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[February 8, 1970] Boldly going to the Region Between (March 1970 Galaxy)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

A pleasant Escapade

Little fan conventions are popping up all over the place, perhaps thanks to the popularity of Star Trek.  The first adult science fiction show on the small screen, Trek not only thrilled existing fans (who have been putting on conclaves since the '30s), but has also galvanized millions of newfen who previously had lived outside the mainstream of fandom.

Last weekend, I went to a gathering of Los Angeles fans called "Escapade".  It differs from most fan conventions in that it focuses almost exclusively on science fiction and fantasy on the screen rather than in print.  Moreover, the emphasis is not on the SFnality of the works, but on the relationships and interactions of the characters.  This is the in-person culmination of the phenomenon we've seen in the Trekzines, where the stories and essays are about Spock or Kirk or Scotty—the people, not so much the adventures they go on.

Another distinction is that most of the attendees were women.  Most SF conventions, while not stag parties, are male-dominated.  The main difference I noted was that panels were less formal, more collaborative.  Instead of folks sitting behind a table and gabbing with each other, they were more like discussion groups…fannish teach-ins, if you will.  I really dug it.

If Escapade represents the future of fandom, then beam me up.  I'm sold!

And since the photos are back from the Fotomat, here's a sample of what I snapped:

Photo of a bearded man in glasses and a paisley shirt holding up a copy of a fanzine next to a tall woman in a Trek gold tunic flashing the Vulcan salute
That's David, holding up the latest issue of The Tricorder (#4) and Melody dressed as a Starfleet lieutenant

Photo of a dark-haired woman in a blue Star Trek uniform, smiling at the camera. She is carrying books in one arm, and behind her are tables of fannish items for sale.
And here's Melody again in sciences blue—who says you can't make a Vulcan smile?

A picture of a smiling brunette woman in a ribbed white sweater, sitting on the floor with an equally smiling baby about one year old.
If you can't recruit a fan…make one!  (this one isn't Lorelei's…but it's probably giving her ideas)

An image projected onto a wall, showing an image from the Star Trek episode 'The Enemy Within', where Kirk is drinking, faced by a Security woman in a beehive hairdo.
Lincoln Enterprises had a stall in the Huckster Hall—I got this clip from The Enemy Within!

The New Thing in America

It's been eight years since folks like Ballard and Aldiss started the New Wave in the UK.  It's leaked out across the Pond for a while, but this is the first time an issue of a Yank mag has so embraced the revolutionary ethos.  The latest issue of Galaxy was a surprise and delight that filled my spare moments (not many!) at the aforementioned convention.  Let's take a look.

Cover of Galaxy magazine featuring a ghostly male figure half-submerged in a multi-hued representation of the universe, dozens of planets swirling near him
cover by Jack Gaughan

The Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

A black-and-white ink image of the article's title in a bubble, surrounded by stars
illustration by Jack Gaughan

Budrys' focus is on fandom this month.  He notes that SF fandom differs from all others (that of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Conan, etc.) in that we are omnivorous.  We contain multitudes, digging all of the above and much, much more.

We also are directly responsible for the plaudits of our passion—whereas the Oscars, Edgars, and Silver Spurs (and Nebulas, for that matter) are given out by organizations, the Hugos are awarded by the fans themselves (well, those that have the $2-3 to shell out for a World Science Fiction Society membership).  Which means that all the nominations that Galactic Journey (hasn't) got are really worth something!

After a lengthy and entertaining discussion of what fandom means to Budrys, he goes on to review the indispensable The Index of Science Fiction Magazines 1951-1965, compiled by Norman Metcalf.  It's not only a useful reference, but it's fun to read what all your favorite authors have produced, and also to see the commonalities and differences of stories that end up next to each other when ordered alphabetically.

He also recommends Adventures in Discovery, an anthology of science fact articles by science fictioneers (including reliables like Asimov, Ley, and de Camp, but also unusuals like Silverberg and Poul Anderson).  It's put together by my dear friend, Tom Purdom, and you can bet we'll be reviewing it soon, too.

Now on to the fiction!

The Region Between, by Harlan Ellison

A three-panel image, showing a burst of white, raylike lines against a black background. The title is also in white letters, with the smaller legend 'Death came merely as a hyphen. For it was only when Bailey died that he began to live'. The third panel is black ink on a white background, showing a man in a circle, surrounded by astrological lines and symbols. The circle and man are upside down, set on top of framing black lines, emphasizing chaotic disruption.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

In Ellison's story, the universe is filled with warring factions: beings, societies, and races that play God with the lesser forces in an endless struggle for dominance.  The other truth of Region: the soul is immortal, and death merely a transition.  Your essence is also poachable, in death and in life—and a whole gaggle of Thieves has sprung up to take advantage of this.  When the soul that is snatched from a still-living being is too valuable to one of the squabbling tin pot deities, that's when it calls in the Succubus.  The Succubus deals in souls, too, thwarting the Thieves by replacing snitched spirits with ones from his collection.

One such is William Bailey, late of Earth, so tired of the pointlessness of it all that he picks euthanasia over enduring, but possessed of such anger at his lousy universe that he proves a true son-of-a-bitch.  A real Excedrin headache.  A turis.  A pain in the ass.  (Sound like any diminutive titans we know?)

Every body he inhabits, every pawn in every war, game, conquest, he subverts.  Through logic and sheer force of will, he convinces the shell personality of his host to allow him control, enough to stick it to the Man who pulls the strings of His minions.  And after each successful wrenching of the gears, the Succubus, too busy to note the peccadilloes of a single errant soul, tosses him off to his next assignment to wreak havoc.

It's the ultimate implementation of hubris and nemesis, an eye-stick against solipsism.  Not only are you not God, but watch out: your dicking around with creation may be just the thing that causes your uncreation.

The New Wave has all kinds of literary and typographical tricks—if you read New Worlds, you've seen them all.  This is the first time I've really seen them used fully in service of the story rather than being fripperous illumination.  They are special effects for the printed page, as impressive as any Kubrick rendered in his 2001 for the cinema.  I wouldn't want all of my stories to look like this, and Ghod help us if Ellison inspires a new New Wave of copycats who absorb the style and not the subtance.

But, my goodness, five stars.

The Propheteer, by Leo P. Kelley

A black-and-white sketch, briefly rendered, of a twisted robot sitting in a futuristic hammock, facing a wall of screens. The legend reads 'The Propheteer's people smiled for their lives -- or lost them!'
illustration by Jack Gaughan

"We can predict crime with absolute precision.  We can tell who will commit a crime and when.  We can even predict the exact nature of the crime."

Sounds like Dick's story, The Minority Report, though in Kelley's piece, what keeps crime from happening isn't a trio of precogs, but one man who monitors and controls the chemical balance of every human on Earth, ensuring tranquility and crimelessness throughout the planet.

Except, that man twiddles meaningless knobs and dummy switches.  Another man is in control of humanity, and he wields a stick, not an endocrine carrot…

It's a little too histrionic and pat, and less effective than the stories which preceded it (including an Analog story from 1962 by R. C. Fitzpatrick)

Two stars.

A Place of Strange, by George C. Willick

A pencil drawing of a knapped stone item, looking both like a knife and a deity. Above it reads the legend 'What would you call a place where men planned war?'

Humans teach primitive beings to hate, to fight.  The moral, like something from a less than effective Star Trek episode is stated: "There must be a way for simple survival to change into civilization without war.  There must be."

Indeed, there must be.

Two stars.

Downward to the Earth (Part 4 of 4), by Robert Silverberg

A pencil illustration showing the alien elephants, called the Nildoror, spattered in black goo.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

Silverbob wraps up his latest serial, detailing the end of Gunderson's quest toward redemption on the colony he once administrated.  Of course, it ends with the unveiling of the mystery of Rebirth, which is revealed in the dreamy, avant-garde style that typifies the rest of the story.  We also learn the relationship between the two sapient races of Belzegor, the elephantine Nildoror and the apelike Sulidor.  It is both fascinating and also a little disappointing.  Without giving anything away, I suppose I was most interested in the concept of a world with two intelligent species sharing a planet; in Silverberg's story, it turns out they are less a pair of distinct beings and more two sides of the same coin.

There is a fascinating, hopeful note to the conclusion that elevates the story above a personal salvation story, even if the whole thing is more an exercise in building a setting than presenting an actual narrative.

I'd say four stars for this installment, three-and-a-half for the whole.  It may get consideration for the Hugo, but the year is young, and I imagine there is better to come—probably from Silverberg, himself.

Sunpot (Part 2 of 4), by Vaughn Bodé

A cartoon panel, primarily showing a spaceship in orbit. The caption reads, 'The giant Sunpot complex hangs high above the Russian side of the Moon...it hangs like a bloated Siamese bowling pin in the afternoon motionlessness of space...'. The lettering, kerning, and bolding are all disastrous.
illustration by Vaughn Bodé

The adventures of the Sunpot continue, as does the illegible lettering.  I was dismayed to see Belind Bump, who had appeared to be an intrepid heroine, reduced to a host for boobies.  Fake boobies at that (as we are reminded multiple times throughout the strip).

A waste of space.  One star.

Reflections, by Robert F. Young

Last up is this sentimental tale of two humans of the far future teleporting to Earth for a tour of the cradle of their race.  Evolved far beyond our ability to ken, they are incorporeal beings of nostalgia and love.

Pleasant, but eminently forgettable.  It's that style (the type is interestingly arranged in reflecting columns and meandering rivers) over substance thing I just worried about above.

Three stars.

Summing up

That's that for this experiment in printing.  There were unfortunate casualties: the Silverberg was printed with compressed carriage returns between lines, which made it harder to read.  Also, with all the illustrations and text tricks (not to mention the comic), we probably got about 80% of the usual content—the Silverberg compression notwithstanding.

The stuff that isn't the Ellison or the Silverberg (or the Budrys) is also pretty disposable.  That said, the Ellison and the Silverberg comprise 80% of the issue, so who's complaining?

I definitely won't quit now… unlike Tony Curtis.

An advertisement showing a man in a doctor's uniform. The ad copy says, 'I got sick and tired of coughing and wheezing and hacking. So I quit. I quit smoking cigarettes. Which wasn't easy. I'd been a pack-a-day man for about 8 years. Still, I quit. And, after a while, I also quit coughing and wheezing and hacking. Now, the American Cancer Society offers every quitter an I.Q. button. To tell everyone you've got what it takes to say not quitting.' In smaller letters, there is an additional message: 'Get your I.Q. button from your local Unit of the American Cancer Society.'"/>
This campaign is everywhere—commercials, Laugh-In, the back inside cover of Galaxy…

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 2, 1970] Deceptive Appearances (March 1970 IF)

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by David Levinson

The Super Fight

Back in 1967, a radio producer by the name of Murray Woroner came up with the idea of using a computer to work out who the best heavyweight fighter of all time is. He polled 250 boxing writers and came up with a list of 16. He then worked closely with a programmer to input everything that could be determined about each boxer into a computer.

Match-ups were set up as a single-elimination tournament to be broadcast as a series of radio plays. Each fight was run through an NCR 315 computer the night before broadcast to create a blow-by-blow account of the fight. Woroner and boxing announcer Guy LeBow would then “call” the fight as if it were really happening. In the end, Rocky Marciano beat Jack Dempsey and was awarded a championship belt worth $10,000.

The arbiter, an NCR 315.The arbiter, an NCR 315.

Ali was not happy. The computer had him losing in the quarter finals to Jim Jeffries, a boxer he has little respect for. He sued for defamation of character, asking for $1 million. They settled when Ali agreed to take part in a filmed version of a computerized fight between him and Marciano in return for $10,000 and a cut of the box office.

Last year, Ali and Marciano got together and sparred for over 70 rounds, filming a few different versions of events that the computer might predict. Marciano dropped 50 pounds and wore a toupee so he’d look more like he did in his prime. Ali probably had to get back in shape too, since he’s been banned from boxing for refusing induction into the army. Instinct seems to have taken over for both men. Ali bloodied Marciano’s nose and opened cuts over his eyes (Rocky always bled easily); at one point, Ali was so exhausted he refused to go back into the ring (until he got another $2,000) and could barely raise his arms enough to eat breakfast the next day. Filming ended just three weeks before Marciano was killed in a plane crash last Labor Day.

Armed with hours of footage and the top secret computer result, Woroner and his team put together a film they dubbed The Super Fight. On January 20th, it aired in 1,500 theaters in the US, Canada, and Europe via closed-circuit television, with viewers paying a whopping $5.00 a head.

How did it turn out? Ali is not happy. The computer had him knocked out in the 13th round. He’s talking about another defamation suit. Maybe he’ll change his mind when he finds out that was only in the US and Canada. European viewers saw Ali win by TKO. The producers are also talking about destroying all the prints.

Boxing Poster captioned AT THIS THEATRE JANUARY 20, 1970 - 10 PM-E.S.T. THE SUPER FIGHT ONE SHOWING ONLY THE ONLY 2 UNDEFEATED HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONS IN HISTORY ROCKY MARCIANO VS MUHAMMAD ALI (CASSIUS CLAY) ON FILM LIVE! IN COLOR TICKETS ON SALE NOW!Movie poster for the event. That “LIVE!” is a little deceptive, which is something else Ali is complaining about.

It’s a rather science-fictional concept we’ve seen in other guises. Maybe Murray Woroner got his original idea from the Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon.” Of course, any statistician will tell you that a single simulation doesn’t really say anything. Rolling a die once doesn’t tell you if it’s fair; it takes hundreds or thousands of repetitions to determine that. But when the computer needs 45 minutes to determine the events of one match, this is the best that can be expected. For now.

Not what it looks like

Authors like to counter readers’ expectations. It’s a good way to evoke a response, particularly in a genre that has a fair number of cliches and formulas. Sometimes, the surprise comes from the author doing something that’s not what you expect that particular writer to do or say. This month’s IF offers some of both.

Cover of the March 1970 issue of IF science fiction, depicting an astronaut carrying an antenna on the surface of the moon, looking out onto the Earth and its magnetic field depicted in white, orange, red and blue.Art actually for “SOS,” rather than just suggested by. Maybe because it’s by Mike Gilbert, not the overworked Jack Gaughan.

SOS, by Poul Anderson

Some 2,000 years from now, the Earth’s magnetic field is fading, prior to a reversal of the magnetic poles. The feudalistic Westrealm and the communist Autarchy of Great Asia compete for dwindling resources as they search desperately for a way to survive the pending catastrophe. The Autarchy secretly invades a Westrealm research station on the dark side of the moon, preparatory to a surprise attack on the West’s space fleet. It’s up to the scientists to find a way to prevent it.

Black and white illustration depicting two astronauts on the surface on the moon, one is running and the other stands with his arm up. Behind them stands a large white structure while ships launch in the distance. The caption reads SOS. Poul Anderson. Earth flipped- but Man stayed right on his course!The invasion arrives. Art uncredited

This feels like a fairly typical Anderson story of the well-done sort all the way through. But then he hits the reader with a punch to the gut right at the end. The ending and the commentary from the author are surprising in light of most of his work. It’s a good story, but weakened by two things: the title completely gives away the resolution; worse, there’s a couple of paragraphs at the beginning that undercut the emotional impact of the ending.

A high three stars, but could have been better.

Telemart 3, by Bob Shaw

Shaw gives us the tale of an unpleasant man who married for money and his wife who seems intent on spending all of it. The problem is made worse by the titular device, which allows her to buy things from the comfort of her living room with instant delivery. It’s probably meant as commentary on consumerism, but feels more like a sexist rant about women and money.

Two stars.

Sketchy illustration of a man throwing what appears to be a lamp.Matters come to a head. Art by Gaughan

The Thing in the Stone, by Clifford Simak

After a car accident that killed his wife and child and may have given him brain damage, Wallace Daniels retired to the countryside of south-western Wisconsin, where he has visions that seem to let him go walking in the geologic past. There’s also something alive buried deep in the limestone, not to mention an unpleasant and shiftless neighbor. Not everything is as it seems.

Illustration of the silhouette of a man walking along the ocean shore.Daniels finds himself in the deep past, before life has truly left the ocean. Art by Gaughan

This story has almost everything I don’t like about Simak: the pastoralism, wandering back and forth over the line between science fiction and fantasy, the slow progression. I understand why people like him, but he just isn’t for me. If you like those aspects of his work, you may like this one a lot.

Three stars for me, might be four for Simak fans.

The Ethics of Trade, by Timothy M. Brown

This month’s (official) new author gives us a series of letters from the operators of a company that provides dangerous animals to zoos to one of their clients. There’s nothing really new here, but it’s done fairly well. Brown does a good job of calling the letter writer into question, even though we only hear his side.

Three stars.

Cover depicting a scaly claw dragging a black tear down the center of the page. The caption reads: THE ETHICS OF TRADE TIMOTHY M. BROWN an IF firstRigellian wombats are very, very dangerous. Art by Gaughan

In the Silent World, by Ed Bryant

Julie is a co-ed with telepathy. As far as she know, she’s the only telepath in the world. At least, until an overwhelming cry of loneliness prompts another to contact her.

Sketch of a mouthless woman with long blonde hair.Julie, I suppose. Art uncredited, but looks like Gaughan

Nothing about this story is bad, but nothing is particularly outstanding either. I saw the ending coming almost as soon as the other telepath made contact. There’s not much more to say about it.

Three stars.

Traps, by Jack Dann and George Zebrowski

Planet 3-10004-2 can’t be approved for colonization until all land animals have been properly classified; Rysling has taken the contract to capture the last unclassified species. He’s puzzled by the presence of another ship and the cryptic messages left by its pilot. Even more puzzling is the effect the creature he’s after seems to have on him.

Illustration of a man looking on the ground in despair.Rysling’s not sure who or what he is. Art by Gaughan

Dann seems to be a new author, but Zebrowski had a story in a collection that came out last month, so this isn’t quite an IF first. The premise and the powers of the creature are hard to buy, but it’s told well enough. There’s enough talent here to make the story readable; we’ll see if either author has any staying power.

Three stars.

Whipping Star (Part 3 of 4), by Frank Herbert

Herbert’s tale of Saboteur Extraordinary Jorj McKie and his efforts to stop a “reformed” sadist from causing the death of an alien, thus triggering the deaths of nearly every sentient being in the galaxy, plods along. Last month, I said the story was holding my interest and praised the action. Neither of those things is true this month. This installment is nothing but conversations. There are a couple of brief bits of action, but neither is more than a flash.

I’m also getting a little bored. There may not be enough here for a novel. The idea of examining communication without a common perspective is sound, but the whole thing might have been trimmed to a longish novella.

Three fading stars.

The bad guys make an ineffectual attempt to eliminate McKie. Art by GaughanThe bad guys make an ineffectual attempt to eliminate McKie. Art by Gaughan

The Time Judge, by Dannie Plachta

A criminal is dragged through time and condemned by the title character to a fitting punishment.

Art nouveau cover depicting a judge pointing downward to the author and title DANNIE PLACHTA THE TIME JUDGE The accused found no end to his crime- no beginning to justice!Here come da judge. Art by Gaughan

Actually, we don’t know if the punishment is fitting, since we’re never told the nature of the crime, just of the judge’s disgust. For that matter, the punishment wasn’t all that uncommon in its day. As with nearly every Plachta story, the nicest thing I can say is that it’s very short.

Two stars.

Love Thy Neighbor, by E. Clayton McCarty

Jake Terrell starts seeing something out of the corner of his eye. Then it jumps into his head, and he begins behaving oddly.

Cover depicting 5 sets of sketchily drawn sets of eyes going down the page. Some look at figures in the margin. The bottom set is punctuated with tiny stick figures with heads as pupils. The caption reads LOVE THY NEIGHBOR E. CLAYTON McCARTY The loving aliens came- and there went the neighborhood! It’s a stretch, but I see how this connects with the story. Art uncredited

Another story that’s like a piece of popcorn. You consume it without really noticing it, nor is there anything memorable about it, good or bad. A decently told piece of filler.

Three low, but not too low stars.

All Brothers Are Men, by Basil Wells

Three alien religious fanatics are part of a conspiracy to drive humans off their world. Two of them started out as the personality of the third implanted into mind-wiped bodies. The years apart have undermined their commonality, and two of them may no longer believe in the cause.

Illustration of a fluffy, large eyed, dish eared alien with a beak, holding a paper airplane.Not sure what the paper airplane is doing here. Art by Gaughan

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is that the humans aren’t really in it. They’re a distant, never seen presence affecting the characters’ society in ways they don’t like. For a guy who started out 30 years ago and probably spends more time writing mysteries and westerns than SF, Wells has managed to stay up-to-date. This is by no means a New Wave tale, but it still manages to have a modern sensibility.

A very solid three stars.

Miscellany

Elsewhere in the magazine, the letters were almost universally in praise of the savaging Ejler Jakobsson gave John Campbell in two editorials over the latter’s piece on race and IQ. I particularly liked the point made by one writer, who notes that Campbell’s premise is based tightly on statistical analysis of something poorly defined and understood, while he flatly rejects statistical evidence indicating clear connections between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.

Summing up

Looking over what I’ve written, this seems like a weak issue, but it’s not as bad as I make it sound. The Simak is undoubtedly the best in the issue; it might even be a four-star story, but my own prejudices keep me from rating it that high. The Anderson and Wells are fine stories, if not outstanding. The rest are mostly just there. The only really bad story is the Shaw (Plachta’s not bad, just stupid). Frank Herbert might manage to salvage his novel in the final episode, but I’m not holding my breath.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 31, 1970] Both sides now (February 1970 Analog)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

All night long

Woody Allen likes to quip that being "bi-sexual" (liking both men and women) doubles of your chance of getting a date on the weekend.

NASA has just doubled the amount of weather they can look at in a single launch.  TIROS-M (does the "M" stand for "Mature"?) was launched from California on January 23rd into a two-hour orbit over the poles.  12 times a day, it circles the Earth, which rotates underneath.  Unlike the last 19 TIROS satellites, TIROS-M can see in the dark.  That means it gets and transmits a worldwide view of the weather twice a day rather than once.

More than that, the satellite is called the "space bus" because it carries a number of other experiments, measuring the heat of the Earth as well as solar proton radiation.  Launched "pickaback" with TIROS-M was Oscar 5, an Aussie satellite that broadcasts on a couple of bands so ham radio fans can track signals from orbit.  Maybe Kaye Dee will write more about that one in her next piece!

Clouds got in my way

If the distinctive feature of the Earth as viewed from space is its swaddling blanket of clouds, then perhaps the salient characteristic of this month's Analog is its conspicuous degree of padding.  Almost all of the stories are longer than they need to be, at least if their purpose be readability and conveying of point.  Of course, more words means more four-cent rate…


by Kelly Freas, illustrating "Birthright"

Birthright, by Poul Anderson

Emil Darmody is the manager for the terran trading station on the planet of Suleiman, a sub-jovian hulk of a world with a thick hydrogen atmosphere, primitive alien inhabitants, and a rare and valuable spice.  When Burbites, an off-world alien race who are the main purchasers of the spice, drop robots to harvest the spice themselves, Darmody must find an ingenious way to stop them without inciting an interstellar incident.  In doing so, he attracts the attention of trade magnate Nicholas Van Rijn, who likes the adventurous sort.


by Kelly Freas

If someone were to ask for a generic example of a story set in the Polesotechnic League, you could do worse than to pick this one.  It has all the usual features: compelling astronomy and sufficiently alien beings; a bold, if naive, hero; women as competent professionals; daring-do; and a cameo by the corpulent and lusty Van Rijn.

Three stars.

Dali, for Instance, by Jack Wodhams


by Peter Skirka

And now, the padding begins.  Golec is a truly alien being who wakes up one day in the form of a human on present-day Earth.  Eventually, he recalls that the mind transference was intentional, a form of reconnaissance.  The problem is, it's not reversible, and he finds his new body disgusting.  Knowing that there may be others of his race on the planet in the same predicament, he seeks them out.  Golec is told that he might as well go native.  Things could be worse.

All of this should have been a one-page prelude to an actual story.

Two stars.

The Wind from a Star, by Margaret L. Silbar

I'm very happy to see Ms. Silbar back, as her last piece, on quarks, was excellent.  This time, she talks about a topic near and dear to my heart: the solar wind.

I've actually just given a talk on this very subject, so most of what she says is familiar.  It's nicely laid out, very interesting, and with some details that are new to me.  Newcomers may find it a little abstruse, and as with her last piece, an extra page or two of explanation, or splitting things up into two, simpler articles, might have been in order.  Asimov would have taken three or four (though, to be fair, he has half the space).

Four stars.

The Fifth Ace, by Robert Chilson


by Kelly Freas

The planet of Hyperica is the outpost of the Realm of Humanity closest to the "Empire", a separate polity of unknown constitution.  One day, a liaison between the two governments brings a gift from the Empire: several giant cat-creatures in cages.  They break out of confinement at the same time an Imperial spy-craft crashlands on Hyperica.  The local Hypericans attempt to deal with both.

This one took me two reads to grasp for some reason.  Much of the story is told from the point of view from the felinoids, who are intelligent and the real invasion, the spy ship being a decoy.  There is a lot of description of the stratified human culture, a host of characters, and a great deal of lovingly depicted gore. 

A lot of pages for not a lot of story.  I did appreciate the portrayal of actual aliens, but I didn't need a page of explanation of how their retractable claws work.

Two stars.

In Our Hands, the Stars (Part 3 of 3), by Harry Harrison


by Kelly Freas

In this installment, the Daleth-drive equipped Galathea, takes off for Mars with an international contingent of observers.  Shortly into the flight, both Soviet and American agents vie for control of the ship.  The ending is not at all what I expected.

This is such a curious book, in some ways just a vessel for delivering polemics.  Worthy polemics, perhaps, on the nobility and folly of national pride.  Nevertheless, it's definitely not one of Harrison's best, with none of his New Wave flourishes, nor any of the progressive brilliance of, say, Deathworld.  His characters are bland—Martha a particular travesty—and there's not much in the way of story.  In fact, I think the whole thing could have been a compelling, four-star novella… forty or fifty pages, tops.

As is, the final installment keeps things from falling below three stars, but no more.

The Biggest Oil Disaster, by Hayden Howard


by Leo Summers

A man named Sirbuh ('hubris' backwards) has a penchant for wildcatting oil wells in the deep sea.  When one of his digs creates the biggest oil spill in history, blackening California's beaches, Sibrah doubles down and calls for the use of a nuke to both seal it and create an undersea storage cavern.  Sibrah's son, devastated by the environmental catastrophe and sickened by Sibrah's cold calculations, can only watch as the inevitable unfolds. 

I assume this is a parable on the excesses of capitalism, though editor Campbell probably enjoyed it as an endorsement of the casual use of atomic weapons.  Either way, it goes on far too long and repetitiously.

Two stars.

The Reference Library (Analog, February 1970), by P. Schuyler Miller

Miller is a great book reviewer; even though he's been writing for decades, and despite writing for the most conservative of the SF mags, he keeps an open mind.  I'm afraid this year might have broken him, though.  The New Wave claimed the Hugos, and so Schuy is trying to wrap his head around the New Wave.  The result is a column that's a bit more scattered and less engaging than most.

He does have fun moments, though, particularly his review of Moorcock's The Final Programme:

"[Jerry Cornelius] is the Cthulhu mythos of the New Wave.  Michael Moorcock..originated him in his "novel" but other authors are making him the antihero of their "stories" just as a group of authors did with the assumptions and beings created by H.P. Lovecraft..

May all of Lovecraft's most powerful entities help the poor befuddled soul who tries to fit all the Cornelius stories together."

Miller also reviews Asimov's Opus 100, which he liked better than Algis Budrys did.  Perhaps Mrs. Miller hasn't had her posterior pinched by the Good Doctor.

Reading the data

It's not so much that Analog is bad these days, it's just that it isn't very good.  The Star-O-Meter for this one pegged at 2.6.  That's worse than virtually all the other mags/anthologies this month:

  • Fantastic (3.3)
  • Galaxy (3.3)
  • IF (3.1)
  • New Worlds (3.1)
  • New Writings #16 (3)
  • Vision of Tomorrow (3)
  • Venture (2.8)

    Only Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.3) was worse, a most unusual state of affairs.

    In the spirit of TIROS-M, here are some other vital figures for the month: ten magazines/anthologies were released this month (though Crime Prevention in the 30th Century only had two new stories).  The four and five star stuff would fill three magazines, which I suppose is a normal distribution.

    Women wrote 5% of new fiction.  On the other hand, Silbar's piece means 33% of the nonfiction is by a woman.  Progress!

    Like NASA, the Journey is expanding its capacity to review the flood of new material.  Let's pray for more stuff in the greater-than-three-star territory.

    It's more fun to review "the day side" of fiction!

    [New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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[January 22, 1970] Sergeant Pepper's New Wave Writers' Club Band: New Worlds, February 1970

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by Fiona Moore

February’s rain and sleet freeze the toes right off the feet, as Flanders and Swann once sang. Still, there’s reason to celebrate: the Family Law Reform Act has come into effect, reducing the age of majority from 21 to 18 for most purposes, homosexual sex being a notable exception. Decimalisation continues apace, with the half-crown coin being taken out of circulation (don’t worry, you can exchange it at most banks).

Term has resumed at Royal Holloway College and my students are attacking the writings of Margaret Mead with their usual enthusiasm. However, there is also widespread unease among our Nigerian foreign student community over the capitulation of Biafra: many of them have had no news of their families, and are also concerned about when they will be able to go home. The university is rallying round to make sure everyone is housed, and there are jobs aplenty in Southwest London if they need to stay a while, but it is still an anxious situation for them.


Jubilant street scene in Lagos upon the news of surrender, January 12, 1970

No news of Yoko Ono after December’s festive anti-war campaign. Rumour has it she and her husband have gone off to New York for some reason, so I expect I’ll be covering her activities less often. What all this means for her husband’s band, I’m not sure.

On to New Worlds, which continues its trajectory back to being an SFF magazine, but unfortunately almost every story is suffering from a lack of originality this month.

Cover of New Worlds, February 1970. The text is red, the background is black. In the centre is a black and white image of a car running over a nude female torso.Cover by Roy Cornwall

Lead-In

Mostly introducing new writers and illustrators to the magazine, as well as showcasing the pieces by Ballard and Watson, and drawing the reader’s attention to a new, presumably ongoing, feature of the publication—of which, more later.

Journey Across a Crater by J.G. Ballard

A black and white image of the left side of a White androgynous face photographed through distorted glass.

A piece about a crash-landed astronaut finding his way to civilisation. There are resonances with Ballard’s earlier story “You and Me and The Continuum” (Impulse Magazine 1:1, 1966), and also some vivid sexual imagery about car crashes, which makes sense given that the Lead-In tells us Ballard is currently working on a novel about these. Interesting enough as a revisitation of familiar Ballard themes but no new ground broken. Three stars.

Soul Fast by Gwyneth Cravens

A black and white photocollage of kitchen utensils.Illustration, artist uncredited (possibly Charles Platt)

A story by a woman in New Worlds is always worth remarking on, particularly a woman who is a current editor of the New Yorker. However, I can’t help but notice that women writers in New Worlds always seem to get pigeonholed into writing about domestic or otherwise nurturing themes. This one, for instance, is about food and the role it plays in relationships. There are some interesting satirical commentaries on race and how over-privileged White Americans with superficial attitudes towards spirituality crib from Black and Asian cultures, which makes it worth checking out. Four stars.

Japan by Ian Watson

A series of black and white cartoons depicting impressions of Japan
Illustration by Judy Watson

This is the standout piece of the issue. Watson, a Tokyo resident, introduces Japan to English readers in a surreal, outré travelogue emphasising the weird SF-ness of living in a country where the atmosphere isn’t breathable, earthquakes and fires are endemic, sexual fetishes are catered to in the mainstream media, and consumerism takes on the status of art. The illustrations are by Watson’s wife Judy. It’s beautifully written, though, having been to Japan once or twice myself, I worry that it’s over-emphasising the strangeness of the country to a point where it might simply confirm Europeans’ stereotype that the East is a bizarre and hostile place. Nonetheless, five stars.

Apocrypha by D.M. Thomas

A poem about the life of Jesus. It’s not terribly original, but I did find it engaging and nicely written. Three stars.

6B 4C DD1 22 by Michael Butterworth

A black and white illustration depicting a face with tentacles emerging from the forehead and cranium.Illustration by Alan Stephanson

Another not-terribly-original piece in the vein of “let’s drop acid and describe the resulting trip as an SFF story.” The mind-altered protagonist lurches back and forth between several different realities, some more surreal than others, with recurring characters playing different roles. I like Butterworth’s way with prose, and some of the metaphors and descriptions are genuinely arresting, but I’d like to declare a moratorium on anyone using Alice in Wonderland as an acid trip metaphor; it’s been done to death. Similarly, while I really like the accompanying art, it looks exactly the same as every other set of illustrations intended to show an acid trip (see above). Four stars.

A Spot in the Oxidised Desert by Paul Green

A black and white line drawing of a rust patchIllustration by John Bayley

A short prose poem from the point of view of a dying sentient tank in a future desert battlefield. Possibly the most innovative piece this issue. Four stars.

The Bait Principle by M John Harrison

A black and white illustration of a small stylised human figure menaced by giant, but very cute, cats.Illustration by Ivor Latto

Patients in an asylum begin to share each other’s delusions, and, in doing so, bring them into reality, leading to an ailurophobe being tormented by human-sized cats. This is an amusing twist on the familiar crazy-people-are-actually-seeing-the-truth genre, but at the end of the day that’s all it is. Two stars.

The Wind in the Snottygobble Tree: Conclusion by Jack Trevor Story

Black and white photograph of a double decker bus in an urban streetIllustration by Roy Cornwall

Finally this serial lurches to an end, with some heavy-handed satire about the Catholic and Scientologist churches, spies and the police. I have the feeling that the story-so-far summary is in fact retroactively adding elements, but I’m not interested enough to go back and find out. The eponymous tree finally appears (it's a species of yew, apparently), but I don’t think it’s got much to do with the story apart from being a bit gross. One star.

A Vid by James Sallis

A short poem which didn’t really do much for me. Two stars.

Books

By Mike Walters, John T. Sladek and Douglas Hill. There’s a delightfully excruciating pun on the first page, although Walters has to contort his review in order to fit it.

Music

As regards the new feature I mentioned above: New Worlds now has a music column! This is certainly a welcome innovation, and I look forward to seeing whether the New Wave has a particularly distinctive take on album reviews.

Overall, I’d say the magazine is suffering this month from a lack of originality. Everything is competently written at worst and sometimes really beautiful, but most of it is things that have been done before. Even the music column is something we see over and over in other magazines, and whether the fact that the reviewers are from the usual New Worlds crowd will make a difference is uncertain.

Is the New Wave played out? Can it (and Mr. Yoko Ono’s musical career) survive into the new decade? Time will tell.

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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[January 20, 1970] Jolly good Ffelowes (February 1970 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Up in the sky!

There are some intrepid women whose names are household words: Willa Brown, Jerrie Mock, Amelia Earhart.  Others are not so familiar.  The other day, I read the obituary for a pioneering soul I'd not known of before.

Blanche Stewart Scott was born in 1885.  A native of Rochester, she was 25 when she drove a 25-horsepower Overland stock car from New York to San Francisco, her 69 hour journey marking the second time a woman had made a transcontinental drive.

This attracted the interest of aviation pioneer Glen Curtiss, who took her under his wing (so to speak) and trained her to fly.  Apparently, Mrs. Scott had never seen an airplane before her coast-to-coast jaunt; she was caught in a traffic jam outside Dayton, Ohio, caused by a flying exhibition out of Wright Field. 

After just three days of instruction, she made her first solo flight on September 5, 1910, from an airfield in Hammondsport—what may well be the first time an American woman piloted an aircraft.

Photo of a cold-weather suited young woman behind the wheel of a Curtiss Model D, open-air biplane

Over the next four years, until she gave up flying, she suffered 41 broken bones in a number of crashes.  She was one of the lucky ones: "Most of the early women fliers got killed," she once observed.

Scott's later career included working as a scriptwriter, film producer, and radio broadcaster in Hollywood.  In 1948, she became the first woman to ever ride in a jet aircraft.  During the '50s, she combed the country for vintage planes to stock the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton.

She died on January 12 at Genesee Hospital in her native town of Rochester, New York.

Down in the mud

full cover spread depicting two conventional, space-suited astronauts meeting a pair of tall, thin, bipedal aliens with pointed heads, also in space suits, their spindly blue and yellow spaceship/base on the lunar horizon
by Michael Gilbert

Another pioneer of sorts had something of a flutter, if not yet a brush with death (I hope).  The latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction is pretty bad…

From the Moon, with Love, by Neil Shapiro

Who says you can't still publish Adam and Eve stories?  This time, our parabolic (is that the adjective form of parable?) two are "Dorn" and "Lara", respectively the Master and Mistress of Fortress Desire and Fortress Hope.  They are young clones, the last two humans alive, residing in twin, invulnerable bastions on the Moon.

Three centuries after atomic apocalypse destroyed their planet, the two beings are still conducting weekly mutual bombardments, begun ages before by their predecessors. Then the "Ezkeel", alien guardians of Earth, return to unite them so that they can repopulate their home planet.  I leave it to you to decipher the thinly disguised biblical reference in their race name.

Anyway, Shapiro manages to write both in a peurile fashion and for the Playboy set (perhaps the two aren't that divergent, after all).

One star.

Black and white image of three books entitled Alien Island, LUD-In-The-Mist, and The High Place. The righthand collumn reads Our thanks to James Blish for his kind words about our science fantasy program. Here are some titles. Ballantine Books 101 Fifth Avenue New York, NY, 10003.

M-1, by Gahan Wilson

Illustrator Wilson (he gets around; I see him drawing for Playboy too) takes a stab at short story writing.  In this vignette, mysterious forces have erected a thousand-foot statue of Mickey Mouse in the Nevada desert.  The point of the story, aside from the feeble joke ending, is to see how long it takes the reader to realize what has happened, as the figure is obliquely described as characters ascend it like a cliff face.

I got the joke halfway through page 2.  The rest seemed superfluous.

Two stars.

Books (F&SF, February 1970), by James Blish

Blish tags in for Russ this month, reviewing five classic fantasies and one new novel:

James Branch Cabell: FIGURES OF EARTH,
James Branch Cabell: THE SILVER STALLION.
Lord Dunsany: THE KING OF ELFLAND's DAUGHTER.
William Morris: THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD.
Fletcher Pratt: THE BLUE STAR.

All from Ballantine Books, New York, paper, 95¢: 1969.

He likes and recommends all of them.  I've read none of them…

He is less effusive about Josephin Saxton's THE HIERos GAMOS OF SAM AND AN SMITH.  He appreciates the surrealism of it, but he would have preferred that this odd Adam-an-Eve story had remained in its own world rather than transitioning into ours.

Comic Of a man in a suit wearing horns holding a sacrificial blade uses it on a chicken on a desk. He stands next to a woman in office attire. The caption reads Very Well Miss Apple -Call My Broker.
by Gahan Wilson

His Only Safari, by Sterling E. Lanier

Brigadier Ffelowes relates of the time he went to the Kenyan highlands and came face to face with the man-eating monster that inspired the Egyptian god Anubis.

Lanier does a good job of reviving the pulp era for modern audiences.  A brisk, taut read.

Four stars.

Watching Apollo, by Barry N. Malzberg

Our astronauts may be the stalwart vanguard of humanity, but they also have to shit, sometimes.

Three stars for this cheeky poem.

Initiation, by Joanna Russ

A precious homosexual and a straight-laced starship captain escape a spacewreck, landing on an odd human colony.  In contrast to their overcrowded, overconfining Earth, the new world's people are free, untechnological, and possessed of profound psionic powers.  The skipper is unable to adapt or understand.  The Terran civilian, unpleasant and mistrustful, eventually loses his inhibitions (and, apparently, his proclivity for men), becoming one with the outworlders.

Told in a dreamlike fashion to suggest the odd psychic phenomena and the constant wordless communication, I found this story's affected style off-putting.  Sex was described obliquely, less to avoid offense, it seemed; more as if Russ was embarrassed of describing the act.

I also didn't like anyone in the story, nor did I care much what happened to them.  The alienness of the colonists would have had more impact had things started with a more familiar, constrasting viewpoint.

I understand this story is also actually a detached piece of a larger novel due out later this year [ed: And Chaos Died, reviewed by Jason].  Perhaps it would make more sense in context.

Two stars.

The Tracy Business, by Gene DeWeese and Robert Coulson

Fans of the fanzine Yandro know who Robert "Buck" Coulson is (Juanita Coulson's husband).  He and DeWeese write Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels under the name "Thomas Stratton".

This story follows a private dick hired by a shrewish woman to find out why her husband disappears every four weeks for three days, spending a boodle of money in the process.  Hint: it's not another woman, and it's not blackmail.

It's a rather obvious tale, and unpleasant to boot.  Two stars.

The Multiplying Elements, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor explains those "rare earths" that have their own separate spot on the periodic table, and also how they were first isolated from their containing ores.  However, we have yet to learn why they occupy their own sub-table.

Chemistry is not my strong suit, and this article is necessarily incomplete, but I'll give it four stars for now.

Dream Patrol, by Charles W. Runyon

Way back in 1952, J.T.McIntosh (when he still was calling himself M'Intosh) wrote a neat story called Hallucination Orbit.  The premise was that there were these solitary garrison stations at the edge of the solar system, manned for months at a time.  Eventually, the folks stationed there started having hallucinations, which was the sign they needed to be relieved.  The sentry of that story dreamed a succession of increasingly convincing female companions.  The tension of that tale lay in our hero's increasingly challenging attempts to distinguish fantasy from reality.

It was a warm and ultimately sweet story, and it is one of my favorites.  There's a reason it got republished in the Second Galaxy Reader (1953).

Dream Patrol has the same premise, except the illusions are caused by hostile aliens, and there is no cure.  There's also a streak of misogyny to the whole thing.  Hell, almost 20 years ago, McIntosh had women in his space navy; that's unfathomable to Runyon.

Two stars.

Autopsy report

Given how good last month's issue was, this abysmal 2.3-star mag is quite the surprise.  Let's hope this constitutes an outlier.  One prominent obituary this month is quite sufficient!

snippet of a page from the magazine: IMPORTANT NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS ON THE MOVE Will you put yourself in the place of a copy of F&SF for a moment? A copy that is mailed to your home, only to find that you have moved. Is it forwarded to you? No. Is it returned to us? No. Instead, a post office regulation decrees that it must be . . . thrown away! We are notified of this grim procedure and charged ten cents for each notification. Multiply this aimless ending by hundreds each month and we have a doubly sad story: copies that do nobody any good, and a considerable waste of money to us, money which we would much prefer to spend on new stories. With your help, this situation can be changed. lf you are planning a change of address, please notify us six weeks in advance. lf possible, enclose a label from a recent issue, and be sure to give us both your old and new address, including the zip codes. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE, MERCURY PRESS, Inc., P. 0. Box 271, Rockville Centre, N.Y. 11571

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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[January 16, 1970] Strange Reports (Vision of Tomorrow #5 and New Writings SF-16)

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By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

The news to start this decade seems to be unrelentingly gloomy. The crisis in Biafra is only worsening, Mainland China and the USSR are at each other’s throats, and, at home, the government appears paralyzed on how to deal with inflation or the Unions.

But I want to take a break from grim reality and talk briefly about one of my favourite new TV programmes of recent months, Strange Report.

Strange Report Title image featuring the three main characters smiling together with the words strange report across them as if on an ink stamp.

It stars the unlikely team of Anthony Quayle (regular star of war films) as retired police detective Adam Strange; Kaz Garas (relative newcomer) as student and jack-of-all-trades Hamlyn Gynt; and Anneke Wills (Polly from Doctor Who) as model and artist Evelyn McClean.

Image from the Strange Report where Evelyn is standing at the doors looking at Ham conducting scientific examination in the makeshift lab in Strange's flat.

Together the trio solve unusual crimes together. These have included such cases as a kidnapped Chinese diplomat, murders by witchcraft and the killing of a student demonstrator behind the Iron Curtain.

There are several reasons this appeals to me, and would to other SF fans I imagine. Firstly, even though it never becomes SFnal, the cases work from a viewpoint that feels very scientific. That no matter how odd things may seem, they will always have a rational explanation.

Secondly, the cases are willing to address complicated issues, without attempting to preach. Even in dealing with some clearly despicable characters, there is an attempt made to understand their point of view and give both sides of the argument. To me it feels like the writers have their own ideas but don’t want to patronise the viewer, we are encouraged to make up our own minds.

Image from Strange Report where Evelyn and Strange sit on a comfortable corner sofa in a fashionable flat discussing the case

Finally, is the dynamic between our triumvirate of heroes. Much like in Star Trek, you get the sense that, in spite of their different viewpoints they all clearly care for and respect each other. It would have been easy to have Strange constantly belittling Evelyn and her trying to show that women could do things for themselves. But, instead, there is a respect and a willingness to listen. Perhaps that is what the terrible world outside our windows really needs?

Back in the pages of SF publications, we have our own strange reports. One coming in from Vision of Tomorrow and the other from New Writings:

Vision of Tomorrow #5

Cover of Vision of Tomorrow #5, a painted colour image illustrating After Ragnarok showing vikings on a glacier approaching a recently landed spaceship.
Cover by Gerard Alfo Quinn

The only point of interest in the introduction is it labelling itself as Britain’s only original SF magazine. I guess it is a point of debate if New Worlds still counts as science fiction or not.

Dinner of Herbs by Douglas R. Mason

Black and white ink drawing of a robot sitting at a control panel, adjusting switches as it observes a rocket in flight.
Illustration by Jeeves

Fenella, a thought chandler at a dianetics lab, has gone to a villa to have a tryst with engineer Gordon Reid. Also staying with them is their domestic servant, a former psychologist android. But is three a crowd?

A darker and more complex tale than it first appeared. However, I think it would benefit from toning down the descriptive prose and upping the character work.

Three Stars

Technical Wizard by Philip E. High

Black and White ink drawing of a fleet of spaceships against a stellar background. Imposed behind them in the massive figure of a man in a spacesuit standing with arms folded and helmet off, looking into the distance.
Illustration by Alan Vince

Two empires in space have come into contact, the more technically advanced human empire and another larger one, populated by fox-like creatures. A single human is sent into the fox people’s empire on a broken-down old ship to warn them. A parapsychic plague has spread through the human empire almost destroying society. Gelthru and Feen have to determine if the human is telling the truth, or if it is all a magic trick to keep them from invading.

An interesting concept and I enjoyed how it made the human the other and the fox-people the protagonists. However, I feel like it needed some more editing to rise above the pack.

Three Stars

Flanagan's Law by Dan Morgan

Black and white ink illustration of a futuristic vehicle zooming across a desert landscape. It appears to be hovering and kicking up dust as it flies along.
Illustration by Jeeves

Capt. Terence Hartigan of the freighter Ladybug is finally given clearance to leave Calpryn, a planet where the main occupation, and entertainment, is lawsuits. However, five hours before blast-off O’Mara goes missing. Hartigan sets off to find him before they find themselves in more legal hot water, but the captain quickly becomes entangled in the planet’s labyrinthine bureaucracy.

I have previously failed to find Morgan’s satires either poignant or funny. This continues that trend but with the addition of some questionable Irish stereotyping.

One Star

Fantasy Review

Black and White illustration of an alien life form in a loin cloth and long boots holding a futuristic gun and old fashioned shield. Behind the sheild is a planet with swirling storms. To one side is the outline of a rocket and other futuristic equipment, to the other is desolate mountain and glistening stars.
Uncredited illustration

Kathryn Buckley reviews New Writings in SF-15, which she liked but not as much as I did, and John Foyster gives praise to The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Outlaws of the Moon by Edmond Hamilton, Kavin’s World by David Mason and Needle by Hal Clement.

One of the Family by Sydney J. Bounds

Black & White ink illustration of a man staring at a small rocket that looks to be rather worse for wear. Around them to one side are alien plants and the other is a cliff face.
Illustration by Alan Vince

Having completed the terraforming of Phoebe-Four, Richard Daniels takes his wife Jane and son Kenny to the neighboring Phoebe-Five for a holiday. Whilst it is meant to be uninhabited they find an intelligent alien, who they call Alan. He quickly becomes like one of the family, but Dick finds his presence both annoying and a cause for concern.

A bit of an old-fashioned tale, but well-told and with a reasonable twist. Wouldn’t have looked out of place as an episode of The Outer Limits.

Three Stars

On Greatgrandfather's Knee by Jack Wodhams

A black and white ink illustration where the tile wends around the figure of a bored child on an old man's knee and an infinite queue of other old people extend into the far distance. Behind them are starfields where different types of rockets fly about.
Illustration by Dick Howett

Six-G GFM Frank (that is Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather on your mother’s side) tells Furn tales of early space travel. But with longevity meaning all the kids having over a hundred great relatives, these tales of adventure are a dull chore.

Whilst Wodhams captures well the boredom of kids having to visit older relatives, I am not sure what the point of it all is.

Two Stars

The Impatient Dreamers: Hands Across the Sea by Walter Gillings

Black and white ink illustration of the logo of Hugo Gernsbeck's science fiction league showing a small stout rocket ship flying through space with a small Earth in the distance, the name wrapped around the outside in a circle.
Insignia of Gernsbeck’s Science Fiction League, designed by Frank R. Paul

This month Gillings discusses Gernsbeck’s Science Fiction League’s branches in England, the early days of New Worlds, fanzine Scientifiction and Gillings' talks with publishers to get a new British SF magazine off the ground.

I continue to adore this series.

Five Stars

Incubation by Damien Broderick

Black and White ink illustration of a man in a shirt and trousers facing front as a woman stands behind clasping his shoulders in an embrace. Behind them is a starfield where an ominous black egg like object is coming in from the right hand side.
Illustration by Eddie Jones

Clive Soame notices a strange ad in the personals and concocts a scheme to sleep with a rich woman and take her money. However, the assignation Rogel and Silver were communicating about was much more complicated than he first thought.

Whilst not revolutionary, an interesting enough take on the lecherous man and alien conspiracy genre. Surprisingly, more than the science-fictional elements, I found myself enjoying the descriptions of Sydney. Very well painted.

Three Stars

Life of the Party by William F. Temple

Black and White ink illustration showing two men in shirt and ties in the midst of battle with a tentacle coming from the ceiling. One of them has sprayed it with paint to make it partly visible to the the human eye whilst the other has a tight grip on the tentacle. Behind them is the grey outline of a square tilted slightly to the side.
Illustration by Eddie Jones

In San Remo, business magnate Mannheim and reporter Don both notice a jet disappear in mid-air. Following its route, they find themselves on a strange coastline, with a giant white cube standing alone by a desert. Entering the cube, they discover a translucent liquid wall leading to a kind of theatre-cum-hotel. The missing jet passengers are there but aged and confused. Don and Manny assume it will be simple to escape, but some force is determined to keep the visitors from leaving.

Taking up over a quarter of the magazine, this is easily the longest piece here, but it makes good use of its length, creating an eerie sense of the uncanny. However, the story is a pretty old one (at times I was recalling The Odyssey) and I was disappointed with the way the women characters were written.

Evens out at Three Stars

After Ragnarok by Robert Bowden

A black and white ink illustration in an oval shape where a distant Earth is being orbited by a space station with two rotating wheels with four spokes to a central shaft.
Illustrated by Gerard Alfo Quinn

The final piece is from an author who I believe is new (at the very least I have not seen him covered by my GJ comrades). After Ragnarok, the world lays shattered. Ottar and Ragnar sail the seas in their ship powered by the ancient technology of the diesel engine. There is a rumour that long ago, some of the gods escaped across the Bifrost, also called Orbit. But could it be possible they are returning? And what will that mean for the world?

Yes, it is another piece of post-apocalyptic-medieval-futurism (try saying that after a few drinks!) However, it has a good style and I have a soft spot for this type of story. The level of cynicism involved also makes it appeal to me.

Four Stars

Tomorrow’s Disasters by Christopher Priest

Instead of our usual preview of next issue’s contents, Priest gives us a short review of Three For Tomorrow. Needless to say, he adores it.

So that is it for the relative newcomer to the scene, but what about the old hand?

New Writings in SF-16, ed. by John Carnell

Hardcover cover image of New Writings in SF-16, with an orange and white abstract image with a red square overlayed saying: Colin Kapp Christopher Priest Michael G. Coney Douglas T. Mason James White Sydney J. Bounds Edited by John Carnell Dobson Science Fiction

Even if we accept the contention that Vision of Tomorrow is the only British SF magazine, New Writings still helps keep up the national side with its regular doses of Carnellian science fiction. According to John Carnell, all the stories in this issue deal with problems that are galactic in scope. Let us see if that makes them Galactic Star worthy.

Getaway from Getawehi by Colin Kapp

Things don't get off to a great start with the return of Colin Kapp's Unorthodox Engineers. Here they are hired to help rescue a construction crew from Getawehi, a planet with an impossible orbit, where gravity is not perpendicular to the surface and 1+1=1.5079.

At almost fifty pages, reading through this was a major slog. These tales must have their fans, but I was personally glad when they disappeared from New Writings a few years back. According to our more learned editor, the concept is very, very, broadly viable, which raises it just above rock bottom for me.

A very low Two Stars

All Done by Mirrors by Douglas R. Mason

George Exton has developed a method of producing mirror images of himself, able to independently work on multiple tasks with the same degree of knowledge and skill as the original. But what is the cost to someone of doing this?

A well-worn trail is being beaten here, and not particularly effectively either.

Two Stars

Throwback by Sydney J. Bounds

Since the Great Change all humans have had the ability to connect via ESP. All that is, except for one person who is completely opaque to all psychic phenomena. Out of pity he is made the keeper of the Museum of Language, with access to all the books and knowledge of the world. Even though he gives weekly lectures, few care about anything other than the present. But when strange lights appear in the sky, only he can save the planet from total panic.

A tightly-told little tale. A bit obvious but enjoyable nonetheless.

Three Stars

The Perihelion Man by Christopher Priest

Capt. Farrell is grounded after an accident near Venus dulls his senses. Whilst pondering what to do with his life now, he is offered a unique opportunity to go back into space. 250 old nuclear satellites have been stolen and are now orbiting the sun, and Farrell may be the only person who can get them back.

This is Priest’s most impressive work to date. He has managed to skillfully produce an exciting adventure story that also has some interesting political elements. That is not to say it is as deep as a New Worlds piece, but it is a fun ride.

Four Stars

R26/5/PSY and I by Michael G. Coney

Hugo Johnson is an agoraphobe who has not left his apartment in two months and is believed to be at risk of killing himself. As such his psychoanalyst provides him with a roommate, robot R/26/5/PSY, or Bob for short. However, Bob is not designed to make Johnson’s life easier, not at all….

An interesting little psychological short. It felt like a combination of I, Robot, a Zola story, and The Odd Couple.

Four Stars

Meatball by James White

And we finish off with the return of White's Sector General and, as the name suggests, their continued explorations of the planet Drambo, nicknamed "Meatball". With the Drambons brought to the hospital station, they must now learn to interact with the numerous other species on board. At the same time Conway has to work out how to deal with the nuclear destruction taking place on the planet below.

It is possible that my memory is cheating me, but I don’t recall other Sector General tales focusing on a single case so much before. Maybe it is planned to be a novel fix-up? This piece definitely has the feel of a staging section, it spends a lot of time recapping earlier events and ends abruptly. Still rather interesting but does not stand alone or feel complete by the end.

Three Stars

Strange Brew, Read What’s Inside Of You

Evelyn and Strange sitting close to each other as they look at a piece of paper. Evelyn is in deep concentration as Strange looks at her.
Evelyn and Strange ponder what we have just read

Whether on the page or the screen, it seems that if you put a group of talented people together and ask them to deal with imaginative scenarios, they can often strike gold…or at least silver. Even if there is little here that is likely to win a Galactic Star, there is plenty worth checking out.

Here's to many more years of Vision, New Writings, and Strange Report. The seventies may not be looking much like a decade of peace and harmony, but it can at least be one of good solid entertainment.

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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[January 14, 1970] Root Rot (February 1970 Venture)

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by David Levinson

A less perfect union

Unions have been a positive for workers. They’re why we have the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, paid time off, why blue collar workers are able to buy a house, not to mention not owing their soul to the company store; I’m old enough to remember when none of those things were a given. Of course, as human institutions, they are also flawed, and where money and power flows, those flaws can turn to worse things. That’s what gives many politicians—and the editor of a certain science fiction magazine—a pretext to rail against them.

One of the most important unions this century has been the United Mine Workers of America. Much of that stems from the four decades of leadership by John L. Lewis, who died last June. Lewis took a well-earned retirement in 1960 and was replaced by his vice president Thomas Kennedy. Old and in poor health, Kennedy was largely a caretaker and was soon followed by Lewis’ chosen successor, W.A. “Tough Tony” Boyle.

Lewis ran the UMWA with an iron fist, ignoring demands by the rank-and-file for a greater say in the union. He maintained his power through skill, charisma, and reputation. Boyle has run things with a similar style, but lacks most of what kept Lewis in charge. There’s even a feeling among the membership that he tends to favor the interests of the mine owners over the workers.

Enter Joseph “Jock” Yablonski. He was one of the leading figures in the opposition to Boyle’s policies. He had also been the president of the UMW’s District 5 until Boyle unilaterally stripped him of office in 1965. Last May, Yablonski announced he would challenge Boyle for the UMW presidency in the December election and was formally nominated in September. Boyle won the election on December 9th by an almost 2-to-1 margin, and Yablonski conceded. However after seeing the detailed election results, Yablonski promptly asked the Department of Labor to investigate the election. On the 18th, he also filed five civil lawsuits in federal court against the UMW over a variety of irregularities.

On January 5th, Yablonski’s older son, Kenneth, discovered the bodies of Yablonski, his wife Margaret, and their 25-year-old daughter Charlotte in their home in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The next day 20,000 miners in West Virginia staged a one-day wildcat strike in protest against Tony Boyle, who they believe is responsible for the murders. Hours after the Yablonskis were buried, several of his supporters met with his attorney to plan further actions to reform the union.

Three black and white headshot photographs with names and captions underneath each. On the left, Mrs. Margaret Yablonski, a middle-aged white woman with dark hair.  She is smiling and wearing a dark jacket. Under her name the caption reads 'Bled to death.' In the center, Joseph A. Yablonski, a middle-aged white man with gray or white hair. He has a neutral expression and is wearing a neutral colored suit with a dark tie.  Under his name the caption reads 'Murder a mystery.' On the right, Charlotte Yablonski, a young white woman with dark hair. She is smiling and wearing a dark blouse. Under her name the caption reads 'Shot twice in head.'

As I write, the police have no leads. A $60,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction. I don’t want to point any fingers without evidence, but an awful lot of people close to Yablonski are looking hard at Tony Boyle and the acrimony surrounding last month’s election.

Corrupt institutions

Most of this month’s Venture is given over to the new Keith Laumer novel, which spends quite a while with miners. But it and the other stories in the issue deal with corruption, both institutional and personal.

The February 1970 cover of Venture Science Fiction magazine.  A drawing in pen and marker.  The outlines are in black ink. The shadows are filled in with lines of magenta marker, and the highlights similarly in orange. At the bottom there is a man's head with a boxy hexagonal helmet over it.  It covers his eyes and extends down nearly to the end of his nose. Two conical extensions stick out from the sides.  Over his head a narrow white disc is hanging - it could be the top of a mine shaft or a floating UFO.  Two outsized human hands frame the image, palms facing inward as if about to grasp something.A not very representational image for Laumer’s new story. Art by Bert Tanner

The Star Treasure, by Keith Laumer

Lt. Ban Tarleton is the son of an admiral and a proud member of the United Planetary Navy. He firmly believes in the status quo and holds no truck with rebellious Hatenik philosophy. But a purge leads to his discovery of some unpleasant facts, eventually resulting in him being cashiered from the Navy and sentenced to permanent exile on a harsh Class I planet. There, he finds work as a miner and makes a discovery that may give him the power to bring the whole system down.

A black-and-white pen and ink drawing.  The hilly surface of a planet tilts diagonally up from the left. A body in a space suit lies horizontally across the top of the frame, apparently being carried by another person in a space suit who is floating nearly parallel with the ground.  In the background there is another fuzzy figure standing on the planet, but it's impossible to tell whether facing toward or away from the viewer. Ban must use his best friend’s corpse as a trap. Art by Bert Tanner

Laumer is probably best known for his comedic stories, particularly those about the interstellar diplomat Retief, but he mostly writes serious stuff. Those tales come in two flavors: two-fisted adventure and thoughtful pieces that frequently tug at “masculine” emotions like duty and sacrifice. The Star Treasure is very much in the former category, but it also differs from Laumer’s usual approach.

Laumer’s typical adventure protagonist is an old-school Competent Man writ very large. Ban, on the other hand, blunders from episode to episode, generally succeeding through dumb luck. Laumer also tends to go wildly off the rails, often to the point of the surreal, investing his protagonists with incredible powers or giving them an alien background of which the were unaware. This one goes off the rails, too, but it’s right at the end. That usually happens around the mid-point. I guess this counterbalances The Seeds of Gonyl, where it happens on page one.

Three stars.

Breaking Point, by V.N. McIntyre

An ambitious but untalented colonel is captured and tortured by the enemy. There are a number of science-fictional elements.

A black-and-white cross-hatched pen drawing of a man's face, fading out above the eyebrows. The face has some wrinkles and the man appears to be squinting toward the viewer as if the light were in his eyes.Looks more like Neil Diamond to me. Art by Craig Robertson

It’s hard to say much about this story without simply retelling it. There is one thing that kept me from liking it: The colonel has a cat, and the cat dies. Twice. I understand how it fits in the story, but it put me off completely.

Anyway, McIntyre seems to be new. I don’t know if that V. hides a Virginia or a Virgil and can’t make a guess based on the writing either. Either way, there are signs of some solid talent. More from this author would not be amiss—just leave the cats alone.

Objectively three stars, but only two from me for reasons already stated.

Disposal, by Ron Goulart

You probably don’t think about how much trash you and your family generate. Someone in the house takes the cans to the curb on the appointed day and brings back the empties once the truck has been by. What would happen if that didn’t happen? What if there wasn’t a nearby dump you could take the trash to yourself? Goulart asks those questions with a slight science-fictional twist.

Although the story takes place in Goulart’s old stomping grounds of San Francisco, I recall reading that he recently moved to New York City. It would have been after the great garbage strike of a couple years ago, but he may have been inspired by horror stories from the locals. His typical satirical style is fully in evidence, but he keeps the outright wackiness in check.

Three stars.

Standoff, by Robert Toomey

A human and an alien find themselves on opposite sides of an asteroid after their ships were destroyed in combat. Hostilities are extreme, and neither side takes prisoners. If they work together, the two might find a way for both to survive.

As the situation of the story became clear to me, I expected something like John Boorman’s 1968 film Hell in the Pacific (starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune). That might have been Toomey’s original inspiration, with a possible assist from the 1965 Frank Sinatra feature None But the Brave, but that’s not where the story goes. The ending might be darker than either of those films.

A high three stars.

Summing up

Elsewhere in the issue, we get a “super Feghoot,” which is twice the usual length at a full page. Unfortunately, the pun is extremely tortured, resulting in one of the worst Feghoots I’ve ever read. Meanwhile, Ron Goulart has finally found a book he likes. Two, in fact. One is a Doc Savage reprint, the other A Wilderness of Stars, an anthology edited by William F. Nolan. Most of the stories seem to be from the 1950s. I’m not to sure that Ron is all that keen on the modern state of science fiction, even the old fashioned stuff.

So, a rather middle-of-the-road issue. However, it’s dominated by the condensed novel, far more so than any of the previous issues. If we have to have a novel in every issue, let’s at least make it something shorter so we can have a couple more stories as well.

The note from the end of the current issue of VENTURE.  It is titled 'Coming in the next issue of VENTURE Science Fiction'.  It reads: 'The feature novel in the next issue of VENTURE is something special, a novel that is on the one hand contemporary and, on the other, as inventive and adventurous a book to come along (in the sf field or out of it) in some time.  It's a hard story to describe without revealing several surprises, but it begins with several very colorful members of the Mafia getting wind of an incredible project that is underway at Cape Kennedy.  it is a story that you will not want to miss.  Its tile is HIJACK!; its author is Edward Wellen, who has written with distinction in the sf and mystery field for many years.'Wellen’s written some good stuff, so I hope this more than the pot-boiler thriller it appears to be.




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[January 10, 1970] Time On My Hands (February 1970 Fantastic)

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photo of a dark-haired woman with vampiric eyebrows
by Victoria Silverwolf

What Time Is It?

That's a question that you can answer with more confidence than before, if you're willing to shell out a whole bunch of bucks.  On Christmas Day the Japanese company Seiko introduced the world's first quartz wristwatch.  (There have been clocks using quartz crystals, but not anything this small.)

As I understand it, quartz crystals vibrate in a precise manner when voltage is applied to them.  Thus, the tiny bit of quartz inside the watch, powered by an itty-bitty battery, provides an unvarying pulse that supplies extraordinary accuracy.

The Quartz Astro 35SQ keeps time to within five seconds per month, which is said to be about one hundred times better than a mechanical watch of good quality. 

The catch?  You have to pay 450,000 yen for it.  That's well over one thousand dollars.  You can buy a nice new car for the price of two watches.

photograph of a gold watch with a brown leather strap. In the center of the face, letters spell out Seiko-Astro
Quite a stocking stuffer.

If you like, you can use your fancy new timepiece to measure how long it takes to peruse the latest issue of Fantastic.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

Or maybe the publishers can measure how much time they saved by copying the cover art from yet another issue of Perry Rhodan instead of waiting for an artist to create a new one.

Cover of Fantastic: illustration of a spacesuited man on a pink lunar surface grappling with a blue robotic, treaded tank with a big eye stalk and two grasping tentacles.
The title translates to The Cannons of Everblack.  Note the use of English for what I presume is the name of a planet.

Editorial, by Ted White

This wordy introduction wanders all over the place.  The editor states that the magazine is getting a lot more mail from readers.  (See the letter column below.) He says that he doesn't like the name of the magazine, and suggests changing it to Fantastic Adventures, the name of the old pulp magazine from which reprints are often drawn.  (The sound you hear is me screaming No!)

He discusses the old problem of defining science fiction as distinguished from fantasy.  The essay winds up complaining about an article by Norman Spinrad that appeared in the girlie magazine Knight.  Apparently Spinrad griped about SF fans and pros being hostile to the New Wave.  Sounds like a tempest in a teapot to me.

No rating.

Double Whammy, by Robert Bloch

The author of Psycho leads off the issue with another shocker.


Illustration by Michael Hinger.

A guy who works at a sleazy carnival is afraid of the geek.  If you don't know what a geek is, you haven't read William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel Nightmare Alley, or seen the movie adapted from it the next year.

A geek is an alcoholic who has fallen so low that the only work he can get is pretending to be a so-called wild man and biting the heads off live chickens. 

Our slimy protagonist seduces a teenager.  When she tells him she's pregnant, he refuses to marry her, leading to tragic results.  The girl is the granddaughter of a Gypsy fortuneteller, who has a reputation for supernatural revenge.

This is an out-and-out horror story that may remind you of the 1932 film Freaks. (Like that controversial film, it features a man without arms or legs.) The author saves his final punch to the reader's gut until the last sentence.  If you don't like gruesome terror tales, it may be too much for you.  I thought it accomplished what it set out to do very effectively.

Four stars.

The Good Ship Lookoutworld, by Dean R. Koontz

This space opera begins with a fight to the death between a human and a weird alien, apparently just as a sporting event.


Illustration by Ralph Reese.

This violent scene is just a prelude to a yarn in which the triumphant human recruits the narrator (another human) to join him in a mission to salvage a derelict alien starship.  The vessel was operated by an extinct species of extraterrestrials who seem to have been nice folks.  They just traveled around the universe bringing entertainment.  Too bad a disease wiped them out.

The starship turns out to contain the headless skeletons of its crew.  That's mysterious and scary enough, but when our heroes journey back to their homebase in it, parts of the ship disappear, one by one.  Can they survive the long voyage before the whole thing vanishes?

This is a fast-paced adventure story with a twist in its tail.  Given a few clues, you might be able to figure out the surprise ending.  It's a little too frenzied for me, but short enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Three stars.

Learning It at Miss Rejoyy's, by David R. Bunch

The narrator has dreamed about visiting the place named in the title since childhood, when his dad told him about it.  The stunningly desirable Miss Rejoyy promises him an intimate encounter with her if he can meet the requirements.  He has to pay to enter a room where his reactions to pain and pleasure will be measured.

The narrative style is less eccentric than usual for this author.  The content, however, is just as strange.  There are some really disturbing images.  The point of this weird allegory is a very pessimistic one, which is likely to turn off many readers.  Still, it has an undeniable power.

Three stars.

Hasan (Part Two of Two), by Piers Anthony

Here's the conclusion of this Arabian Nights fantasy.


Illustrations by Jeff Jones.

Summing things up as simply as I can, the title hero went through many adventures before stealing away with a woman who could turn herself into a bird, hiding the bird skin that gave her this power.  More or less forced to marry him, she had two sons with him.  She eventually found the skin and flew off to her native land with the children.

In this installment, he sets off on an odyssey to find her.  This involves a whole lot of encounters with strange people and supernatural beings.  In brief, he gets involved with a magician, rides a horse that can run over water, rides on the back of a flying ifrit, meets a group of Amazon warriors, faces an evil Queen, takes part in a huge battle, and witnesses an explosive climax.


Some of the many characters in the story.

A wild ride, indeed.  This half of the novel has a fair amount of humor.  The magician and the ifrit are particularly amusing.  The plot turns into a travelogue of sorts, as Hasan journeys from Arabia to China, then to Indochina and Malaysia, winding up in Sumatra.


A helpful map allows you to follow the hero's travels.

A lengthy afterword from the author explains how he changed the original story from One Thousand and One Nights.  He also offers several references.  One can admire his scholarship. 

The resulting story is entertaining enough.  I'm still a little disconcerted by the fact that Hasan kidnaps the bird woman, and that she eventually decides that she loves him anyway.  A product of the original, I suppose.

Three stars. 

Creation, by L. Sprague de Camp

This is a very short poem about various legends concerning the creation of humanity by an assortment of deities.  It leads up to a wry punchline.  Not bad for what it is.

Three stars.

Secret of the Stone Doll, by Don Wilcox

The March 1941 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this tale of the South Seas.


Cover art by J. Allen St. John.

The narrator winds up on a paradisical Pacific island.  He falls in love with a local beauty after rescuing her from drowning. 


Illustrations by Jay Jackson.

Everything seems to be hunky-dory, but his new bride insists that she must make a journey to a part of the island kept separate from the rest by a stone wall.  Because the islanders have a strong taboo against discussing fear or danger, she can't tell him what it's all about.  Along the way, they meet a madman with a sword and the object mentioned in the title.


Apparently, he's a visitor to the island, just like the narrator.

I found this exotic, mysterious tale quite intriguing.  The revelation about the woman's journey surprised me.  (There's an editor's footnote — I assume it's from the original publication — that tries to offer a scientific explanation.  This is just silly, and the story works much better as pure fantasy.  The new editor's suggestion that it relates to something in Frank Herbert's Dune also stretches things to the breaking point.)

Maybe I'm rating this story higher than it might otherwise deserve because I wasn't expecting much from this issue's reprint.  Unlike a lot of yarns from the pulps, it isn't padded at all, with a fairly complex plot told in a moderate number of pages.  Anyway, I liked it.

Four stars.

According to You, by Various Readers

As the editorial said, there are a lot of letters.  Bill Pronzini offers an amusing response to a reader who didn't like his story How Now Purple Cow in a previous issue.  I didn't care for it either, so I'm glad he's a good sport about criticism.

The other letters deal with all kinds of stuff, besides talking about what kind of stories they want to see (offering proof that you can't please everybody.) One speculates about a combination of Communism and Christianity.  (The editor dismisses this as unlikely.) Many react to an editorial in a previous issue about the cancellation of the Smothers Brothers TV show.

No rating.

Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber and Alexander Temple

Just like Fred Lerner did in the last issue, Leiber praises Lin Carter's Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings for its history of fantasy fiction, and condemns Understanding Tolkien by William Ready, while admitting that it has a few good insights.  He praises The Quest For Arthur's Britain by Geoffrey Ashe and Isaac Asimov's The Near East: 10,000 Years of History as fine nonfiction books with subjects relating to fantasy fiction.

Temple very briefly discusses The Demons of the Upper Air, a slim little book of poems by Leiber.  It's a lukewarm review, talking about his occasional careless choice of words . . . hardly to be compared with his prose and recommends it for Leiber fans only.

Worth Your Time?

This was a pretty good issue, with nothing below average in it.  I imagine others will dislike some of the stories, but I was satisfied.

While admiring your new thousand dollar watch, don't forget to get a new calendar as well.  I wonder how long I'll be writing 1969 on checks.


Did you make it to either of these groovy concerts?

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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[January 8, 1970] Slow Sculpture, Fast reading (the February 1970 Galaxy Science Fiction)

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[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

A little off the top

And so it begins.  For eight years, NASA enjoyed an open budget spigot and, through persistence and endless shoveling of money (though a fraction of what's spent on defense, mind you), got us to the Moon.  Now the tap has been cut to a trickle, and the first casualties are being announced.

Black and white photo of Apollo manager George Low speaking into a microphone in front of a NASA press backdrop.
Apollo manager George Low at a press conference on the 4th

Of the 190,000 people employed at the space agency, a whopping 50,000 are going to get the axe before the end of the year.  Saturn V production is being halted.  Lunar missions are going down to a twice-per-year cadence (as opposed to the six in thirteen months we had recently).

Apollo 20, originally scheduled to land in Tycho crater in December 1972, has been canceled.  Astronauts Don Lind, Jack Lousma, and Stuart Roosa now get to cool their heels indefinitely.  Apollos 13-16 will go up over the next two years followed by "Skylab", a small orbital space station built from Saturn parts.  Then we'll get the last three Apollo missions.

After that… who knows?  If only the Soviets had given us more competition…

Oh, and in the silly season department:

Cartoon drawing of a man holding a newspaper looking out at an apple core shaped moon. The paper reads IT COULD SAY A GREAT DEAL ABOUT THE MOON TO THE VERY CORE. NASA SCIENTIST DECLARES INTENT TO PROPOSE NUCLEAR BLAST ON THE MOON.

On the 6th, Columbia University's Dr. Gary V. Latham, seismologist and principal seismic investigator for Apollo program, withdrew his proposal that an atomic bomb be detonated on the Moon.  You'll recall Apollo 12 sent the top half of Intrepid into the lunar surface so the seismometers Conrad and Bean had emplaced could listen to the echoes and learn about the Moon's interior. 

Latham got some pretty harsh criticism of his idea, so he dialed things back, suggesting NASA should find way to hit the Moon hard enough to create strong internal reverberations. Let's hope they don't use Apollo 13…

A sampling from the upper percentiles

The news may be dour on the space front, but the latest issue of Galaxy is, in contrast, most encouraging!

The February 1970 cover of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine featuring a long-haired abstractly drawn woman in a psychedelic art style that resembles stained glass.
by Jack Gaughan, illustrating "Slow Sculpture"

The Shaker Revival, by Gerald Jonas

In the early 1990s, America has become a hollow shell, spiritually.  All of the worst elements of our modern day have amplified: the hippies have sold out to become consumers, Black Americans are confined to walled Ghettoes, kids are dropping out in growing multitudes.

Into this era, a movement is born—the New Shakers.  They live the Four Noes: No hate.  No war.  No money.  No sex.

Pencil Drawing of a man and a woman side by side. The woman has long hair and shaded cheeks. The man wears a hat, has a long moustache and holds a saxophone.
a riff on American Gothic by Jack Gaughan

This hero of this tale, such as there is one, is a journalist who is doing a series of interviews on the movement.  As time goes on, we learn that he is also tracking down his missing son, whom he believes has been inducted by the growing cult.

It's fascinating stuff, but there's no end, nor is the piece indicated as "Part One of [N]".  On the other hand, it is concluded with "MORE TO COME", which is less dispositive than it might be since that phrase gets used often in the story proper.

Black and white photo of two men in suits sitting side by side. the photo reads GERALD JONAS INTERVIEWING HARLAN ELLISON AT THE NYCON.

I'm going to give it four stars on the assumption that we're going to see more stories in this world a la Silverberg's Blue Fire series.  If this turns out to be a literary cul de sac, then we can drop the score retroactively.

Slow Sculpture, by Theodore Sturgeon

Photocopied image of an open book with a black and white illustration of a womans face. Her hair flows upward and off of the pages. The lefthand page reads SLOW SCULPTURE by Theodore Sturgeon.
by Jack Gaughan

Ted Sturgeon can write.

There are some stories your read, and you just know it's going to be superlative.  I've felt guilty these last few months, handing out five-star reviews so sparingly, wondering if my standards had gotten too high.  And then I read something that is truly superior, and I realize that, for five stars to mean anything, it's got to be saved for the very best.

I shan't spoil things for you.  It's about a man and a woman, the former an engineer, the latter a cipher, both troubled.  It involves electricity and bonsai and an understated romance (no one writes romance like Ted Sturgeon), and it is the best thing I've read in a dog's age.

Five stars and a warm glow.

Sleeping Beauty, by A. Bertram Chandler

Image of an open book. The lefthand page is a black and white illustration of a large mantis-like creature, and a man in a vest half the size standing beside. From the center in bold letters is SLEEPING BEAUTY. The top right page reads A. Bertram Chandler. A paragraph of text runs down.
by Jack Gaughan

Another bi-month, another sequel, this one involving Lieutenant Grimes in command of the Adder courier ship.  As a result of his last adventure, Grimes is (supposed to be) no longer in the passenger business.  Instead, he is sent to a nearby star to meet with an insectoid Shari queen.  Unfortunately, the cargo they ask him to transport is…a pupate Shari princess.

This is all fine and good, so long as the nascent queen remains in cold stasis.  A power outage causes her to hatch, however, and she soon has the crew in her thrall.  Worse, she has increasing interracial designs on the young Lieutenant!

Yet another pleasant but unremarkable adventure.  We're definitely going to see a fix-up Ace Double half, I'm sure.

Three stars.

The Last Night of the Festival, by Dannie Plachta

Image of an open book. An art nouveau style black and white illustration of a young couple walking surrounded by rounded shapes in the forest fills both pages. They wear long gowns and large hats.
by Jack Gaughan

Two archetypes, Dawn and Dusk, walk through a macabre parade filled with hedonistic and gory spectacles.  Each scene is punctuated by an italicized interstitial with some oblique reference to Nazi Germany.  The story is illustrated like a picture book such that the text only fills perhaps a third of the page.

Like much of Plachta's work, it's an abstract and abstruse piece.  Are the two on their way to Hell?  Do they represent actual people?  I'd appreciate it more if I knew what he was trying to say.

Two stars.

Downward to the Earth (Part 3 of 4), by Robert Silverberg

Image oF an open book. the top lefthand corner is shaded in pencil. The Top right page is illustrated by a drawing of a small creature overlooking a ravine. The text below says DOWNWARD TO THE EARTH.
by Jack Gaughan

Continues the journey of Edmund Gunderson toward the mist country of the planet he once administered as a mining colony.  The key beats include a reunion with his lover, Seema, who stayed behind when he left.  She has become enamored with the planet, surrounding her station with a garden of native life.  She is also caring for her husband, Kurtz, who was horribly distorted by his attempt to participate in the Rebirth ceremonies of the elephantine indigenous Nildoror.

Another key beat is his entry into the misty cold of the temperate zone.  It is implied that Rebirth involves the swapping of consciousnesses between the Nildoror and the simian Sulidoror, the other intelligent race on the planet.  We learn that Gunderson plans to emulate Kurtz—to offer himself as a Rebirth candidate as a sort of expiation for his sins against the indigenes.

This section is more episodic and Heart of Darkness than the prior ones, and it left me a bit cold.  I do appreciate how much time Silverberg has spent developing a truly alien world, however, and the anti-colonialist sentiment is welcome.  I just have trouble relating to or even buying the characters, and that deliberate abstraction, distancing, gives the whole affair a shambling sleep-walk feel to it.

If that's your bag, you'll love it.  For me, we're at three stars for this installment.

After They Took the Panama Canal, by Zane Kotker

Drawn image of a woman and two cartoonishly drawn men in the background, man on right wears a top hat and holds a bird. Caption reads MOST STORIES OF CONQUEST ARE WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS OR THE VANQUISHED. THIS IS NOT.

America is conquered by the Soviets.  Rape, re-education, and reduction ensue.

All this is told compellingly from the point of view of Myra, a not particularly bright (by design) woman, who is selected to be a consort to several conquerors, and to bear several of their children.  In the end, she helps lead a revolt of sorts.

I cannot tell the sex of the author from the name, but the style is unlike those employed by any male authors I know.  In any event, the narrative is reminiscent of 1954's A Woman in Berlin, a harrowing autobiographical account of a journalist in Germany's capital when the Russians came.

Four stars.

Sunpot (Part 1 of 4), by Vaughn Bodé

Open page image of Comic Sunpot Featuring images of Apollo and Captain Belinda Bump's bare breasts.

Here we've got a tongue-in-cheek space adventure starting Captain Belinda Bump, who for some reason is topless throughout the strip.  Actually, it seems quite natural to go nude in space—after all, Niven's Belters are nudists.  However, prurience seems intended: Bump is referred to as "Nectar Nipples" and "Wobble Boobs", and the overall style feels something like a black and white version of what fills the final pages of Playboy each month.

In this short installment, Captain Bump runs across the next Apollo mission.  High jinks ensue.

The art is fun, and I want to like the characters, but Bodé needs a new letterer.  Maybe he can borrow Sol Rosen from Marvel.

Three stars.

Doing the math

While nothing in this magazine quite hits the highs of Sturgeon, and Plachta keeps swinging and missing (no one I've talked to has managed to decipher Ronnie's intent), it's still a pleasant read from front to back.  I have a suspicion Galaxy will outlive Apollo.

That's something, at least!

[New to the Journey?  Read this for a brief introduction!]


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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 2, 1970] Under Pressure (February 1970 IF)

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by David Levinson

Pressure Cooker

Every December, the American Geophysical Union holds its Fall Meeting in San Francisco. There, a number of papers are presented on a wide variety of topics in fields such as geology, oceanography, meteorology, space, and many more. Usually, it might produce a paragraph or two in the back pages of your newspaper on an attempt to predict earthquakes or some new information about the Moon, but this year’s meeting garnered headlines (hardly front page news, but more than just filler). Most of attention went to the proposal to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon to build up a seismological picture of our neighbor and the news that Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice as it rose into the skies above Florida. However, it was another article that caught my eye.

Most of the column inches went to a presentation by Dr. E.D. Goldberg of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He spoke of the “complex ecological questions” raised by the amount of toxic substances we’re dumping into the ocean. The use of lead in gasoline results in 250,000 tons winding up in the ocean every year, over and above the 150,000 tons that are washed there naturally. Oil tankers and other ships discharge a million tons of oil into the sea annually, with the result that there are “cases of fish tasting of petroleum.” Mackerel had to be taken off the market in Los Angeles due to unacceptable levels of DDT, while in Japan 200 people were poisoned and 40 died before authorities traced the cause to mercury discharged into Minimata Bay by a chemical company. Dr. Goldberg asked, “Will [pollution] alter the ocean as a resource? Will we lose the ocean?”

Dr. Edward D. Goldberg, a white man with gray hair in a suit and tie.  He is sitting on a desk, holding a book, and smiling.Dr. Edward D. Goldberg of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California

That seems like the sort of pollution we can do something about. Perhaps more concerning is the warning provided by J.O. Fletcher of the Rand Corporation. Fletcher is a retired Air Force Colonel, best known for being part of the crew that landed a plane at the North Pole and for establishing a weather station on tabular iceberg T-3 (now known as Fletcher’s Ice Island), which is still in use. He called carbon dioxide the most important atmospheric pollutant today. It is responsible for one-third to one-half of the warming thus far in the 20th century. The human contribution may surpass that of nature within a few decades. Global warming could increase the melting of the polar ice caps and change the Earth’s climate.

A photograph of Col. J. O. Fletcher, a white man wearing snow pants, a thermal undershirt, suspenders, and a winter hat.  He is having a conversation with a second unidentified person who is completely obscured by their parka hood.Col. Fletcher (r.) on his ice island in 1952. This was the most recent photo of him I could find.

Fletcher’s warning was underscored by Dr. William W. Kellogg of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who stressed the need to educate people that “man has got to change his way.” He added that global climate is going to have to become a problem that can be managed.

A headshot photograph of Dr. William W. Kellogg, a white man with brown hair.Dr. William W. Kellogg of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado

If the warnings of Fletcher and Kellogg sound familiar, that’s because you read it in IF first. Back in the April, 1968 issue, Poul Anderson had a guest editorial talking about the dangers of increased warming. In the August issue of the same year, Fred Pohl had an editorial warning about increasing levels of carbon dioxide. [And Isaac Asimov wrote about it back in 1958! (ed.)] An article from UPI has a much wider reach than IF, and people are more likely to take working scientists more seriously than a couple of science fiction writers. Let’s hope they pay attention.

Pressure Tests

It’s not uncommon for authors to put their characters through the wringer, pushing them to or even past their breaking point. Some would argue it’s the best way to get a story out of a setting and characters. Several of the stories in this month’s IF have taken that approach, though one subject has an awfully low tolerance for stress.

The cover painting of the February 1970 edition of IF. The background is a red wash with a streak of yellow across it.  In the center floats a gray spaceship.  Its left side is a sphere covered with circular indentations, some of which have antennae coming out. The center part is a short rod that seems to be threaded like a bolt.  Its right side is a group of spheres arranged in a circle around the end of the rod.  The spheres look like eyeballs looking out from the spaceship in all directions. Behind and to the left of the spaceship is the face of a young Asian woman, drawn to be about the same size as the spaceship.  She is facing left but looking apprehensively backward at the ship. She is lit yellow by the streak in the background.  Above her float three black manta rays.Cover by Gaughan. Supposedly suggested by Whipping Star, but it looks more like it illustrates Pressure Vessel to me.

Pressure Vessel, by Ben Bova

Robert O’Banion is second in command on a mission into the depths of Jupiter, looking for life. Grieving over the loss of his wife, he only feels truly comfortable when he is connected to the ship and its computer, flying the vessel like it’s his own body. Add in a general sense of urgency and friction between the scientific and military members of the small crew, and there’s a lot of tension.

A charcoal drawing of a man lying naked in a hammock.  Wires extend from his head and body up out of the frame. He looks calmly in the direction the wires are leading.  Another naked man with a creepy expression on his face is crawling out from under the hammock.Art by Gaughan: O’Banion hooked up to the ship.

Bova has written a couple of stories about Dr. Sidney Lee, in which humanity is desperately seeking the aliens who built the strange machines on Titan, still working after millennia or even longer. Lee doesn’t appear in this story, but the protagonist’s wife knew Lee on Titan and fell in love with him there. There are some flaws in the tale—notably the protagonist’s psychological suitability for the mission—but it’s still very strong.

Four stars.

A Matter of Recordings, by Larry Eisenberg

Another of Eisenberg’s awful Emmett Duckworth stories. This time, Duckworth has come up with a way to record memories so they can be played back to anyone. The usual nonsense follows.

Two stars.

A black and white linocut print of two naked women, one standing and one seated.  They are looking suspiciously at a tape player in the foreground.Can recordings made in a harem stop a revolution? Art uncredited, but probably by Gaughan

Prez, by Ron Goulart

Norbert Penner is looking forward to spending the winter alone with his girlfriend on her family’s palatial estate. Unfortunately, he doesn’t like her dog, the titular Prez. Worse, thanks to cybernetic enhancements, Prez can talk and has the intelligence of a 10-year-old. He’s able to make very clear that the feeling is mutual without having to pee on Penner’s leg.

A charcoal drawing of a black dog lying on the floor looking mournfully upward.  An electric cord extends out of its back and plugs into an outlet on the wall behind it.

Prez recharging his batteries.  Art by Gaughan

This is a fairly typical Goulart comedy, though not as wacky as some. If you like those—and I do—you’ll like this one.

Three stars.

The Cube, by C.M. Drahan

Humans and the E-tees have been at war from the moment they first made contact. The Telepath chosen as humanity’s representative for the truce talks on a remote planetoid seems remarkably unsuited for the task.

A cartoon drawing of a cube set isometrically toward the viewer.  A stylized human face is drawn across the three visible faces, with one eye in the top face, the other eye on the left face, and the nose and mouth on the right face. The face looks alarmed.Art by Gaughan

Drahan is this month’s new author. Unfortunately, there’s no biographical information, so I don’t know anything about the person behind the initials. It’s a decent debut. Bits of the story may come across as confused with a casual reading, but careful attention should make everything clear. This is an author I’m willing to see more from.

Three stars.

A Game of Biochess, by T.J. Bass

On a layover at a space station, tramp trader Spider meets Rau Lou during a chess game (biochess refers to a game against a biological opponent, rather than a computer). The two hit it off, but not on a sexual level. When Spider has a big score that will let him upgrade his ship to a two-person crew, Olga the ship’s computer suggests Rau Lou. However, she has disappeared, so Spider and Olga go looking for her.

A black and white ink drawing of a person in a space suit traversing a valley amid barren, rocky terrain.Spider makes his way to the wreck of Rau Lou’s ship. Art by Gaughan

Bass is shaping up to be a pretty good writer. He still needs to work on throwing around medical terminology (Bass is a doctor), but he has reined it in this time. I only had to pull down my dictionary once. Otherwise, this is a fine story with a nice twist at the end.

A high three stars.

Hired Man, by Richard C. Meredith

A human mercenary working for an alien employer is the only survivor of a raid on a human settlement. The pay is excellent, and the offer for a six-month extension will set him up for a long time.

A charcoal drawing of a suit of powered armor.  It has spikes and round knobs poking out of it at various angles. It appears to be flying toward the viewer.Power armor, but this mercenary is no Johnny Rico. Art by Gaughan

All the previous Meredith stories I can think of have been brutal war tales with depth. This one is no different. The ending hits the protagonist with a question the reader has probably been asking all along.

Four stars.

Fruit of the Vine, by George C. Willick

The smuggling of flora and fauna between the worlds of the Federation is punishable with death. Somehow, grape varieties suitable for wine-making have reached almost every world. This story weaves three threads together: the official search for the smugglers, a group known as the Entertainers, and a skid row bum staggering through a winter night.

A charcoal drawing of a man in a space suit with the helmet off, such that his nose pokes out over the top of the suit collar. His eyes are crinkled as though he is smiling at what he is holding in his hand, which appers to be an hors d'oeuvre on a toothpick.Art by Gaughan

There are a lot of flaws in this story. It’s fairly obvious how two of the three threads tie together, the whole thing is too long, and the set-up is a little hard to believe. While the desire to keep potentially hazardous plants and animals from moving between worlds is commendable, are there really 49 habitable worlds where people can and are willing to eat the local produce from the moment they arrive? But it’s told well.

Three stars.

Dry Run, by J.R. Pierce

General Devlin, D.I.A., is a special adviser to the Prime Minister on the Panda War. In this case, D.I.A. stands for Demon In Attendance, not Defense Intelligence Agency. His job seems awfully easy.

A pen and ink drawing of a hairy black demon with curling horns, cloven hooves, and a pointy tail. Its blank white eyes glare out from behind the flagpole it is clutching.  The flag appears to be a stylized line drawing of the demon's own head. Probably not Devlin. Art by Gaughan

This is a fun, little story that proposes something I’m sure many of us have thought at times. The Vietnam analog is obvious, but not overdone. While it might be trivial, the whole thing doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Three stars.

Whipping Star (Part 2 of 4), by Frank Herbert

The alien Caleban Fanny Mae has signed an unbreakable contract with the human Mliss Abnethe, allowing herself to be whipped. The flagellations are killing Fanny Mae, and if she dies nearly every sentient being in the galaxy will die with her. It’s up to Saboteur Extraordinaire Jorj McKie to stop Mliss.

In this installment, McKie tracks Mliss to an impossibly primitive planet, where he finds himself imprisoned. We also learn that there is someone else driving Mliss to do what she’s doing. Time travel may also be involved. To be continued.

A black and white line drawing of a man lying on his back with his head toward the viewer.  His arms are flung out to the sides and extend out of the frame.  His feet are bare. Wispy gray shapes float around him.McKie favors the Bond school of defusing traps by walking into them. Art by Gaughan

I’m not sure if I really like this story, but it is keeping my interest. In many ways, this feels more like the Frank Herbert who wrote The Dragon in the Sea than the navel-gazer we’ve seen of late. There’s more action in the first chapter of this installment than in the whole of Dune Messiah. It remains to be seen how well he handles the interesting questions he’s asked so far.

Three stars.

Summing up

Elsewhere in the magazine, Lester del Rey is back in form, offering actual criticism over mere review. He might be the best reviewer in the magazines right now. I’d say his only competition is Joanna Russ over in F&SF. Meanwhile, Ejler Jakobsson’s answers in the letter column offer quite a bit of news. Philip José Farmer is working on a Riverworld novel, the promised new issue of Worlds of Tomorrow is coming soon, and there will be news about the IF First program in the near future.

All in all, not a bad issue. A couple of excellent stories and only one clunker out of nine. Jakobsson is turning out to be a fine replacement for Fred Pohl.




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