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[December 4, 1967] Devaluation (New Writings in SF-11 & Beyond Infinity December 1967)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

With so much news about social reforms or issues in Rhodesia and Aden, it is easy to forget that the economy was one of the main issues that led to Wilson’s election as Prime Minister, in particular dealing with the trade deficit.

For almost a decade now Britain has been importing more than it has been exporting. With this many British consumers are choosing foreign made goods over domestic ones causing problems for local industry, not a good look for a country that was once dubbed “The Workshop of the World.”

The reasons for this date back a long way. From early adoption of manufacturing and overreliance on imperial exploitation, to the spending of Post-War American aid on military ventures (instead of the intended economic strengthening). However, one of the biggest is the value of the pound.

Whilst other countries trying to recover after the Second World War, such as Japan, had their currency set low, Britain strived to keep its value high. It has even become a point of national pride to have the Sterling as a major player in international trade, and devaluing had been something that had to be avoided at all costs.

Wilson and Callaghan
Wilson and Callaghan, probably not as happy any more

However, world events have continued to put trade and the currency under strain. With the Arab-Israeli war, the fighting in Aden and failure to join the EEC, it was seen by Wilson as a necessary act. Whilst the economic impact will likely come later, the political impact has already been major. The chancellor, Jim Callaghan, has resigned and there have been attacks from all ends of the political spectrum that this is a breach of trust.

As I read this month’s stories in the anthology "New Writings in SF 11" and magazine "Beyond Infinity", I could not help but wonder if there was some devaluation going on here as well. The quality I was getting for my money seemed to decline as I read on:

New Writings in SF 11

New Writings in SF 11

Dobson’s hardback release was delayed, meaning we get the Corgi paperback (and their much prettier cover) first this time.

In another change the theme here is much broader, with imaginative looks at humanity’s future.

The Wall to End the World by Vincent King

Following his brilliant Defence Mechanism, Vincent King gives us another spectacular tale. Five thousand years earlier, the ancients built the Wall, a thousand-mile circle to protect the ordinary people in the City and the Teachers in their Citadel. Our narrator is an officer of the Wall, determined to protect it from all invaders. When he discovers the return of the ancient ones and the appearance of a new star in the sky, he knows the prophecy of the end is coming true.

In a beautiful and cleverly written 25 pages, King gives a deeper more complex world brimming with science fictional concepts than most writers manage in an entire novel series. There is fascinating mix of old & new technologies, with looking screens and robots mentioned in the same breath as horses and crossbows. But it is never ponderous or boring. Throughout it races along like the best adventure stories.

Five stars, only because I can’t give it a sixth!

Catharsis by John Rackham

Professor Caine is on the verge of a major breakthrough in particle physics, when he starts getting terrible headaches. After he checks into Dr. Halleweg’s clinic he discovers he only has 48 hours left to live.

A more experimental story than I would expect from Rackham with limited SFnal content. It is solid but feels like it is aiming for the current New Worlds style without really getting there.

Three Stars

Shock Treatment by Lee Harding

Pietro struggles to keep his memories and personality intact as he searches for The Great Engine of the world.

This is the kind of slow atmospheric apocalypse that seemed to fill the British magazines after Aldiss’ Greybeard was published. Not bad but nothing new.

Three Stars

Bright Are the Stars That Shine, Dark Is the Sky by Dennis Etchison

Space travel has failed to provide a suitable home for humanity and has been abandoned. With Los Angeles’ population reaching twenty million the old city is being torn down to provide enough housing for everyone. This vignette follows a young boy and an ex-spacer night watchman as they visit The Museum of Space Science and Technology before it is destroyed.

This is a lovely melancholy tale of the loss of innocence and the danger of losing hope in the future. Simple but memorable.

Four Stars

There Was This Fella… by Douglas R. Mason

Alf Pearson has a problem: he keeps jumping between planes of reality. His doctors think he is just highly suggestible, but what is real?

I felt this concept was already used to better effect in de Camp’s Wheels of If. I am not sure if I missed something important or if it was all just a bit hollow.

Two Stars

For What Purpose? by W. T. Webb

After an explosion at the Grenville Power Station, Tom Berkley finds himself in Marginburg: town like Grenville but tinged with bizarre touches, such as the sky being patched up with newspaper, an enormous house with no windows, and regular raids from pirates. How did he get here? And can he get back home?

This one is tough to know what to make of, because much of it has the surrealism of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and then it ends in a manner that could either be read as genius or nonsense. I will be generous and choose the former.

Four Stars (or Suit-of-Armour Newsprint in Marginburg).

Flight of a Plastic Bee by John Rankine

Paul Karadoc is sent to investigate Station K, repository of secure knowledge in orbit around planet Earth, populated by artificially prolonged humans known as Biomechs. Information has been leaking out of the station and it is up to Karadoc to discover how and why.

This is the second tale from Mr. Mason and an even weaker one, I found it dull and often incomprehensible. Even Doctor Who’s Cyberman adventures do a better job of exploring some of these themes.

One Star

Dead to the World by H. A. Hargreaves

I have been reliably informed this is the same Hargreaves who wrote Tee Vee Man 4 years ago, just with a different first initial, possibly a typographical error. Talking of mistakes, this is the story of Joe Schultz, a man accidentally declared dead in a future where administration is primarily run by computers.

This starts out as an interesting Kafkaesque tale, but soon descends into pure silliness.

Two Stars

The Helmet of Hades by Jack Wodhams

On the planet Albermarle, the inhabitants have been turned blind by the farmer Galig as part of a plot to rule over it as the only sighted adult. Marshal and Cresswell work to resist him.

Wodhams is not an author who has appeared in New Writings before but seems to have done quite well for himself writing mediocre tales for Campbell. Unfortunately, this is even more disappointing. It doesn’t seem to make a real attempt to understand blind people or communities, is overlong and the concept had a better treatment from Wells decades ago.

One Star

Beyond Infinity Dec. 1967

Beyond Infinity
Cover and all illustrations by Lynn Goller

With the continued disappearance of SF magazines from the market and others turning to reprints, any time a new publication appears, I am keen to give this new magazine a try.

It opens with a strong editorial from Doug Stapleton, saying you will not see a “wild, Bondian adventure on the outer rim of the universe” within. Instead, he says, this is more devoted to “What-if-ness”, tales of the strange and uncanny.

Perhaps that is why they chose to print the contents in a randomised order?

Beyond Infinity Contents

Anyway, let’s explore these “other dimensions”:

Of Human Heritage by Wade Hampton

Of Human Heritage by Wade Hampton Illustration: Dying Man

Years ago, a ship full of pioneers crashed onto an unknown planet and no Earth ships have found them. As the last of the original colonists, Old Pendennis, lies dying, he worries whether or not the future generations will be able to maintain their humanity.

This is not a bad tale. It is well written, with a nice narrative style and strong ending, but it also feels like a missed opportunity to me, as it could easily have explored some much deeper themes.

Three Stars

Communication Problem by John Christopher

Communication Problem by John Christopher Illustration: Two Aliens Looking at communication equipment

In 2049 instantaneous warp travel between nearby stars has become safe and routine, that is unless you are travelling after Burns Night with a Scottish duty officer. When the Wayfarer lands inside a sub-electronic storm the ship is forced to crash on to a planet, the last survivor of the crew is rescued by The Mori, but why can the two species not communicate?

This feels like a story intended for Analog that was rejected. We have lots of dull explanations of engineering, aliens being baffled by humans, even mentions of ESP. I do get the sense from some of Christopher’s writing he isn’t all too keen on the other nations of The United Kingdom, and this tale is obviously no exception. Maybe the anti-Scottishness was too much for a Campbell?

One Star (and a big apology to my friends north of the border)

Whirligig! by John Brunner

Whirligig! by John Brunner Illustration: Saxophonist in front of various jazz club signs

Of late Brunner seems to be returning to some of his creations from the 50s. We recently got a serial set in his future Empire, and a sequel to Imprint of Chaos. Now it is the turn of his strange jazz troupe, Tommy Caxton and the Solid Six.

This gives us one side of a conversation, as Caxton tries to convince his record label to include Gumshoe Stumble as their next single.

Unfortunately, this is no Traveller in Black. Instead it is a series of run on sentences with barely any SFnal content (at least that I could understand). I know I am in no position to critique another’s grammar but I found it near unreadable. But it is also true that I don’t get jazz.

One Star

Talk to Me, Sweetheart by Ben Bova

Talk to Me, Sweetheart by Ben Bova Illustration: Astronaut in front controls

Finishing the trilogy of big names, we get Bova giving us another space-flavoured tale. Here an astronaut in orbit is losing control and only the woman’s voice on the other end of the communicator can help him.

Basically this is the opening scene of A Matter of Life and Death transferred to space, albeit with a different ending, one most readers will see coming from eight miles high.

Two stars

5-4-3-2- by James McKimmey

5-4-3-2- by James McKimmey Illustration: Man running away from alien face

Christopher Raamsgaard has been hit hard by the death of his business partner and has been working incredibly hard. Is this why he has started doing everything backwards? Or is something stranger going on?

Mr. McKimmey seems to be returning to SF, with two sales to Pohl’s magazines recently. However, just like those, this is not a good piece. Hoary, dull, silly, it would have been a space filler a decade ago.

One Star

The Deadly Image by McHugh Ferris

The Deadly Image by McHugh Ferris Illustration: Two people working on a robotic Abraham Lincoln

Emile Varner creates a robotic recreation of Lincoln and puts on a hugely successful show where people can experience his last night at Ford’s Theatre. But is history doomed to repeat itself?

Pointless piece of filler barely moving on from the current Mr. Lincoln Speaks attraction.

One Star

Revenge at the TV Corral! by J. de Jarnette Wilkes

Revenge at the TV Corral! by J. de Jarnette Wilkes Illustration: Cowboy at various stage of drawing a gun

Ken Dexter was the star of the major TV western, Western Marshal. Now he has been killed off and replaced by Bill Todd. When his wife also left him for Todd that was the last straw and he goes to murder them.

This is an odd story, that seems to be attempting some sort of metafiction, but never really works for me.

Two stars for effort.

The 13th Chair by Michael Quentin Lanz

The 13th Chair by Michael Quentin Lanz Illustration: Short man with briefcase talking to another man in front of a door

Wes Pepper’s syndicated column is extremely popular but, with a huge libel suit against him and twelve deaths resulting from his distortion, his publisher want rid of him. But Mr. Pepper is not so easily got rid of.

A nasty story without much depth and the feel of Weird Tales.

Two Stars

Upon Reflection by Gilmore Barrington

Upon Reflection by Gilmore Barrington Illustaration: Man being surprised by devil figure in front of carnival posters

Wilbur Trimble hates his wife and wants to kill her. Perhaps the Christian carnival that has come to town will provide an opportunity.

A bad horror story about a terrible man.

One star

Mommy, Mommy, You're a Robot by Dexter Carnes

Mommy, Mommy, You're a Robot!! by Dexter Carnes Illustration: Boy between a winding key and cogs

Stevie Bellamy is an ordinary kid during the day, but at night he dreams of travelling from Omicron and that his mother is actually a robot. Do I even need to say where this is going? Unoriginal, poorly put together and speckled with random racist language.

One Star

Greetings, Friend! by Dorothy Stapleton and Douglas Stapleton

Spaceman standing in front of wrecked spaceship

The Ecknode crashes on an unknown planet without any hope of escape. Suddenly he sees another craft come across the sky, is it his chance of escape?

It is ironic, given his introduction, that the editor gives us the most traditional science fiction story. Whilst not a “Bondian adventure” it is a dull old-fashioned first contact story that wouldn’t be out of place in '40s Astounding.

One Star

The New Way by Christopher Anvil

The New Way by Christopher Anvil Illustration: Collage of images, a gun, a dead man, a man falling backwards, a spiral, a chequerboard patten

Burr Macon is Chief of Crime Documents, here helping deal with a prisoner who has confessed to murder. He gets to experience a new form of punishment and rehabilitation instead of the death penalty, reliving his victim’s experience.

If the last story felt like '40s Astounding, this was pure '50s Galaxy. Unfortunately, Anvil is not William Tenn or Robert Sheckley, and the whole thing feels rote. At least it is competent, which is more than I can say for most of this magazine.

Two Stars

The DNE?

END between a series of overlapping circles, reflected horizontally
Odd ending image used throughout Beyond Infinity

Whilst there were some good stories at the start of New Writings and a reasonable one at the start of Beyond Infinity, there was a decline throughout. Hopefully this devaluation can stop and not continue into subsequent issues.



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[December 2, 1967] Women and Men (January 1968 IF)

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by David Levinson

Small steps towards equality

It’s been almost 50 years since women in the United States were given the right to vote. But while things have come a long way, there’s still a long way to go for real equality for women, especially economically and financially. For example, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible in some places, for a woman to have a bank account in her own name. It’s like that in most of the First World, so imagine how much worse off women are elsewhere. On November 7th, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously approved the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. It’s non-binding, but it has set the U. N. on the path towards improving the rights of women around the globe.

Closer to home, the Johnson administration has been taking steps to do something about the economic inequality of women. In October, the president issued an executive order which adds sex as a category that cannot be used as a basis for discrimination. This affects the federal government and contractors that work for the government and is much broader than the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and other civil rights legislation regarding sex discrimination. Then on November 8th, President Johnson signed a law which allows women in the military to be promoted to flag rank (generals and admirals) and eliminates caps on the number of women officers at all levels.

President Johnson signing the law allowing women to rise in the ranks.

Women actually doing things

Time was, lots of women wrote science fiction, and not all of them hid their sex behind their initials. In 1967, IF has published a grand total of four stories by women. Two were by fans with no or very few previous professional sales, and neither was all that good. The third was an average story by Andre Norton. The fourth is in this month’s issue (and that’s dated 1968). How was it? Read on to find out.

What are these people doing in these blobs? Art by Pederson

The Peacemakers, by John Rankine

Dag Fletcher is the new captain of the Inter-Galactic Organization corvette Petrel and a bit of a maverick. The group his ship has been assigned to is on its way to the neutral world of Garamas, ostensibly on a diplomatic visit, but intending to free some I. G. O. nationals who are interned there, one of whom is a spy. Since Petrel isn’t expected, it falls to Fletcher to sabotage the planet’s power grid and then get the spy off the planet. Fletcher’s skill at improvisation will stand him in good stead.

Not the sort of spy you expect to find behind enemy lines. Art by Virgil Finlay

Rankine writes primarily for the British market, and I’m not really familiar with his work. The first two-thirds of this story could have come from someone like A. Bertram Chandler, though written at a level Chandler rarely achieves. Things go a little off the rails once the spy enters the story, particularly since I’m not convinced Fletcher would undertake the side mission she suggests. On the other hand, she’s a good character who’s more than just a reward for the hero. I especially liked the way Rankine dealt with her ability to read the surface thoughts of the men around her (looking like she does) and how she handled them.

A very high three stars.

From Distant Earth, by Basil Wells

Mal Harker has been betrayed by Dorn Tate, who has kidnapped Mal’s wife and marooned Mal and Tate’s own wife Esme. They manage to reach the planet Naron, which seems to be a desert. Strangely, they can feel vegetation around them, and there are invisible creatures, both prey and predator, around them. Eventually, much that was hidden will be revealed.

I’m not keen on the way IF is integrating the art into the titles lately. Art by Morrow

Wells has been around since the ‘40s, and the bones of this story could easily be from back then. He’s tacked on a couple of bits and bobs to make it seem more modern, but has largely failed in that endeavor. At least the writing is serviceable.

Barely three stars.

The Taste of Money, by R. V. Humphrey

Eminent biologist Charles Darwin Skroot has been sent to the planet Gloomer by the Planetrade Corporation to figure out why Tastybushes are dying out. Tastybush-blossom extract is the hottest new taste since chocolate was introduced to Europe, and if it vanishes, it will take the company with it. Skroot’s fee is exorbitant, but the conditions on the planet are difficult at best.

Are these caterpillars part of the problem or the solution? Art by Gaughan

Humphrey is this month’s new author. This is in some ways a fairly standard problem story, though stories that involve entire ecological systems are rare. As in a lot of problem stories, the situation is contrived, but the telling is mostly well done. Where it really fails for me is in the attempt to be funny. Humor is subjective, but I think a seasoned pro could have made this funnier with all of the same elements. Humphrey shows skill, but he would have been better served by telling this one straight.

A low three stars.

Foreign Fandom, by Lin Carter

Our Man in Fandom continues his world tour. After a quick look at fandom in Japan and South America, he drops in on the annual science fiction film festival in Trieste and a fan club in Calcutta, India with 1,500 fans. Then it’s off to Bristol for a look at the big convention in the United Kingdom over Easter weekend. Finally, grieve for poor Denmark, which has a single active fan who can’t find anybody else.

Three stars.

Rogue’s Gambit, by Phyllis Gotlieb

Spacelights perform a vital service, receiving and relaying messages and calls for aid. Out on the edge of nowhere, Spacelight 599 has gone silent, messages are backing up, and the Hendrickses, the couple who maintain the remote station, can’t be raised. Full time maintenance engineer and part-time policeman Stannard has been sent to investigate. With him is Dr. Ramcharan and nervous pilot Bugasz. They find Cornelius Hendricks dead and no sign of his wife Iris, much to the distress of Bugasz. Worse, the station computer appears to have been imprinted with Hendricks’ personality and gone mad.

Stannard and the others confront the computer. Art by Gaughan

This is a very well done story. Dr. Ramcharan could have been given a bit more to do than just be a highly competent woman. Bugasz, meanwhile, is clearly modeled on Peter Lorre in one of his more nervous roles. But Gotlieb brings it all together and somehow makes it work, even the insane computer. That said, the story didn’t really stick with me or make me think, which are part of my criteria for a four-star story. I think this is as close as is possible to get to four without achieving it.

A very high three stars.

Starsong, by Fred Saberhagen

They call it Hell, a Berserker research station deep within the Taynarus nebula. There, the anti-life robots study the brains of captured humans. Ordell Callison was the most famous musician in the systems near the Taynarus nebula until his new bride was captured by the Berserkers during a game of spaceship tag. Mad with grief, Ordell entered Hell in an attempt to get his beloved back.

Ordell confronts a three-headed monster in Hell. Art by Gaughan

The writing is lovely, but Saberhagen makes mistakes I wouldn’t have expected from him. First and foremost, he clings much too tightly to the Orpheus myth. This results in some strained attempts to shoehorn in various elements that don’t really fit.

Three stars.

Interstellar Travel and Eternal Life, by E. C. Ettinger

America’s preeminent supporter of freezing as a means of beating death offers some maundering thoughts on the greater implications of immortality and human expansion into interstellar space. Said thoughts are disorganized at best and head in some strange directions.

Two stars, barely.

All Judgment Fled (Part 2 of 3), by James White

After a mysterious object entered the solar system from interstellar space and took up orbit between Mars and Jupiter, an expedition was hastily cobbled together to investigate. The six men discover life aboard the alien ship, but one’s suit was destroyed in an encounter. Exploration of the ship continues until an attack by the starfish-like Type Two aliens results in one alien dead, one man injured, and three spacesuits rendered unusable. As a result, they are no longer able to recycle water. More is sent from Earth along with one suit (which is damaged in transit), but the men will have to spend days aboard the ship.

McCullough, the expedition doctor, becomes convinced that the Type Two aliens aren’t intelligent, but isn’t sure what to do with that information. Eventually, it is decided to explore deeper into the ship. As this installment draws to a close, the commander is killed, leaving the indecisive McCullough in charge. As he tries to deal with his new responsibility, word comes that the engines are starting up. The ship is preparing to leave, with four of the five survivors trapped aboard. To be concluded.

Things begin to go very wrong. Art by Morrow

The tension that cramped the first installment is largely gone here, but without any real release. I suppose it’s due to the men having more room to move around, but something to break that tension would have been nice. We get an interesting look at more of the ship and the aliens aboard it, with the intriguing idea that those we’ve seen so far aren’t intelligent. It’s even possible that the language-like sounds coming from loudspeakers are recorded. White has gone out of his way to heap troubles on the heads of his characters, maybe too far. I’m not clear why McCullough is now in command, even though he was subordinate to the man captaining the probe he was on. In any case, I’m eager to see where this finishes.

He That Moves, by Roger Zelazny

Humanity is dead, wiped out in an atomic war. The great and famous from throughout history were revived by another race, itself now dead. Yet another race is deciding what to do with the humans, whom they believe were the gods of the first race. An escape artist named Eric Weiss discusses all this with a woman named Sappho while they await the outcome of that decision.

More boring title art. Art by Gaughan

Another one that’s very pretty and full of allusion and misses the mark. This is Zelazny trying too hard to be artistic. I usually have a pretty high tolerance for that, but this one just didn’t work for me.

Three empty stars.

Summing up

And so IF returns to the mean once more, maybe a little improved. If nothing else, we’re given a few good woman characters and a good story from a woman writer. In the final tale, editor Fred Pohl also gives us exactly the sort of New Wave/Thing story he railed against just a few months ago. The times they are a-changing. Fred also teases us with some new features coming in 1968. I’ll settle for better stories.

A new Niven novel and the return of Bob Sheckley. That’s promising.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 30, 1967] One door closes… (December 1967 Analog and Australia joins the Space Race!)

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by Gideon Marcus

Mags or paperbacks?

The latest issue of Yandro has got a nice piece from Ted White reviewing the latest (and best?) tome on science fiction by Alexei Panshin.  The best part of White's article is his gentle but lengthy disagreement over the status of magazines versus paperbacks.  Both White and Panshin agree that the paperback novel format is The Next Big Thing (indeed, it's already here), but they disagreed on their role and prospects.

Panshin sees the science fiction digests as a continuation of the pulps, with all the negative connotations attached thereto.  He thinks they will eventually die.  White strongly disagrees.  Firstly, he notes that pulp does not equal bad–many extremely talented authors got their start cranking out a half million words for the old mags.  Indeed, White says magazines are now populated by a stable of established writers who have perfected their trade while the paperbacks, since they are a buyer's market, will publish anything.  Essentially, the books have taken the role the magazines had in the glut days of the early '50s.

White goes on to say that paperbacks are great, but 1) mags are the main outlet for short stories, and some authors are just better at the short form, and 2) editors keep mags going for the love of it.  This means they are likely to survive longer than purely economic considerations would suggest.

It's a good piece.  I'd give it a read.

The issue at hand

Speaking of which, should you give the strikingly covered latest issue of Analog a read?  Well, if you're one of the 30,000 subscribers who gets it delivered, sure go ahead.  If you're eyeing it at a newsstand, you'll want to read further…


by John Schoenherr

Dragonrider (Part 1 of 2), by Anne McCaffrey

In Weyr Search, the first installment of this serial-in-all-but-name, we were introduced to planet Pern.  It is a fraught former Earth colony, severed from its homeworld for thousands of years and ravaged periodically by rhizomic attacks from a nearby world.  The only defense against the "threads" are fire breathing dragons ridden by telepathically connected humans.

The problem is it's been four centuries since the last attack and the "weyrs" of dragronriders have been allowed to go fallow.  Only Benden Weyr is left, and it is woefully undermanned and underdragoned.

This latest installment in the saga of Pern opens up sometime after the last.  Lessa, heir to the Hold of Ruatha and now Weyrlady by virtue of her communion with the dragon queen Ramoth, has shacked up with the F'lar, head of the dragonriders.  Not because the two like each other, but because that's the law: Weyrladies and Weyrleaders must get hitched.

The thread has begun to fall, and the dragons are sorely taxed to meet the challenge, teleporting in and out of the frigid between to intercept the alien spores.

(Note: What do you call it when a dragon relieves itself between?  An ICBM!)

Despite the perseverence of F'lar's crew, the thread has the upper hand–until Lessa accidentally discovers that dragons not only can teleport and telepath, but they can also time travel, too!  (telechron?) As one might expect, this changes the whole equation…but maybe not for the better.


by John Schoenherr

I dunno.  I was expecting a rousing Battle of Britain story, with never so much being owed by so many to so few.  The thread would start gradually, the brave fighters would fight to their limits, and through ingenuity and tenacity, eventually win.  The story would get extra points for being by and from the viewpoint of woman, a rare thing in science fiction, particularly in the mag that Campbell built.

Instead, the story is badly paced, lurching from scene to scene.  There is no build-up to the thread strike, no mounting of tension; it is just suddenly upon them.  McCaffrey throws psionic conceits against the wall to see which ones stick (Lessa not only discovers time travel, but she is the only one who can communicate with all of the dragons–unlike the other riders, who can only communicate with their bonded dragon).

Beyond that, the two main characters are thoroughly unlikeable, by turns yelling and sardonically sniping at each other.  An element of violence suffuses their interactions, with F'lar and Lessa's couplings being referred to as not less than rape.  It all feels very Marion Zimmer Bradley.  I've said before that Lessa feels like a wish-fulfillment character for the author.  This hypothesis is only becoming more concerning.

What's frustrating is I feel there could be an interesting story here in the hands of someone else.  Jack Vance has already written a thematically similar tale with his The Dragon Masters.  It's clear that Campbell wants Pern to be the next Dune, complete with striking Schoenherr covers.  Thus far, I'd say McCaffrey isn't up to the task.

I was originally going to give the installment a bare three stars, but I think I've talked myself out of it.

Two stars.

The Destiny of Milton Gomrath, by Alexei Panshin

In this short short, an orphaned garbage collector spends his life convinced that his existence of drudgery is a mistake, and that someone, somehow, will rectify the mistake some day.

Turns out he's right, but that may not be a good thing.

This could be the start of a mildly entertaining Laumer novel.  Instead, it ends right after the first punchline.

Blink and you'll miss it: three stars.

Whosawhatsa?, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Picture a world where a sex change is as complete and easy as an appendectomy…and reversible, to boot!  Now picture the most complicated legal case possible involving a married couple seeking a divorce, both parties of which have swapped genders.  And there are children involved, multiple paramours, probate issues, and a Strong Public Interest.

On the one hand, this story is a drag.  The attempts to make it "funny", mostly consisting of endless scenes in which the judge assigned the case contemplates suicide rather than attempt presiding, are a flop.  Also, one gets the feeling that if women's lib had advanced in the story as much as medical science, most of the legal issues and many of the social ones would be irrelevant.  Particularly if 1) we could extend the legal rights currently afforded women in the federal government to all women, and 2) we could approach homosexuality with a less than medieval attitude.

That said…

There is very interesting exploration of what it means to change genders and the motivations that underly the desire to make such a transition.  While the situation is made as ludicrous as possible, the subjects, for the most part, are taken seriously.  I actually found the piece remarkably progressive, especially for Analog.  Certainly, I've never read anything like it before.

Three stars.

Beak by Beak, by Piers Anthony


by Kelly Freas

An alien spacecraft orbits the Earth, neither communicating nor responding to communications.  Meanwhile, a red parrakeet arrives at the home of a bird-keeper and joins his avian pet family for a time.

This is a pleasant pastoral piece that tries a little too hard to get its message across.  Still, I'll read something like this a thousand times before I'll read Chthon again.

Three stars.

Venus and Mercury—Locked Planets? by R. S. Richardson

Dr. Richardson writes so-so science fiction, but I generally quite like his science fact articles.  This one talks about the newly discovered rotation rates of Venus and Mercury, as well as what they might mean in relation to the history of the solar system.

On the one hand, I learned a bit, and that's significant given that I know a lot of astronomy.  On the other, I felt the pictures were worth a thousand words, and I found myself skimming a lot of the text.  In other words, maybe 20 pages wasn't necessary to make the point (God help us–next month's science article will be 10,000 words!).

Still, four stars.

A Question of Attitude, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A recruit for the interstellar patrol finds himself in an increasingly difficult series of imaginary tests, ones that stick him in mortal peril in a simulated alien planet environment.  He seems to fail each one, ending up "dead", yet the Lt. Colonel in charge of training seems to think he has promise.

Normally, Anvil and Campbell are a toxic combination.  This time around, the story is kind of interesting.  I also rather enjoyed the nihilistic suggestion that the recruit's success is measured in the degree of his failure, and also that passing the tests only means his life is about to get worse.  It fits with the whole zeitgeist of our current engagement in Vietnam.  Even if Joseph Heller did it better.

Three stars.

Psi Assassin, by Mack Reynolds


by Kelly Freas

Lastly, yet another of Reynolds' tales of Section G, the interstellar agency whose job is to make sure no human planet ends up too backwards, lest the race become prey to an ominous but yet unmet alien menace.  This time, a psionic assassin is sent to kill the head of a Latin dictatorship.  The problem: agent Ronny Bronston has already dispatched said leader and taken his identity!

We have all the hallmarks of a Reynolds Section G story: endless historical lectures (that never seem to have any object lessons beyond the mid-20th Century), flippant personalities that leach the story of any gravitas, the lone female agent (Reynolds never lets us forget her sex), and a happy ending.

Reynolds has done decent work with this series, but less often than not.

Two stars.

Doing the math

So who's right?  Alex or Ted?  Based on this month, I'd give the nod to Ted.  While Analog was on the mediocre side, managing just 2.8 stars, other magazines fared much better.  Both Galaxy and New Worlds scored 3.2 stars.  Fantasy and Science Fiction was also pretty good (3.1).  If was a bit tired, but par for the course (2.8), and while Amazing's 2.7 score puts it at the bottom of the pack, it actually is on an upward trend.

You could fill two magazines with all the superior stuff that came out this month, which is a good crop.  Sadly, McCaffrey wrote the only woman-penned piece, and it wasn't very good (though it was better than Poul Anderson's novella in Galaxy).

I give magazines at least a few more years…

But that's not all we have for today.  All the way from Australia comes this exciting stop press in the world of space news!:


by Kaye Dee

“Australia Joins the Space Club!”

Although Australia has supported American and British/European space efforts over the past decade, just yesterday, on 29 November we finally gained our own membership of the Space Club by placing our first satellite, WRESAT-1, into orbit. I’ve written articles previously about the first satellites of France and Italy, so it gives me great pride to report on Australia’s own satellite launch.


WRESAT-1 under construction in at the WRE

WRESAT-1 (WRE Satellite) has been a joint project of the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) and the University of Adelaide, with significant support from the United States. In 1966, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) offered Australia a spare Redstone rocket from the ARPA-led Project Sparta programme at Woomera as a satellite launcher. Sparta has been the final phase of a US/UK/Australian re-entry physics research programme commenced in 1960, investigating radar-echo phenomena created by re-entering missile warheads. The Sparta team even offered to prepare and fire the Redstone for the WRE.

“A Rush Job!”

The scientists and engineers involved in the Australian upper atmosphere research programme took advantage of the proposal to move their instruments from sounding rockets to satellite. However, the Sparta launch offer placed the satellite project on a very tight schedule, as the spacecraft would have to be ready for launch by the end of 1967, when the Sparta project would be complete and the Americans returning home. So, in just 11 months Australia’s, WRESAT has been designed, constructed, tested and was finally launched on 29 November. Its development has been an example of local “make-do” ingenuity, as much of the testing equipment needed was not available in the country.

Australia’s first satellite has been designated WRESAT-1 because my WRE colleagues hope that it will have many successors. Australia doesn’t yet have a space agency like NASA, but the WRE is putting a proposal to the Australian Government for a national space programme, and we hope that it will be funded, with the WRE formally designated as the Australian national space agency.


Diagram showing the internal layout of WRESAT’s systems and scientific instruments

Given the short development period, WRESAT’s scientific payload consists of instruments similar to those already flown in the Australian sounding rocket programme conducted in conjunction with the University of Adelaide Physics Department. The university team has developed a suite of instruments to study solar and ultra-violet radiation, atmospheric ozone and molecular oxygen density, as well as measuring the temperature of the solar atmosphere.

“Going Up From Down Under”

After an aborted launch attempt on the 28th, the Redstone lifted-off flawlessly on the 29th to place WRESAT into a polar orbit, where it is being tracked, and its telemetry signals recorded, by NASA’s Satellite Tracking and Data Acquisition Network – a service also generously provided free to Australia.


WRESAT soars on its way to orbit from Launch Area 8 at Woomera

Because of its short development time, a solar array could not be designed for WRESAT, and the satellite is only battery-powered. This means it will have a very short operational lifespan, but we expect it to gather a large amount of data on the upper atmosphere that will provide a check on the data already gathered by sounding rockets.

Let’s hope that WRESAT-1 marks the start of Australia’s true Space Age, and that this country will soon “shine as brightly as the Southern Cross”, as President Johnson has put it in his congratulatory telegram on our first national launch!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 26, 1967] The Shock of the New – Part 3 New Worlds, December 1967 – January 1968

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

You might have realised that it’s nearly Christmas – again!

It has turned colder here but I’m pleased to say nothing like THAT Winter of four years ago, which has gone into the record books, I understand. Nevertheless, I do like the season, as it means I can sit at home, warm and cosy with (hopefully) a pile of good stuff to read.

Carnaby Street, London: where's the snow?

One little shock to finish this year, however. The arrival of the latest New Worlds brings with it the usual excitement in anticipation of what I am about to read – it is pretty much a mystery at the moment, with each issue’s content rarely being predictable.

And out of all of the un-predictability, one point I wasn’t really expecting was the announcement that this issue is for TWO months – December AND January.

There were no signs of this happening in last month’s issue (other than a price increase), although I did say that there were rumours – grumblings of the publisher being unhappy, sales figures being a lot lower than expected, and editor Mike Moorcock having to go cap-in-hand to beg for more money.

Well, I might have exaggerated that last part a little. But here’s what I know. As I understand it, the ‘new’ New Worlds since it reappeared in July has been financed with an agreement between Mike Moorcock, a business partner named David Warburton and the British Arts Council, brokered by Brian Aldiss.

Facts are unclear, but evidently the take-up of subscriptions has been less – a lot less – than hoped, and so the anticipated money has not appeared. Not only that, but with such news Mike’s business partner has decided not to continue with the venture and has left Mike pretty much to it.

The money from the Arts Council has helped, admittedly, but doesn’t go far enough. The Arts Grant covers most, but not all, of the printing costs. It now seems that Mike has been paying author’s fees out of his own pocket, hoping things will improve, which haven’t. The result? Well, the price of the magazine has already gone up.

I guess that in the future these difficulties mean fewer magazines published each year, or magazines with less content and fewer pages, perhaps? It seems that Mike’s solution, at least for now until he can find more funds, is to keep up the quality but reduce the quantity.

Anyway, let’s go to the issue.

Cover by Eduardo Paolozzi, designed by Charles Platt and Christopher Finch

Article: Free Agents and Divine Fools by Christopher Finch

A relatively short first article this month. In it Christopher looks at the year in art nearly gone and tries to point out trends and patterns. Finch’s summary is that the year’s been fairly uneventful on the surface. For Art to thrive, artistic freedom is important and is needed for art to survive, but deliberately avant garde activity seems obsolete and there is a risk of Culture becoming a sub-culture. Old class structures may be being broken down in society, but in Art in its place is a type of snobbery based on specialism. To rail against this there are a few artists, including Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton, both of whom have been in the magazine over the past few issues. There’s two pages of photos at the end to show some of their work.

Example of one of the pages of Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton art.

Really, this article is a rallying call for art in the future to be outside of the systems already in place, which is pretty much the point of the new New Worlds, I think. 3 out of 5.

Bug Jack Barron (Part 1 of 3) by Norman Spinrad

An American writer who may be new to us here in Britain, although he has been mentioned here at Galactic Journey lately with his recent script for Star Trek (The Doomsday Machine) and his story Carcinoma Angels in Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. He’s clearly a hot property at the moment, and I think this story will further add to his reputation.

Bug Jack Barron is meant to shock. It is full of expletives, overtly provocative, presenting a US in the 1980’s where the United States is often shown to be corrupt, prone to being un-democratic and riddled with corporate schemes.

This seems to follow a theme. From Ballard’s caricaturish depictions of John F Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Mickey Mouse, to John Brunner’s cut-up depiction of a near future New York in Stand on Zanzibar last month, it is clear that Bug Jack Barron continues this trend of anti-utopian unrest. Jack Barron is a media star who encourages anger across the country. On his nightly video show “Bug Jack Barron” he asks for, and gets, people sounding off on the concerns of the day. Jack is seen as someone whose purpose is to bring these injustices to light to the public, and gain publicity and viewers at the same time, of course!

When a caller accuses the Foundation for Human Immortality of racial discrimination by negatively discriminating against black people on Barron’s show, Jack attempts to contact live and on air the CEO of the Foundation, Benedict Howards, for a comment. However, Howards is unreachable and as a result, Jack gives air-time to negro Mississippi Governor Lukas Greene who launches into an attack on the Foundation. In an attempt to give an alternate view similar to Howards, Jack also speaks to Senator Teddy Hennering, the co-sponsor of Howards’ Freezer Utility Bill, but the result is to suggest that the Freezer Utility Bill should be cancelled. By the end of this first part, Barron begins to suspect that he may have inadvertently made an enemy in Howards, for which we must read on in the next issue.

Why is this shocking? I have already mentioned the expletive-ridden language throughout this story, which may be a little too gauche for some readers. In particular, a familiar expletive associated with those of African descent is bandied about an awful lot. This is inflammatory, vivid writing rather in the style of William Burroughs, the author so beloved by Moorcock and his colleagues. This frank discussion of race and politics in America is something a universe away from us here in Britain, although I suspect that the issues it raises are universal.

Most striking of all though is the suggestion that the media could have such an influence over a country. Could this really be a future? Could we see media monsters like Jack Barron dominate our future? I’m not sure, and certainly not in Britain, although Spinrad’s version is quite convincing.

If this is editor Moorcock’s last-hurrah, a response to his monetary struggles, it seems that he is determined to go down fighting, albeit in flames. 4 out of 5.

The Line-Up on the Shore by Giles Gordon

By comparison, the next story is much milder. One of those short stories that seem to be more a stream of consciousness than a story with a literary narrative. 58 people who seem to be stood staring until they move – or as described in the story “they run, run, run, run, run, run, run…” etc. Rather creepy, but I’m not entirely sure of its point – other than to be creepy, I guess. 2 out of 5.

Auto-Ancestral Fracture by Brian W. Aldiss and C. C. Shackleton

The return of the seemingly ever-present Mr. Aldiss (see his serial later in the issue, finishing this month), but unusually this one appears to be cowritten. This is not as it seems, however as C. C. Shackleton is a pseudonym for… Mr Brian Aldiss!

Anyway, this one is another story – or extract, I’m never quite sure – involving Colin Charteris. New Worlds insists on publishing these – the last story was Still Trajectories in the September issue – although for me they have had diminishing returns.

This time around, Colin is in Brussels, which you might know of from previous stories as having been heavily bombed with psychotropic drugs in the Acid Head War, surrounded by his disciples with his new god-like status.

Hearing two followers, Angeline and Marta, fight for Charteris’s attention as waves of reality flood in and out is rather torturous, making them sound like cast-offs from Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange or devotees of Mr. Stanley Unwin’s famous gobbledegook. This also gives Aldiss/Shackleton a great chance to write about sex covertly, with words like ‘friggerhuddle’ and ‘bushwanking’, all of which seem to have been written with great glee. Edward Lear it isn’t, but I suspect an homage to James Joyce.

The last part of the story describes what happens when Cass, Charteris’s agent, persuades Colin to see famous film director Nicholas Boreas and have a film made about him. The finished film reads like a cross between something from Ken Russell and J. G. Ballard, full of fractured images and cars crashing. Afterwards Charteris continues his pilgrimage in Brussels, but things get out of hand. There’s a fire and much of Brussels burns. The story ends with eight sets of lyrics from imaginary songs.

Really don’t know how to summarise this one. The story is to be admired for its deliberately diverse styles of writing, but really not a lot happens. Like most of these Charteris stories, to me it feels incomplete, a portion of a bigger story, and as a result feels a little unsatisfying. It is better than the last Charteris story, admittedly, but that may not be saying much. Style over substance, which may be beyond most readers. 3 out of 5.

Article: Movies by Ed Emshwiller

A bit left-of-field, this one. I was pleasantly surprised that this month’s artist I have heard of, for like you perhaps, I know Ed for his artwork on magazines such as Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. However, here this article tries to distance itself from all that pulp fiction nonsense, as it says here that in England he is best known for his film work, such as his 38 minute film Relativity, “thought by many to be about the best short film ever made.”.

Philistine that I am, I’ve never heard of it – and I suspect fans of Godard may have something to say on the matter. Anyway, this is a little different, in that it is a “primarily non-verbal description, done as a film storyboard, of his interests and aims in making films.” 4 out of 5.

Linda & Daniel & Spike by Thomas M. Disch

After Thomas’s recent serial Camp Concentration, I’m quite interested to read what fiction he comes up with next. (He has been busy writing non-fiction articles and reviews as well, admittedly.)

Linda & Daniel & Spike begins by telling us that it is a story of sex. The fact that the title is written on the back of a naked lady on the magazine cover, and the banner picture (above) may also be a clue to this. However, it is more than that. Linda tells her imaginary friend Daniel that she is pregnant with his child. Daniel walks away. Linda goes to a gynaecologist, who tells her that she is not pregnant but has uterine cancer. She gives birth to the tumour and names it Spike. Over the next fifteen years she brings Spike up, until she is readmitted to hospital for the removal of more tumours.

I get the impression that this is meant to be darkly humorous, but I didn’t find it so–just sad. It is written well, but I can’t say I enjoyed the experience. But, New Worlds is attempting to shock, and this story does that. 3 out of 5.

An Age (Part 3 of 3) by Brian W. Aldiss

Last month Edward Bush had been recruited as part of a group of soldiers from the Wenlock Institute in 2093 whose purpose was to mind-travel using the overmind back to the Jurassic and find, or arrest, or kill Silverstone, a scientist seen as a traitor by the dictatorial regime of General Peregrine Bolt.

This part begins by saying that they have had to omit chapters here and are presenting the last part of the story in a condensed form. As the book of this serial is advertised in the issue, it does feel a little like an attempt to make any interested reader go and buy the novel. There is a summary of what has gone on so far at the beginning, though, which may suffice.

Nevertheless, the story limps to an inconclusive finish. We now find that Bolt has been overthrown to be replaced by Admiral Gleeson. Bush finds Silverstone and meets him. Bush, Silverstone and a group of others mind-travel back to the Cryptozoic to avoid assassins. Silverstone then reveals his idea – that time is back to front and the future is actually our past. Silverstone is shot and killed by an assassin. The identity of the Dark Woman is revealed as someone from Central Authority and she explains the future, or rather the past. Silverstone’s body is taken away to be buried by people from Central Authority. The creation of the universe and the purpose of God is explained.

Bush and others return to the present of 2093 to explain Silverstone’s idea about the overmind to Wenlock, owner of the mind-travelling institute. Bush is put in a mental institution, allegedly because of anomia, a breakdown caused by excessive mind travel. Bush’s father tries to see him but is rebuffed. A girl (The Dark Woman? Ann?) watches him as he leaves.

A fair bit happens here. The scale is certainly epic, but the pace is rather uneven. Too much of the middle part of the story spent trying to explain Silverstone’s ‘big idea’, whilst other events feel like they happen too conveniently or too quickly. I also found the downbeat ending rather contrived and unsatisfying, leaving the story without a good ending. 3 out of 5.

Article: Book Reviews – A Literature of Acceptance by James Colvin

This month’s Book Reviews seem to be another example of Mike Moorcock as James Colvin. He begins by examining a connection between literature – not just sf – and times of stress, postulating that the paranoia of the age is often reflected in popular writing of the time, not just now but in the past as well.

He then turns it around by claiming that change may be happening, and that – guess what! – stories like those in New Worlds may be a sign of the future and of mainstream acceptance, not just trying to entertain but to stretch and expand the genre.

The actual book reviews are for J. G. Ballard’s new collection of stories, The Overloaded Man, a reissue of Alfred Bester’s Tiger! Tiger!, Kit Reed’s first story collection, Mister da V. and Other Stories, The Seedling Stars by James Blish, Robert Zelazny’s Lord of Light and Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr Rosewater.

Unusually, Ballard’s collection is not given the usual glowing recommendation his work seems to get in New Worlds as it is “a poor representation of some of his early work – some of it is clumsily written and consisting principally of raw subject material that is worked in only the simplest and most obvious ways.”

The rest are generally more favourable. Taking a chance to self-promote, Moorcock/Colvin finishes the review section with a list of books coming out in 1968, many of them having first appeared in New Worlds, of course!

Article: Mac the Naif by John Sladek

This article examines the work of Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher whose style of work seems to echo much of what is being printed in New Worlds these days, in that cut-up mosaic form that Ballard and others seem to like. Even this article is written in that style.

Sladek looks at four of McLuhan’s books – The Mechanical Bride, which introduces McLuhan’s ideas of global communication, The Gutenberg Galaxy, which suggests that it is the printed word that has influenced society and ways of thinking since the Renaissance but with a McLuhan perspective, which leads to Understanding Media and his latest, The Medium is the Message, which is a condensation of his previous work and in the words of Sladek, “hardly worth reviewing” for that reason. Nevertheless, I can see that phrase becoming a mantra for all those executive advertising types in the future.

It's an interesting article, but complex, and I found I had to reread it to understand. Even Sladek admits that he doesn’t quite understand it all; whilst grudgingly admitting that there’s enough good ideas in the books to make them a worthwhile read. 3 out of 5.

There's quite a few missing here!

Summing up New Worlds

We are again in a position where Moorcock seems to be determined to shake things up and is going all out to shock again this month. The Spinrad is a story I suspect would not be published in this form anywhere else. I am sure that its expletive-ridden prose, albeit with a purpose, may not go down well with the “Old Guard of Science Fiction”, but would have made an ideal choice for Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions collection, had it been shorter and a story from Spinrad not already accepted. Like Ellison, I think Spinrad has an exciting future ahead.

It actually is quite a surprise to realise that this is the same writer who wrote the script for the Star Trek episode "Doomsday Machine" – they are very different and show that the writer has a range. Obviously, this is only the first part, but I think it shows that in the future Spinrad could be up there with Samuel R. Delany at his most impressive.

The Disch also seems determined to shock, but I don’t think that it is as good as his previous work. I am now feeling that, even with my reservations about it, the rest of his writing tends to pale in significance against Camp Concentration.

Both Aldiss stories disappointed. Although I enjoyed Auto-Ancestral Fracture more than most of the others of his Charteris stories, it still was as unsatisfying as I had feared. An Age finished weakly.

But all in all, a good issue that seems to defiantly tread the path in the new direction the magazine is taking. Whilst there were parts that left me feeling dissatisfied, it must be said that it made me think. There’s a lot of things here as in recent issues that definitely make you think beyond the confines of the magazine, which in my opinion is good, but may be the magazine’s downfall. Extra cerebral activity may alienate some of the readership the magazine hopes to acquire.

Certainly, based on what I’m reading here, there are few signs that this will be the last issue – after all, the magazine feels confident enough to start a new serial this month. Hopefully this means that things financially will be resolved soon, and the magazine will continue.

It was interesting that the magazine put this at the back:

And that’s it from me for this year. All the very best to you all, have a wonderful Christmas and I’ll get back to you in the New Year (hopefully!)



 

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[November 20, 1967] Fresh Air? (December 1967 Amazing)

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by John Boston

A Fresh Heir

We have been harbinged.  When Harry Harrison, recently departed as editor of SF Impulse and suddenly appeared as book reviewer in this magazine that seemed to have eschewed features entirely, I wondered whether it was an omen of a larger change. 

And here that change is, in big letters at the top of the cover of this December Amazing: “HARRY HARRISON New Editor.” Joseph Ross is gone from the masthead and his departure is unheralded elsewhere in the magazine, though Harrison is quite gracious to him in his book review of Ross’s anthology The Best of Amazing.


by Johnny Bruck

Otherwise, the kudos are reserved for the recently-deceased Hugo Gernsback.  Harrison’s editorial is a tribute to him, and Science Fiction That Endures, Gernsback’s own guest editorial from the April 1961 anniversary issue, is reprinted.  Gernsback says among other things that enduring SF stories are those that “have as their wonder ingredient true or prophetic science,” and notes that Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote most of their notable SF early in their careers, later succumbing to “science fiction fatigue—the creative science distillate of the mind had been exhausted.” That sounds scientific!

But does this change in masthead mean any actual material change in this too frequently lackluster magazine?

The most visible difference is that the cover and title page have suddenly become more crowded.  Nine items are touted on the cover, five of them touted as “NEW” and others as “SPECIAL” or even “XTRA SPECIAL.” There’s so much puffery going on that the cover illustration, by Johnny Bruck from the German Perry Rhodan periodical, is confined to the bottom third of the cover, though little harm is done, since it’s quite horizontal in orientation, depicting a spaceship traveling very low and being pursued by flying snakes.  Beat that, Frank R. Paul! 

Other aspects of the magazine’s presentation represent both continuity and change.  The proofreading is still terrible; look no farther than the misspelling “Lester del Ray” on the title page of his story.  And curiously, part of the magazine—pages 90 through 125—is in a different, smaller typeface than the rest, though this increase in wordage is not touted on the cover or elsewhere.

As to the contents, the balance is shifted only a little.  Two short stories and the serial installment are original, one story is probably reprinted but this is its first appearance in English, and four short stories are reprinted from earlier issues of Amazing and Fantastic.  And of course we don’t know whether Harrison actually had much of a hand in selecting what went into this first issue of his incumbency.  But the question of reprints versus new material seems to be a continuing sore point.  Note the column on the left side of the cover—five iterations of "NEW"—which musters everything in the magazine that's not a reprint, including the book review column.

So, too early to tell, but promising—it almost has to be, given Amazing’s doldrums of mediocrity to date under Sol Cohen.  As Bob Dylan, the alleged troubadour of my generation, put it:

I wish I was on some Australian mountain range.
I wish I was on some Australian mountain range.
I got no reason to be there, but I imagine it would be some kind of change. 

Santaroga Barrier (Part 2 of 3), by Frank Herbert


by Gray Morrow

First, to the non-reprinted fiction.  The longest piece of fiction here is the second installment of Frank Herbert’s serial Santaroga Barrier, in which the suggestively named Gilbert Dasein tries to unlock the secret of the reclusive town of Santaroga, which seems to involve a psychoactive substance called Jaspers that the locals all consume.  As usual I’ll hold my comments until the story is complete.

The Forest of Zil, by Kris Neville


by Jeff Jones

Kris Neville, who contributed prolifically to the SF magazines during the early 1950s but slowed down considerably thereafter, opens the issue with The Forest of Zil, a cryptic story of space explorers who land on a planet entirely covered in forest and begin to make plans to clear trees to make space for human activities.  The forest begs leave to differ, and its response can be read either as an epic in brief of raising the ante exponentially, like A.E. van Vogt but not as noisy, or as a weary parody of the entire conceptual armamentarium of SF.  Or maybe something else!  How many faces can you find lurking in the coffee shop placemat?  Four stars for this subtly memorable piece.

The Million Year Patent, by Charles L. Harness


by Jeff Jones

Charles L. Harness, a patent lawyer by day, is present with The Million Year Patent, in which the technicalities of patent law collide with those of relativity, not very interestingly to this lay person.  Two stars.

An Unusual Case, by Gennadiy Gor

The “Sensational Story from behind the Iron Curtain” per the cover is Gennadiy Gor’s An Unusual Case, translated from Russian by one Stanley Frye.  Gor, born to a family exiled to Siberia by the Tsar, was apparently part of the avant-garde in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, but survived to write popular science texts as well, and to start writing SF in 1961.  There’s no indication where this story was previously published, if at all.  It’s a first-person account by the creator of an artificial intelligence (apparently at least humanoid; a hand is mentioned) of his rearing of this pseudo-child, which is cut short when representatives of the corporation that financed the project come to take it away, as it protests piteously.  It’s short and poignant, though blunted a bit by not making much sense; the ingenue develops detailed memories of human life that its creator didn’t put there.  Three stars, and I hope we see more of Gor’s work here (or anywhere).

The Smile, by Ray Bradbury


by L. Sterne Stevens

The ”Ray Bradbury Masterpiece” touted on the cover is The Smile, from the Summer 1952 Fantastic, set in what seems like an American town after a nuclear war has mostly destroyed civilization and left everyone who survived destitute.  People of course respond in the only logical way—by destroying or defiling any available relics of the former civilization.  A while back it was smashing an old car with sledgehammers; today everyone is lining up to spit on a fragment of a famous painting (clue: the title).  But young Tom just can’t get with the program.  It’s a bit overdone, but Bradbury’s overdone is better than many writers’ perfectly-baked.  Or something like that.  Three stars.

Stacked Deck, by Lester del Rey

Our Journeyer-in-Chief recently had occasion to mention “the sort of inferior stuff that filled the lesser mags of the ’50s.” Here’s the real article, Lester del Rey’s Stacked Deck from the November 1952 Amazing.  Del Rey is one of SF’s hardy journeyman professionals, in the game since 1937 as writer, first for John Campbell’s Astounding and Unknown, then for everyone in sight during the 1950s’ efflorescence of SF magazines.  In the ‘50s he edited magazines and anthologies and wrote novels as well as stories, including a prodigious ten of them under various pseudonyms for the Winston series of juvenile SF.  Occasionally he excelled, and his work almost always maintained a basic level of competence.

Almost always.  Sometimes a working writer just has to crank it out, inspiration or no, as in this excruciatingly contrived piece.  Before it opens, a man flew to the moon, without enough fuel to get back, expecting to be rescued in time by a later expedition.  (This already makes no sense.) But that rocketeer, inexplicably, showed up again on Earth, talking about entities he encountered on the moon but claiming scrambled memory.  So a better-equipped expedition sets out, only to discover that the Russians are neck and neck with them.  All this is told in an annoyingly jaunty, I’m-just-a-regular-guy first person style, as in the opening sentence: “The bright boys with their pep talks about space and the lack of gravity should try it once!”


by Ed Emshwiller

Upon landing, our heroes find a building with an airlock, and inside, a nice lounge with red leather chairs, a cigarette machine, and plenty of alcohol and food, along with a machine shop and a lot of electronic gear, with signs and manuals in English and Russian—and a vault full of missiles, ready to be armed with warheads.  They surmise the Russians are finding something similar.

So what gives?  All along there have been passing references to gambling, such as the protagonist’s having bought a sweepstakes ticket, and racing magazines lying around, some inside the mysterious building.  Our hero picks up one of the latter and finds a note in it written by the aliens who set up the building, explaining that they are all betting on whether the Earthfolk will blow themselves up in short order, or avoid extermination and come calling on the aliens a bit later.  Narrator ruminates: “I don’t like being the booby prize in a cosmic lottery.  And that’s all the human race is now, I guess.”

And that arid gimmick is the story, with no other redeeming feature.  Del Rey must have been short on the rent that month.  One star. 

Luvver, by Mack Reynolds

Speaking of gimmicks, arid ones that is, Mack Reynolds’s Luvver (Fantastic Adventures, June 1950) is about as contrived as Stacked Deck.  Old Donald Macbride and his flirtatious daughter Patricia are having spaceship problems and make an emergency landing on a handy planet despite the “RESTRICTED ZONE.  LANDING FORBIDDEN” warning that comes over the radio. The local garrison, consisting of Steve and Dave, hustles them off their ship—blindfolded—and into their quarters, warning them not to look around, not to go outside, not to open the windows, without explaining why. 

But Patricia, of course, goes outside, and before Steve can drag her in, she sees a little animal–a luvver.  He knocks her out and the guys shoot her up with “the lethe drug,” since wiping her memory is her only hope.  Steve explains to the old man that all animals have means of defense—speed, size, venom, scent, etc.  The luvvers’ defense is eliciting undying love—“a stronger force than the most vicious narcotic”—in anyone or anything that sees them.  If Patricia retains her memories, she will “die of melancholy” if kept away from them, and if they escaped their world, pandemonium would ensue.

The gimmick is slightly less inane than del Rey’s, and Reynolds writes in a style more facile and natural than del Rey’s artificial and irritating voice, so two stars, barely.

Sub-Satellite, by Charles Cloukey

The gem of the issue, remarkably, is Charles L. Cloukey’s Sub-Satellite, from the March 1928 Amazing.  It recounts a great inventor’s construction of a spaceship and his voyage to the Moon in it, and the attempt on his life there by a disgruntled and demented former employee who has stowed away.  It is well told in an agreeable, slightly stilted but very plain style with a good balance of narration and exposition, reminding me of (my old memories of) Jules Verne.  It too ends with a gimmick—one that has been used in later decades by better-known writers—but there’s much more of a story here than in del Rey’s or Reynolds’s efforts, so it doesn’t detract from the whole.  Four stars.

So who’s this Cloukey?  Never heard of him, though I’m familiar with most of Gernsback’s repeat contributors.  Turns out he died in 1931, at age 19, of typhoid fever, after publishing eight stories, a poem, and a serial novel in Gernsback’s magazines.  Sub-Satellite was his first story, and he was not quite 16 when it was published.  Forget G. Peyton Wertenbaker, whose The Man from the Atom, done when he was 16, was pretty terrible—Cloukey is the real prodigy of the Gernsback years.  Too bad he didn’t last.

Summing Up

So, not a bad issue, with a couple of four-star stories, and some evidence (mainly the cover and table of contents) that the new regime at least wants to make the magazine look a bit livelier.  Whether a sustained improvement is in process of course remains to be seen.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 8, 1967] Four to go (December 1967 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

The New Frontier

Tomorrow, history will be made: the first Saturn V, largest rocket in the history of the world, will take off.  If successful, Project Apollo's launch vehicle will be "man-rated", and one hurdle between humanity and the moon will have been cleared.

Of course, we'll have full coverage of the event after it happens, but this sneak preview makes a dandy segue.  For today's article is on a literary type of explorer: Galaxy magazine.  Unlike Apollo, Galaxy, which started in 1950, is a tried, tested, and even somewhat tired entity.  Back in 1959, Galaxy moved to a larger, but bimonthly, format.  This has not been an entirely successful endeavor, and in few issues are the problems more glaring than in this one.  For if an editor needs to fill up 196 pages every other month (not to mention the 164 pages of one or two sister magazines), that editor's standards must sometimes slip…

The Old Frontier


by Gray Morrow

Outpost of Empire, by Poul Anderson

Out on the edge of space lies the mineral-poor planet of Freehold. Thinly settled by humans, and then also by the alien Arulians, it lies just outside the Empire.  A growing insurgency threatens to topple the existing order, and Ridenour, an imperial troubleshooter, is sent in to monitor the situation.


by Gray Morrow

Sounds pretty nifty, but it's not.  The first twenty pages of this seventy-page piece are nothing but characters explaining the story to each other.  Skimming the rest of the tale, I determined that it's all more of the same.  Moreover, Poul doesn't even try to disguise what he's doing.  He spotlights it by having his endlessly explaining protagonist marvel at what a pedant he's being–and when other characters do the same thing, he inwardly notes how much a pedant they're being.

As Kris notes:

Rule 1 of writing: If your characters are finding what you are doing contrived, so will the reader.

The whole thing is written in that archaic style Poul reverts to when given the chance, though there's no reason to do so in this book.  He also can't resist being a bit sexist, even in a story that takes place thousands of years from now.  Dig this gem:

"But in the parks, roses and Jasmine were abloom; and elsewhere the taverns brawled with merriment.  The male citizens were happily acquiring the money that the Imperialists brought with them; the females were still more happily helping spend it."

Because in the future, women don't work; they are parasites on the real producers–the men.

Feh.  One star.

That already gets us nearly halfway through the book.  Things do not immediately improve…

The South Waterford Rumple Club, by Richard Wilson


by Jack Gaughan

Aliens drop bags of counterfeit money on a small American town.  Economic collapse ensues, facilitating an extraterrestrial takeover.

I was about to write that Wilson was an unknown name to me, but looking through the archives, I see he's made several appearances in science fiction magazines over the past two years.  He's just eminently forgettable.  This story does not change the trend.  For one, he spends a couple of pages giving a history lesson as to why an influx of fake currency is such a deadly weapon–akin to anthrax and mustard gas.  And then we get a tedious demonstration of such an attack, followed by a couple of pages of (not well thought out) aftermath.

This is the sort of inferior stuff that filled the lesser mags of the '50s.  It doesn't belong here.

Two stars.

Thank goodness for Silverbob.  From here on, out, the issue is quite good.  But you have to make it to page 96!  (or simply skip the dross)

King of the Golden World, by Robert Silverberg

Elena, a human, has married Haugan, chief of a tribe of aliens that lives on an island dominated by twin volcanic mounts.  Theirs is a genuine love, despite their divergent evolutions, but full understanding still eludes the Earth woman.  Though the mountain on which the village is sited is clearly about to erupt, Haugan seems in no hurry to evacuate his people.  It is only on the eve of disaster that Elena learns the true, alien nature of Haugan's people.  Will she embrace it or be repelled?

This is really quite a sensitive story, timeless and nuanced.  I suspect it was influenced by Silverberg's recent nonfiction histories of the original American inhabitants (collectively referred to as "Indians").

Four stars.

For Your Information: Astronautics International, by Willy Ley

Ten years ago, it was enough to keep up with the Soviets and the Americans if you wanted to know what was up in space.  These days, Earth's orbit has become a truly international province, and this month's article focuses on the efforts of the non-superpowers, of which there are many.

As a space buff, articles on satellites always score extra marks with me, so I hope our tastes are aligned.  Four stars.

Black Corridor, by Fritz Leiber

A man awakens, naked, without memories, inside a featureless corridor.  Ahead of him lie two doors: one is labeled "Water", the other "Air".  Behind him a wall moves toward him implacably.  Choose…or die.

But beyond the first pair of doors is another, and another.  Is this a test?  Will the test end?  And what is its purpose?

Less a science fiction story and more a metaphor for life itself, this piece's worth depends solely on the execution.  Thankfully, Leiber is up to the task.

Four stars.

The Red Euphoric Bands, by Philip Latham

A comet is heading straight for an Earth on the brink of atomic war.  Is it our doom…or our salvation?

On the one hand, the storytelling and the science are quite excellent.  On the other, the conclusion is silly.  Moreover, there is a fundamental fault in this otherwise accurate piece: a comet with a two light year orbit would have a period of around six billion years–too high to serve the purposes of the story.

Thus, three stars.

Galactic Consumer Report No. 3: A Survey of the Membership, by John Brunner

The first galactic survey, conducted by Good Buy magazine, turned out to be something of a fiasco–too many beings responded, and they were just too variegated to provide anything like a profile of "an average consumer".  Yet, you couldn't call the exercise less than successful…

This series tends to be silly and throw-away, but this installment I liked a lot.  Why?  Because it's almost like a Theodore Thomas article from his F&SF column–a couple dozen story seeds all in one piece.  So many stories feature aliens that are little more than humans in costume.  This one presents some real aliens.  It also made me laugh a few times.

So, four stars.

Handicap, by Larry Niven


by Jack Gaughan

On the former Kzin world of Down, orbiting a feeble red dwarf, humans have established an agricultural colony.  In addition to its colorful history, Down offers another attraction: the Grogs.  These are comical-looking, human-sized creatures that have two phases in life.  At first, they are four-legged creatures with a dog-like intelligence.  In this form, they rove the deserts of Down, hunting and mating.  Eventually, the females anchor themselves to a rock, where they stay the rest of their lives.

And yet, these creatures have enormous brains, suggesting a great intelligence.  Why did they evolve them, and what can they do with them?  Garvey, an entrepreneur whose line is making prosthetics for "Handicapped" species, ones without manipulative organs of their own (e.g. dolphins, the enormous Bandersnatchi of planet Jinx), smells an opportunity.

Handicap, like last year's A Relic of Empire, expands what is becoming a sweeping common universe, tying in the Kzinti of The Warriors, the Thrintun of World of Ptavvs, and the hyperdrive era of Beowulf Shaeffer.  What I really like about Niven is that he isn't in a hurry to tell his story.  There are asides and subplots, weaving a meandering course through entertaining vignettes, before tying everything together at the end.  Niven's universe feels lived in, and all of its facets are interesting.  That there's a nifty story at the heart of Handicap is a bonus…though my eyebrows were raised a bit by this exchange:

Garvey: "For as long as we expand to other stars we're going to meet more and more handless, toolless, helpless civilizations.  Sometimes we won't even recognize them.  What are we going to do about them?"

Jilson (a guide): "Build Dolphin's Hands for them."

Garvey: "Well, yes, but we can't just give them away.  Once one species starts depending on another, they become parasites."

This feels a bit like an indictment of welfare, foreign aid…or assistance to the handicapped.  I would not jump to concluding that Garvey's views necessarily represent Niven's views, but I also would not be surprised, as he is a hereditary millionaire, and the plutocracy often thinks ill of public demands on their wealth.  I will simply note that I think Garvey is being short-sighted.  Isn't it worth the investment of a little charity to create an entirely new potential market of both imports and exports?  If you give away limbs to the crippled, schools to the poor, food to the starving, will they really just sit on their duffs?  Or will they simply now be unencumbered members of society, ready to participate fully?  I submit that equalization of opportunity through government assistance and charity actually serves capitalism rather than subverts it.

Well, that's a tiny quibble, and again, just because Garvey thinks this way doesn't mean the author does.  If anything, I'm glad he gave me something to think about–along with a good story!

Four stars.

The Fairly Civil Service, by Harry Harrison


by Jack Gaughan

A day in the life of the postal clerk of the future.  A particularly bad, seemingly endless day.  The kind that tries a person's soul…or tests one's abilities.

Harrison is reliably good.  He does not disappoint here.  Four stars.

To the Black Beyond

Having trudged through a barren literary landscape for half the span of a magazine, it was comforting to have solid ground to trod for the latter half.  But now that the Galaxy is done, I am once again adrift.  Who knows what lies in store within the covers of the next magazine or paperback that will cross my desk?  Like the expanses of space, it's all an unknown adventure.

Luckily, there are still enough treasures waiting to be found to make the journey worth it!



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, Uncategorized

[November 4, 1967] Conflicts (December 1967 IF)

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by David Levinson

Conflicts at home over the conflict abroad

It seems like scarcely a day goes by without images of young people protesting showing up on the evening news and landing on our doorsteps. These days, it’s usually about the war in Vietnam as President Johnson ratchets up the number of troops involved yet again. Monday, October 16th saw the start of Stop the Draft week. Induction centers in cities all over the country were blockaded by protesters, while many young men either burned their draft cards or attempted to hand them in to authorities, which is now a criminal offense. Arrests were plentiful. In Oakland alone, 125 people (including singer Joan Baez) were arrested, and I’ve seen estimates that as many as 1,000 draft cards were either burned or turned in. The week culminated in a march on the Pentagon. Check back later this month for an eyewitness account from the Journey’s Vickie Lucas.

Joan Baez is arrested in Oakland.

Of course, the protests didn’t end there. On October 27th, Father Philip Berrigan, Rev. James Mengel and two other men, forced their way into Selective Service office in Baltimore, Maryland and poured blood into several file drawers containing draft records. The men have refused bail and are being held awaiting trial.

Fr. Berrigan pouring blood into a file drawer.

Conflicts big and small

When we study literature in school, we’re usually taught that conflict is one of the most important elements in narrative and drama. It’s often broken down into three types: man against man, man against nature and man against self. The December issue of IF has them all.

Futuristic combat in The City of Yesterday. Art by Chaffee

Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq., by Arthur C. Clarke

A guest editorial from Clarke regarding a literary mystery. In a story in the October 1966 Galaxy, he referred to a short story called “The Anticipator” which he attributed to H. G. Wells, but which no one could find. You can probably figure out the real author from the title of this piece. I’m sure the puzzle was very interesting for Arthur, but for most readers it’s rather pointless.

Barely three stars.

All Judgment Fled (Part 1 of 3), by James White

When a mysterious object enters the solar system and places itself in orbit around the sun between Mars and Jupiter, two ships, each containing three men, are sent to investigate. Both have two astronaut pilots and a supernumerary: a physicist aboard Prometheus-1 and a psychologist aboard Prometheus-2.

The trip is psychologically taxing. At one point, physicist Hollis suffers a breakdown and psychologist McCullough (our viewpoint character) must make a dangerous trip between the ships to treat him. Hollis appears to have grown paranoid, claiming that P-2 has been declared expendable and that P-1 is carrying a Dirty Annie, a highly destructive atomic bomb. McCullough manages to calm him down, and the journey continues.

When they reach the alien ship, it appears to be abandoned. McCullough and Walters (second in command of P-2) manage to get inside, but don’t get the chance to explore. They are attacked by a starfish-like, tentacled alien and then trapped in the compartment where they first entered by two of the starfish aliens and another that looks like a dumbbell. As they leave, McCullough gets a glimpse of something covered in white fur or maybe clothing. To be continued.

McCullough helps Walters deal with a tear in his suit. Art by Morrow

I’m of two minds about this one. The premise is excellent, and the decision to devote roughly half of this installment to the difficulties of the journey is interesting. Most authors would probably have rushed the narrative to get the characters to the ship as quickly as possible and focused on the mystery of the alien object. But that’s also where the problem lies. White is so thorough at describing the pressures and interpersonal problems these six men face that the tension creeps into his style and never goes away. That makes for a sometimes difficult read. You would also expect a mission like this to be much more international than six guys with English-sounding names.

Three stars.

On Conquered Earth, by Jay Kay Klein

The Hiroku are keeping a close eye on the backwards world of Earth. Their real focus is on expansion towards the galactic center, but a small, steady decrease in the human population has them worried. It might be necessary to bring in a fleet to smash the system to prevent a threat arising at their back. What’s really going on?

If you’re going to use art to boost the title, it should be more interesting than this. Art by Gaughan

Jay Kay Klein and his camera are a common sight at science fiction conventions, where he’s practically the official photographer. Here we have his first story sold, and it leaves a lot to be desired. The truth behind the population decline is questionable (though it might have qualified it for Dangerous Visions). I’m more bothered, though, by the description of the Hiroku as looking like Asian humans and having such Japanese sounding names (Admiral Ikara, Ambassador Sushi). That’s enough for me to knock off a star.

Two stars.

Answering Service, by Fritz Leiber

Unable to contact her doctor, a vicious old woman takes out her frustrations on his answering service. After all, it’s just a bunch of computer-controlled tapes on the other end.

Pay attention to me! Art by Gaughan

Fritz Leiber reminds us that he can write very effective horror. You can see where it’s going, but this is Leiber at the top of his game.

Four stars.

Fandom in Europe Today, by Lin Carter

Carter continues his world tour and looks at the state of European fandom. Much of what we read also appears in Europe in translation. Galaxy has a number of current and former foreign-language editions. In Germany, Perry Rhodan has come a long way since our own Cora Buhlert first wrote about him. And Gerfandom is exploring a Worldcon bid for 1970 or 1971. We get a brief look at the state of SF publishing in Britain and Italy, and then Carter talks about the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, which helps one deserving American fan visit an overseas convention or vice versa.

Three stars.

When Sea is Born Again, by C. C. MacApp

Latpur is the apprentice to Prognosticator Deeoon, who has seen signs that Sea will be born again soon and in their area. This happens every few years in some coastal area and well inland, destroying all life that fails to reach high ground. Matters are complicated by a foreign shaman trying to steal business from the scientific prognosticator and the arrival of aliens in a metal cylinder.

Latpur running errands for the Prognosticator. Art by Vaughn Bodé

MacApp continues his recent theme of looking at alien societies from the inside. Like the others, this one is enjoyable, if not particularly memorable.

Three stars.

City of Yesterday, by Terry Carr

J-1001011 has been awakened for an attack on a city on the planet Rhinstruk. The reason for the attack and the nature of the enemy are unimportant. Our protagonist was born human, and if he can survive enough missions, he’ll get to go to a home he no longer really remembers.

J-1001011 begins an attack run. Art by Gaughan.

Terry Carr is a familiar name as both writer and editor. He’s usually fairly reliable, but while I can see what he was trying to say, I don’t feel like he really achieved his goal. The story is competently written, but I never engaged with it.

A low three stars.

Swordsmen of the Stars, by Robert E. Margroff and Andrew J. Offutt

Varn is a rising gladiator for the Greenback team on the planet Solitos. Two high-ranking spectators seem to have taken an interest in his performance, one supporting him and the other backing the Bluechips. Varn decides he must be the secret son of a godling and will do whatever it takes to find out the truth.

This is actually one of the less ridiculous moments of combat. Art by Gaughan

Margroff and Offutt have produced a number of substandard stories alone and in collaboration. This might not be the worst, but it’s also not their best. Much here is borrowed from Mack Reynolds’ Joe Mauser stories with a large helping of Gladiator-at-Law by Fred Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. Unlike either of its inspirations, this story is not a scathing criticism of modern capitalism; it’s just a bad adventure story with combat scenes that the worst hack of the Pulp Era would dismiss as unrealistic.

Two stars.

The Time Trollers, by Roger Deeley

Time travel is imprecise. While aiming for the United States in the mid-twentieth century, one man has found himself on St. Helena in the early nineteenth. And l’empereur has some surprising information for him.

Art uncredited

Mildly entertaining, but rather forgettable.

A low three stars.

Ocean on Top (Part 3 of 3), by Hal Clement

Searching for three vanished investigators for the global Power Board, our unnamed protagonist has discovered a thriving, power-wasting group of people living on the sea floor. In this installment, he learns the history of the ocean-dwelling people, the Board’s motives for ignoring the settlement, and resolves his unrequited crush.

The protagonist has found someone who doesn’t care about his hated name. Art by Castellon

Despite the slightly darker tone, this is a reasonably typical Clement tale. There’s a scientifically plausible basis, and almost all the characters are fundamentally good people. But this is not one of his better works. A lot of the pieces don’t really hang together. I don’t consider the Board’s stated reasoning for ignoring the power generation method used by the people here to be at all valid, although the reason for ignoring the people themselves makes some sense. The protagonist’s absolute hatred for his name (we learn of the nickname Tummy, but that’s it) is probably meant to give him some incentive to stay, but the whole business feels silly.

It’s a so-so read, at best, if you like Clement. When it eventually comes out as a novel, my tip is either to club together with some friends to buy a copy or encourage your local library to buy it and then check it out. It’s not worth the 60-75 cents it will assuredly cost.

Barely three stars.

Summing up

We finally got a stand-out story this month. This is the first time since May that I’ve rated a story higher than 3 stars, and that’s a long slog of mediocrity and worse. IF is proudly proclaiming their two consecutive Best Magazine Hugos. An overall grade of C- isn’t going to get them a third. The new serial has some promise, but White is going to have to release the psychological tension that is cramping the narrative. All I can suggest for Fred Pohl is more Delany, more Zelazny, lean on Saberhagen and Niven to polish their work a little more, and try to get some better novels to serialize.

A new Zelazny is a good sign, and Saberhagen could be good.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 31, 1967] Same ol' (November 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Iran's "new" King

This week's foreign news was dominated by affairs in the Middle East.  When the papers weren't talking about the United Nations futilely trying to hammer out a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt (whose conflict has become a continuous low burn rather than a short conflagration), they were gushing over the crowing of Persia's "King of Kings".

Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the uncrowned king of Iran for the last 26 years, chose his 48th birthday to crown himself Light of the Aryans, emperor of "the world's oldest monarchy."  Also crowned was his wife, Farah, who became the first empress of Persia since the 7th century A.D.

Taking place in the dazzling Hall of Mirros in Gole-stan Palace, the event was possibly the most expensive coronation in history, with newspaper accounts breathlessly describing the type and number of jewels employed in the various accoutrements of state and decorations.  The affair concluded with 101-gun salutes, kicking off a week of celebrations that are just wrapping up today.

According to the Shah, the reason for the long delay between ascension to rule and formalization of said rule was that he did not want to take the grand title until Iran had become a modern, prosperous state.

My only aim is to further the prosperity and glory of my nation, and make Iran the most progressive country in the world, resurrecting its ancient glory and grandeur. For this I will not hesitate to sacrifice my life.

While the newspapers and newsreels seem dazzled by the Shah's extravaganza, many of Iran's 25 million people were less impressed.  One young woman, student at the Tehran University, would have fit right in at this spring's protests of the Shah's visit to West Germany:

Why should he spend all this money on his coronation?  There are so many poor people.  He should give them the money.

It should also be noted that while the Shah did take the throne of Iran in 1941, his reign was not uninterrupted.  Unmentioned in all the newspaper accounts I could find of the coronation was the two-year tenure of Mohammed Mosaddeq, the democratically elected but leftist prime minister of Iran from 1951-1953.  During the Mosaddeq administration, the Shah fled the country, only returning when a coup removed Mossadeq from power—an event which, if not instigated with assistance from the United States and the United Kingdom, was certainly extremely convenient for both governments.

Magazine of Magazines

It has been a couple of years since Analog Science Fiction won the Hugo Award for Best Magazine, but there's no question that it still reigns supreme both in subscribers and general esteem.  However, some have complained that editor John Campbell does not do enough to mix up the contents of his publication, relying on the same bunch of authors every month, resulting in a somewhat tired affair.

This month, there are no old hands in the table of contents, but like the throne of Iran, has anything really changed?


by Kelly Freas

Coup, by Guy McCord


by Kelly Freas

What a strange opening novella this is: a long lost colony world is peopled by numerous bands of Scots, operating at an 18th Century technology level…but with an American Indian organization.  The latter seems eclectic, using terms like sachem, cacique, as well as counting coup, but no explanation as to why these marooned Celts adopted customs from the western hemisphere are forthcoming.

Anyway, this is the tale of John of the Hawks, a boy on the verge of manhood, who achieves maturity by counting coup on three cattle-rustling men of Clan Thompson.  His ascension is delayed by the arrival of men from another world.  They represent themselves as scouts, but what they really want is the abundant platinum deposits on planet Caledonia.

The outworlders don't actually play much part in this story.  Mostly, we get scenes of John of the Hawks riding horses, battling rival clansmen, facing off against and falling in love with Alice of the Thompsons–a lass who is Every Bit as Good as a Man.  It all reads like a dime Western.

And if "Guy McCord" isn't Mack Reynolds, I'll eat my hat.  From the interspersed history lessons to the trademark invented slang, it's got his fingerprints all over it.

A low three stars.

Prostho Plus, by Piers Anthony


by Kelly Freas

The writer of the execrable Chthon has thankfully returned to short stories.  This is a readable, if not particularly remarkable, tale of a dentist who is tasked with filling the molars of an alien.

A story like this would usually be played for laughs, but Prostho is done straight, with an underlying tinge of horror.

Three stars.

The Case of the Perjured Planet, by Martin Loran


by Kelly Freas

The interstellar librarian, name of Quist, is back for his second story.  Using the purveying of books as a cover, the librarian corps is really a division of agents whose job is to monitor the various governments of the galactic confederation.

This time around, Quist is investigating a planet with a secret: it's not that there's evidence that the drab, earthquake-riven world of Napoleon 6 harbors something hidden, but rather the lack thereof.  Quist, knee-deep in 20th Century style detective novels, decides to take a page from Sam Spade's book, and opens up a private detective agency on the planet in the hopes that the clues will come to him.

Like last time, it's not a tale that will stick with you, but there's a maturity to the story's telling that suggests Loran is 1) quite a good writer who just needs a better subject/venue or 2) "Loran" is as real a name as "Guy McCord", and a quite good writer is slumming in Campbell's mag.

Three stars.

Applied Science Fiction, by Will F. Jenkins

And now for the highlight of the issue.  Will Jenkins, better known to the science fiction community as Murray Leinster, is not only a renowned writer–he also is an inventor.  Here is the tale of how he conceived the incredibly useful technology of front projection, allowing actors to appear in ready-made projected scenery in a far more convincing and versatile manner than rear projection.

I really enjoyed this piece, and bravo Mr. Jenkins.  Five stars.

The Cure-All Merchant, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

A doctor manages a successful practice by dealing in placebos, much to the horror of the straight man inspector assigned to investigate his activities.  This piece goes on endlessly, asserting that drugs are useless, and the human mind is all.

Ducks like a quack.  One star.

Mission: Red Plague, by Joe Poyer


by Kelly Freas

This last piece is a sort of sequel to Operation: Red Clash, again involving the mythical X-17 hypersonic reconaissance plane.  This time, the spy jet observes the deployment of a biological plague on the Sino-Soviet front.  The problem is the X-17 cockpit isn't completely airtight…

Poyer writes competent Caidenesque technophiliac stuff, but he has trouble hanging an interesting story on it.

Another low three stars.

Spot the difference?

On the surface, it appears Analog has gotten out of its rut, exploring the output of several new authors.  But it doesn't take much inspection to see that Campbell's mag offers more of the same, between the pseudo-Reynolds piece, the workmanlike Loran, Anthony and Poyer, and the truly bad (but Campbell-pleasing) Wodhams.  Only the Jenkins/Leinster is truly noteworthy, pulling the issue up to a three star rating.

That puts it below Fantasy & Science Fiction (3.25) and New Worlds (3.2) and above IF (2.8) and Fantastic (2.7) In other words, middlin', which one would expect of a mag doing the same ol', same ol'.

For those keeping up with statistics, the amount of superlative stuff this month could fill a Galaxy-sized mag; not terrific given that five magazines came out with a November 1967 cover date.  Women produced a surprising 12.5% of all new short fiction, an achievement rendered less impressive for those stories all appearing in one magazine–F&SF, which was the best magazine of the month.

So here's hoping Analog goes for real change next month rather than the veneer of change.  Maybe it'll be a failed experiment…or maybe Campbell will get to oversee a new Golden Age.  Be bold, John!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 24, 1967] War, Anti-utopias and Near-Future Apocalypses New Worlds, November 1967

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

As the weather turns distinctly autumnal here, I guess that we can say Goodbye to the so-called “Summer of Love”. Here in Britain I can’t say I’ve noticed major social changes, and certainly not as much as you in California – but it has at least brought me The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, which has been a constant source of entertainment here since its release in June.

Whilst it is not on the British streets, such images of casual living, sex, drugs and rock and roll are still in my British magazine, of course. It feels like there’s at least one story every month that relates to this. Recently it was Thomas Disch’s Camp Concentration, and now… well, I’ll get to that later.

Not only that, but this issue seems to have a general theme of conflict about it.

Here’s the issue.

Cover by Vivienne Young

Article: Peace and Paradox by John T. Sladek

An example of the logic shown in this article. Not sure I understood this!

In recent months these first articles in the magazine have been pretty intense, dealing with aspects of philosophy, mathematics and psychology that have made me have to read them more than once to get any understanding.

This month’s is even more esoteric, showing a connection between war and peace in War Game Theory through mathematics that made my head spin. No named writer in the title, although the cover states that it is by John Sladek. Its relevance as a theme may be deliberate, on reading the Book Reviews later this month. 3 out of 5.

An Age (Part 2 of 3) by Brian W. Aldiss

Here’s this month’s drug-culture story.

Continuing from last month’s first part, Edward Bush and his new girlfriend Ann take a mind-trip to the Jurassic using the mind-altering drug CSD. They meet stegosauri and go to a town set up by other travellers from the future. Bush wanders away from the town bar and is attacked. Separated from Ann, he returns to the world of 2093, where we discover that this world whence they came is a rather unpleasant place run by a dictator named General Peregrine Bolt, which is why many people transport themselves to the past.

Bush meets his family to renew his strained relationship with his father and finds that his mother has died whilst he was travelling. He is then arrested by the Wenlock Institute, the place where mind-travel was invented, for overstaying his mind-travel journey, but really it seems that this is just an excuse for Bush to be interrogated by Franklyn, the Deputy of the Institute.

Towards the end we seem to stray into satire as Bush is press-ganged into Bolt’s new Mind-Travel Police Squad. After training, he is sent back into the past as part of Ten Squad to capture and kill the scientist-traitor Silverstone, who has wandered off. It very much reminded me of Harry Harrison’s Bill, the Galactic Hero in its amusement at the idiocy of training soldiers for war.

Despite this veer into humour, this serial still feels like something from a middle-class writer trying to broaden his range in an attempt to appear gritty and progressive. Bush refers to Ann as “a slag” and “a cow” – charming! For a middle-of-the-story-part, this one was a little uneven, but acceptable, though worse as it went along. 3 out of 5.

Article: The Terror-Pleasure Paradox by Christopher Finch

Example of Self's imagery.

This month’s ‘artycle’ examines the “selective naturalism” of Colin Self. The “Terror-Pleasure Paradox” is namely that by using “nuclear warfare paraphernalia” in a manner which verges on advertising it therein creates a paradox – something that should frighten, yet at the same time may provide pleasure.

In its combination of provocative war imagery, modern machinery and even eroticism it all seems very Ballard-ian to me and therefore will be appreciated by many New Worlds readers. Me, I’m not so sure. 3 out of 5.

Stand on Zanzibar (excerpt) by John Brunner

Uncredited image, but it looks like a Douthwaite, who is credited in the magazine.

From John Brunner there’s an excerpt from his latest book (due next year.) This one, I must admit, is a revelation, but actually not as entirely new as it claims to be.

The title comes from the idea that if you took all of the world’s population and stood them together, they would occupy a space merely that of the island of Zanzibar. The introduction refers to the work of John Dos Passos, which seems to have this style of lots of different styles of writing, in a cut-up manner that Ballard would be proud of. It’s certainly something we’ve seen much of in New Worlds recently.

We don’t get a narrative here as such, more of a taste of a big, complex future world. Donald Hogan is a corporate executive for General Technics in New York. He has the ability to make the right guesses, which is part of his job as a synthesist. As seen through Donald, New York is a busy city, under a dome and overpopulated with people, and noisy. Advertising is everywhere, a culture of consumerism dominant. Its multicultural streets at night are a dazzling blend of energy, suppressed violence and pseudo cab drivers.

We also meet Poppy Shelton, a young pregnant girl who goes to visit the doctors. In contrast to Hogan’s, hers is a world of squalor made bearable by casual psychedelic drugs.

To show all of this, we have disparate forms of prose presented in that cut-up manner we’ve seen in a lot of stories here. There is some sort of street-speak language, academic descriptions of a future multi-ethnic society, quotes from people in the street, advertising slogans and signage to show this, often in short sentences. It is a world of government-decreed abortions, riots and casual drug usage.

Another uncredited image that looks like a Douthwaite.

Although this is only a taster, it is interesting – and perhaps most important of all, makes me want to read more, as the point of Donald and Poppy are unclear based on this. It seems to combine the ideas of Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! with the style of Thomas Disch’s Camp Concentration to create a multifaceted, kaleidoscopic view of this near-future world. Who knows where this near-future dystopia is going?

It’s just a shame that it is an extract, as the book sounds BIG – the introduction points out that they would have liked to have run it as a serial, but a fifteen-part serial was not viable. If the rest of the book is like this, Stand on Zanzibar may be the most ambitious, yet simultaneously accessible work of the British New Wave of SF to date, although I am aware that the novel may be just style over substance. Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?

This might be one of the most intriguing stories I’ve read recently, so much so that I can see it in the Awards nominations next year – providing that the rest matches this extract, of course! 4 out of 5.

After Galactic War by Michael Butterworth
Sharing the horror in full – another poetic gem – well, they seem to be liked by some!

Oh, oh – more poetry alert! To quote: “i looked out of the forehead of a doubledecker bus and my legs were wheels”… indeed. I suspect the author’s been visiting that new New York of Brunner’s… 2 out of 5.

Wine on an Empty Stomach by George Collyn

Illustration by Cawthorn

It’s been a while since we’ve seen George as an author in these pages – he has been better known for reviewing books recently, of which there are some later!

His story is a decent effort at writing in the New Wave form about a post-apocalyptic future as written from different people’s perspectives: a group of literary readers, a soldier, an obsessive book hoarder, an amateur philosopher and a prostitute whose lives come together at the end to create a new future. I quite liked this one, divided into chapters that each told of another person, each adding another element of the story to make a coherent narrative at the end. Of course, this being British anti-utopia, it all ends badly.  4 out of 5.

Article: Off-Beat Generation by Dr. John W. Gardner

The future of energy?

No Dr. Christopher Evans this month, so not a medical-based article. Instead, Dr. John W. Gardner looks at how to secure future energy production in a world where the population is growing. Talk of fuel cells (see photo) and thermonuclear reactors ensue. Quite heavy on the science this one. Like the leading article this month, it’s interesting, but I wouldn’t say that I understood it all. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

George Collyn reappears in his now more regular role here, as book reviewer. This month The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy makes “good reading” and August Derluth’s “less robust” story collection, Over the Edge much less so. The Tenth Galaxy Reader, edited by Frederik Pohl, is “thoroughly professional” but “fairly conventional”, which seems to echo comments on the magazine around here at Galactic Journey. The Last Castle is “typical Vance”, with World of the Sleeper by Tony Russell Wayman being a swashbuckling better buy.

As has been a pattern over the last few Book Reviews, the last reviews this month are in more detail and determinedly not genre-based. Professor Gordon A. Craig writes of War, Politics and Diplomacy, no doubt as an adjunct to the leading article at the beginning of the magazine. Secondly, Dr. Donald West looks at the issue of juvenile delinquency in his book The Young Offender.

Summing up New Worlds

And that’s it for this month. This issue feels like it has less quantity than normal, although the quality of what is there is of the usual good standard. The star for me this month is the Brunner extract, although I am wary of being overenthusiastic. Nevertheless, I am hoping it holds up when it becomes a “proper” novel. It has the potential to be something special.

I am enjoying the Aldiss more than some of his more recent stories, I must admit, although the last part of the story seemed to fizzle out a bit. The Collyn was better than I thought it was going to be, which was a pleasant surprise.

So, all in all, not a bad issue – again.

After writing this article, I did hear of an interesting rumour about New Worlds. Gossip has it that the new direction of the magazine may not be leading to increased sales. There are rumblings in the ether that Mike Moorcock is having to go with metaphorical cap-in-hand to the publishers to gain further finance. Does this put the magazine at risk again? Possibly. More in the future as I get it.

An advertisement from this month's magazine that shows how different book sales and New Worlds magazine is, perhaps? How many of these authors are mentioned in detail in the magazine these days?

Until the next!



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 22, 1967] Equal Opportunity Employer (November 1967 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

It is the Policy of the United States Government

Say what you will about LBJ's unfortunate Vietnam policy, there's no question but that his last four years in office have seen more progress on the Civil Rights front than any four decades since the 15th Amendment.

Case in point: just over a week ago, on October 13, 1967, the President signed Executive Order 11375. 

It is desirable that the equal employment opportunity programs provided for in Executive Order No. 11246 expressly embrace discrimination on account of sex.

Hencefoth, in the federal government, and in any federally contracted organization, there must be no discrimination on the basis of sex.


Dorothy Hudson Jacobson, USDA Assistant Secretary for International Affairs


Evelyn Brown; starting in 1963, she was the first woman since WW2 to deliver mail in the nation's capital

It does not immediately solve the rampant inequality and sexist structure in our society, but it is the first step.  An important one.  Not just for justice and quality of life, but for the prosperity of our nation.  For when half the population is allowed to participate without fetter, the fruits in terms of production and innovation, must necessarily more than double, but perhaps even quadruple.

It is the Policy of F&SF

This is something the editorial staff at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has always known.  While women have only produced 10% of all published science fiction stories, F&SF has always printed a disproportionate number of them.  When there were thirty monthly magazines, F&SF alone published half of the stories by women.  I daresay its a big reason why F&SF has both managed to remain in the top tiers of the SF digests, and also why F&SF seems to have the highest readership of women.

Nearly half the text in this month's issue (including the only book column penned by a woman) is female-made.  It is perhaps not a surprise that this is one of the better issues of the magazine this year.  After all, when one opens up the lists to all comers rather than just half of them, there's more quality to choose from.


by Gray Morrow

The Sword Swallower, Ron Goulart

But first, a slight misstep.  Ron Goulart is pretty good at witty stories with an element of earthiness.  In particular, his stories about his occult detective, Max Kearney, and the tales of the shapechanging agent, Ben Jolson, are generally something to look forward to.


Ron Goulart

Swallower is a story of the latter, but sadly, it is not up to Goulart's usual standard.  In this piece, Ben is sent to a planet that specializes in sanatoria and funerals–life and death in one package–to investigate the disappearances (and presumed kidnappings) of several government officials.  It reads like someone ghost wrote a Goulart story, containing all the requisite elements, but failing to deliver on humor or interest.

Two stars.

Ballet Nègre, Charles Birkin

The next story is something of a failure, too, about an investigative reporter who must interview the star duo of dancers in a Haitian troupe.  Their ability to walk in flames, their complete silence, and their ghostly pallor intrigue him.

Well, of course they're zombies, and bog standard zombies of the type we've seen in fiction and on teevee for decades.  It's all sort of breathless and lurid, and entirely unsurprising.

Two stars.


Gahan Wilson

Ah, but beginning with the book column (in which Judy Merril promises she will soon have another volume of her controversial but always genre-broadening "Year's Best" anthologies soon), the magazine takes a decided turn for the better.

The Vine, Kit Reed

In a rustic somewhere and somewhen, the vine grows.  It produces the most sumptuous grapes, the most viridian foliage.  But the vine is not for use by humans.  Quite the opposite.  For generations, the Baskin family has cared for the vine, maintaining its elaborate greenhouse, keeping the pests off, ensuring its propagation, in a way becoming intertwined with it.  The other town-dwellers at first resented this unnaturally demanding growth, but in time, it became a tourist attraction.  Soon, the entire economy was based around the now-sprawling vegetable.

However, the vine hungers, and one family can no longer sate it…

Kit Reed has always delivered a large dose of atmosphere with her writing.  This one stays with you.

Four stars.

Nothing Much to Relate, Josephine Saxton

I think this is Saxton's second story; she first appeared in Science Fantasy, so I assume she is from Britain.  It's a cute tale involving a new mother with a talent for automatic writing, and a would-be-yogi who bites off more than he can chew.

It's a rather frivolous piece, but fun all the same.  Three stars.

When the Birds Die, Eduardo Goligorsky (translated by Vernor Vinge)

Here's a rather straightforward and simple after-the-bomb piece about a hobo who, for a little while, lives like a king thanks to his stockpile of vital supplies.  This one's all in the telling, which is particularly remarkable given that it's a story in translation (so, good job Vernor).

Three stars.

The Little Victims, Hilary Bailey

Bailey is another import from the UK, known for her many appearances in New Worlds.  This novella is easily the highlight of the issue.  Rose Dalby is a pregnant young woman who flees a drug den only to be swept into and confined in some sort of weird maternity hospital.  Each of the many mothers gives birth to some kind of monster, either idiotic or preternaturally advanced.  Something sinister is afoot, and Rose is determined to be no part of it.  Fortunately, the world is not entirely composed of evil men.

Not only is the story quite excellent, but the format is rather novel, told as multiple transcripts in an official inquiry document.  The only failing is the rather talky ending.  Still, good stuff, and more please.

Four stars.

Knock Plastic!, Isaac Asimov

Doc A seemed to have fallen into a rut recently.  His articles were either about the most inconsequential and trivial of things ("What latitude can the cities of St. John and Paris be found at?") or, worse, long lists that one could find in the back of any good atlas.

This month, he breaks the mold, detailing the six primary superstitious fallacies.  I enjoyed this piece enough to read it aloud to the Young Traveler.

Five stars.

A Message from Charity, William M. Lee

Finally, the story of a long communication across the centuries.  The telepathic penpals: young Charity Paynes of 18th Century Annes Town, and slightly less young Peter Wood of a 20th Century suburb occupying the same space.  Brought upon by a bout of summer typhoid (in both eras), the two slowly form a bond that goes beyond the sending of messages, including even the exchange of sensations.

Of course, a girl who speaks to unseen things in 1700 New England tends to arouse suspicion.

I first expected this story to be routine (even cliché); then I feared it might become unpleasantly dark.  Lee adroitly manages both outcomes.  I'm not sure if I would give it a fourth star, but it certainly lands in the high threes.

By Virtue of the Authority

Excluding the first two stories, one has a cracking good read for four bits.  Even including them, the November 1967 issue of F&SF clocks in at 3.25 stars.  Given that even Analog is getting into the equal opportunity act, I think we may be headed for a new golden era of science fiction.

Or should that be "Rose Golden"?

Speaking of which, I think you'll very much enjoy Journey Press' newest release:

You've probably heard of Marie Vibbert, one of the biggest names in SFF magazines in the far off 21st Century.  Her book, The Gods Awoke, is what I've been calling "a new New Wave masterpiece".

Do check it out.  You'll not only be getting a great book, but you'll be supporting the Journey!




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