this formula for success against their alien invader. But it is due to not just cleverness, but an unmatched, almost panicked dash to save the human species that allows Galouye's protagonists to methodically gather information so that they may teach themselves how to stave off extinction. Galouye's message is clear – adapt or perish.

His progress in emotionally manipulating his readers is far reaching, even in his characterization. Jess Maddox makes a much more likable, empathetic and individualized protagonist over Jared from Dark Universe. Likewise, Eddie is a much more logic-driven, quirky but intense personality than Jared's betrothed, Della. But it is that specific flavor of almost-defeat and near panic that Daniel F. Galouye is cultivating which is making his work consistently worth reading. It thrums beneath Lords of the Psychon and I hope to see it again in his next book. As an example of the author's improvement as a writer, Lords of the Psychon shows a bright future for Galouye, especially if he keeps up with the speed at which he is currently writing.

Four and a half stars.

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[July 21, 1963] Ice Cold Spies

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[Did you meet us at Comic Con?  Read this to see what we’re all about!]


By Ashley R. Pollard

I like to think I keep my finger on the pulse of society. For instance, despite being in my advanced youth, I've kept up on the popular music trends.

A new four piece beat combo calling themselves The Beatles, broke out onto the music scene late last year, and they've been making musical waves ever since. Their latest song, From Me To You, reached number one on the BBCs official singles chart in May.

A first for this new band, which seems to be a sign that they'll have legs. Whether they're significant in the greater scheme of things is hard for me to assess. If time travel were possible, I could no doubt confidently answer that question.

In real life, The Beatles are a reflection of the way society is changing and that previous standards of what's considered moral are being challenged. Now, just for a moment, imagine the members of this band as protagonists in a fiction novel. Their music might well be the center of a deliberate plot to undermine society and loosen its moral underpinnings.

It makes for an interesting thriller; however, I believe the real challenge will come not from those who seek to entertain, but from those who hold Western values in contempt.

It came as a shock when Kim Philby was revealed to be the third man of the notorious Burgess and Maclean spy ring, the group that passed state secrets from the UK to the USSR throughout World War 2 and into the early 1950s.

How many more spies are yet to be uncovered?  I suspect at least a couple more.  Hence the theme of spies for this month's column.

From the post war peace we have seen rumbles of cloak and dagger espionage develop into scandals that are rocking the assumptions of British society. Which is probably why I prefer reading science fiction. It feeds my imagination, rather than destroying my faith in my fellow human beings.

The latest revelations that began in March, of what's being called the Profumo affair, all center around a young woman called Christine Keeler. Her relationship with Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet naval attaché, and John, 5th Baron Profumo lie at the center of the scandal.

As a result, Profumo resigned from his post as the Secretary of State for War over allegations of the impropriety being a risk to national security. Then as I said, at the beginning of July, Kim Philby was revealed to be a Soviet spy.

The web of deceit that surrounds these events is unbelievable, as in you couldn't make this up in a story and have the reader believe you. It seems to me to that the world has become a much more complicated place to be alive in.

I marvel at how quickly SF concepts have gone mainstream. With so many SF ideas transitioning into mainstream fiction, one of the current trends I see is the fascination with the Cold War and spies. Who as I've alluded to earlier, are it seems to be found everywhere.

The result is the creation of a new genre that blend SF with contemporary thriller to create what is being called a "techno-thriller." A techno-thriller will use many of the ideas that were once purely science fictional, but set them within a conventional world that's recognizable as our own.

A new novel by Allister MacLean called Ice Station Zebra has caught the public's imagination. Whether this is as a result of all the stories of spies in the news I don't know. MacLean is well known as a writer of action-adventure stories, but this new novel sees him move into a new genre.

Maclean is not the first author to do so. Fellow Scottish writer Ian Stuart wrote a similar techno-thriller, which came out last year called, The Satan Bug.

Having read both books, I can say they share a lot stylistically. One would almost think that the authors know or corresponded with each other while they were writing their books.

Both pile on exciting incidents one after the other. Both have at their core a premise that would've been seen twenty-years ago as unbelievable science fictional nonsense. In The Satan Bug it's germ warfare and spies. In Ice Station Zebra it's reconnaissance footage from a space satellite, and spies.

Apart from the SF trappings ofThe Satan Bug, the story itself is a heady mix of action leading to a heist, and in and of itself not very science fictional. Ice Station Zebra on the other hand, manages to not only exploit its SF trappings, but do what all memorable SF stories do – open the reader's mind to the effects of technological change.

On this basis, I'd say MacLean is ahead of Stuart in exploiting what the new genre has to offer. For example, all of the key events in Ice Station Zebra have real world analogues:

The United States Navy's use of nuclear power submarines and their ability to travel under the Polar ice, and in particular the voyage under the ice by USS Skate to visit Ice Station Alpha in 1958.

The United States loss of the Corona satellite, Discoverer II in 1959, when it landed in neutral Spitzbergen. Possibly retrieved by the Soviet agents. Who knows?

Then there's Project Coldfeet, which saw American agents parachuting from a B17 Flying Fortress onto an abandoned Soviet ice station. And finally, MacLean mentions the atomic powered ice-breaker Lenin too. The first nuclear powered surface ship, and civilian vessel to see service.

MacLean uses these technological advances to weave a convincing picture of a world changing from the effects of technology and science. We can do things today that were once purely in the realm. of SF. Whether we like it or not, a lot of SF themes are going to become fodder for mainstream authors.

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that techno-thrillers involving SF ideas and spies are going to become a big thing. We saw a hint of it in the film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Dr. No. I predict that the next James Bond film, From Russia With Love, coming this October, will further raise the public's interest in the melange of SF, thrillers, and spies.

[P.S.  Did you take our super short survey yet?  There could be free beer/coffee in it for you!]

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[July 16, 1963] New old hand (Harlan Ellison's Ellison Wonderland)

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[A printing error in the first few paragraphs of this article led to some embarrassing apparent mis-statements as to who Mr. Ellison's English professor was.  If you read this article before 4:30PM Pacific Time, I recommend trying again!]


by Gideon Marcus

Until last month, I'd hardly known of Harlan Ellison.  Oh sure, his outsized personality and less-sized stature made him (in)famous in the fan community in the early '50s, but when he went pro in a big way around 1956, he mostly got published in SF mags I didn't read.  So I was delighted at the opportunity to catch up on what I'd missed with his latest book, a collection of science fiction work from his first eight years, amusingly titled Ellison Wonderland.


(at Worldcon in '55 [courtesy of Fanac])

This is what I know about the fellow: He went to Ohio State for a few semesters, where taught English professor Doris Pitkin Buck, one of the few members of academia who has managed to also have a thriving career in our genre (under her own name, at least).  Unfortunately, the English professor he got was a Robert Shedd, who told Harlan that he had no talent for writing. 

So Harlan dropped out of school and moved to New York in '55 to become a writer (I have a similar story — that's how I became a writer).  NYC adopted him, and he adopted it, and the two are now inextricably linked.  Over the next few years, he sold a raft of stories and not just to the SF mags.  In fact, the bulk of his work went into the mainstream and under-the-counter venues. 

He served in the Army for one hitch, came back, kept writing, and last year, he moved to Los Angeles to make it in Hollywood.  I understand Charles Beaumont helped get him on his feet by connecting him with the TV folks he knew. 

Ellison reminds me a bit of Robert Sheckley.  Both were in the military, both are Jewish, both were and are no longer married.  Their format of choice is the short story, often cynically humorous.  But Ellison's got more of a literary touch to his stuff, more affinity for the macabre.  It'll stand him in good stead as a screenplay composer, I think.

Anyway, his first collection is quite good, particularly in the latter half (the stories are not arranged chronologically, so I suspect he saved his better stuff for last).  You may have seen his stories when they were first published, but it's worth picking up the book for the introductions.  Here's what there is:

Commuter's Problem
from Fantastic Universe, June 1957

The longest piece deals with a salary man who takes the wrong train during his morning commute — and ends up across the galaxy.  A fair flight of fancy, but it never got in the groove for me.  Three stars.

Do-It-Yourself
from Rogue, February 1961

It seems you can get a kit for anything these days, including murder.  See all the ways Madge Rubichek tries to rid herself of her deteriorating husband.  Dark and sly, it's perhaps the Sheckleyist of the stories.  Four stars.

The Silver Corridor
from Infinity, October 1956

Dueling returns in the future, enabled by a fantastic machine that allows two opponents to fight in an unlimited variety of virtual settings.  But in a pure test of mental will, best make sure your convictions are strong!  A neat story, a bit like The Dueling Machine in a recent Analog — but Ellison does it better.  Four stars.

All the Sounds of Fear
from The Saint Detective Magazine, July 1962

The latest story published by Ellison (at least, at the time of the book's compilation) is a mature piece about an actor who really gets into his role.  Such is the danger of being a schizoid — latch onto the wrong model, and you're in for a world of pain.  Four stars.

Gnomebody
from Amazing Stories, October 1956

High school slacker makes a deal with a gnome, but his request is taken a bit too literally.  This is the most trivial piece in the collection, which fits given its early date of creation.  Three stars, barely.

The Sky Is Burning
from IF Science Fiction, August 1958

Why did the aliens fling themselves against our planet, committing suicide by immolation like so many cosmic lemmings?  And what terrible meaning does this have for humanity?  A bit overdone for my tastes — it just doesn't mean as much as it means to.  Three stars.

Mealtime
from Space Travel, September 1958

A trio of spacemen, representing all that is distasteful about our planet, are eaten by a sentient planet.  Indigestion results.  Three stars.

The Very Last Day of a Good Woman
from Rogue, November 1958

Arthur Fullbright is cursed with clairvoyance on the eve of the Earth's destruction.  Worse yet, he's never gotten laid.  That's a set-up for a wacky, slight piece.  This isn't either of those.  Five stars.


(also from Worldcon '55 [courtesy of Fanac])

Battlefield
from Space Travel, November 1958

Some people are career military.  That's all well and good, but what happens when war becomes just another profession, its soldiers a bunch of apathetic commuters doing pitched battle nine-to-five on the Moon (where civilians don't have to see or endure any of that messy killing business)?  If ever there was an argument for conflict to be well televised, this is it.  Three stars.

Deal from the Bottom (written with Joe L. Hensley)
from Rogue, January 1960

A stupid man makes an even dumber deal with the Devil…or at least, one of his understudies.  Cute.  Three stars.

The Wind Beyond the Mountains
from Amazing Stories, January 1957

Harlan Ellison found that, despite having schlepped from one end of the country to the other in his early life, New York was the town for him.  So strongly did he come to this conclusion that he wondered how he survived before he got there…and how he might fare upon having to leave.  Some can handle the disruption.  Others may find it fatal.  This moving story, about a band of interstellar explorers and the aliens they discover, explores that pain of dislocation.  Four stars.

The Forces That Crush
from Amazing Stories, December 1958

Some nebishes amount to too little to be noticed by the world.  One fellow, name of Winsocki, disappears from the ken of humanity altogether, to his chagrin.  I don't know why, but I love this story.  Five stars.

Nothing for My Noon Meal
from Nebula Science Fiction, September 1958

A spacewrecked astronaut finds salvation but tragic disfigurement upon encountering the fluhs, one of the few lifeforms on a barren planet.  But is the change such a curse?  Another story with staying power.  Five stars.

Hadj
from Science Fiction Adventures, December 1956

It's easy to think our species is pretty hot stuff, particularly once we develop space travel and all that jazz.  But it's entirely possible that the reaction we get from the galactic citizenry will be some variant of (as my nephew is fond of saying) "Siss on you, pister — you ain't so muckin' fuch."  Cute, but clearly an early story.  Three stars.

Rain, Rain, Go Away
from Science-Fantasy, December 1956

The third story Ellison ever wrote, it was inspired by the torrential rain storm that accompanied the first week of his arrival in New York.  It seems you can wish for the rain to leave…but it's a loan, not a gift.  Too fantastic for American magazines, it was eventually published across The Pond.  Three stars.

In Lonely Lands
from Fantastic Universe, January 1959

Last up, appropriately, is the story of a dying man and the alien who joins him for his final years as manservant and companion.  It's a lovely, haunting piece.  Four stars.


(a recent pic, from Westercon, with Poul Anderson [courtesy of Fanac])

There you have it — not a clunker in Ellison's first collection, and some instant classics, to boot.  Based on these and the few works of his I've managed to catch elsewhere, I think it's safe to conclude that here is a talent of the first rank, one who will go far no matter which coast he ends up on. 

Buy his book!

[P.S.  Did you take our super short survey yet?  There could be free beer/coffee in it for you!]

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[July 8, 1963] The Future in a Divided Land, Part 2 (An Overview of Science Fiction in East and West Germany)

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by Cora Buhlert

I'm back to continue my overview of (West) German science fiction begun last month. Today, I'll talk about Perry Rhodan, Germany's most successful science fiction series. The brainchild of writers Clark Dalton a.k.a. Walter Ernsting and K.H. Scheer, the "Heftroman" series Perry Rhodan started two years ago, in September 1961, and will reach its landmark 100th issue in a couple of weeks.

"Unternehmen Stardust", the first issue of Perry Rhodan, begins in the not so far off future of 1971. International tensions are running high and the Western Bloc, the somewhat diminished Eastern Bloc and the rising Asian Federation are at each other's throats. In this climate, the spaceship Stardust under the command of Major Perry Rhodan of the US Space Force embarks on humanity's first trip to the moon. However, Rhodan and his crew find more than they bargained for when they come across an alien spaceship that crashed on the moon months before. Aboard the spaceship, Perry Rhodan and fellow crewmember Reginald Bull encounter the Arkonoids, a group of humanoid aliens led by the striking Thora de Zoltral and the scientist Crest de Zoltral. The Arkonoids were on a mission to locate the legendary planet of eternal life in order to heal the cancer-stricken Crest, when their ship crashed.

Thora is initially suspicious about the humans and their motives, though she is also fascinated by Perry Rhodan. Crest is more open towards the Earthmen and quickly strikes up a friendship with Rhodan, who offers to take him back to Earth for treatment (apparently, cancer treatment will make great advances in the eight years until then).

However, instead of returning to the US, Rhodan lands the Stardust with Crest on board in the Gobi desert, which he deems remote enough to keep the Arkonoids and their advanced technology out of the hands of the warring powers of Earth. For Perry Rhodan has become disillusioned with the power blocs on Earth and the resulting risk of nuclear war. So he severs his alliance with the US and the Western Bloc and declares himself a citizen of the world instead. He also founds a new state, the so-called Third Power, in the Gobi desert around the landing site of the Stardust and proceeds to recruit people from all over the world, particularly mutants with ESP powers, to his cause. And because establishing a new state requires a lot of capital, Perry Rhodan also recruits a disgraced banker named Homer G. Adams to procure said capital via clever investments. In a genre which all too often portrays galactic empires operating without any economic basis whatsoever, acknowledging that empires, galactic or otherwise, cost money is truly a breath of fresh air.

The Western Bloc, the Eastern Bloc and the Asian Federation may be at odds otherwise, but they can all agree on one thing: Perry Rhodan and his Third Power are the enemy and must be eliminated. And so they launch a nuclear strike against the Stardust landing site and the city that has sprung up around it, only to be thwarted by superior Arkonoid technology in the form of an energy dome. Eventually, the Third Power is accepted as an independent state, while the remaining three blocs change their warlike ways and finally join the Third Power to form a united world state.

Mind you, all this and more happens in the first ten issues of the series. So after having made contact with aliens, founding a state, preventing World War III, ending the Cold War and uniting and pacifying a divided Earth, the question is what will Perry Rhodan do for an encore? Well, Rhodan established a base on Venus, led an expedition to Vega, put down a robot revolt, solved the great galactic riddle and gained immortality. What is more, he also found personal happiness, when the sparks that had been flying between him and Arkonoid commander Thora blossomed into love. Perry and Thora were married and even had a son, though sadly Thora died in issue 78 published earlier this year. What is more, Thomas Cardif, Thora's and Perry's son, blames his father for his mother's death and is in the process of turning into a villain in his quest for revenge. 

Considering at what a fast clip the plot moves, it is astonishing that the writing team, still headed by Walter Ernsting a.k.a. Clark Dalton and K.H. Scheer, keeps coming up with new stories to tell. The cast continues to grow and includes such memorable characters as fan favourite Gucky, a telepathic alien rodent who just happened to look like a cross between a mouse and a beaver, and recent addition Atlan, an ancient Arkonoid who once commanded a base on the legendary continent of Atlantis and has recently woken from suspended animation, all portrayed on the striking covers by artist Johnnny Bruck. Unfortunately, the cast of Perry Rhodan is still overwhelmingly male, especially after the recent loss of Thora.

Because "Heftromane" are cheap and offer a lot of bang for buck, they are frequently read by teenagers and working class people. As a result, they frequently come under fire from the usual busybodies concerned about depictions of violence and (mild) sexuality and what these will do to impressionable minds. Until recently, those busybodies focussed their attention mainly on G-Man Jerry Cotton and the World War II series Der Landser, which actually deserves all the criticism it receives. However, with the enormous success of Perry Rhodan, the series has become a new favoured target of "Heftroman" critics. The charges levelled at Perry Rhodan are largely the same that were previously hurled at G-Man Jerry Cotton and Der Landser, namely that Perry Rhodan is fascist, that the series glorifies war and violence and that it promotes racial purity and a Führer cult. Futurist Dr. Robert Jungk even referred to Perry Rhodan as the "galactic Hitler".

So how justified are those criticisms? Well, Perry Rhodan certainly is a leader figure, immortal and almost all powerful. And initially, he is not exactly an elected leader but one who appoints himself, though this is remedied in later issues, when the Third Power and later the united world state Terra elect him as their president. What is more, the Perry Rhodan series can be heavy on action and warfare on occasion, described in loving detail by K.H. Scheer, whose penchant for fight scenes has gained him the nickname "Hand Grenade Herbert", even though Scheer did not experience any fighting in World War II, unlike his co-author Walter Ernsting. However, what the critics miss is that in spite of all the cosmic action and intergalactic warfare, Perry Rhodan is a man of peace, who strives to end the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Perry Rhodan's friends and allies include humans of many nations and even aliens. And apart from the initial land grab in the Gobi desert, Perry Rhodan does not actually conquer other planets either. Finally, in this era of global strife, the vision of a united humanity as presented in the Perry Rhodan series is certainly seductive. Considering that the first issue came out only a few months after the building of the Berlin Wall literally cemented the division of Germany (and was almost certainly influenced by these real world events), it is not surprising that Perry Rhodan's vision of a united world has struck a chord in so many fans.

The enormous success of Perry Rhodan did not just draw the attention of critics, but also inspired other publishers to create their own ongoing science fiction series. And so Pabel, who already had a foot in the West German science fiction market with their Utopia franchise, launched a Perry Rhodan competitor named Mark Powers in 1962, initially in Utopia and later as a separate series. Mark Powers was introduced as a former military officer whose excessive courage and honesty brought him into conflict with his superiors. Now a sort of private troubleshooter, Powers and his good friend Al "Biggy" Bighead investigate mysterious objects and occurrences which inevitably involve alien invasion attempts.

The central concept is not bad and might have made for an interesting series, especially since the first few issues were penned by Freder van Holk a.k.a. Paul Alfred Müller, a true veteran of German science fiction who had penned the "Heftroman" series Sun Koh – The Heir of Atlantis and Jan Mayen – Master of Atomic Power before the war. However, audiences have moved on. The fact that Müller and his co-author K.H. Schmidt are proponents of the Hollow Earth theory and insisted on integrating it into Mark Powers didn't help either, since contemporary audiences are no longer as willing to accept stories of underground civilisations inside Earth as they were in the 1930s. And while Walter Ernsting and K.H. Scheer took great care to create plot arcs and outlines for Perry Rhodan to ensure consistency, no such efforts were made for Mark Powers. As a result, the early issues are something of a mess of unconnected stories that just happen to star two characters named Mark Powers and Al Bighead. Several early stories by authors such as J.E. Wells and Jim Parker creator Alf Tjörnsen are also obvious rewrites of earlier novels with only the names of the protagonists changed.

The publishers attempted to save Mark Powers by forcing a radical retooling of the series from issue 19 on. Paul Alfred Müller and K.H. Schmidt were ousted and Alf Tjörnsen became head author. Mark Powers got his own spaceship, the Meteor, and a regular crew. Unfortunately, the rebooted Mark Powers hewed way too close to Perry Rhodan to develop its own identity and new characters such as the alien scientist Chrech Acham and the telepathic alien bear Smarty were clearly carbon copies of Crest and Gucky of Perry Rhodan fame. As of this writing, Mark Powers is still hanging on, though it has never managed to evolve beyond a pale Perry Rhodan imitation. 

And that's it for now. Next time, we'll take a peek across the iron curtain to see what's going on in East German and East European science fiction.

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