Category Archives: Magazine/Anthology

Science Fiction and Fantasy in print

[December 2, 1968] Forget It (January 1969 IF)


by David Levinson

Forget the future

It’s official. As if it weren’t already clear from the events in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia over the summer, the Soviet Union has now openly declared that no communist nation in the Soviet sphere of influence will be allowed to go its own way or engage in any sort of reforms not approved by Moscow. Addressing the Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party on November 13th, Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev stated, “When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries.” That’s the justification for military intervention wherever the U.S.S.R. feels like, especially within the Warsaw Pact. We all know who will get to decide if something is a move towards capitalism.

Leonid Brezhnev after addressing the Soviet Central Committee earlier this year.

The backlash has already begun. After years of strained relations, Albania formally withdrew from the Warsaw Pact in protest over the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Of course, they have Yugoslavia as a buffer state, and the close proximity of Greece and Italy probably also offer a deterrent. As we go to press, Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu has publicly condemned this new doctrine as a violation of the Warsaw Treaty. Only time will tell how this shakes out.

Forget the past

Forgetfulness seems to be the theme of this month’s IF. The issue is book-ended with stories featuring protagonists with amnesia, while two of the remaining three stories offer a man who doesn’t know his name and an entire year blotted from everybody’s memory.

Just some random art not associated with any of the stories. Art by Chaffee

Continue reading [December 2, 1968] Forget It (January 1969 IF)

[November 30, 1968] Up, Up, and Around! (December 1968 Analog)


by Gideon Marcus

Once more with feeling

Less than two months ago, the Soviets sent Zond 5 on a trip around the Moon in a precursor to a manned flight.  And on November 18, Zond 6 repeated the feat with, apparently, even more success.  There was some suggestion that Zond 5's reentry and descent was fraught with issues.  No such trouble (reported) on Zond 6.


A photo of the Earth from the vicinity of the Moon returned by Zond 6.

The USSR now says (or say, if you're British) that they might well have a manned flight to lunar orbit by early December.  This is even as NASA prepares to send Apollo 8 on a circumlunar course on December 21.  Yes, it sure seems like the breakneck Space Race is on again.  May it claim no more lives in the process.

Once more with mild enthusiasm


by Kelly Freas

The Custodians, by James H. Schmitz

In the far future, Earth's one-world government has collapsed, leaving a plethora of princely states to war with indifferent ferocity.  Further out, the settled asteroids, turned into giant space ships, placidly orbit the Sun, maintaining civilized culture as well as they can.  And beyond lie the alien-settled "out planets".

After an unprofitable eight-year cruise, Jake Hiskey, commander of the Prideful Sue, has a jackpot plan.  He is smuggling in a ship of Rilfs—humanoids with a deadly, natural weapon that kills all animals within a twenty-mile radiius—to serve as mercenaries on Earth.  But to get them to Terra, he must first stage on an asteroid.  The obvious choice is the one that the sister of Harold, the Sue's navigator, calls home.

The catch: the Rilf who goes by the name McNulty insists that no one know that the Rilfs are on the asteroid.  That means all potential witnesses must be eliminated.  This includes all of the asteroid's residents and, by extension, Harold, since he is afflicted with a conscience.

Well, Harold is no fool, and he susses out the plan just at its moment of murderous implementation.  Can one unarmed man thwart his captain's evil scheme before the asteroid's population is slaughtered?  And are the people on the giant rock as effete and defenseless as they seem?


by Kelly Freas

This is a riproaring piece, filled with well-executed action and interesting concepts.  If anything, it's a bit too short, reading like two sections of a more fleshed-out novel.  The concepts revealed at the end, when we learn the true purpose of the asteroid, are explained too quickly, and in retrospect.

I have to wonder if Schmitz needed to sell this before it was quite ready; I hope an expanded version makes its way to, say, an Ace Double.

Four stars.

A Learning Experience, by Theodore Litwell


by Leo Summers

A fellow signs up for a correspondence course and gets a Type III tutor robot trained at the Treblinka Institute for the sadistically inclined.  While the mechanical's browbeatings do get the student to buckle down, he ultimately decides he will get more satisfaction from tearing the robot bolt from bolt.

Just as he is expected to…

Do you have a child who has trouble focusing?  This may be just what the tyke needs.  Just be ready to sweep the floor afterwards.

Three stars.

The Form Master, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

The more complicated a bureaucracy, the better chance someone will find a way to take advantage of it.  But he who lives by the forged form may ultimately die by the forged form.

At first, I thought this piece was going to be a celebration of the "rugged individualist" who comes up with a clever justification for stealing from his neighbors.  It's not, but it's still kind of tedious.

Two stars.

The Reluctant Ambassadors, by Stanley Schmidt


by Kelly Freas

Humanity's first colony is on a marginal planet of Alpha Centauri.  It has been failing for decades.  Only one of the two sublight colony ships made it, and there just aren't enough people to make a go of things, especially since the planet's weird orbit takes it between the two bright stars of the trinary, resulting in massive swings of temperatures over the decades.

When FTL drive is invented, a follow-up ship is dispatched from Earth to check on the settlement.  On the way, its crew note that hyperspace, which is supposed to be empty, appears to have inhabitants…or at least something is emitting a mysterious glow off the port bow.  Once at Centauri, apart from the much bedraggled but doughty Terrans, the relief crew also find evidence of alien visitation, which apparently has been going on since the start of the colony.  The colonists had been reluctant to investigate the aliens too deeply as the extraterrestrials had done their best not to be seen. Thus, the first faster-than-light reconnaissance turns into a kind of ambassadorial mission as the captain of the relief vessel heads off in search of the aliens not only to learn their secrets (and the reason for their secrecy) but also to find clues as to the disappearance of the other colony ship.

This is solid, SFnal entertainment, if a little dry and drawn out, and with aliens who are much too humanoid for anything but Star Trek.  I like the setting, though.

Three stars.

Situation of Some Gravity, by Joseph F. Goodavage

Analog had been doing so well with its nonfiction articles of late that the appearance of this one is highly disappointing.  It's a screed about how the magnetohydrodynamics of the planets affects physical phenomena and people as much as, if not more than, gravity, and that's why astrology works.

I think that's what Goodavage is trying to say.  It's certainly what editor Campbell says (in a two-page preface) what Goodavage is trying to say.  I found the thing incomprehensible and unreadable, not to mention offensive.

One star.

Pipeline, by Joe Poyer


by Leo Summers

The year is 1985, and the Earth is entering the next Ice Age.  Its most immediate impact is a subtle shift in weather patterns, plunging America's industrial northeast into drought.  Luckily, engineering has a solution: a great Canadian aqueduct to ship water from the frozen North to the thirsty Eastern Seaboard.

But there are folks not too happy about the project, and just before the pipeline's inaugural activation, saboteurs break the conduit, threatening forty miles of tubing.  It is up to a small band of engineers to fix the breach and stop the terrorists before it's too late.

Poyer has written a competent "edge-of-tomorrow" thriller.  We never find out just who was behind the sabotage.  Strongly implicated is some combination of Japanese businessmen and right-wing Birch-alikes (my suspicions went with some left-wing group like a militant Sierra Club).  Anyway, I think this is the first time I've seen Japan as the bogeyman in an SF story.  It's a novel twist, and given how much is Made in Japan these days, perhaps a valid prognostication.

Three stars.

Once again with the computers

Here we are at the end of the year for magazines, and it's been a rather middle-of-the-road month.  Analog finishes at a mediocre 2.7 star rating, beating out Orbit 4 (2.7), Fantastic (2.6), and IF (2.6)

Scoring above Analog are Galaxy (3.5),
New Worlds (3.5), and Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.2).

Women wrote about 9% of the new fiction published this month, and you could fit all the 4/5 star stories in two magazines out of the seven publications (including one anthology).  Really, that sums up the state of magazine SF in general—some excellent stuff, a lot of mediocrity, and attention now focused on television and novels.

That said, it's still clear that magazines contribute a lot to the genre, particularly in the area of short fiction.  Certainly Michael Moorcock thinks so, as he is composing a book a week just to keep New Worlds afloat with his own money!  That he manages to turn out pretty good stuff in a single tea-fueled draft is a feat that makes him the British Silverbob…with fewer descriptions of underaged bosoms.

So, bid a fond adieu to 1968, at least in cover dates, and let's see what 1969 has in store!


William Shatner waves to the crowd at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York…but he might also be saying goodbye to 1968






[November 26, 1968] Warhol, Delany, Cornelius and Perversity New Worlds, December 1968


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again.

Some degree of normality this month. Yes, I actually got a copy of the new New Worlds (and if you’ve been following the drama of the last few issues, you’ll know that the regular arrival of an issue is no longer a given.)

But is it any good? 

I thought that the last issue in November was a bit of an improvement, but as we’ve said before, that is no guarantee of the next issue being good – or even there being a next issue at all.

Nevertheless, I was hoping that this issue would at least match the previous.

Cover by Gabi Nasemann

Well, we can’t accuse editor Mike Moorcock and his team of resting on their laurels. The cover shows a new development straight away. We have what is rather expected – the generically meaningless picture of a young woman in strangely coloured tones – but then along the right-hand side we have the start of Brian Aldiss’ story …And the Stagnation of the Heart. I guess that this is an attempt to make you read more within.

Lead In by The Publishers

More about the contributors this month. Perhaps the most interesting thing here is that Bill Butler, poet and proprietor of The Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, has recently been arrested on obscenity laws.

Other than that, the usual descriptions of the authors and their work to date.

…And the Stagnation of the Heart by Brian W, Aldiss

Ah, the return of Brian Aldiss, with a story that (thank goodness) isn’t a Charteris story, that ongoing series of stories set in the Acid House Wars, but instead a continuation of an idea that Aldiss first began back in the March 1966 issue of Impulse (Remember that?) with The Circulation of the Blood. There Aldiss told of Clement Yale, a scientist who was involved in developing an immortality drug, which, unless there were accidents or murder, could extend human life to the point of near-immortality – for a price. The main consequences then as a result were that those who could afford the drug (mainly in Europe and North America) were developing a new social order. In "…And the Stagnation of the Heart" Yale and his wife go to India, where they see the other side of the coin.

In India and Pakistan, the immortality drug is banned, with appalling consequences. Yale discovers that Calcutta is a city overrun with people and has famine as a result. Yale basically sees the other side of the coin – what could happen in the world with uncontrolled population growth?

Brian does well to describe both the beauty and the squalor of a Third World country and examines what can happen if places are denied immortality. It also poses the question of whether it would be right for these people to have access to a drug which would make them near-immortal.

I’m not sure what the importance of shooting goats in the story means, other than to perhaps emphasise the difference in lifestyles between India and more developed countries.

Nevertheless, a thought-provoking story, tempered only by the fact that it feels incomplete.  4 out of 5.

The Apocalypse Machine by Leo Zorin

Zorin’s story is a satirical monologue, a speech detailing a new apocalypse machine to its prospective customers. In an understated way, this involves setting off a nuclear device in London’s Hyde Park and initiating earthquakes in various parts of the city. All die in the end. Interesting idea that is firmly anti-nuclear/anti-war, written in a satirical manner. 3 out of 5.

Article: Warhol Portraits, Still Lifes, Events by Andrew Lugg

A summary of the work to date of film-maker and artist, Andy Warhol. Fascinating – an article that had me applauding one minute and shaking my head in disbelief the next. Can’t say that Warhol’s a dull character, though. 4 out of 5.

The Delhi Division by Michael Moorcock

The welcome return of Mike Moorcock’s Avengers-like super-agent Jerry Cornelius! Jerry goes to India (see also Aldiss’s story set in India – coincidence?) to assassinate someone with the help of Mata-Hari-like Sabitha. The attempt fails and so different time streams dominate.

This is one where different time streams seem to be tangled—somewhere (or rather somewhen, perhaps) Cornelius has a child, others not. As a result, this one is less fun than previous stories as Jerry shows a much more melancholic side to his persona here.

Generally though, The Delhi Division is still deliberately provocative and occasionally scurrilous. I’m interested by the point that, as this month’s Lead In says, there will be more Jerry Cornelius but written by other people next month. I wonder where they will go. 4 out of 5.

The Colours by Thomas M. Disch

Or as you Americans will say, “The Colors”. This is a piece about the effect on Raymond and the people around him by a machine that shows colours to create moods. Really, it’s about the effect of drugs on a listless society, although this may be a metaphor for TV. It may feel relevant to the drug-taking young people of society today, but to me it seems filled with meaning and yet meaning little. I’m not really sure what it is trying to say, although that may be the point. 3 out of 5.

The New Agent by Joel Zoss

We have mentioned in the past of New Worlds' determination to shock, and this is one of those stories.

It is about Nickolas Dugonie, a nurse who has a relationship with a paralysed patient, Phyllis Wexler. Nickolas’s obsession with the immobile patient leads to them having sex and Phyllis becoming pregnant, although this also seems to lead to a reawakening of Phyllis, something she keeps secret from all except Dugonie. Deeply unpleasant, and yet memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. You want a shockingly nasty story? You got one. This one is more deserving of the outrage Bug Jack Barron got, in my opinion. 2 out of 5.

Peace Talking by Bill Butler

Ah, poetry, this time of an anti-war nature. Move along, please. As with most of these attempts to raise my cultural experience, I try but find them short and unmemorable. 2 out of 5.

Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones by Samuel R. Delany

This may be the big seller of the issue, as Samuel is one of the big internationally recognised Science Fiction writers of the New Wave. It doesn’t disappoint. A real highlight in its complexity, style and sheer energy.

It is a story told in the first person by a individual with various aliases but generally with the initials HCE, a criminal who is attempting to sell some stolen goods in a New York bar. Before the delivery takes place, his buyer is found dead. HCE discovers that he is being followed by Special Services, who then disappears. HCE meets up with Hawk, a Singer (who to me sounded a little like a new version of Heinlein’s Rhysling from The Green Hills of Earth.) Hawk manages to get HCE into a grand mobster’s party in order for HCE to sell his stuff. There HCE sells his stuff to Arty the Hawk (whose similarity in name is a little confusing), a big-time gangster, but just afterwards the party is raided and there is a fire.

Picture by James Cawthorn

Using his new-found money, HCE makes a name for himself. He sets up an ice cream parlour on Triton, a moon of Neptune, to cover his other activities and becomes a rival to Arty the Hawk. The story ends with the Hawk and HCE meeting and agreeing to work together rather than kill each other. Afterwards HCE is left contemplating this new situation.

This story shows how much of a breath of fresh air Delany is to the science fiction genre, being both classic in content and “cutting-edge” at the same time. At its most basic level, it is a crime story set across different planets, but it is more than that.  It made me think of it as something Heinlein would write if he was a New Wave writer and not the writer of Stranger in a Strange Land, taking old science-fictional elements and making them seem new. Lyrical but not baroque, Delany creates visual imagery without lengthy verbiage. I read the story more than once and found more details I had missed the first time around. Potentially Award-nomination stuff. 5 out of 5.

Book Review – Two Kinds of Opium

It may not be too much of a surprise to see the new New Worlds focus on non-genre books in its reviews of late. With that in mind, this month has a mixture of genre and non-genre publications. First off, “W.E.B.” (possibly ‘William Ewart Barclay’, a pseudonym for Mike Moorcock) reviews books that are about China (China Observed by Colin Mackeras and Neale Hunter, The Oriental World by Jeannine Auboyer and Roger Goepper and Peter Swann’s The Art of China, Korea and Japan ) as well as John Selby’s The Paper Dragon about the Opium Wars of the 19th century.

M. John Harrison in his new role as book reviewer deals with what we would see as more traditional science fictional fare , under his own name and as the pseudonym Joyce Churchill- The Final Programme by a certain Mike Moorcock, Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, Jesus Christs by A. J. Langguth, Black Easter by James Blish, Nova by Samuel R. Delany (heard of him?) Picnic on Paradise by fellow New Wave writer Joanna Russ, The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle and The Reproductive System by John Sladek. With new hands to the wheel, it is good to see more science fiction reviewed, even if you may disagree with the reviews, as I often did.

There are then some Biology books reviewed by Caroline Smith and a very brief mention of some books reviewed by W.E.B. again, which range from a book on The Death of Hitler to The Making of Star Trek. Eclectic, eh?

Summing Up

With a new front cover style, this issue of New Worlds seems to have a new energy this month. As ever, the stories are eclectic and wide-ranging, from those I liked (Delany, Aldiss, Moorcock) to the pointless (Disch, Zorin) to the one I hated (Zoss) which seemed to just want to shock.

A better-than-typical New Worlds issue then, although recently they have not been bad, in my opinion. The Delany is really a potential award-winner, I think, and alone makes the issue worth buying.

(And where would New Worlds be without a provocative photo or a mention of J. G. Ballard? This is an advertisement on the back cover.)

Until next time!




[November 20, 1968] Transitory and lasting pleasures (December 1968 F&SF)


by Gideon Marcus

Beyond FM

Not too long ago, the FM band of the radio was mostly for classical music.  Why waste high fidelity on the raucous rock and pop the kids were listening to?  In the same vein, the big 33rpm LP records were for grown-ups.  That's where you found your jazz, your schmaltz, your classical.  The juvenile stuff was put on disposable 45 singles.

Well, it still is, but of late, really starting in earnest around 1965, a lot of Top 40 ended up on LPs, and since last year, the FM stations are playing psychedelia and fuzz more often than not.  Is classical down for the count?

Not if the Trans-Electronic Music Productions (T-EMP) company has anything to say about it…

From the back cover of Switched-on Bach, the new LP by the Carlos/Folkman combo who make up the T-EMP, one would think it's yet another fusty classical album.  The selections are common, the same kind of thing you've heard a million times before.

But not this way.  the T-EMP has rendered all of the pieces entirely electronically.  Using Moog synthesizers, many of these familiar songs take on an entirely different character.  In some cases, the instrumentation chosen resembles the original harpsichords and flutes and such, and the result is just competent (even a little dry) Bach.  On the other hand, you also have pieces like the Brandenburg Concerto #3, particularly the first movement, which are utterly transformed.  On those pieces in particular, Carlos and Folkman have departed the natural entirely.  With instruments reminiscent of the weird electronic sounds found in the British puppet show Space Patrol, or perhaps the theme of Dr. Who, Baroque becomes by turns cosmic, seductive, and menacing.

Normally, when I listen to classical music, I can imagine the orchestra.  With Switched-on Bach, I imagine I'm in the cool, dark halls of a computer, maybe something like the one in Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream…before it went murderous.  The artificial tones are beautiful, hard-edged, passionate, and perfectly suited to the mathematical rhythms of the King of Köthen.

I'm not the only one who thinks so.  Switched-on Bach is a runaway bestseller, and not with the classical set, but with the youth.  Heading toward the million mark, the Carlos/Folkman team have wrapped the vintage in a computerized cloak, and the kids are eating it up.

Including this one (I'm only 23, just like Carol Burnett).  Buy yourself a copy.  I promise it'll be worth it.

Beyond reality

Unlike Switched-on Bach, the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction is unlikely to become an enduring classic, but there are a couple of entries well worth your time.


by Jack Gaughan

Prime-Time Teaser, Bruce McAllister

The last woman on Earth, the freak survivor of a worldwide artificial plague, splits herself into a thousand personas so as to shield herself from the enormity of her reality.  Upon discovering a screenplay her writer persona wrote, she sees, poetically rendered, the loneliness and desperation she's been repressing for three years.  Like the 5D home in Heinlein's And he built a crooked house…, all of her personas collapse into the original, leaving her bleak and alone.

Aside from plausibility issues (Edna survives in a bathysphere—presumably every submariner in the world is still alive, too), there are pacing issues.  The story moves along until we get to the screenplay, which is several pages of an increasingly sunburned turtle plodding up a beach while a building makes passes at her.

Basically, cut-rate Ballard, the type we've seen in New Worlds for the past five years.  We keep saying the same thing: Bruce has potential.  Bruce writes pretty well for someone so young.  Bruce has yet to write something we really like.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The House of Evil, Charles L. Grant

Written in quasi-archaic style, this is the would-be-droll story of a writer who is conned, by a lithe woman and her coffin-dwelling uncle, to have a brush with the unnatural that leaves him Undead.

These pastiche stories require a deft touch that Grant doesn't have.  Particularly when he has his character pour rather than pore over documents ("pour what?" I always wonder).

Two stars.

The Indelible Kind, Zenna Henderson

The stories of The People continue, this time detailing the encounter between a teacher at a tiny school in the Southwest and a precocious but illiterate young telepath.  When the fourth-grader begins picking up the distressed thoughts of a cosmonaut stranded in orbit, the teacher gets involved in a rescue operation that is out of this world.

This tale is a strange mix of the familiar and the unusual.  We've now had more than a dozen The People stories that involve the interactions of normal humans with the alien (but human) psioinic exiles, refugees from their own exploded planet.  In some ways, I feel that well has been mined out.  The telling is different, this time.  Instead of the pensive, dreamy mode that Henderson employs, the story has a breathless quality that reminds me of the fanfiction I read in the various trekzines coming out—that sort of, "Golly!  I'm on the Enterprise with Mr. Spock!"

It's not bad, just weird, and not up to the standards of Henderson's better work.  Plus, I find it strange how brazenly The People are displaying their powers these days.  Surely, that should have follow-on consequences.

Three stars.

Miss Van Winkle, Stephen Barr

A girl sleeps from birth until she is 19, then awakes—beautiful, articulate (though not literate), and devoid of superego.  She is unhappy until she meets Walkly, who loves her for the societal outcast she quickly becomes.

I am not sure if this story is supposed to be a satire on artificial social conventions or just cute.  Either way, it's a bit clunky and wholly insubstantial.  Morever, it twice tries to make clever use of the girl's surname(s), but because the author introduces them late, the reader is never let in on the joke.  It'd be as if, on the last page of the mystery, Poirot pulled the heretofore unknown murder weapon out of his pocket and used it to solve the case.

Two stars.

A Report on the Migrations of Educational Materials, John Sladek

Every book in the world, starting with the oldest, most neglected, and ending with even the most modest of volumes, begins to wing its way toward the Amazon.  That's pretty much the story.

Sladek writes well, and he writes this well, but there's not much there to this there.

Three stars, I suppose.

The Worm Shamir, Leonard Tushnet

The best science fiction incorporates real science, allies it with human interest, and makes clever predictions regarding the application of a new discovery.  This story does all of these things admirably.

Professor Zvi Ben-Ari of Israel's Rehovoth research center is hot on a Biblically inspired trail.  He is convinced that the legend of King Solomon's "Shamir", a worm used to shape rocks for use in an altar, has a kernel of truth.  But what truth could it be?  And if such truth exists, and it could be used for war, what then?

A thoughtful, atmospheric, humorous piece.  Perhaps, as an Israeli, I am biased (or, shall we say, the target audience), but I quite enjoyed it.

Five stars.

Lost, Dorothy Gilbert

Poetry: an alien pilot, scouring the Earth for some kind of Arcadia, finds instead the fleecy flocks of Scottish Skye.

It didn't move me.  Two stars.

View from Amalthea, Isaac Asimov

Inspired by a scene from the movie 2001, the Good Doctor's piece this month is about how the four big "Galilean" moons of Jupiter might look to an observer on the innermost satellite, Mimas.  He details their size and brightness.  As a bonus section, he talks about how the many moons of Saturn would look from the innermost satellite, Janus.

He never quite comes around to confirming that the shot of Jovian moons in the movie was plausible, nor does he explain that a moon one hundredth as bright as our Moon is still 100 times brighter than Venus (though that brightness is spread over a large disk, so it would look dim to our eyes).  I chalk up those omissions to space concerns.  As is, it's a handy article for those who don't want to have to do the math every time.

Five stars.

Gadget Man, Ron Goulart

Satirist/thriller-writer Ron Goulart offers up an "if this goes on" adventure set in The Republic of Southern California some time around the turn of the next century.  Hecker, an agent of the Social Work division of the police force is tasked to make contact with Jane Kendry, head of the left-wing insurgency, and find out if she's responsible for all the riots breaking out, even among the $100,000 houses and manicured lawns of affluent Orange County.

Along the way, he runs into hippie beach bums, an erstwhile Vice President and his Secretary of Defense, running a sort of revival (continuation?) of the arch-conservative John Birch Society, and finally, The Gadget Man himself, who runs the wheels within the wheels.

In tone, it's more grounded than Bob Sheckley's whimsy, more silly than Mack Reynolds' stuff.  It's eminently readable, occasionally smile-inducing, suitably riproaring, and utterly forgettable.

Three stars.

Compare and contrast

In the end, Carlos and Folkman provide a shorter-length but replayable and consistent pleasure.  F&SF this month is, for the most part, forgettable—but it takes longer to get through, and the nuggets of gold shine brightly.

Both have earned permanent places on my shelves, and I guess that's all one can ask for.  And here, what's this?  The back of F&SF has something most interesting.  We'll have to try that out, too, won't we?






[November 10, 1968] Ratings (December 1968 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Alphabet Soup

On the first day of this month, a new movie rating system created by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) went into effect. Although the system is voluntary, filmgoers in the USA can expect to see a letter of the alphabet accompanying almost every movie.

This is very old news to those living in the United Kingdom, where a similar system has been in place since 1912. There have been some changes over the years, but currently the British ratings are:

U for Unrestricted (everybody admitted)

A for Adult content (children under 12 must be accompanied by adults)

X for Explicit content (no one under 16 admitted)

The new American system uses different letters, although they kept the scary X.

G for General audiences (everybody admitted, no advisory warnings)

M for Mature audiences (everybody admitted, but parental guidance is advised)

R for Restricted (persons under 16 not admitted without adult parent or guardian)

X for Explicit (no one under 16 admitted)

Gee, Magazines R Xciting!

In the spirit of the MPAA, let me experiment with offering my own similar ratings for the stories in the latest issue of Fantastic, in addition to the usual one-to-five star system of judging their quality.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

As with previous issues, the cover art for this one comes from the German magazine Perry Rhodan.


Hell Dance of the Giants, or something like that.

The fine print under the table of contents reveals that former editor Harry Harrison is now the associate editor, and former associate editor Barry N. Malzberg (maybe better known under the authorial pen name K. M. O'Donnell) is now the editor.  I have no idea if this swapping of job titles really means anything.

The Broken Stars, by Edmond Hamilton


Illustrations by Dan Adkins.

As the cover states, this is a sequel to Hamilton's famous space opera novel The Star Kings, from 1949. (I believe there have been a couple of other yarns in the series, published in Amazing.) However, it's certainly not a short novel. By my reckoning, it's a novelette, not even a novella.

I haven't read The Star Kings (mea culpa!) so it took me a while to figure out what was going on. (The fact that several paragraphs near the start are printed in the wrong order doesn't help.)

Three guys escape from a planet in a starship stolen from aliens. One fellow is the main hero, a man of our own time who somehow wound up in a far future of galactic empires and such. Another is a man of that time. So is the third one, but apparently he used to be the Bad Guy in previous adventures. Now he's working with the two Good Guys for his own self interest.

It turns out there's an alien on the ship as well. It can control human minds, but only one at a time. The trio solves this problem by crashing into a planet.


Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The place is inhabited by nasty winged reptile aliens, who are part of an army of various extraterrestrials being collected by a Bad Guy to invade a planet ruled by the woman our time-traveling hero loves. Can he find a way to save her? Can he trust his former enemy? And what about those pesky mind-controlling aliens? Tune in next time!

This slam-bang action yarn reads like a chapter torn out at random from a novel. Besides starting in medias res, it stops before reaching a final resolution.

Hamilton is an old hand at writing this kind of space opera (they don't call him The World Wrecker for nothing!) so it's very readable. The former Bad Guy is the most interesting character (and he seems a lot smarter than the two Good Guys.) Too bad the story doesn't stand very well on its own.

Three stars.

Rated G for Good old scientifiction.

Ball of the Centuries, by Henry Slesar

Here's a brief tale about a guy who uses a crystal ball to see into the future. He warns a couple about to get married not to go through with it. Of course, they don't listen to him. Years later, they have the argument he predicted. The husband tracks down the guy and finds out the real reason he warned them.

That sounds like a serious story, but it's really an extended joke, with a double punchline. It's OK, I suppose, but nothing special, and a very minor work from a prolific and award-winning writer of fantasy, mystery, television, and movies.

Two stars.

Rated M for Matrimonial woes.

The Mental Assassins, by Gregg Conrad


Cover art by H J. Blumenfeld.

From the pages of the May 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures, this story is the work of Rog Phillips under a pseudonym.


Illustration by Harold W. McCauley.

People who have been horribly maimed in accidents are kept alive and made to experience a shared dream world. The trouble begins when three of the twenty people develop evil alternate personalities. (As usual, the story thinks that schizophrenia literally means split personality.)

The physician in charge of the project asks the hero to enter the dream world and kill these doppelgängers. (This won't actually harm the real people, just eliminate their imaginary wicked doubles.) He gives it a try, but finds the experience so unpleasant he backs out of the deal.

The story then turns into a sort of hardboiled crime yarn, as the hero gets mixed up with a couple of mysterious women, a hulking bouncer, and two cab drivers who know more than they should. A wild back-and-forth chase ensues, partly on a spaceship, followed by a double twist ending.

You may be able to tell what's really happening as soon as the hero exits the dream world, but I don't think you'll guess the other plot twist, which is rather disturbing. This yarn reminds me of Philip K. Dick's games with reality, although it's not quite as adept.

Three stars.

Rated R for Really shocking ending.

The Disenchanted, by Wallace West and John Hillyard


Cover art by Vernon Kramer.

This fantasy farce comes from the January/February 1954 issue of the magazine.


Illustration by Sanford Kossin.

The ghost of Madame de Pompadour shows up at the apartment of a publisher. Present also is the author of a novel about the famed mistress of King Louis XV. The ghost objects to what the writer said about her in the book, and demands that it not be printed. When the publisher refuses, she has her ghostly buddies uninvent things, leading to chaos.

Strictly aiming for laughs, this featherweight tale ends suddenly. As a matter of fact, because the usual words THE END don't appear on the last page, I have a sneaking suspicion part of the story is missing. [Nope. It's that way in the original, too! (ed.)] Be that as it may, it provides a small amount of mildly bawdy amusement.

Two stars.

Rated R for Risqué content.

The Usurpers, by Geoff St. Reynard


Cover art by Raymon Naylor.

The January 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures is the source of this chiller by Robert W. Krepps, an American author hiding behind a very British pen name.


Illustration by Leo Summers.

The narrator is a one-armed veteran of the Second World War. An old comrade-in-arms shows up and tells him a bizarre story.

It seems the fellow recovered from a serious eye injury. When his vision was restored, he saw that about half the people around him were actually weird, horrifying monsters in human disguise. He reaches the conclusion that beings from another dimension are infiltrating our own, intent on displacing humanity.

Things go from bad to worse when some of the creatures realize the guy can perceive them. They try to kill him, while he destroys as many of them as he can, leading to the violent conclusion.

This shocker is most notable for the truly strange and creepy descriptions of the monsters, each one of which has a different form. As an ignorant American, I found it convincingly British, although somebody from the UK might disagree. Overall, a pretty effective horror story.

Three stars.

Rated R for Revolting creatures.

The Prophecy, by Bill Pronzini

Like Henry Slesar's piece, this is a miniscule bagatelle about a prediction. A prophet who is always right announces that the world will end at a certain time on a certain day. When the hour of doom arrives, the unexpected happens.

Even shorter than the other joke story, this tiny work depends entirely on its punch line. I can't say I was terribly impressed. I also wonder why the magazine printed two similar tales in the same issue.

Two stars.

Rated G for Goofy ending.

The Collectors, by Gordon Dewey


Cover art by Barye Phillips.

My research indicates that somebody named Peter Grainger is an uncredited co-author of this story from the June/July 1953 issue of Amazing Stories.


Illustration by Harry Rosenbaum.

A very methodical fellow, who keeps track of every penny, tries to figure out why a small amount of money disappears every day. He runs into a woman who experiences the same phenomenon. It seems to have something to do with a vending machine.

The editorial introduction dismissingly says this story is . . . no classic, to be sure, it isn't even a minor classic . . . which seems like an odd way to talk about something worth printing. I thought it was reasonably intriguing. In this case, the open ending seems appropriate.

Three stars.

Rated M for Mysterious conclusion.

Unrated

As I mentioned above, the MPAA rating system is voluntary.  No doubt a few movies will be released without one of the four letters.  In a similar way, the stuff in the magazine other than fiction isn't really appropriate for rating.

Editorial: The Magazines, The Way It Is, by A. L. Caramine

Brief discussion of the rise and fall of science fiction magazines, with an optimistic prediction that they're on the way up again.  A note at the end states that A. L. Caramine is the pseudonym of a well-known science fiction author.

Digging through old magazines, the only reference I can find to A. L. Caramine is as the author of the story Weapon Master in the May 1959 issue of Science Fiction Stories.


Cover art by Ed Emshwiller.

A glance at the magazine tells me that, in addition to a story by Robert Silverberg under his own name, there are book reviews by the same fellow under his pseudonym Calvin M. Knox.  Given the way that single authors often filled up magazines with multiple pen names, I suspect that the mysterious A. L. Caramine is Silverberg as well, although I don't have definite proof of this.

2001: A Space Odyssey, by Laurence Janifer

One page article that praises the film named in the title, and says that Planet of the Apes is lousy. Just one person's opinion, take it or leave it.

The Rhyme of the SF Ancient Author or Conventions and Recollections, by J. R. Pierce

Parody of the famous Coleridge poem mocked in the title. It says that science fiction writers shouldn't go chasing money by writing other kinds of stuff. Pretty much an in-joke, I guess.

Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber

Mostly notable for a glowing review of Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ. May be the best-written thing in the magazine!

Good? Mediocre? Rotten? Xcruciating?

All in all, this was a so-so issue. The two star stories weren't that bad, the three star stories weren't that good. Not a waste of time, but you might want to listen to the current smash hit Hey Jude by the Beatles instead.


David Frost introduces the Fab Four as they perform the song on his television program.

Rated G for Groovy.






[November 6, 1968] Who's the one? (December 1968 Galaxy)


by Gideon Marcus

Dashed hopes

It really looked like it was going to be a happy Halloween.  On October 31st, President Johnson made the stunning announcement that he was stopping all bombing in Vietnam.  This was in service to the Paris peace talks, which subsequently got a huge shot in the arm: not only were the Soviets on board with the negotiations, but the South Vietnamese indicated that, as long as they had a seat at the table, they were in, too.

The holiday lasted all of five days.  In yesterday's paper, even as folks went to the polls to choose between Herbert Humphrey and Tricky Dixon (or, I suppose, Wacky Wallace), the news was that South Vietnam had pulled out.  They didn't like that the Viet Cong, the Communists in Vietnam (as distinguished from the North Vietnamese government), were going to get a representative at the talks.  So they're out.

It's not clear how this will affect the election.  As of this morning, it was still not certain who had won .  Nevertheless, it is clear that Humphrey's chances weren't helped by the derailing of LBJ's peace plans.  If a Republican victory is announced, it may well be this turn of events led to the sea change.

Well, don't blame me.  My support has always been for that "common, ordinary, simple savior of America's destiny," Mr. Pat Paulsen.  After all, he upped his standards—now up yours.

Respite

Once again, a tumultuous scene provided the backdrop to my SFnal reading.  Did the latest issue of Galaxy prove to be balm or bother?  Read on and find out:


by John Pederson Jr. illustrating One Station of the Way

The Sharing of Flesh, by Poul Anderson


by Reese

Evalyth, military director of a mission to a human planet reverted to savagery after the fall of the Empire, watches with horror as her husband is murdered, then butchered by one of the planet's inhabitants.  Cannibalism, it turns out, is a way of life here; indeed, it is considered essential to the rite of puberty for males.

The martial Evalyth vows to have her revenge, tracking down the murderer, Mora, and taking him and his family back to their base, where they are subjected to fearsome scientific examinations.  But can she go through with executing the killer of her husband?  And does Mora's motivation make any difference?

There' s so much to like about this story, from the exploration of the agony of love lost, to the examination of relative morality, to the development of the universe first introduced (to me, anyway) in last year's A Tragedy of Errors.  It doesn't hurt that it stars a woman, and women are integral parts of this future society, with none of the denigrating weasel words that preface the introduction of female characters in Anderson's Analog stories (could those be editorial insertions?)

This is Anderson at his best, without his archaicisms, multi-faceted, astronomically interesting, emotionally savvy.

Five stars.

One Station of the Way by Fritz Leiber


by Holly

Three humaniforms watch on cameloids as the star descends in the east.  Sure enough, at a home in the east, a divine being prepares to impregnate a local female so that she will bear a divine child.

Heard this story before?  There's a reason.  But the planet of Finiswar is not Earth, the aliens are not remotely human, and the white and dark duo who pilot the spaceship Inseminator are anything but gods.

An excellent, satirical story.  Four stars.

Sweet Dreams, Melissa by Stephen Goldin

A little girl is told a bedtime story about a big computer that stopped doing its job right.  That's because the machine couldn't think of casualties and war statistics as simple numbers, battle strategies as abstract puzzles.  The problem is its personality; if the computer's mind could be reconciled with its function, the machine could work again.  But can any mind be at peace with such a frightful purpose?

A simple piece like this depends mostly on the telling.  Luckily, Goldin is up to the task.  Four stars.

Subway to the Stars by Raymond F. Jones


by Jack Gaughan

Harry Whiteman is a brilliant engineer with a problem: he's too much of a "free spirit" to keep a job, or a wife.  Desperate, when the CIA approaches him about a singular opportunity, he takes it, though the resents being bullied into it.

In deepest, darkest Africa, the Smith Company is working on…something.  Ostensibly a mining concern, it produces no gems.  On the other hand, whatever it is is important enough that the Soviets have based missiles in a neighboring country—pointed right at the company site!

Whiteman is hired, for his irreverence more than his ability, and begins work as a double-agent.  Once on location, he finds the true purpose of the site: it's a switching station of an intergalactic railroad station!  But it turns out that the folks at the Smith Company also have multiple agendas…

A mix of Cliff Simak's Here Gather the Stars (Way Station) and Poul Anderson's Door to Anywhere, it is not as successful as either of them.  It takes too long to get started, and then it wraps up all too quickly.  It's genuinely thrilling as Whiteman peels back the multiple layers of the Smith operation and the factions within it, and when the missiles do find their target, the resultant chaos is compelling, indeed.  But then it turns into a quick, SFnal gimmick story better suited to Analog than Galaxy.

I think I would have rather seen Simak takes this one on as a sequel to his novel.  Jones just wasn't quite up to it.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Discovery of the Solar System by Willy Ley

As it turns out, the science article in this month's issue addresses two issues on which I've had keen recent interest.  The first is on the subject of solar systems, and if they can be observed around other stars.  Ley discusses how the gravity of an unseen companion can cause a telltale wiggle as the star travels through space, since the two objects orbit a common center of gravity (rather than one strictly going around the other).

In the other half of the article, Ley explains how atomic rocket engines work: shooting heated hydrogen out a nozzle as opposed to burning it and shooting out the resultant water out the back end—it is apparently twice as strong a thrust.

What keeps this article from five stars is both pieces are too brief.  For the first half, I'd like to know about the stellar companions discovered through astrometry.  He mention's Sirius' white dwarf companion, but what about the planets Van de Kamp claims to have discovered around Barnard's Star and so on?  As for the atomic article, I'd like to know what missions a nuclear engine can be used for that a conventional rocket cannot.

Four stars.

A Life Postponed by John Wyndham


by Gray Morrow

Girl falls in love with cynical jerk of a boy.  Boy decides there's nothing in the world worth sticking around for, so he gets himself put in suspended animation for a century.  Girl follows him there.  He's still a cynical jerk, but she doesn't care because she loves him.  They live happily ever after.

I'm really not sure of the point of this story, nor how it got in this month's issue other than the cachet of the author's name.

Two stars.

Jinn by Joseph Green

It is the year 2050, and aged Professor Morrison, stymied in his attempts to make food from sawdust, is approached by a brilliant young grad student.  Said student is brilliant for a reason: he is a Genetically Evolved Newman or "Jinn", with a big brain and bigger ideas.  The student has solved Morrison's problem.  However, another Jinn wants humanity to go to the stars, and he fears if the race gets a full belly, they'll lose interest.

The conflict turns violent, the point even larger: is there room for baseline homo sapiens in a world of homo superior?

Green doesn't paint a particularly plausible future, but there are some nice touches, and the points raised are interesting ones.  I'd say it's a failure as a story but a success as a thought-exercise, if that makes sense.

So, a low three stars.

Spying Season by Mack Reynolds


by Roger Brand

We return, once again, to Reynolds' world of People's Capitalism.  It is the late 20th Century, and the Cold War adversaries have reached a more or less peaceful coexistence.  The greater challenge is existential: ultramation has taken away most jobs, and the majority of the populace is on the dole.  How, then, to avoid stagnation for humanity?

In this installment, Paul Kosloff is an American of Balkan ancestry, one of the few in the United States of the Americas who still has a steady job, in this case, that of teacher.  He is tapped by the CIA to go on sabbatical in the Balkan sector of Common-Europe.  Ostensibly, his job is not to spy for the USAs, but to sort of soak in the culture of the area over a twelve-month span.

Very quickly, Kosloff finds himself entagled with an underground revolutionary group, with law enforcement, and with several fellows who enjoy sapping him on the back of the head.

Suffice it to say that all questions are answered by the end, the major ones being: why an innocuous pseudo-spy should be a target, why the CIA would send him on a seemingly pointless mission in the first place.  In the meantime, you get a bit more history of this world and some tourist-eye view of Yugoslavia.  In other words, your typical, middle-of-the-road Reynolds story.

Three stars.

Counting the votes

While not as stellar as last month's issue, the December 1968 Galaxy still offers a more satisfying experience than, well, most anything going on in "the real world".  It clocks in at a respectable 3.45, which brings the annual average to 3.23.

Compare that to the 2.81 it scored last year, and given that Galaxy is once again a monthly, I think it's safe to say that, at least in one way, "Happy days are here again."






[November 2, 1968] Role Models (December 1968 IF)


by David Levinson

The passing of a great

As I sat down to write this article, I heard the news of the death of Lise Meitner. If that name isn’t familiar to you, it should be. Einstein once called her “the German Marie Curie,” which might be understating things. She is arguably the most important woman physicist of the 20th century and possibly one of the most important theoretical physicists, period.

Born in Vienna in 1878, she became only the second woman to earn a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna in 1905. She later moved to Germany and worked at the University of Berlin. There, she and Otto Hahn discovered the most stable isotope of the element protactinium, which she dubbed protoactinium before dropping the second “o.” In 1939, she and Hahn, along with Otto Robert Frisch and Fritz Strassmann, discovered and explained nuclear fission. There are also at least two nuclear phenomena which bear her name.

Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner circa 1912.

Meitner was able to escape Nazi Germany in 1938 with the help of Niels Bohr. She settled in Sweden, where she spent the rest of her professional life. Her role in the discovery of nuclear fission garnered her a lot of celebrity after the end of the War; she was even interviewed by Eleanor Roosevelt on her radio show. She was a popular speaker and instructor and traveled extensively to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

She received numerous accolades throughout her career, and the institute that oversees Germany’s first research nuclear reactor bears her and Hahn’s names. But the Nobel eluded her. Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944 for the discovery of nuclear fission (ignoring not only Meitner, but also Frisch and Strassmann). The Nobel committee plays things pretty close to the vest, but word is that Lise Meitner was nominated many times in the fields of physicist and chemistry. In 1966, President Johnson honored her with the Enrico Fermi Award.

After retiring in 1960, she moved to the United Kingdom to be closer to family and continued giving lectures. She was in poor health in recent years, unable to attend the Fermi Award ceremony. She died in her sleep at the age of 89.

Lise Meitner in 1963.

Stereotypes

As Lise Meitner’s life shows, women play an active and important role in science, and ought to do so in science fiction as well. Unfortunately, there seem to be fewer women writing SF than there were a decade ago, and there don’t seem to be all that many as key characters in stories either. Two of the stories in this month’s IF don’t have any, two offer mothers, two more femmes fatale, and as far as the first story goes, the less said the better.

A previously unknown piece by the late Hannes Bok, probably the last new Bok cover ever.

Continue reading [November 2, 1968] Role Models (December 1968 IF)

[October 28, 1968] Impressive at first glance… (November 1968 Analog)


by Gideon Marcus

Up and over

Just as America returned to space in a big way with this month's flight of Apollo 7, the Soviets have also recovered from their 1967 tragedy (Soyuz 1) with an impressive feat.  Georgy Beregovoi, a rookie cosmonaut (ironically also the oldest man in space thus far, surpassing 45 year-old Wally Schirra by two years) has taken Soyuz 3 into orbit for a series of rendezvous and perhaps dockings (TASS is being vague on the issue) with the unmanned Soyuz 2.


Comrade Beregovoi in training

We've seen flights like this before, but this is the first time there has been a person involved.  Many are calling this a harbinger of an impending lunar flight, though NASA is adamant that this particular flight won't go to the moon.  Indeed, Dr. Ed Welsh, Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council says Soyuz and September's Zond 5, which went around the moon, are completely different craft and the Russians aren't even close to fielding a lunar mission.

We'll have more on this flight in a few days.  Stay tuned.

On the ground

Like the flights of Soyuz 2 and 3, this month's Analog is outwardly impressive, but once you dig in, it's not so great.


by Kelly Freas

The Infinity Sense, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Centuries from now, after the fall of the Age of Science, humanity is divided into two camps: the "Olsaparns", who dwell in isolated technological camps and retain a semblance of the original technology and society, and the Novos—psionically adept savages who live in conservative Packs.  One of the Pack members is Starn, who possesses a brand new ability that allows him to best even the telepathically and premonitionally blessed.  He runs afoul of Nagister Nont, a highly adept, highly disagreeable trader, who kidnaps his wife.

After a raid on the Olsaparns leaves Starn close to death, the technologists remake him into something more machine than man, like Ted White's Android Avenger.  The Olsaparns want Nont out of the picture, so they help Starn in his quest to defeat the mutant and get back his wife.

I have no fault with the writing, which is brisk and engaging.  I take some issue with the pages of discussion on whether or not psi powers be linked with primitiveness, or the concept that humanity could regress to Pithecanthropy in a scant few generations (or the idea that evolution must be a road that one goes forward and backward on; I thought we gave up teleology last century).  But I blazed through the novella in short order, so… four stars.

The Ultimate Danger, by W. Macfarlane


by Kelly Freas

In which Captain Lew Frizel takes a shipload of eggheads to a hallucinogenic planet.  He is the only one who, more or less, keeps his head.  The message appears to be that LSD can be employed by aliens to judge our character.  Or something.

Three stars?

The Shots Felt 'Round the World, by Edward C. Walterscheid

This piece, on atomic tests, was much easier reading than Walterscheid's last article.  Do you realize that we have detonated half a billion TNT tons worth of nuclear explosives since 1945?  It's a wonder there's anything left of Nevada.

Four stars.

The Rites of Man, by John T. Phillifent


by Rudolph Palais

A scientist is working on rationalizing the art of interpersonal relations (because in Phillifent's universe, no one has invented sociology).  About twenty pages into that effort, humanoid (really, human) aliens show up and ask to be allowed to compete in the Olympics.  They do, but they lose on purpose so we won't hate them.  Then we interbreed.

Possibly the dullest, most pointless story I've ever read in this magazine.  One star.

The Alien Enemy, by Michael Karageorge


by Leo Summers

Humanity is a resilient creature, tough enough to tame any world.  Except that planet Sibylla, with its poisonous soil, extreme axial tilt, thin atmosphere, temperature extremes, high gravity, and violent weather may actually be more than Terrans can handle.  What does one do when a world is too minimal to sustain a colony?  And what is the value of 10,000 settler lives against the teeming, impoverished billions of Earth?

This is a vividly written piece with some excellent astronomy.  If I didn't know better, I'd say Poul Anderson is writing under a pseudonym.  I felt the solution to the colonists' problem, though reasonable, was not sufficiently set up to be deduced.  Also, I felt Karageorge missed the opportunity to make a more profound statement at the end than "well, humanity can lick almost all comers."  I'd have preferred something on the point of colonization or the shifting of priorities on a racial scale.

Still, a high three stars.

Split Personality, by Jack Wodhams


by Kelly Freas

Mauger, a homicidal brute, agrees to be split in two for science instead of getting the chair.  Instead of this resulting in two new individuals, it turns out that the two halves remain connected, the gestalt whole.  Thus, Maugam can literally be in two places at once.

This is timely as the first interstellar drive has had teething troubles.  Two test ships have gotten lost, unable to communicate with Earth.  Now, half of Maugam can fly on the ship while the other stays home and reports, since telepathy, for some reason, is instant.

It's actually not a bad story, though it's really just a bunch of magic and coincidence.  It works because Wodhams has set it up to work a certain way, not because this is any kind of realistic scientific extrapolation.  Also, it's hard to work up any sympathy for a homicidal brute.

Three stars.

Doing the math

When everything is crunched together, we end up with Analog clocking in at exactly 3 stars—again, adequate, but vaguely disappointing.  On the other hand, it's been something of a banner month in SF (provided you're not looking for female writers; they wrote less than 7% of the new fiction pieces published).  Except for IF (2.6), every other outlet scored higher than 3.  To wit:

New Worlds (3.1), Amazing (3.2), New Writings 13 (3.3), Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.4), and Galaxy (3.9).

The stuff worth reading (4/5 stars) would fill a whopping three magazines.  Who says the science fiction magazine age is over?






[October 22, 1968] Hello Again!  New Worlds, October & November 1968


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello. Testing, testing.. Anyone there?

This feels a little like one of those lonely messages out on the ether, post-apocalypse. I was last here for the July 1968 issue, whose publication, if you remember, was at a time of turmoil…. And then nothing for nearly four months.

Until now, when, like the proverbial British buses, two turn up (nearly) at once.

So – let’s start with the October issue.

I can only assume that the late arrival of the October issue was in part because of the recent kerfuffle. Editor Mike Moorcock explains the situation in this issue (and which you can read about in more detail in my last review), that with the effective banning of sales in English newsagents New Worlds is to survive mainly on subscriptions in the future, with a dollop of cash from the Arts Council, admittedly.

To Moorcock’s credit, he doesn’t dwell on the matter. But this whole issue feels like a statement of intent and a possible return to what I would regard as ‘normal’ – for New Worlds, anyway. It’s now being published from a new address, for one thing.

Cover by Malcolm Dean

And that ‘return’ seems to be echoed in the cover, too. Thank God – a ‘proper’ cover illustration. You know, with a picture, and something that looks like it’s taken more than ten minutes to produce. Whilst I could argue that it’s not the most complex piece of artwork ever shown – and a tad on the gory side – at least it is what I would regard as art.

Lead In by The Publishers

Some changes here too. Editor Mike Moorcock has brought readers (those of us who are left, anyway) up to date with what has been happening in the Lead In, even if some kind of strange time warp has happened as the Editor claims that his comments were made “last month” and not actually in the April issue. Readers with a good memory and less impacted by this may remember when Moorcock promised more pages and pictures in colour – clearly now that isn’t going to happen.

Other than that, the usual descriptions of the authors and their explanations of their stories, for those of us too unintelligent to work it out for ourselves.

Disturbance of the Peace by Harvey Jacobs

Do you remember The Shout? in the last issue? (I know, but it’s been a while.) Disturbance of the Peace reminded me a little of that, as it is an observational piece about I’m not sure what.

The story is focused on Floyd Copman, set in a fairly contemporary Manhattan. Floyd has a pretty mundane job in a bank, where in amongst the dull details of a day we find that Floyd is being watched by a dishevelled customer, who spends all of his day staring at Floyd. It becomes a bit of an obsession, and despite multiple attempts to remove him the situation inevitably ends up with the man’s return. It is quite unnerving for Floyd, and eventually results in both the old man having a fit and Floyd fainting.

What’s the point of the story? There’s lots of description of the city Floyd travels in and the things he sees, not to mention things happening around Floyd – the descriptions of his co-workers are supremely awful – and yet it all seems to be of little purpose. It’s more of a mood piece to me, but at its best it reminded me a little of John Brunner’s work. 3 out of 5.

The Generations of America by J. G. Ballard

"Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert F. Kennedy. And Ethel M. Kennedy shot Judith Birnbaum."

In which Ballard lists, in huge blocks of continuous text, people shot by other people.

I don’t know if all the names mentioned are real, although I have no evidence to suggest that they are not – there are some such as Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but the rest could easily be made up – but if the point is that lots of people have been shot in America, the point is made. Whilst the very, very long list makes the point that far too many people are shot, the purpose of the prose may also be to highlight the fact that many of the shootings that happen in the US are to people of whom we know nothing. They should be remembered, and it is perhaps an indictment of society that most of them are not.

The issue for me is that not only do I find reading long lists difficult, the block of text as presented is difficult to focus on – which I accept may be the purpose of the prose. It shows that Ballardian thing of repetition, after all – something he – repeats – often in his work.

But this feels like a Ballard clutching at straws, even if this is Ballard again riffing off American culture, and not in a good way. Is it fiction? I don’t know. It makes a good point, admittedly, but I think it is less exciting, less meaningful than his work from before, and weaker as a result. 3 out of 5.

Bubbles by James Sallis

If you’ve read my previous reviews, you may know that newly-appointed Associate Editor Sallis has been foisting much poetry upon us readers lately – something I’ve not appreciated. Happily then, this is a prose piece, and rather like Disturbance of the Peace it’s good on observational description, but this time about London. As we get all these lyrical sentences, the plot, such as it is, is about remembering someone – Kilroy – who is about to die. A story thus of a life lived and the places they frequented before showing us that life moves on. 3 out of 5.

Article: Into the Media Web by Michael Moorcock

An interesting article about how all media – audio, visual and print is interconnected like a spider’s web. Mike explains that future media will show an improvement in quality but at the same time have a lowering of standards in order to ensure mass appeal and remain commercial. How we manage a balance between all of this will be an important point in the future.

I can’t say I disagree.

Moorcock then manages to make his point using the analogy of Westerns and how they were important as printed stories, became less popular but have now been resurrected by returning to their core values through the medium of television. It shows the relative complexity of the interrelationships between media. Is this article inspired by the recent troubles here at New Worlds? Well, possibly, except that it is an extract from a longer article, and therefore possibly written before the furore. It can be said though that it is a reflection on the current state of play in the media, and it may not be coincidence that much of New Worlds' latest difficulties are in part due to Moorcock’s insistence on doing what this article says the media must do – setting new boundaries, of being different and not touting formulaic stuff. This article, like all good articles, was informative and also made me think. 4 out of 5.

Casablanca by Thomas M. Disch

No, nothing to do with the Humphrey Bogart movie. Disch’s story seems to be a satire on Americans abroad, showing us their insularity and pettiness. (We really are having a go at the US this month, aren’t we?) It all begins relatively normally before Mr. and Mrs. Richmond, our hapless Americans, find themselves in Casablanca in the middle of an anti-American demonstration and the unleashing of nuclear weapons, the once powerful now rendered impotent. It’s a compelling example of what happens when insular arrogance created by self-importance suddenly becomes redundant.
With its depiction of Americans lost in another country and befuddled by local customs, Disch's story reminded me of less of the movie Casablanca than the beginning of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The Man Who Knew Too Much. Talking of Hitchcock, others must think highly of this one too, because I understand the story has recently appeared in one of those Alfred Hitchcock anthologies and is reprinted here. 4 out of 5.

Drawings by Malcolm Dean

by Malcolm Dean

I expected this section a little, as for the last few issues we’ve had graphic stories in various forms. This feels to me like it is the New Worlds version of Gahan Wilson’s efforts in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction – but as you might expect in a British magazine, darker, and perhaps odder. 2 out of 5.

Biographical Note on Ludwig van Beethoven II by Langdon Jones

The return of ex-Associate Editor Langdon Jones. Fresh from his publication of the Mervyn Peake Gormenghast material, this story begins like a typical biography (the clues in the title!) of a musician before the reader realises that it is satirical. It has many of the hallmarks expected in Langdon Jones’s usual material – florid language, poetry, musical scores, lyrics and so on. An inventive flight of fantasy, clearly meant to be a satirical musing on the music business and culture at large. I know some readers will like it more than me. For me, a middling 3 out of 5.

Photographs by Roy Cornwall

And again, something that’s been missing from recent issues, those pictures of strange artwork. This new version has buildings with patterns of light and shadow – and of course, a naked lady. No explanation – I guess we are just meant to be inspired – or aroused. 2 out of 5.

We’ll All Be Spacemen Before We Die by Mike Evans

Ah, poetry. 3 out of 5.

Bug Jack Barron (Part 6 of 6) by Norman Spinrad

At last – the final part of this story. It has only taken ten months to get here. (sarcasm inserted – feel free to vent your own frustration here.) Despite taking five parts to get to this point, some of the story is condensed here in the summary, even though it has never been seen before!

Quick recap – In the last part, Henry George Franklin makes a drunken claim on Jack’s TV show that he had sold his daughter to a white man for $50 000. After the show, Benedict Howards, the owner of the Foundation for Human Immortality, demands that Franklin is kept off the air and threatens to kill Barron if he doesn’t. Barron’s response? He goes to visit Franklin in the Mississippi.

After being told the story by Franklin, the two are fired upon. Franklin is killed. Barron is convinced that Howards is behind the buying of the little girl – and more so other mysterious disappearances in the area. He becomes determined to test Howards in his next TV show.

He agrees to meet Howards in Colorado and records the meeting. When Howards admits to killing Franklin, he discovers Barron’s recording. The result is that Barron wakes up in hospital having being made immortal. The secret is out – it is the glands of these young children that create immortality, but they are killed in the process. And Sara has also been treated.

Barron is now part of the process – can he now incriminate Howards on air? On his return to New York, he tells Sara what has happened. They now have a decision to make – does Jack live forever or tell the world and die now?

Before the show goes live, Sara contacts Barron, and after taking LSD tells Jack that she thinks he is not making the decision to attack Howards because of the need to protect her. To solve this, she jumps off Barron’s apartment balcony.

The story then takes up the narrative from here.

With the suicide of media star Jack Barron’s ex-wife, things are now set for a final showdown between Jack and Howards. The death of Sara was in part caused by Howards in an attempt to free Jack from being tied down to Howards.

I don’t think I need to say too much here. Suffice it to say that things are tied up as justice is done and Sara is avenged. If you’ve read all that has gone before, you’ll understand what’s happening. Everyone else? Less so – and perhaps be less inclined to bother.

Perhaps the more important point is: was it all worth it? After all, a story stretching across six issues has to merit some value, surely? I started reading it myself way, way back in November 1967 with some degree of optimism at a new and exciting means of telling a story and by the end am exhausted, willing the story to have departed long before it did. I suspect that reading it as a novel may reduce this feeling a little, but for me after its initial signs of promise it was too much for too long. Let’s also not forget that its publication nearly brought down the magazine as well. It outstayed its welcome, for me. Time will tell if other readers look on it as wearily as I do. Hard to think that at the start I was thinking 4 and 5 out of 5, now it feels more like 3 out of 5.

Time for something new.

Book Review and Comment – Boris Vian and Friends by James Sallis, and the conclusion of Dr. Moreau and the Utopians by C. C. Shackleton

Firstly, James Sallis (remember him?) reviews Boris Vian’s novel Heartsnatcher, translated from the original French by Stanley Chapman. This allows Sallis to quote great chunks of Vian’s text. Unsurprisingly for such an obscure work, Sallis can’t recommend it highly enough. He relates it to work by authors such as Ballard and Thomas Pynchon but also more recent writers here such as Aldiss, Disch, Sladek and Langdon Jones, describing Vian’s book as a new logic of the imagination.

It might gain some interest as a result.

The only other book of note briefly mentioned here is the paperback publication of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which “has all of Clarke’s virtues well-displayed.” For what it’s worth, I agreed when I reviewed the hardback novel here back in July. There'll be more on this later.

Lastly, we have the conclusion of an article by C. C. Shackleton (aka Brian Aldiss) begun last issue about H. G. Wells’ ideas of utopia. It may be difficult to read without referring back to the earlier, and longer, part, but I followed it easily enough. Unsurprisingly, as Aldiss/Shackleton is a huge admirer of Wells, the article is positive, saying at the end that Wells pretty much started the idea in science fiction that the genre (and therefore much of Wells’ work) is “a study of man and his machines and society’s changing relationship to science and technology.” To which I would add, “Well, yes – him and Jules Verne.” I’m sure there’s others that could be mentioned too.

Summing up the October New Worlds

A big sigh of relief this month. Although the issue is somewhat of a mixed bag and with nothing too controversial, it does feels more like a normal issue of New Worlds, with the usual mixture of allegory and confusion usually engendered by its presence.

Interestingly, although it has always been there in the last few years, this was the first time that I did notice how American (Americentric?) the issue felt. Perhaps it was because it’s been a while since I read a copy, but I really noticed it this time. Is this a consequence of New Worlds now being sold where most of you are? Perhaps. However, with American writers throughout and the prose filled with American characters and places, the quaint old idea of New Worlds being a “British” magazine seems to have gone – even when most of the stories seem to be attacking America satirically or ideologically.

The return of stalwarts like Ballard, even if he has passed his prime, will be a reason to buy this one, although being mainly subscription-based, the magazine may only be preaching to the already-converted.

For me the most memorable item, unusually, was Moorcock’s article. It’s not common for me to be impressed by the non-fiction, but this one really made an impression. The fiction, by comparison, was rather pallid. Nice prose, nothing especially extraordinary. If I was pushed to make a choice, I would suggest that Disch’s Casablanca was the fiction piece I appreciated most.

Most importantly, this issue means the end of Jack Barron, which took a long, long time to get there but finally ended. It is due out in book form fairly soon, I gather – if they can find any bookshop willing to stock it, of course!

The November New Worlds

So just as I was writing up my thoughts on the October issue, the November issue arrived. Looks like Mike and the gang are trying to make up for lost time! The issue is here.

Cover by Gabi Nasemann

One of those images that I suspect only a recreational drug user will understand. A step back from the October issue, I think.

Lead In by The Publishers

The key point here is that Moorcock points out that all of the fiction in this issue is from new writers. I see this raising of potential talent as a good thing, but my more cynical self suspects lower rates were paid. I also suspect greater variability in quality. We will see!

Area Complex by Brian Vickers

To the first – the cover story. I liked this one. It’s an account compiled from writings by a number of teenage gang members living in a gang in a future Clockwork Orange kind of dystopia. As you might expect, it is a tough existence, living in decaying cities with lives filled with sex and violence. The group often kills others from rival groups, whilst trying to survive.

The big twist at the end is that the group are a religious sect living in a post-disaster world. This also gives the writer chance to have a pop at religion as is rather expected in New Worlds these days. It doesn’t end happily, but then that’s what we’ve come to expect in these British anti-utopian stories.

What impressed me most was how this story epitomised the New Wave stuff at the moment. If anyone remembers Charles Platt’s Lone Zone back in July 1965 it reminded me of that, but with lots of elements that could be from Aldiss, Ballard, Anthony Burgess (Clockwork Orange) and Langdon Jones in style and content, for example, but are instead from a new writer. Old ideas in new ways, perhaps. A good start to the issue, if typically depressing. 4 out of 5.

Pauper’s Plot by Robert Holdstock

A story of a future life in a factory where the protagonist spends his life as a factory slave pauper, wanting to kill his Overseer, Mister Joseph. Effective description of an awful life that is devoted to work – they have no free time, no chance to go outside. There’s an obvious analogy to the factory and the machine our protagonist is slaved to being life’s dreadful grind. Think of it as a Dickensian novel set in the future – rather like the musical film Oliver! I saw the other week, but without the music, which I kept thinking of whilst reading this. Again, not a bad effort, even if the ending is a bit of a let-down. 3 out of 5.

The Pieces of the Game by Gretchen Haapanen

Another story in poetic prose, that style so beloved by Associate Editor James Sallis. The plot, such as it is, tells us of Sarah, living in a smoggy Los Angeles from which she manages to escape the daily drudgery – in other words, similar to Holdstock’s story! The tale is OK but doesn’t really say a lot, other than creating pictures in your head.

But never mind a plot: be in awe of the pretty prose (though occasionally set out in that way of type in various directions across the page that I am starting to really dislike). 4 out of 5.

Black is the Colour by Barry Bowes

Another story determined to be controversial dealing with the issue of colour. A white man suddenly wakes up one morning to find that he is now black. Deliberately provocative prose – the ghost of Bug Jack Barron hasn’t quite gone away, has it? – but the story makes the point that people of different coloured skin are treated differently in society, and it’s not long before the storyteller’s life suffers as a result. Not a particularly original idea, but it makes its point pretty well. 3 out of 5.

How May I Serve You? by Stephen Dobyns

A story of consumer capitalist culture, it describes a future world where a man who loves the physicality of coinage goes on a spending spree at Schartz’s, using his own manufactured money. He is arrested and we discover that it is an unfortunate consequence of being reconditioned. A nice take on the influence of money and consumable goods in our lives. I’m surprised that “Coca-Cola” hasn’t had something to say on the story though – or do they see it as subliminal advertising? 3 out of 5.

Crim by Graham Charnock

A story that feels a bit Bug Barron in nature. CRIM is a story of future warfare combined with media saturation. Lots of violent imagery, separate characterisations and made up language. This feels similar to some of the other fiction in this issue and gets across the idea that war is bad in a Brian Aldiss Barefoot in the Head kind of way. The difference here is that CRIM feels like it is trying too hard. 3 out of 5.

Article: Graphics for Nova Express by Richard Wittern

Images for what is presumably a new edition of William Burroughs’s Nova Express that seem a bit pointless without context. 2 out of 5.

Sub-Synchronization by Chris Lockesley

Ah, the inevitable New Worlds sex story! Actually, after that initial attempt of using a discussion of sex to grab your attention, it soon becomes something about time, in that disjointed poetic manner that James Sallis seems to like. I didn’t understand it myself. 2 out of 5.

Baa Baa Blocksheep by M. John Harrison

Another disjointed story about grotesque characters doing something incomprehensible. Like most of the allegorical stories here, it is about impressions and poetic description rather than anything else.

It seems to be about this Arm, who with another person named Block go to work for Holloway Pauce, who for some bizarre reason is experimenting on sheep. Whilst this is going on, we get Ballard-ian extracts of stories that Arm is trying to get published, of characters named Gynt and Morven. Deliberately odd and unsettling, obtuse and simultaneously designed to provoke, it becomes memorable for vivid but fractured sections of prose. For example, the first line is: ”Arm scuttled the streets like a bubonic rat–furtive by nature, flaunting in the exigencies of pain."

Typical New Worlds material. I’m sure it all means something… somewhere, but after two readings, I’m still not sure what that is myself. Appreciate the lyrical imagery; don’t look for meaning. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews: The Impotence of being Stagg by R. G. Meadley and M. John Harrison

Harrison reviews as well as writes in this issue – I suspect that this will become a regular thing.

Unsurprisingly, the reviewers do not like old-style SF, such as that published by Doubleday, and so give a thumbs-down to Joe Poyser’s Operation Malacca, Lloyd Biggle Jr.’s The Still Small Voice of Trumpets and Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer, although they grudgingly admit that Farmer’s more-sexual tales are more entertaining than the rest. I have tended to think of Farmer as a New Wave writer in the US – Harlan Ellison certainly did in Dangerous Visions, so my surprise is that they have anything bad to say about it at all.

Of the other reviews, R. A. Lafferty’s The Reefs of Earth is regarded as a “slight work… well worth a glance if you have nothing else to read”. The publication of Philip K. Dick’s first novel Solar Lottery shows “how far Dick has progressed in the thirteen years since its first publication, and little else.” Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is “a book for all the family” and will “hardly offend anyone” being seen as “An inoffensive and mundane little piece of Establishment SF.” Lastly, Charles Harness’s third novel, The Ring of Ritornel is seen as “brash, fascinating, eclectic,fast and glossy” but is a less satisfying work when compared with his earlier novels.

Article: Phantom Limbs by Frances Johnston

A medical article that is a little reminiscent of those written by Dr. Christopher Evans back in the early Moorcock issues of New Worlds. It begins with the recent film The Charge of the Light Brigade before going on to discuss the need for artificial replacement limbs and the future of such devices. I guess that it is close to being a robot, but not quite. It’s interesting but feels oddly out of place in this magazine. 3 out of 5.

Summing up the November New Worlds

An issue pleasing in its variety, but rather expectedly more variable in its quality. What we have here is a number of new writers taking inspiration from previously published authors, but as a result we have a lot of techniques we’ve seen before repeated. I recognise Ballard, Aldiss and Langdon Jones in those. The content is more of the usual – strange, disjointed, atmospheric.

I enjoyed most Area Complex, but wasn’t too excited about the Lockesley and the Charnock. The Harrison may be the most bewildering, but Barry Bowes’s story is the one that might cause most outrage, although it isn’t really saying anything new, sadly.

Out of the two issues, I think that the November issue is stronger, simply by having more stories with more of a range, even when a number of them resort to techniques that seem a little familiar. The idea of having an issue with all new writers to this magazine is a good one and shows that there is new talent out there to encourage. The downside of this is that the magazine doesn’t have any big names like Aldiss, Ballard or Disch to encourage the faithful, which might be what the magazine needs to get those reader numbers up, even when some of these new writers seem to be similar in prose, tone and style. Nevertheless, a good issue with good intentions, and one that feels fairly strong, if not entirely successful. It’s a fresh start of sorts, and I look forward to the next issue – hopefully next month!

Until next time – I wish everyone a Happy Halloween.



[October 20, 1968] Giants among Men (November 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)


by Gideon Marcus

Black Power

The politics of race have been an actively displayed part of the Olympics as long as I can remember.  Who can forget boxer Joe Louis defeating Max Schmelling at the 1936 Summer Games in Nazi Berlin?  So it should come as no surprise that, at a time when the race crisis in America has reached a fever pitch, that there should be an expression of solidarity and protest at this year's quadrennial event in Mexico City.

The fellows with their hands "clenched in a fist, marching to the [Mexico City] War" (to paraphrase Ritchie Havens) are medal-winning sprinters Tommie Smith (Gold) and John Carlos (Bronze) who had just won the 200-meter finals.  Peter Norman of Australia (Silver), while making no physical gesture, is wearing the same "Olympics Project for Human Rights" medal as his fellow winners.

Why did the winners present this display? I'll let Carlos speak for himself with his comments at a post-race, press conference:

We both want you to print what I say the way I say it or not at all.  When we arrived, there were boos.  We want to make it clear that white people seem to think black people are animals doing a job.  We want people to understand that we are not animals or rats.  We want you to tell Americans and all the world that if they do not care what black people do, they should not go to see black people perform.

If you think we are bad, the 1972 Olympic Games are going to be mighty rough because Africans are winning all the medals."

Carlos added, responding to press references to "Negro athletes" said,

I prefer to be called 'black'…If I do something bad, they won't say American, they say Negro.

Smith and Carlos, described by the Los Angeles Times as "Negro Militants", have been expelled from the Games by International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage.  This is the height of hypocrisy—how many times have we heard "we don't mind if Negroes protest; we just get upset when they riot and burn things"?  Yet, here we have two men, American sports heroes, who peacefully highlight the plight of the Afro-American in our fraught country, and they're the bad guys?

With anti-Brundage feelings piqued and the U.S. expected to win today in the 400 and 1,600 meter relay finals (with nary a white man on competing on the teams), it is quite possible further displays of solidarity will be presented during the playing of our National Anthem.

Right on, brothers.

Speculative Power

It is with this as backdrop that I finished this month's issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which also leads with a powerful image.  Does it deliver as striking a message?  Let's read on and see:


by Gray Morrow

Once There Was a Giant, by Keith Laumer

Ulrik Baird is an interstellar merchant carrying a cargo of ten flash frozen miners in need of medical attention.  In the vicinity of the low-gravity planet Vangard, his drive goes out, sending him hurtling toward the planet.  But the planet is quarantined, off limits to outsiders.  Nevertheless, Baird has no choice—a landing will happen one way or another; if it's a hard landing, the miners won't survive.  Grudgingly, interstellar traffic control grants him clearance and coordinates to touch down softly.  The approach is too fast for safety, and so Baird ejects, parachuting down, his frigid charges ejected safely in a separate, parachuting pod.

All according to Baird's plan.

Under the name of Carl Patton, Baird meets up with the last surviving man on Vangard, a 12 foot behemoth with the nickname 'Johnny Thunder'.  Together with his 7' mastiff, the giant insists on accompanying Patton to where the pod of miners landed somewhere in the frozen wastes.

Again, all according to plan.

The plan is, in fact, quite clever, and this story marks a rare return to form for Laumer, who has been phoning it in of late.  This is a story Poul Anderson would have woven liberally with archaicisms and mawkish sentiment.  Laumer plays it straight, sounding more like E.C. Tubb in his first (the good) Dumarest story.

What keeps the tale from excellence is its resolution.  Ultimately, Laumer provides the Hollywood ending, where everyone's a winner (more or less).  His moral is roughly the same as Dickson's in this month's Building off the Line: some men are Real Men to be envied.  The story even has a riveting travel sequence that takes up much of the story.  An interesting bit of synchronicity.

I think I like this one better than Dickson's, but I still would have prefered something more downbeat, more nuanced.  Four stars.

The Devil in Exile, by Brian Cleeve

Brother, here we go again.

Old Nick and his right-hand demon, Belphagor, were thrown out of the underworld by unionized hellions.  An attempt to get Jack O'Hara, formerly a common drunk, lately a crime boss, to cross the union lines to bring the Devil back to power backfired when O'Hara took charge of The Pit.

Now, down to their last pence, Lucifer and friend pose as upper crust Britishers and miraculously (is that the word?) become heads of the Ministry of Broadcasting.  Their debaucherous fare quickly wins over not just the terrestrial airwaves, but also those in Hell, and the Prince of Lies is restored to his rightful throne.  Finis.

This installation is as tiresome and would-be-but-not-actually funny as the other two.  Good riddance.

Two stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Coins, by Leo P. Kelley

In the time of Afterit, decades after The Bomb poisoned the world with its radioactive seed, humans have given up making decisions.  After all, that's what brought about the Apocalypse, isn't it?  Men making decisions?  Instead, life is reduced to a series of 50/50 chances, each determined by the flip of a common coin.

Vividly written, but the premise (and the story's ending) are better suited to the comics.  Anyone remember Batman's nemesis Two-Face from the '40s?

Three stars.

A Score for Timothy, by Joseph Harris

Timothy Porterfield is one of the world's greatest mystery writers.  When he passes away after a long career, this seems to be the end—after all, does not death write the final chapter?  Perhaps not, with the help of a medium with a flair for automatic writing.  Nevertheless, there is still one final twist to the tale of Timothy…

Well wrought, atmospheric, and you're never quite sure how it will turn out.  I liked it.  Four stars.

Investigating the Curiosity Drive, by Tom Herzog

Curiosity killed the cat, but could it not also kill the human?  And if one's goal is to test to determine whether or not curiosity be the salient feature of any sentient being, isn't it vital that one pick a being who isn't wise to your test?

This is a silly story, ultimately building to a joke that isn't worth the trip.  Two stars.

The Planetary Eccentric , by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor discusses the discovery of Pluto and how it simply can't be the "Planet X" Percival Lowell was looking for.  He does not quite so far as to say that it's not a planet at all, however, as some have opined.

Good article.  Four stars.

Young Girl at an Open Half-Door, by Fred Saberhagen

The Museum of Art is haunted, it seems.  Every night, an elusive prowler sets off the alarms in two of rooms housing prize exhibits.  When a troubleshooter is dispatched, he finds the intruder is on something of a salvage mission, rescuing the art as insurance against an impending disaster.  More importantly, said troubleshooter finds love…

It's a well-told story, and the ending is suitably chilling, though I found the romantic elements a bit too rushed for plausibility.  Four stars.

The Kings of the Sea, by Sterling E. Lanier

In this, the second shaggy dog story of Brigadier Ffelowes, we return to 1938 Sweden for a brush with gods that make the Aesir look like Johnny-Come-Latelies.  It's sort of Lovecraftian and not as compelling as the first tale Ffelowes recounted, which took place in the Caribbean.  Not bad; just sort of pedestrian.

Three stars.

Stepping down from the podium

You know, it's nice to be able to step away from the real world for a while.  There are important things going on that one must keep tabs on, causes to support, but everyone needs a break.  Thankfully, this month's F&SF, while it presents no absolute stand-outs, nevertheless presents no real clunkers, and it finishes at 3.4 stars—well above the 3-star line.

And that's something to salute!