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[February 16, 1965] Return to a Quagmire (March 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Sliding Downhill

In the twenty years since the beginning of the Cold War, there have been many potential flashpoints between East and West.  In 1950, Chinese-backed North Koreans almost took the entire Korean peninsula in a see-saw, later stalemated, conflict that lasted until 1953.  Berlin twice became the hot spot — during the 1948 blockade and after the building of the Wall in 1961.  Cuba, too, has been a fraught locale, with the 1959 Communist takeover followed by the disastrous American-backed invasion in 1961 and then the near-calamitous Missile Crisis of 1962.

And then there's Vietnam.

Formerly part of French Indochina, the region has been divided into two roughly equal halves since 1954, when Ho Chi Minh's Viet Cong threw off the colonial yoke in 1954.  Since then, the Communist North has engaged in both insurgent and conventional tactics against the South.

Of course, the United States has backed South Vietnam despite it being a rather corrupt and authoritarian state that, for the past two years, has seen a revolving door of junta leaders running the country.  American involvement included air support and "military advisers", our presence including about 20,000 troops, all told. 

And then came the Gulf of Tonkin incident last August, in which American naval vessels reportedly were attacked off the coast of North Vietnam.  That opened the door for a flood of American air strikes, including into neutral Laos to bomb the "Ho Chi Minh" supply trail.

It was perhaps inevitable that the Viet Cong would hit back, first with a bombing of an American billet in Saigon last month, and now, on February 6, with a mortar attack on Camp Holloway, near Pleiku in central South Vietnam.

8 soldiers died in that attack, more than 100 were injured, and there was extensive damage to American equipment.  In retaliation, the U.S. launched Operation Flaming Dart, yet further intensifying the air war.  Wives and children of American personnel were ordered to leave Vietnam, Hawk surface to air missile batteries were set up at the airbase in Da Nang, and a general escalation of the conflict appears inevitable.  Publications, from the conservative Chicago Tribune to liberal LIFE Magazine, are clamoring for direct involvement.

That means American troops abroad, and anyone between 18-25 not currently enlisted in the military better start reconsidering their plans for the next few years.  People like my nephew, David, who just turned 23.  He's married, has a young son, and goes to UCLA, so perhaps he's safe.  For now. 

In any event, the papers are full of Vietnam news these days, and the voices against escalation are being drowned out by the hawks. 

It looks like we're about to slide, slow-motion-wise, into another Korea.  Call me an iconoclast peacenik, but I'm registering my protest early.  This won't end well.

No Relief in Sight

For those hoping that the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction would offer a respite from the world's glum news, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you.  The return to form we rejoiced in last month quickly fizzled.  This month's mag is a dud:

The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, by Roger Zelazny

In the sultry oceans of Venus resides a leviathan of a fish, a kind of mammoth angler called "Ikki".  Bane to boaters, menace to fisheries, Ikki has been the target of big game hunters and professional exterminators.  None have succeeded.

Rich dilettante Jean Lucarich is willing to pick up where others have left off, driving a 10-acre raft equipped with tranquilizer harpoons and giant cages off in search of the modern day Moby Dick.  So keen is her desire that she has hired her old flame, a deep sea adventurer, to be a baiter.  His job is to lure the Ikki in range of Jean's craft…and capture.

Persons who are more familiar with literary fiction can probably tell me what style Zelazny (the author) is going for.  I found it overwrought and, in places, difficult to parse.  But what bugged me the most was the utterly archaic (virtually Burroughsian) rendition of Venus.  Zelazny's version of the Planet of Love is kinda warm, rather than 800 degrees Fahrenheit.  Its day is roughly like an Earth's day, rather than 250 days long.  The air is breathable, the water potable. 

I nitpick because there's no way that the author doesn't know his Venus is wrong.  Mariner 2, first interplanetary probe, finished its mission two years ago.  It was in all the papers.  Indeed, the story would have been more palatable had it taken place on Earth, say, in some remote corner of the Indian Ocean.  It might even have been so, originally — some reject planned for Collier's or some other mainstream mag.

Anyway, it's not bad, but it's not really SF, and I found it too consciously literary.  One Bradbury is quite enough.

Three stars.

Final Appeal, by J. H. Brennan

This first piece by the Ulsterian Brennan involves the quest for justice when the judges are all automated.  It's one of those pieces that requires such an implausible development of technology (in this case, no human involvement at all in the rendering of judgment) that the "clever" solution falls flat.

It doesn't help that the solution, itself, while it may appeal to the mainstream of society, will be distasteful to a more free-thinking sort.

Two stars, and only because it kept me along for the ride until the inevitable disappointment (which came about a page too late).

Essentials Only, by Jack Sharkey

An absent-minded professor accidentally opens up a portal to a virgin alternate-Earth.  He invites his friend to join him for a lifetime of simple pleasures, but of course, they need to bring their girlfriends.  And their girlfriends insist on some modicum of civilization.  And that includes certain, essential people.  And their possessions.  And more luxuries, just in case.  And so on.

Jack Sharkey varies between mildly impressive to (more often) rather dreadful.  But this story is pleasantly droll, inoffsenive.

Three stars.

The End of Eternity, by Ernesto Gastaldi

According to F&SF's new editor, Joseph Ferman, the state of Italian SF is pretty poor: mostly send-ups of cliches we abandoned in the Pulp Era.  But, Ferman promises, this imported tale (translated by Harry Harrison) is something different.

He's wrong.  End takes place in modern day Rome on the eve of its nuclear destruction.  The bomb that will destroy it, scientists say, is so powerful that the space-time continuum might be ruptured.  By the way, the protagonist is named "Romulo", and the story is redolent with reminders of the antiquity of the city.  Can you guess what will happen?

Two stars for this Italian version of the creation myth.

Tripsych, by Ron Smith

Ferman praises Smith for his satirically broad rendition of three hoary SF ideas in as many vignettes.  However, the world doesn't need more bad stories, even if their badness is intentional.

Two stars.

Illusion, by Walter H. Kerr

In 1951, J. T. McIntosh wrote Hallucination Orbit, the definitive tale on cracking up while on solitary assignment in space.  Kerr's poem is on the same topic and compares unfavorably in all respects.

One star.

Better Than Ever, by Alex Kirs

There's a movie playing "over there".  It takes a month to watch, and no one can tell you what it's about.  But those who see it come back…changed.  More mature, no longer plagued with their frailties and foibles.  Better, one might say.  An adman named Clinton is one of the last, stubborn holdouts, increasingly alienated as everyone he knows, one by one, goes to see this movie. 

This is his story.

Well, sort of.  Nothing much happens in this short piece, mostly just a portrait of social isolation — an isolation Clinton refuses to remedy with the obvious solution.  Can you blame him?

Anyway, it's a fair piece, I guess.  Probably some kind of metaphor.  I don't know. 

Three stars, sure.

Oh, East is East and West is East, by Isaac Asimov

In a recent Analog, editor Campbell included a geographical quiz: which states of the U.S.A. are the farthest North, South, East, and West?  It's kind of a trick question since it hinges on the fact that Alaska straddles the 180th meridian and, thus, is both the farthest East and West (and North, but that's obvious to anyone who's read the paper since 1959, when Alaska became a state).

I got the answer right, but then, my first book was an atlas.  The Good Dr. A. got it wrong, and thus produced an article to explain why he was really right.  It's cute, but it doesn't tell you any more than a decent map would. 

Three stars.

Ado About Nothing, by Bob Ottum, Jr.

There is a wall at the end of the universe posted with a sign that says that nothing exists beyond the wall.  If you don't believe it, put a quarter in the wall and look through the peephole for yourself.

It's a silly vignette, but it appealed to the former editor, Avram Davidson, whose collected materials Ferman is apparently still depending on.

Two stars.

Uncollected Works, by Lin Carter

If 50 million monkeys at 50 million typewriters could eventually produce the works of William Shakespeare, what could a computing machine with infinite monkeys worth of random creative capacity produce?

Lin Carter has been around for a while, at least in SFF and Lovecraftian fandom circles, but this is the first story of his I've run across.  Told from the perspective of an old literary critic, given to sentimental verbosity, it's a charming piece.  It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's charming.  I feel like a little more thought could have made the scientific conceit more plausible, which would have then made the story more effective.

Three stars, anyway.

Maiden Voyage, by J. W. Schutz

Thankfully, the end of the issue is the bright spot.  Schutz, currently American Consul General in Tangiers (Morocco), offers up this novelette in epistolary, detailing a scientific mission to Mars in the mid 2030s.  Refreshingly, it stars a woman, and in a chatty, engaging style, describes the rigorous training, arduous journey, and perilous events that she endures. 

It's straight science fiction, more what I'd expect from Analog than F&SF these days, and I enjoyed it.  Bravo, especially for a first effort.

Four stars.

War Report

Both Vietnam and F&SF have been troubled spots for some time, with only isolated moments of hope to keep us going.  I guess the question is this: do we continue to throw good money after bad?  Maybe we should stick both out for another year and see what happens.  If neither improves, maybe it's time to pull out, at last…




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Magazine

[February 12, 1965] Mirabile Dictu, Sotto Voce (March 1965 Amazing)

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by John Boston

It’s an age of minor miracles.  Nothing to shout about, but last month’s pretty good issue of Amazing is followed by another one that’s not bad either. 

The Issue at Hand


by Gray Morrow

Greenslaves, by Frank Herbert

This March issue opens with Frank Herbert’s novelet Greenslaves, a rather startling, if not entirely amazing, performance.  In the future, Brazil and other countries are making war against insect life, since it’s a disgusting reservoir of disease and a source of damage to crops.  (The U.S. is an exception, owing to the influence of the radical Carsonists; the reference is presumably to Rachel, not Kit or Johnny.) But the campaign seems to be backfiring, with insects mutating, and epidemics.  The events of the plot are cheerfully bizarre, but the message is similar to that of the more ponderous Dune epic: attend to ecology.  Things work together and if you mess with the balance, you may harm yourselves.


by Gray Morrow

Unlike the more dense and turgid Dune serials, though, this story is crisply told and moves along quickly and vividly to its point.  It also recalls Wells’s story The Empire of the Ants—not a follow-up or a rejoinder, but a very different angle on the premise of that classic story.  Four stars for this striking departure both from Herbert’s and from Amazing’s ordinary course.

The Plateau, by Christopher Anvil

The ground gained by Herbert is quickly given up by Christopher Anvil’s The Plateau, which if it were an LP would have to be called Chris Anvil’s Greatest Dull Thuds.  Actually, my first thought was that it should be retitled The Abyss, but then I realized it is over 50 pages long.  Maybe—following our host’s example in discussing Analog—it should instead be called The Endless Desert.  It’s yet another story about stupid and comically rigid aliens bested by clever humans, which no doubt came back from Analog with a rejection slip reading “You’ve sold me this story six times already and it gets worse every time!”


by Robert Adragna

The premise: “Earth was conquered. . . .  At no place on the globe was there a well-equipped body of human combat troops larger than a platoon.” Except these platoons seem to have an ample supply of mini-hydrogen bombs and reliable communications among numerous redoubts at least around the US, as they bamboozle the aliens in multiple ways, including a cover of one of Eric Frank Russell’s greatest hits: making the aliens believe the humans have powerful unseen allies on their side.  The whole is rambling, hackneyed, and sloppy (late in the story there are several references to the aliens as “Bugs,” though they are apparently humanoid, and then that usage disappears for the rest of the story).  Towards the end, a sort-of-interesting idea about the nature of the aliens’ stupidity emerges, leading to a moderately clever end, though it’s hardly worth the slog to get there: it’s the same sort of schematic thinking that Anvil typically accomplishes in Analog at a fifth the length or less.  So, barely, two stars.

Be Yourself, by Robert Rohrer

Robert Rohrer’s Be Yourself is a little hackneyed, too, but at six pages is much more neatly turned and much less exasperating and wearying than the Anvil story.  Alien invaders have figured out how to duplicate us precisely; how do we know which Joe Blow is the real one?  No one who has read SF for more than a week will be surprised by the twists, but one can admire their execution.  Three stars.

Calling Dr. Clockwork, by Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart’s Calling Dr. Clockwork is business as usual for him, an outrageous lampoon, this time of hospitals and the medical profession.  The protagonist goes to visit someone in the hospital, faints when he sees a patient in bad condition, and wakes up in a hospital bed, attended by various caricatures including the eponymous and dysfunctional robot doctor, and it looks like he’s never going to get out.  Three stars for an amusing farce, no longer than it needs to be.

Wheeler Dealer, by Arthur Porges

The difference between an amusing farce and a tedious one is limned to perfection by Arthur Porges’s Wheeler Dealer, in which his series character Ensign De Ruyter and company are stranded on a nearly airless planet inhabited by quasi-Buddhist humanoids with giant lungs who can’t spare time to help the Earthfolk mine the beryllium they need to repair their ship before they run out of air.  Why no help?  Because the locals are too busy spinning their prayer wheels.  So De Ruyter shows them how to make the wheels spin on their own and thereby gets the mining labor they need.  Porges, unlike Goulart, is, tragically, not funny.  The story (like the previous De Ruyter item, Urned Reprieve in last October’s issue) is essentially a jumped-up version of a squib on Fascinating Scientific Facts that you might find as filler at the bottom of a column in another sort of magazine.  It does not help that the plot amounts to the simple-minded offspring of Clarke’s The Nine Billion Names of God.  Two stars.

The Man Who Discovered Atlantis, by Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg provides another smoothly readable and informative entry in his Scientific Hoaxes series, The Man Who Discovered Atlantis, about Paul Schliemann, grandson of Heinrich Schliemann, discoverer of the buried city (cities) of Troy.  The younger Schliemann wasn’t able to accomplish much on his own, so he exploited the fame of his grandfather to perpetrate a hoax about the discovery of Atlantis, or at least of its location and confirmation of its existence.  Silverberg succinctly recounts the origin and history of the Atlantis myth as well as the charlatanry over it that preceded Paul Schliemann’s, and suggests that had Plato known what would come of his references to Atlantis, he probably wouldn’t have brought it up.  Four stars.

Summing Up

So . . . two pretty decent issues of this magazine in a row!  One very good story, two acceptable ones, and quite a good article, and the other contents are merely inadequate and not affirmatively noxious.  Do we have a trend?  One hopes so, but . . . promised for next month is another of Edmond Hamilton’s nostalgia operas about the Star Kings.  We shall see.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine

[February 10, 1965] A Gay Old Time (March 1965 ONE, February-March 1965 The Ladder, March 1965 Drum)

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by Erica Frank

As I've been looking into news and literature sources away from the beaten path, I've run across several magazines that aren't likely to show up on your local newsrack: They're published by homophile organizations. They face tremendous prejudice and sometimes outright bigotry, despite their focus on nothing more objectionable than human relationships.

The term "homophile" was first proposed by Harry Hay, one of the founders of the Mattachine Society. It is widely used by gay rights groups to indicate that their identity is not centered around sex. However, the terms homophile, homosexual, gay, and lesbian are all used frequently throughout the periodicals.

ONE was created by members of the Mattachine Society and has been published since 1958. The Ladder is from the Daughters of Bilitiis, a lesbian organization; it's been around almost as long. Drum is the newcomer that began only last year, published by the Janus Society; it has a less serious approach, with more light-hearted content. All three have a letters section and book reviews, which I will cover at the end.

ONE: The Homosexual Viewpoint

One Incorporated is "A non-profit corporation formed to publish a magazine dealing primarily with homosexuality from the scientific, historical and critical point of view." A few years ago, it won a landmark lawsuit, establishing it as not obscene material, and therefore legal to send through the mail.

Cover for ONE, March 1965

ONE has the highest production values of the three magazines I found. The text is neatly set in two columns for main articles and it has both photographs and line art. It has a mix of content types: interview article, fiction, poetry, news, and essays. It also has book reviews. All of them have news and book review sections, as any misunderstood and often-persecuted group needs both an awareness of how society treats them and an understanding of their own communities.

Interview with Elmer Gage, Mohave Indian

Mr. Gage is known as a homosexual in his local community, and they accept him. His photo, instead of showing him making the beaded belts he sells to tourists, or at home with his grandmother, is a publicity picture of him in his Bird Dancer outfit. He wears it for ceremonial dances and sometimes for lectures at universities, but it's not what he wears at home. (Of course not. Shakespearean actors may be portraying traditional British cultural entertainments, but nobody expects them to wear Renaissance-era garb all the time.) Despite the hardships he faces, he is at peace with himself; he says life is "too short to spend your time being something you don't want to be… I'm true to myself and my own nature."

Uncomfortable Fiction, Poetry

The short story, "Somebody Else All of a Sudden, Somebody New," by K. O. Neal, is short, and not an easy read. It involves Jeffy–probably a teenager–and a man called "Old Rocker," who pays him for sex: usually a silver dollar, but two dollars this time. (There are no prurient details in the story.) I'm left wondering if Old Rocker would seek other partners if doing so didn't risk arrest or even murder.

The poem that follows the story, "Lines for the almost gone," is not any less distressing. It's directed to either someone dying or someone on the edge of suicide. The other poem in this issue, "frankincense: three letters to c" by Abel Jones, reminds me of both e.e. cummings' style, with few capital letters and broken lines arranged carefully on the page, and Ginsberg's "Howl," with a mix of evocative imagery and coarse irreverence.

Poetry excerpt: in My yellow room surrounded by empty shoes and horrid unfiltered cigarettes that i smoke for your sake Charlie / when you die i iwill sing for you requiems in our common grave-house
I'm sure this poem is deeply meaningful to someone, but that someone is not me.

Transvestites: Not the same as gay

The article "Silks and Satins" by Charles Elkins is a plea for understanding. Men who wear traditionally women's clothing are not a unified group, nor are they all either gay or straight. Some would prefer to wear dresses and heels in public and be accepted as women; others only want them for bedroom activities. They are often very lonely, rejected even by other fringe communities, and told by psychiatrists that they should repress their harmless interest in looking and feeling feminine. I say: if someone wants to wear a silk dress and heels in public, let them. As Jefferson said, "it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

This and That

It also has a "news and views" column, "Tangents," which is a roundup of short synposes: Homosexuals in the media (a British tv show about lesbians on January 7th, Macleans magazine planning an article about them in the future); cops falsely accusing political candidates of homosexuality in California; one of Freud's theories about Leonardo da Vinci's homosexuality has been debunked. (Whether da Vinci was homosexual is unknown, but if so, it wasn't proven by a childhood memory of a vulture.)

picture of kittens in button-up shoes, and caption "High button shoes are old fashioned! But the so are many concepts of reasoning toward homosexuality.
Is that Puss in Boots?

The Ladder: A Lesbian Review

The Daughters of Bilitis is "a women's organization for the purpose of promoting the integration of the homosexula into society" by education, participation in research, and promotion of changes to the penal code."

Cover for The Ladder, Feb-March 1965

The Ladder's production quality is the lowest of the trio. Most of it is typed, and the text isn't always aligned evenly with the headings. There are no photographs and no line art. Still, it contains solid news articles (impressive, as it does not rely on a clippings service) and thoughtful essays.

Homophile Activists

This issue has several articles about public events. One called "After the Ball…" about the police raid on a New Year's Eve costume ball organized by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, comprised of members of six homophile organizations. The police harassed attendees and photographed most of the 600 guests, and when they were told they needed a warrant to enter, they arrested the four people trying to stop them.

Attendees of the SF New Year's Eve ball
While the police were attempting to intimidate, they did capture some amazing pictures. Picture from Lewd & Lascivious.

The other activism news was not as well covered in newspapers: Last December in New York, Dr. Paul R. Dince gave a lecture entitled "Homosexuality, A Disesase." Four picketers showed up to protest, handing out free homophile literature and holding signs saying "WE REQUEST 10 MINUTES REBUTTAL TIME." They made their request to the chairman of the forum – and it was granted!

After the lecture, during open questions, one of the picketers was allowed 10 minutes with a microphone. He pointed out that "experts" have contradictory theories about homosexulity. He mentioned they mostly study unhappy individuals, and they start with the assumption that homosexuality is a disease. (It's easy to "prove" something you already believe.) He also noted that most people in the "disease" camp say little against scams that charge ridiculous fees, claiming they will "cure" homosexuality. After the protesters received great applause, Dr. Dince conceded some of their points.

The E.C.H.O. (East Coast Homophile Organizations) report is five pages about the recent conference in Washington, D.C. This issue holds Part Four: "Act or Teach," based on recordings of the event. In this part, Dr. Franklin Kameny pointed out the flaws in approaching the public with information instead of demands for change. He said it is naive to assume information will overcome prejudice, but that when new laws establish civil rights, "public sentiment has then attempted to accommodate itself to the new situation."

Dr. Koneitzko disagreed with him, saying that acceptance from communities and churches is more important than technical legal rights. Kameny does not disagree, but he says that the acceptance will come after the laws change, not before.

Dr. Frank Kameny in a suit
Dr. Franklin Kameny, a WWII veteran who was fired from his post-war job in the Army Map Service because of his orientation. Photo circa 1956.

Essays and Poetry

"I Hate Women: A Diatribe by an Unreconstructed Feminist" is a rant about the repulsiveness of meek, timid, compliant femininity. The compelling title is rather tongue-in-cheek: The author, of course, does not hate women, since she is a lesbian. She hates, however, the notion that all women are destined to be servile wives and mothers, and decries that those who want a different path are often sent to a psychiatrist to "Find Out Why she Rejects the Feminine Role."

She goes on to talk about the risks of over-population, and quotes Arthur C. Clarke from the 1958 Harper's Magazine article, "Standing Room Only":

…the time may yet come when homosexuality is practically compulsory, and not merely fashionable. It will indeed be a piquant paradox if— in the long run and taking the survival of humanity as a whole as our criterion— this controversial instinct turns out to have a greater survival value than the urge to reproduce.

The other essay is considerably less angry. "To Tell or Not To Tell," by Vern Niven, is a short article about wrestling with secrecy, about the choice of whether homosexuals should tell their parents about who they love, or could love. The author says most parents can be accepting, but it may take some effort to prepare them for the truth. She encourages readers to be honest with their families. This can bring support and welcome for both themselves and partners, especially important when they consider their relationship a marriage.

The essays, while subjective, are directed to a broad audience. The four short poems seem more targeted in their appeal. Two have strong nature imagery; one is religious; one relates to music. None of them are overtly lesbian: they do not mention gender at all. But they are lyrical and intense, with hints of secrets being shared between the authors and readers.

And you, my subtle friend
Come counterpoint,
Offer me softly
          of your melodic
Talents.

The tone of The Ladder is down-to-earth and almost wistful; the articles are laced with hope and perseverance. Not all of the homophile magazines are so sober.

Drum: Sex in Perspective

The name is inspired by a quote by Thoreau: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."

Cover for Drum, March 1965

I saved the fun one for last. Drum has more lively content than the others: the longest article is the 12-page "Beginner's Guide to Cruising," which is as much playful as informative. Indeed, its very first news article includes a picture of Tony Sabella kissing Robert Kennedy.

The caption reads: "A group of New York lawyers is studing the possibility of having sodomy charges brought against Senator-elect Robert Kennedy for allegedly committing a public indecent act in the Fulton Fish Market to demonstrate the importance of Penal Law reform."

Tony Sabella kissing Robert Kennedy
Is a public kiss between men acceptable as long as neither of them is believed to be gay?

Dating Guide

The feature article, "The Beginner's Guide to Cruising" by George Marshall, bypasses any question of inner speculation or the gay identity within a heterosexual community. It is focused on a single goal: sexual conquest. While the methods described border on predatory, it is clear that the purpose is great fun for both men involved; this is not a primer for seducing people who aren't interested.

It spends some time discussing which men should not be pursued: Those who are "superbly dressed," as they are more interested in themselves than you; those wearing very tight slacks, indicating bitterness and a lack of feeling; those with white shirts and pastel pants, who will take you to court if things go badly; those with political causes, who will involve you in their mania; those who are drunk or drug addicts, who are, at best, walking complications.

It gives several possible approaches to avoid clichés like, "Care for a coffee?" It then goes on to discuss socializing after an introduction at a party, how to convince him you are a clever conversationalist (mostly by agreeing with him), and the importance of setting a future meeting date. While the tips in the article are very much focused on gay men who are seeking other gay men, they are the same methods used by salesmen and politicians: know your target, make yourself interesting, follow through with more contact.

Spy Stories

"I Was a Homosexual for the FBI" (by P. Arody) is a short article crammed full of hilarious stereotypes. It is ostensibly by someone who saved the country from "the deadliest conspiracy ever to rock the United States": To convince straight people that gays are really no different from their neighbors. The author had access to the FBI's extensive resources, including the Homo-o-dors that smell "suspected perverts" and flash a lavender light on detection. His "training" included "how to talk with a lisp" and "how to swish when walking, drink like an alcoholic, and organize orgies." (If the FBI knows how to organize orgies, I demand it release that information to taxpayers!) The result of all that hard work: "we caught every homosexual in the entire country and now all twelve of them were on trial!"

In keeping with this month's unstated "super spy" theme, we have several pages of artwork showing Harry Chess, that man from A.U.N.T.I.E ("Agents' Undercover Network To Investigate Evil) and his team. This is an an obvious play on the new Man from U.N.C.L.E spy-thriller tv show.

Harry Chess - line art
Not shown here: his sidekick "Mickey Muscle," their informant Big Bennie, girl bartender, and villain Lewd Leather, the leader of M.U.C.K. (Maniacal Underworld Control Corp).

The puzzle is probably not connected to the spying, since one was included last month, and another will be shared next month. The "cryptogayme" cipher is a nice stretch-your-mind exercise in a magazine mostly devoted to casual enjoyment.

Cryptoquiz puzzle
The solution will be in next month's issue.

Pretty as a Picture

Speaking of casual enjoyment… the "Portfolio" covers four pages of the magazine: Full-page photos of young men wearing very little clothing. The portfolio is accompanied by ads from the photographers: $6 sent to an address in Germany will get you 8 black and white photos of two models, or 6 color slides. Alternately, $1 sent to a post office box in Detroit will get you "samples," which presumably will contain information on how to order more.

"More like this" is a recurring theme in all three magazines. Each contains contact information, mentions of homophile organizations (Drum has a full page listing more than 20 of them), and letters from the community.

The letters columns are compelling. Over and over, they say: Thank you. Thank you for helping me understand myself, my community. Thank you for helping me understand the truth about my loved ones. Thank you for showing me we can fight for better acceptance, for the rights our heterosexual neighbors take for granted.

The book reviews, while useful enough on their own, showcase one of the problems all homosexuals face: There is so little representation of them in literature and movies that they must accept any depictions of their existence as other than "evil" or "perverted" as a benefit. Books that draw on stereotypes are approved if they are not too inaccurate. Those that are well-written, in which the only homosexuals are background characters, are still recommended. This is a community eager to see their reality in print, and each of the magazines provides that to its audience.

Not So Different

The real truth shown by these magazines is this: These people are not so different from everyone else. Some gay men, like some straight men, go "cruising" for casual partners. Some gay men, like some straight men, would rather find a single person for a long-term committed relationship. Lesbians, like straight women, chafe under legal and social constraints. Lesbians, like straight women, fall in love and hope their trust will not be betrayed. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, worry about what their families think of their career choices, their hobbies, and their partners.

With all these revelations of homophile lives and interests, the biggest discovery is that they are just people: some shallow, some passionate, some thoughtful, some clever, some angry, some shy. If they have an agenda, it's to be allowed to live and love in peace, just like their neighbors.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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Book, Magazine, Serial

[February 6, 1965] Too much of a… thing (March 1965 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

Monthly Muchness

We're at a bit of a lull here in early February.  Not that things haven't been exciting, but they've been familiar headlines.  For instance, Sheriff Clark and his merry men locked up nearly 3000 Afro-American demonstrators who were marching in Selma, Alabama for their voting rights.

In Laos, one of the two right-wing factions supporting the neutralist government tried to coup the neutralist government.  It was defeated by the other right-wing faction.  Meanwhile, the Pathet Lao Communists continue to fester in the margins.

And China, a new member of the nuclear club, maintains its fracture with its Communist brethren to the north, the USSR (although the current meeting of Soviet Foreign Minister Kosygin and Chinese Head of State Zhou Enlai may thaw things).

Similarly, the March 1965 IF offers nothing particularly outstanding, as has been the case for several months now.  I really think editor Fred Pohl should consider returning IF to a bimonthly schedule.  Or perhaps Worlds of Tomorrow needs to be retired so that IF can get choicer stories.

In any event, come read what you've missed:

The Issue at Hand


by McKenna

Stone Place, by Fred Saberhagen

First up is the latest in Saberhagen's Berserker tales.  If you've been reading IF for a while, you know that this series involves enormous, sentient battleships that hate life, destroying human fleets and colonies wherever they can.  The author has done a good job developing the unearthly logic of the alien destroyers as well as written good yarns about the victories Terrans have managed to pull off against them.

Stone Place is the final battle.  The Berserkers have pulled together all two hundred of their ships scattered throughout the galaxy.  In counter, the Terrans have assembled a nearly equivalent armada.  The problem is that the human ships do not all owe allegiance to a central government, and there is friction aplenty.  Can humanity unite for long enough to defeat a threat to the entire species?


by Jack Gaughan

A few things make this latest outing a comparative disappointment: the beginning is slow, the politics are frustrating, and the cruelty of the Berserkers shockingly lurid.  Moreover, the tactics employed against the Berserkers are somewhat glossed over, making the ultimate result feel informed rather than earned.  I wish such a momentous chapter in the saga had been given a novel's worth of development.  Without the nuance and cleverness of the prior stories, and because of the heightened nastiness, three stars is all I can award Stone Place.

Meeting on Kangshan, by Eric Frank Russell

On an interstellar cruise liner, one of the veteran ship's officers makes the acquaintance of a grizzled, cantankerous marine.  Conversation ensues.

And that's about it.  I'm not sure what the point was.  Two stars.

All We Unemployed, by Bryce Walton

Written as half screenplay, half epistolary, All We Unemployed details the horrors of being the last employees in a automated factory that has decided that human elements are undesirable.  It's a pretty dumb story, saying nothing new (and in fact, feeling queerly familiar).

One star.

Of One Mind, by James Durham


by Gray Morrow

James Durham is the novice writer of the issue.  He offers up a piece in which humanity discovers barrier-less telepathy before it is ready, with disastrous results.  Very few survive the ensuing massacre, including the protagonist, an astronaut on his way to Mars.

There are some nice bits in Mind, particularly its realistic portrayal of space travel.  But on the whole, it doesn't hang together well at all.  It might make a decent novel, if the writer develops his chops some more.

Three stars

Million-Mile Hunt, by Emil Petaja

By contrast, Petaja is an old hand, a veteran of the pulp era.  However, he's been on hiatus for more than a decade…and it shows.  Hunt, about an ornery space prospector and the odd alien who dogs him mercilessly, just trying to help, is outdated stuff.  The solar system is home to half a dozen alien species, and people zip from setting to setting as if driving from block to block of a city.  The revelation at the end is weird and not particularly well-joined with the narrative.

Two stars.

Starchild (Part 3 of 3), by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson


by Gray Morrow

And finally, we come to the end of this three-part serial, sequel to The Reefs of Space.  At last, we will find out who the mysterious Star Child is, and how the rebels living in the reefs that gird our solar system have been able to subvert Earth's authoritarian Planning Machine and even blink out the Sun.

Except, we don't.  Instead, we're treated to forty pages of exposition that tell us that the ultimatum made to Earth (by whom?  some mystical stellar force centered about the star, Deneb?  it's not clear) to overthrow the Plan of Man involved dozens of years of perfect timing that indicate the outcome was predestined.  See, before the Sun went out, all of the nearby stars winked in succession.  Since light travels at a finite rate, that meant the scheme required not only synchronization of efforts on a galactic scale, but also knowledge that it would work (since they only made plans to do it once). 

Plus, it was apparently child's play for the Denebians(?) to take over not only the Planning Machine on Earth, but its copy that was sent to the reefs on the Earth vessel, Togethership.  In any event, none of the characters are given anything to do but watch.  Not Boysie Gann, the putative protagonist.  Not the stubborn Earth general bent on recovering the Togethership.  Not Quarla, the young woman from the reefs who sails from plot point to plot point on her seal-like fusorian, as the story requires.

It's the worst kind of pulp space opera.  Not even the settings are interesting, and setting is all we have at this point.  The first story of the series was fair, with an exciting middle.  This second installment had promise but quickly went to the dogs.

One star, and please let's not have another.

Summing Up

Wow, that was a stinker.  It's clear Pohl is shoving all of his junk into one drawer, including the stuff he probably couldn't sell anywhere else (Starchild).  And Pohl is touting that we've got novels from Schmitz and Doc Smith to look forward to.  Given that those two produce stuff in the same vein as Starchild, I am really not looking forward to the next several months.

Perhaps it's time I passed on the mantle.  Any volunteers?




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[January 31, 1965] Janus, Facing Both Ways (February 1965 Analog)

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[This is your chance to nominate Galactic Journey for Best Fanzine Hugo!  We feel that 1964…er…2019 was our best year yet, and appearing on the ballot is the greatest reward we could ask for.  Please help make it happen again!]


by Gideon Marcus

Facing the Future, Honoring the Past

January (likely) takes its name from Janus, the Roman god of new beginnings, and there have been few Januaries so worthy of this legacy than the latest one.

On January 20, Lyndon Baines Johnson took the oath of office of the President of the United States.  He had done so once before, on that tragic afternoon in November 1963.  This time, LBJ was sworn in on his own merit, having won the last general election in one of the biggest trouncings in history.  He has already outlined a bold agenda, expanding his Great Society with proposals to expand medicare and social security, combat poverty and joblessness, and further equalize the rights of all Americans.  Along with the Democratic supermajority in Congress, we are going to see legislative movement the likes of which have not been seen in more than twenty years.

Just four days later, Sir Winston Churchill, the United Kingdom's leader through most of World War 2, was felled by a brain hemorrhage at the age of 90.  His state funeral on the 29th was appropriately tremendous, and flags were lowered to half-mast throughout the world.  The Left seem to be on the move in Britain, too, with the Liberals winning their first victory in over a decade.  Have we arrived at an unfettered age of progress?

In the eddies of time

Not within the pages of John W. Campbell's Analog, which plugs along this month with the same combination of hard science fiction and workmanlike writing.  Moreover, Frank Herbert's Prophet of Dune neither begins nor concludes; it merely plods on.  Well, to be fair, the cover date is February 1965…


by Walter Hortens

Program for Lunar Landings by Joe Poyer

We are now four years on since President Kennedy's momentous declaration, to send Americans to the Moon and back before decade's end.  Joe Poyer's article outlines the phases of lunar exploration that will succeed Project Apollo's first missions.

Fascinating topic.  Rather dull execution.  Three stars.

The Mailman Cometh, by Rick Raphael


by Walter Hortens

The fellow who gave us depictions of government employed sewer rats and tales of high speed highway patrol is back with a story of far future mail delivery.  Centuries from now, automated mail drones will transport packages across the stars.  But it's up to the sweaty, stinky folk in orbiting stations to sort the stuff onto its final destination.

I don't know that I buy the setup, and this is more of "a day in the life" than something with an actual plot.  That said, Raphael always writes pleasantly, and he's not shy about writing good women characters.

Three stars.

Photojournalist, by Mack Reynolds


by Robert Swanson

It's a terrible thing to be a cameraman and miss the big scoop.  But how much worse must it be to be at all the right places at all the right times and never have your pictures published?

No one in modern day has ever seen Jerry Scott's shots, and he's been spotted everywhere, from Mussolini's hanging to the latest riots.  Is he unlucky?  Or does he have an entirely different audience?

Pretty good story, though with a page more in the middle than is necessary.  Plus, it gives Reynolds a chance to use some of his lingo from his Joe Mauser stories (which will instantly tip you off as to what's going on).

Three stars.

The Pork Chop Tree, by James H. Schmitz


by Hector Castellon

What ill could possibly be spoken of the trees of Maccadon?  All parts of them are edible.  They obligingly create hollows in themselves as shelters for animals and people alike.  Not one offensive characteristic has been cataloged.

Is there such a concept as too much of a good thing?

This story has a lot in common with Norman Spinrad's recent Child of Mind, though without the offensive bits.  And also the particularly interesting ones.

Three stars.

Coincidence Day, by John Brunner


by Leo Summers

In the NASEEZ (North American South Eastern Extraterrestrial Zoo), the most exciting time to visit is Coincidence Day, when all of the biorhythms of the assembled creatures line up, and they can all be viewed active at once.  The most sought-out resident is a tripodal alien dubbed Chuckaluck, a charming, easy-going soul. 

But is he the attraction, or the observer?

A whimsical, multilayered piece.  It almost feels like a story Sheckley would write were he British.

Four stars.

The Prophet of Dune (Part 2 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by John Schoenherr

Finally, a short installment of Part 2 of Book 2 of the Dune franchise.  Young Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, have made it across the deadly desert of Arrakis to what counts for local civilization.  But do the still-suited, spice-addicted Fremen offer succor or peril?

This was actually one of the better spans of the story, though Frank Herbert still employs third person omniscient italic as his perspective.  Three stars.

What a happy surprise to find Analog near the top of the magazine pack this month, clocking in at 3.2 stars.  In fact, it was a rather stellar month in general, Galaxy getting an impressive 3.5 stars, BOTH Fantastic and Amazing earning 3.3 stars, Fantasy and Science Fiction returning to form with 3.2 stars, and the British New Worlds achieving 3.1 while Science Fantasy scored 3.

Only IF and Worlds of Tomorrow came over par, at 2.7 and 2.5 stars, respectively (though the latter did have the excellent Niven novella, Planet/World of Ptavvs).

On the other hand, out of a whopping 55 pieces of fiction, women only wrote four of them.  The ratio is getting worse, folks.

Meanwhile, speaking of endings, it appears Analog will be a slick for just one more month before returning to the rack with all the other digest sizes.  Apparently, there just wasn't enough advertising to sustain the bedsheet format.  I guess the Venn diagram of science fiction readers and cognac drinkers didn't intersect much…

I honestly won't miss the big magazine.  It fit awkwardly on my shelf.  What do y'all think?




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[January 26, 1965] Down the Rabbit Hole…Again (February 1965 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

TV Triplets

Back when the Young Traveler and I were watching The Twilight Zone, we accidentally picked the wrong time to turn on the set and ended up getting introduced to Mr. Ed, Supercar, and The Andy Griffith Show, in that order.  It made for an amusing night, and we learned a lot about the prime-time schedule for that season.

Recently, we once again fell down the rabbit hole, though not quite by accident. 

It all started with an amazing new import form England.  You may have seen the American rebroadcast of Danger Man back in the summer of '61.  It was a smart spy show starring NATO agent, John Drake, played by Patrick McGoohan.  Well, he's back, and this time his episodes are a full hour rather than just half.  It's gripping stuff, albeit a bit heavier and more cynical than the first run.  Realistic, idealistic, and respectful of women, it's a delightful contrast to the buffoonish Bond franchise.

So gripping was the show that we ended up somehow unable to change the channel when Password came on.  This game show is sort of a verbal version of Charades where a contestant tries to get their partner to say a word using single-word clues.  Play goes back and forth until one team gets it right.

It's kind of a dumb show for the viewer because we already know the answer.  On the other hand, the contestants always include celebrities, and it's fun to watch them struggle through the rounds.


Gene Kelly looked like he wanted to kill his partner.  The whole time!


Juliet Prowse, on the other hand, was adorable and funny.

After half an hour of that, we had summoned enough energy to reach toward the television remote…until we heard the bugle strains heralding the arrival of Rocky and Bullwinkle (and friends).  It had been my understanding that the show had completed its five year run, but it has apparently gone into reruns without missing a beat.  Since we had missed the first couple of years, well, we couldn't turn off the television now!

The only thing that saved us was the subsequent airing of Bonanza, a show I am only too happy to turn off.  Who knows how long we'd have cruised The Vast Wasteland otherwise.  Of course, now we're stuck watching all three shows every week (homework permitting).

Print Analog

Science fiction magazines are kind of like blocks of TV shows.  They happen regularly, their quality is somewhat reliable, but their content varies with each new issue.  This month's Worlds of IF Science Fiction defined the phrase "much of a muchness".  Each (for the most part) was acceptable, even enjoyable, but either they were flawed jewels, or they simply never went beyond workmanlike.  Read on, and you'll see what I mean:


This rather goofy cover courtesy of McKenna, illustrating Small One

The Replicators, by A. E. van Vogt

Steve Maitlin is an ornery SOB, a Marine veteran of Korea who knows the world is all SNAFU, especially the moronic generals who run the show.  Not only does this attitude make life miserable for those around him, but it also brings the Earth to the brink of interstellar war.  It turns out that the alien BEM Maitlin shoots one day on the road to work is just one of an infinite number of bodies for an IT, and the replacement body ends up with Maitlin's cussedness as part of its basic personality.

Said IT also has the ability to replicate any weapon the humans throw against it, but magnified.  Shoot at it?  It builds a big-size rifle.  Bomb it?  It comes back with an extra-jumbo jet and a bigger nuke.  In the end, Maitlin is the only one who can stop the thing, which makes karmic sense.  But can the vet change his nature in time to meet minds with the alien?


by Gray Morrow

This story doesn't make a lot of sense, but Van Vogt is good at keeping you engaged with pulpish momentum.  Three stars.

Reporter at Large, by Ron Goulart

In a future where mob bosses have replaced politicians (or perhaps the politicians have just more nakedly advertised their criminal nature!) power is entrenched and hereditary.  Only an honest journalist can bring about a revolution, but when any person has his price, only an android editor's got the scruples to speak truth to power.

Ron Goulart writes good, funny stories.  Unfortunately, while I see that he tried, he failed at accomplishing either this time out.  Two stars, and the worst piece of the mag.

Small One, by E. Clayton McCarty

A young alien has exiled himself as part of its first stage of five on the journey toward maturity.  Its isolation is disturbed when a tiny bipedal creature lands in a spaceship nearby and finds itself trapped in a cave.  The child-being establishes telepathic contact with the intruder (obviously a human) and an eventual rapport is established.  But everything falls apart when the Terran's rapacious teammates land and fall into conflict with the alien's infinitely more powerful family…


by Jack Gaughan

I am a sucker for first contact stories, especially when told from the alien viewpoint.  This one is good, but it suffers from a certain lack of subtlety, a kind of hamfisted presentation of the kind I normally see from new writers.  That makes sense; this is his (her?) first story.

Three stars, and my favorite piece of the magazine.

Blind Alley, by Basil Wells

A year after settling the planet of Croft, the human colonists and their livestock all become afflicted with blindness.  Against the odds, they survive, shaping their lives around the change.  But can their society take the shock when a new arrival, generations later, brings back the promise of sight?

Blind Alley treads much of the same ground as Daniel Galouye's excellent Dark Universe from a few years back.  The question is worth asking: when is a "disability" simply a different way to be able?  That said, Wells is not as skilled as Galouye, and the story merits three stars as a result.

Gree's Commandos, by C. C. MacApp


by Nodel

On a thick-atmosphered planet, Colonel Steve Duke assists a race of Stone Age flying elephants against the interstellar aggressors, the Gree, and their mercentary cohorts.  It's a straight adventure piece with virtually no development, either of the characters or the larger setting.  Somewhat similar to Keith Laumer's latest novel (The Hounds of Hell, also appearing in IF), it doesn't do anything to make you care.  Sufficiently developed, it could have been good.

Two stars.

Zombie, by J. L. Frye

Here is the second story by a brand new author…and it shows.  In the future, it becomes possible to transplant a personality in the short term to a physically perfect body.  Said transfers are used almost exclusively for espionage and sabotage — it's not much fun living in a shell of a form that can't really feel or enjoy anything other than the satisfaction of a job well done.  Indeed, the only people willing to endure the hell of personality transfer (back and forth) are the profoundly crippled.

This story of a particularly hairy mission has its moments of poignance, but again, Frye is not quite up to the challenge of a difficult topic.  Plus, he needs more adjectives in his quiver; I count seven times he used "beautiful" to describe the sole female character.  Even Homer varied between calling Athena "grey-eyed" and "owl-eyed".

Three stars.

Starchild (Part 2 of 3), by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson

Last up is the second installment of three (that number again!) in this serialized sequel to The Reefs of Space.  It's a short one, barely long enough to cover the harsh interrogation of Bowsie Gann.  Gann was the loyal spy servant of The Plan, returned to Earth at the same time the star-reef-dwelling Starchild began to turn off the local suns to scare Earth's machine-run government.


by Nodel

It's a most unpleasant set of pages, with lots of torture and cruelty (something Fred Pohl does effectively; viz. A Plague of Pythons).  That said, Pohl and Williamson can write, and I am looking forward to seeing how it all wraps up.

Three stars.

Stay Tuned

Like much of the Idiot Box's offerings, IF continues to deliver stuff that's just good enough to keep my subscription current.  I'd like editor Fred Pohl to tip the magazine in one direction or another so I can either stop buying it or enjoy it more…

Until then, I guess my knob stays tuned to this channel!

[If you have a membership to this year's Worldcon (in New Zealand) or did last year (Dublin), we would very much appreciate your nomination for Best Fanzine! We work for egoboo…]




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Magazine, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 24, 1965] A New Beginning… New Worlds and Science Fantasy Magazine, January/February 1965

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

As I mentioned last month, I now am in the fortunate position of getting two British magazines a month. Both New Worlds and Science Fantasy have returned to monthly issues after being published in alternate months throughout most of 1964.

This doesn’t leave much time for other things this month. However, I can’t resist one update. Since our last article I have had to bite the bullet due to familial pressure and have been dragged along to the cinema to see the 170 minute epic that is My Fair Lady. Given my reluctance about musicals, I must admit, albeit quietly, that it wasn’t bad. Whilst I could make derogatory comments about Rex Harrison’s ‘singing’, Audrey Hepburn was quite charming. It’ll never make me want to see more musicals by choice, but it was tolerable.

And I must admit that it did relieve the sense of gloom that seems to have descended on the country following the sad news of Sir Winston Churchill's death.  Moving on..

The First Issue At Hand

So: which magazine arrived first? The winner was the January/February 1965 issue of Science Fantasy.


The Editor is particularly pleased to point out that Keith Roberts, who seems to be our current favourite, will return with another Anita story next month (although the back cover tells us that it will be this month!)


Back Cover. Notice anything wrong?

Multi-talented Mr. Roberts is also who we blame for this month’s rather obtuse cover art for the story Present From the Past.

To the stories themselves.

Present From the Past, by Douglas Davis

This is, to quote the editor from the Editorial, “a new twist on the time safari”. Doctor Messenger, palaeontologist, is transported by the Chronotransporter Research Department in a one-man machine to the Triassic to do research. Unsurprisingly, having been warned to be careful, things go wrong. This is a good old-fashioned adventure tale of Man against the dinosaurs. The descriptions of the landscape and the dinosaurs are vivid and suggest that this would make the start of a good movie, although despite the editor’s protestations, really is nothing that different from the sort of pulp story published in the 1930’s. It ends weakly and feels like there should be more, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but therefore doesn’t feel like a story with a point. 3 out of 5.

The Empathy Machine, by Langdon Jones

Not content with being the Assistant Editor over at New Worlds, here we have the latest story from Langdon Jones, the writer. As we might expect, it is odd story, one that seems to be an internalised fever dream by Henry Ronson, a man who has the urge to kill his frigid wife whilst on holiday on Mars. The story takes an odd turn when Ronson damages the wall screen in frustration at the incessant advertising that he is bombarded by and is then beaten up by the police who arrive to investigate. The next day Ronson and his wife discover a strange Martian building, which on entrance shows Henry life from the perspective of his wife. And guess what – she wants to kill him as well! Now having empathy for each other they kiss and make up (I presume).

Really though, this is a salutary tale on the need for partners to communicate with each other – as well as point out the maddening impact of constant advertising! It just reads strangely to me, an uneven attempt to combine the mysticism of Ray Bradbury with the angst of J G Ballard, which doesn’t work, although the effort is appreciated. 3 out of 5.

Harvest, by Johnny Byrne

And here’s the return of the writer of appropriately weird stories, Johnny Byrne, last seen in the September – October 1964 issue. Harvest has a similarly odd, disjointed tone to the Langdon Jones story, telling of characters who seem to be living in a post-apocalyptic place. It is odder than Langdon Jones’s story, and whilst I liked the lyrical nature of the prose, not really for me. 2 out of 5.

Petros, by Philip Wordley

A new writer to me. The title evokes a sense that it is something akin to Burnett-Swann’s re-imagining of Grecian myths, but instead it is  another story that shows us that post-Armageddon life is bad. This time the Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Christ on Earth appears to be living in (another) post-apocalyptic world surrounded by what appear to be Mafia gangsters transported to Britain. This was easier to understand than Johnny Byrne’s story, but as yet another tale about the enduring importance of religion in difficult circumstances (a common theme in the magazines in the last few months!) it left me strangely unmoved. 3 out of 5.

Flight of Fancy, by Keith Roberts

Another story from Science Fantasy’s current flavour of the month – he appears later in the issue as well. It helps that I generally like Keith’s writing, although this very short story is underwhelming. Flight of Fancy is a minor tale that tries to use humour to tell us how science could become unimportant in a future where science has allowed civilisation to be bombed back to a more primitive level. 3 out of 5.

Only the Best, by Patricia Hocknell
A new writer. This is a short story that is a variant of the adage “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” A marvellous new invention that appears from who-knows-where has negative consequences. Even if I accepted the point that “Washing clothes can be fun”, there were issues with the story for me. I think that it’s meant to be funny but comes across as both silly and creepy. It’s OK, but is a one-point tale. 2 out of 5.

The Island, by Roger Jones

Another new writer. A fairly unpleasant tale of how three characters named Erg, Rastrick and Minus spend their time surviving on some island of the future. It’s all rather grim and depressing, not helped by some rather dreadful people. There’s a weak attempt to develop a sense of mystery – what did Erg see Rastrick doing in the copse on the island? – but the solution is pretty unremarkable. With such misery, the ending is a bit of a relief, but I did wonder what was the point at the end. A story intended to score on its shock value, I believe, but just comes across as unremittingly bleak. 2 out of 5.

The Typewriter, by Alistair Bevan

Here’s the second story in this issue by Keith Roberts this issue, albeit written under the name of one of his pseudonyms. After all that unrelenting misery of The Island, here’s a lighter tale, telling us of what happens to Henry Albert Tailor, the creator of ‘Flush Hardman’, an action hero whose similarity to the overheated exploits of James Bond is surely just a coincidence. There’s a touch of The Twilight Zone here when the author’s typewriter seems to have a mind of its own and is perhaps more the creator of the popular stories than Henry realises. It’s silly but quite fun and not nearly as jarring as some of the other stories in this issue have been. 4 out of 5.

The Blue Monkeys (part 3), by Thomas Burnett Swann

The last part of this serial is as good as its previous parts. Here we discover what happens when Ajax attacks Eunostos the Minotaur’s home in an attempt to retrieve our two wayward teenagers Thea and Icarus, although really, it’s about Ajax trying to get Thea, having being spurned before, and, to quote the story, “ravish her”. Much of the first part of this month's serial deals dramatically with the battle between Ajax and the beasts of the forest, which is very well done. The last part of the tale is surprisingly elegiac with an unexpectedly delightful bitter-sweet ending.

I am surprised how much I have enjoyed this story. I might even go as far as to say that for me this is one of the best serials I have read in years. 4 out of 5.

Summing up Science Fantasy

Bit of a mixture this issue. It’s not bad, but at the same time not the best issue I’ve read. Nothing really stands out other than the Burnett Swann serial. Overall it feels a bit depressing and downbeat. More worryingly, we seem to be repeating the same ideas over and over, things that are variations on what we’ve read before. I’m getting a bit fed up of bleak post-apocalyptic tales for one. In summary though, this is an eclectic mixture of the good and the downright odd, and I suspect that the range will elicit a range of responses.

The Second Issue At Hand

And so, hoping for a more positive experience, I turned to the February 1965 New Worlds. Last month’s issue was a cracker, so I was keen to read this one.


Cover by Jakubowicz

Whereas I’ve noticed both of the Editors stamp their personalities in the two magazines lately, New Worlds’s editorial this month is more of a news summary than an actual Editorial.

Both Moorcock and Bonfiglioli have used the space in the past to put forward a particular view, like say John W. Campbell in Analog, but instead the New Worlds Editorial this month appears to be a perfunctory one about what is going on in the genre scene around Britain. There's some things that are good to know, but with the resultant loss of identity, I suspect that this is less Moorcock’s handiwork and perhaps more by Assistant Editor Langdon Jones.

The most exciting thing mentioned this month is that Britain will host a World Convention for only the second time, in August in Mayfair, London. The Guest of Honour will be Brian W. Aldiss, which all sounds very thrilling.

The Power of Y (part 2), by Arthur Sellings

The second and final part of this story turns all James Bond-ian, with Max Afford’s revelation last month of a big conspiracy – that (warning: plot revelation ahead!) the President of the Federated States of Europe is a Plied copy, and only he can tell! No reason for this new skill is ever given, incidentally, but it’s not really relevant to the bigger picture. The last part of this story continues the idea that someone is covering up what happened, and this includes getting rid of the inventors of the Plying method and Max rescuing the copied President. It is an excitingly written, fast-paced tale that had a great twist in the end that managed to actually tie things up – I wish I could say that for every story I read in these magazines!


Oh look- more rubbish artwork!

Despite the artwork, I am very pleased with this one overall, one of the few serials in New Worlds I’ve really liked over the past year or so. 4 out of 5.

More Than A Man, by John Baxter

Although this follows a similar theme to Sellings’ story of secret identity, this is a rather old-fashioned story. It’s an adventure tale, combining Galactic Empires (not the first time we’ll hear of those this month!) and spymanship, as Graves and Bailey travel the Galaxy servicing robots that have been placed in key positions of power in an ongoing covert war. Think of it as a Space Opera version of Rudyard Kipling’s Empirical adventure Kim mixed up with Asimov’s Robotics stories. Australian John Baxter (last seen in Science Fantasy last April) tells us an exciting yet perfunctory tale. It’s fun and I enjoyed it a lot, but it is nothing that would be out of place from the magazines of the 1950’s. 3 out of 5.

When the Sky Falls, by John Hamilton

The second of our stories involving someone named John this month is another story examining religion, a topic I’m heartily sick of, to be honest. But I can’t deny that it’s a weighty topic, even when this story is brief, and one that many seem happy to examine through the auspices of a science fiction magazine. As the title suggests, this is a tale of Armageddon and what happens when the day of judgement arrives. For such a momentous event there’s nothing particularly notable about it. 2 out of 5.


This is better! Artwork by James Cawthorn

The Singular Quest of Martin Borg, by George Collyn

This lengthy tale treads a similar path to Mr. Collyn’s last story, Mixup, in the November-December 1964 issue, as it is a parody. It is undoubtedly hyper-enthusiastic, telling of how Martin Borg came to be. It is a story with everything thrown in, deliberately using the purpliest of pulp prose to flit across science-fictional ideas of Cosmic Minds, matter transference and Galactic Empires, as we are told of Martin’s odd parentage and ensuing education and growth.

As a result, it varies wildly from parts that hit their target well to other sections that are just over-excitedly silly. It is rather amusing to have this parody of Asimov’s robotics and Galactic Empire stories alongside John Baxter’s more straightforward version earlier in the magazine. Which, in itself, is a point, I guess. I liked some of it, but at the same time I’m a tad uncomfortable with a story that makes a joke out of rape. 3 out of 5.

The Mountain, by James Colvin

Moorcock’s latest under his nom de plume is a story of two men in (another) post-apocalyptic environment who are in Swedish Lappland on the trail of a young woman. As the story progresses the purpose of the plot changes from trying to meet the young girl to surviving climbing a mountain. It’s really all about the need for human challenge. There’s some nice musing on time and place and Man’s insignificance in all of this, but it is a story with limited potential and the now inevitable dour conclusion. 3 out of 5.

Box, by Richard Wilson

A strange tale of Harry McCann, whose existence is in the latest space saving economy,  a 7 x 7 x 5 feet box. Eating, sleeping and basically living his life as an artist & illustrator is all contained in this restricted space. It sounds unlikely but this story of a future with no physical human contact gets its message across without becoming tedious. 3 out of 5.

Articles

I suspect partly inspired by the new critical magazine SF Horizons, mentioned last month, Moorcock seems to be reintroducing more reviews and literary criticism than we’ve seen for a while. There’s an increased amount of articles this month, scattered through the magazine.

Biological Electricity attempts to do what the Good Doctor Asimov does so much better in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. This short article looks at how electricity generated spontaneously by living creatures could be used in the future. It’s informative but not as accessible as your American equivalent.

Can Spacemen Live With Their Illusions? is an article that shows us how space exploration may be hampered by the psychological as well as the physical effects on the intrepid travellers dealing with a new environment.

Book Reviews

In terms of Books this month, Mike Moorcock as James Colvin reviews The Worlds of Science Fiction by Robert P. Mills, and Introducing SF by the already mentioned soon-to-be-Worldcon-Guest-of-Honour Brian W. Aldiss. Brief mention is also made of Harry Harrison's The Ethical Engineer, The Paper Dolls by L. P. Davies, Galouye's The Last Leap and John Lymington's The Sleep Eaters as well as the reissue of some classic horror novels.

We also have a number of more in-depth reviews. James Colvin (remember him?) writes another celebratory review of Burroughs – that’s William S., not Edgar Rice – this time for his novel The Naked Lunch. At 42 shillings, though – nearly three times the price of an average hardback book – you've got to have some serious money to take the plunge.

Newcomer Alan Forrest pens an enthusiastic essay entitled Did Elric Die in Vain? about Mike Moorcock’s Fantasy character Elric (who was once a staple of Science Fantasy, now seemingly transferred over to New Worlds) in the novel Stormbringer and Hilary Bailey (aka Mrs Mike Moorcock) reviews Who? by Algis Budrys, summarised nicely by its title, Hardly SF.

No ratings this month but there is news that the next issue will include a JG Ballard story. Hurrah!

Summing up New Worlds

New Worlds is an eclectic mixture this month and there are signs that Moorcock is making his own stamp on the magazine. The addition of factual science articles and more literary reviews reflect this, and it must be said that the expansion of literary criticism has been one of Mike’s intentions since he took over as Editor. It’ll be interesting to see how the regular readers respond to it.

By including such material of course means that there’s less space for fiction, and I suspect that whilst that might ease Moorcock’s load a little – he is writing and editing a fair bit of it, after all – it may not sit well with readers. But then we are now monthly…

Summing up overall

Both issues read this month are pretty strong. I enjoyed the eclecticism of New Worlds, whilst Science Fantasy had some of the best stories amongst the less endearing. Consequently, both score well, but for different reasons. However, in this battle of the magazines I declare New Worlds the winner for me this month.

And that’s it for this time. Until the next…

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Magazine, Serial

[January 22, 1965] With Apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein (February 1965 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf


The guy on the right doesn't seem too happy about all this.

The long-anticipated movie version of the smash hit stage musical The Sound of Music had sneak previews in Minneapolis and Tulsa this month, and is scheduled to show up in theaters across the nation in March. This sugary-sweet confection, very loosely based on the true story of the Trapp Family Singers, isn't really my cup of tea, but I thought I would pay tribute to the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II by stealing the titles of some of the ditties that appear in it.

Caution: May cause diabetes.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain

Just a couple of days ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States for his first full term.


Chief Justice Earl Warren administers the oath of office.

The inaugural address was a short one. In the space of twenty minutes or so, he raised the issues of poverty, health care, literacy, and much more. A phrase about American lives lost in countries we barely know is surely a reference to the conflict in Vietnam. He even threw in a nod to the space program, mentioning the rocket that is heading toward Mars.

Those are a lot of steep, difficult mountains to conquer for any politician, so let's wish the President well.

Do Re Mi

I've complained before about some of the syrupy ballads that reach the top, so I was pleased to see two tunes more to my liking jump to Number One this month. Both are courtesy of the UK, so pip pip and cheerio to our friends across the pond!

Earlier this month, the Beatles made a big comeback on the American charts with their upbeat rock 'n' roll number I Feel Fine.


The big advantage of buying a record instead of going to a Beatles concert is that you can actually hear the song instead of screaming.

Even as I type this, the news reaches me that British songbird Petula Clark is now Number One in the USA, belting out a nifty tribute to the pleasures of big city living called Downtown.


Baby, it's her, as far as music fans go.

My Favorite Things

Like the rest of you, I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy stories, at least when they're done reasonably well. Let's take a look at the latest issue of Fantastic and hope for the best.


Cover art by Heidi Coquette.

A Fortnight of Miracles, by Randall Garrett

A magician, who is also handy with a quarterstaff, travels around with his familiar, a goblin. (In this world, that means an earth elemental.) They run into — literally! — a most unusual knight. Although he can talk and fight and do all kinds of knightly things, he's just an empty suit of armor. After a brief period of misunderstanding, the sorcerer and the goblin agree to help him find the wizard who put a curse on him.

Fortunately, all users of magic have to travel to a convention once per century or lose their powers, and it's going on right now. The knight also has to triumph at a jousting tournament, which is hard to do when you're just a suit of armor that doesn't weigh very much. Add in a lovesick wood nymph, the King of Faerie, and some Bad Guys, and you got a lighthearted fantasy adventure. It provides some amusement, although it's hardly profound.

Three stars.

Passage to Dilfar, by Roger Zelazny

If you studied Homer in school, you're familiar with the term in medias res. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, this brief tale begins in the middle of things.

Our hero, Dilvish the Damned, is riding his talking metal horse, for which he sold part of his soul, from the site of a lost battle, in order to carry the news to a city threatened by the advancing enemy. Along the way lots of foes try to stop him, but he escapes them all. A final encounter with a a knight wearing invulnerable armor tests the skills of Dilvish and his steed.

This lightning-paced tale is very well written, but it reads like a few pages torn out of a much longer story. I hope the author eventually tells us more about the Damned fellow.

Three stars.

The Repairmen of Cyclops (Part Two of Two), by John Brunner


Illustration by George Schelling.

As you may recall from the previous installment, the Corps Galactica finds evidence that the ruling class of the planet Cyclops is somehow restoring body parts for those lost by the wealthy; a thing which should be beyond their level of medical technology. As strongly hinted at last time, that's because they're buying them from some sinister folks who exploit the population of a planet unknown to the Corps.

The Bad Guys convince their victims that they're suffering from a terminal illness, take them away, and pay their families, pretending to be a sort of hospice. Of course, they really murder them in cold blood, and sell them to the physician on Cyclops who takes care of the elite.

In the concluding half of this short novel, the Corps figures out what's going on and tries to stop it. Complicating matters is the fact that the woman who is the de facto ruler of Cyclops orders the Corps to abandon their base on the planet, even though this will cause great economic hardship for her world. She has her own motive, which involves the physician and one of the innocent inhabitants of the secret planet. It all leads up to a daring raid on the evil doctor's lair by the heroine, a highly skilled and experienced agent of the Corps.

That makes the plot sound melodramatic, and, indeed, the climax resembles something from a James Bond novel. However, the characters are believable, the background is complex, and the combination of violent action and political intrigue always held my interest.

Four stars.

Winterness, by Ron Goulart


Also by George Schelling. I like the white-on-black effect.

Set in the early part of the Twentieth Century, this tongue-in-cheek yarn involves a spiritualist and a married couple, both of whom are novelists. The woman believes in the medium's powers, the man does not. At a seance for a newspaper editor and his mistress, the skeptic falls into danger, and dark secrets are revealed.

I've made the story sound a lot more serious than it is. Although the plot isn't a funny one, the characters, the dialogue, and the narrative style are all good for some laughs. I particularly liked a bit of satire on the writing game of years gone by, with the woman producing sentimental novels with titles like Venetia; or Led Where Love Compels and the man turning out muckraking works like Soil and Steam.

Three stars.

The Vamp, by Thomas M. Disch

The narrator is an old-time movie actor, going back to the silent days, who is now the host of a TV kiddie show. He sees his ex-wife on the street, acting like a flirtatious 1920's flapper to the men who pass by, who don't seem interested. That's not a big surprise, since she's more than sixty years old, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, dead white skin, ruby lips, sharp teeth . . .

OK, you know where this is going, from the title if nothing else. The narrator never figures it out, so he invites her home for a very rare — in fact, bloody — steak. That leads to the story's joke ending.

The whole thing is just a trifle, but I liked it well enough. Maybe that's because the idea of turning a silent-screen star into a you-know-what tickled me. Or maybe because the story reminded me of the great old movie Sunset Boulevard. (I can definitely see a similarity between the Vamp and Norma Desmond.)

Three stars.

So Long, Farewell

Before I say goodbye, let me sum up my thoughts on this issue. Overall, it was pretty decent. No bad stories, although many of them were definitely minor works. That's a lot better than a magazine full of lousy fiction, so I won't complain when I read something good.

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Magazine, Serial

[January 18, 1965] Doors also open (February 1965 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Eulogy for One

I opened this month's Fantasy & Science Fiction to the sad news that author Richard McKenna had passed away.  He was quite an excellent author, one who (like me) started writing fiction late in life.  That he was only to devote eight years to a career he'd hoped to last for sixty is a tragedy for all concerned.  Here's his obituary in full.

It is perhaps the fittest balm that the February 1965 issue of F&SF is the first really good one in a long time.  New editor Joe Ferman may have finally exhausted the dreck his predecessor, Avram Davidson, had assembled.  Aside from the improvement in quality and the inclusion of an honest-to-goodness science fiction story, I note there is only one piece in what I'd call the "joke" category, and there are four entries by women.  F&SF has traditionally published the most women per capita, but under Davidson's reign, that distinction had been surrendered.

So let's welcome back this return to form (long may it last).  Come take look:

The Issue at Hand


by Jack Gaughan

Marque and Reprisal, by Poul Anderson

Perhaps a hundred years from now, Earth's World Federation, beginning to settle the stars, runs into the humanoid Aleriona in the disputed Phoenix sector.  A misunderstanding ensues, and after Alerion ships slaughter the human population of New Europe with nuclear missiles, they occupy the planet.

Accidents happen.  Surely the decimation of half a million people is not worth risking interstellar war over, especially on the eve of establishing formal trade relations between Earth and Alerion.  Except, as we learn early on, most of those 500,000 colonists aren't dead.  They are holed up in New Europe's mountains, hoping for a rescue effort that the Federation is unwilling to mount.  Thus, the information is suppressed, its purveyors ostracized.

This all sits poorly with Gunnar Heim, a former space cruiser captain.  If not the Federation as a whole, surely at least one nation will stand up for New Europe.  And indeed, France would do so — if it had its own navy, which it does not in this future enlightened time.

But the Federation was never a signatory to the 1856 Declaration of Paris, which outlawed Letters of Marque…

This story takes a little while to get going, and it has a little bit too much of the protagonist talking to himself, which is one of Poul Anderson's idiosyncrasies.  It also lacks a single woman character.  On the other hand, it has many things going for it.  It is a space story, something the magazine has been sorely lacking for a long time.  It is an interesting story (ditto).  And it derails itself halfway through with a completely unexpected plot twist; I always appreciate it when an author can pull this off.

I'm giving it four stars even though it ends on a cliffhanger.  If there isn't a sequel, I'll eat my hat.

The Sin of Edna Schuster, by Willard Marsh

Mrs. Schuster engages in a tryst with a passionate, mysterious man named Raoul, an expatriate from some Latin country.  It becomes quite clear at the end that he is not quite of this world.

I am going to refrain from rating this one.  It's quite well written, but I fail to recognize the fable/myth it references at the end, so I cannot tell how effective it is at what it's trying to do.

Please enlighten me?

Mrs. Pribley's Underdog, by Sue Sanford

Aging widow Pribley discovers and becomes quite fond of an alien she finds on her lawn, one best described as a looking like an organic vacuum cleaner.  But if this is the extraterrestrial her scientist brother has been in mental communication with, why is it that it is suddenly incapable of anything more than the most rudimentary thoughts?

It's cute, the "joke" story I mentioned.  Three stars.

Time and the Sphinx, by Leah Bodine Drake

Here's a lovely piece about Time as personified aspect, and the Egyptian goddess-in-stone he comes to loathe.  Can he defeat her with his withering powers?  And will he be pleased with the outcome?

Four stars.

Harmony in Heaven, by Isaac Asimov

In which the Good Doctor discovers Kepler's Third Law and proceeds to draw up a number of tables.  It's exciting as it sounds (although, to be fair, Dr. A. is never bad).

Three stars.

The Switch, by Calvin Demmon

The Professor has been dead for a century, but his soul lives on in a box as gray as he was when he passed.  Every few months, he is switched on by some 21st Century student who wants first-hand knowledge of life in the 20th. 

Is this immortality?  Or a kind of hell?  Either way, I found it poignant.  Four stars.

Look Up, by Karen Anderson

The subject of this poem is the Tomorrowland that is space.  The quality is not up to Karen's usual snuff.  Two stars.

The Absolutely Perfect Murder, by Miriam Allen deFord

How best to eliminate a pesky spouse?  Kill their father before the spouse can be born, of course!  But, as is always the case with stories, there's an unforeseen wrinkle.

Nothing new with this piece, but neither is there anything offensive.  A low three stars.

The Placebo Effect, by Theodore L. Thomas

Our science springboardist suggests that the Placebo Effect, which is real, could be developed into a perfect cure, if only we could find the perfect placebo for every malady.

You'll quickly spot the logical fallacy, but as satire, it's kind of fun.

Three stars.

The Deadeye Dick Syndrome, by Robert M. Green, Jr.

Against the admonitions of a crackpot occultist, Tom Fish heads out to the desert.  And in the pre-dawn dark, he comes face to face with the "vast black thing, poised like a crow over the moon."  Suffused with a thrilling energy, he returns to his town only to find he is now utterly despised by all — liked Deadeye Dick from H.M.S. Pinafore.  Only the fruitcake can save Fish from an imminent lynching.

It starts excitingly, ends confusingly, and there is entirely too much quoting and name-dropping of Charles Fort and Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, but I hesitate to give it lower than three stars just because I am largely ignorant of the work of those three men.

Dialogue in a Twenty-First Century Dining Room, by Robert F. Young

Last up is a short piece in script form detailing how a scrupulously average couple in a deliberately average society manage to beat the wondrous Bartlett's quoting rowk bird into insipid inanity.

Good for what it is.  Three stars.

Celebration for All

And so, we say good-bye to a bright star, but we see the rosy-fingered dawn of a reborn F&SF.  Sadness and hope in equal measures.  Things could be worse.  I'll drink to both.


by "Moonman82"

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[January 14, 1965] The Big Picture (March 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Science fiction writers often have to deal with things on a very large scale. Whether they take readers across vast reaches of space, or into unimaginably far futures, they frequently look at time and the universe through giant telescopes of imagination, enhancing their vision beyond ordinary concerns of here and now.

(This is not to say anything against more intimate kinds of imaginative fiction, in which the everyday world reveals something extraordinary. A microscope can be a useful tool for examining dreams as well.)

A fine example of the kind of tale that paints a portrait of an enormous universe, with a chronology reaching back for eons, appears in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, from the pen of a new, young writer.


Cover art by George Schelling

World of Ptavvs, by Larry Niven


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan

Our story begins about two billion years ago. The character shown above is a member of a telepathic species with the power to enslave other sentient beings with their minds.


An example of a slave species that doesn't play much part in the story.


This slave species, on the other hand, has a big impact on what happens to its masters.

Kzanol the Thrint has a problem. On his way to the homeworld in his starship, the engine that allows it to make long-distance voyages explodes. The rest of the ship is unharmed, but Kzanol is stranded. Fortunately, he has a suit that slows time down to a crawl for the wearer. He can't reach his native planet with the power his ship has left, but he can crash into an uninhabited planet, where yeast is grown to feed slaves, after a couple of centuries. He stashes some valuables into a spare suit, puts on the other one, programs the ship for the slow journey, and goes into stasis, expecting to be rescued once enough time has gone by.


Kzanol in the stasis suit.

Cut to Earth, in a future of flying cars and interstellar travel. Larry Greenberg (now where have I seen that first name before?) is a telepath. Compared to an average Thrint, he has hardly any ability at all; but it's enough to get him a job communicating mentally with dolphins. This is really just a stepping stone to a real career of reaching the minds of aliens discovered on the planet humans call Jinx.

Scientists who have just invented a time-slowing device — sound familiar? — realize that the so-called Sea Statue, an ancient object found at the bottom of the ocean, is really an alien inside a similar stasis field. By placing it inside their own gizmo, they can deactivate it. Larry is along to pick up the thoughts of the alien. This works much too well.

Kzanol's mind takes over Larry's body. Although he still has human memories, he thinks he is really a Thrint, lost on a world of ptavvs (beings without telepathic powers.) He also believes that he is trapped in the body of a ptavv himself, because he is unable to control the inhabitants of the planet with his mind.


One of several genetically engineered species Larry/Kzanol remembers, adding greatly to the feeling of a richly imagined background. These are giant plants that use solar power as a defense mechanism.


These are dinosaur-sized, single-celled animals the Thrint use for food, feeding them on yeast. There turns out to be much more to them than meets the eye.


Racing animals, like horses or greyhounds on Earth.


The interiors of these trees act as rocket fuel.

At the same time, the real Kzanol escapes from his stasis suit. This leads to a wild chase across the solar system, as both Kzanol and Larry/Kzanol race to find the other stasis suit, which contains a telepathy-enhancing device that would allow the wearer to control all the minds on Earth. Both Earth-dwellers and the colonists who inhabit the asteroid belt head out after the pair. There's an economic cold war going on between Earthers and Belters, adding to the tension.


Kzanol thinks the other suit is on Neptune, but it turns out to be on Pluto, which used to be a moon of Neptune a couple of billion years ago.

This is a fast-moving, complex story with a richly imagined background. The author clearly did a lot of work creating his fictional universe and populating it with a wide variety of organisms. There are so many concepts thrown out that some readers may feel overwhelmed. Certain elements are not fully explored. (The slave that Kzanol throws into his spare suit seems to have no relevance to the plot. And what's going to happen to the colonists on Jinx? Maybe a sequel?) Overall, however, it's a fine novella, indicative of an important new talent.

Four stars.

Undersea Weapons Tomorrow, by Joseph Wesley

The first of a pair of nonfiction articles in this issue imagines naval warfare two decades from now. The scenario is similar to the Cuban situation, heated up quite a bit. The Good Guys set up a blockade of an unfriendly island. The Bad Guys use submarines to attack Good Guy shipping. The author considers the balance of wins and losses in this aquatic battle. (For example, how many ships do you need to sink to make up for the number of submarines lost in the process?)

He also discusses locating the enemy via spy satellites, very slow seagoing bases for aircraft, and porpoises as allies. It's a rather dry piece, with some interesting aspects.

Two stars.

Scarfe's World, by Brian W. Aldiss


Illustration by Gray Morrow

This starts like one of those corny old movies where cave people and dinosaurs live at the same time. There are a couple of odd things about this primitive world, however. Sometimes people just dissolve, and the male protagonist doesn't really understand why he wants to be near the female protagonist.

We soon find out that the humans and dinosaurs are miniature forms of artificial life, created for study. The process sometimes breaks down, explaining the dissolving, and the organisms don't reproduce, explaining the caveman's confused feelings.

There really isn't much to this story other than its basic concept. The last third returns to the point of view of the caveman, which pretty much rehashes what went on in the first third.

Two stars.

Phobos: Moon or Artifact?, by R. S. Richardson

Our second science article answers the question posed in its title right away. The author considers a Russian article from 1959 that suggested that Phobos is hollow, rejects it, and tells us why. The reasoning is highly technical. If I understand things correctly, when a moon is slowed in its orbit by something or other, it approaches the planet. Thus, although its velocity was decreased at first, it actually increases later.

Apparently Phobos increased its velocity due to this effect, but Deimos did not. One explanation for the observed effect would be if Phobos had an extremely low mass for its size; as if it were a hollow artificial satellite, for example. The author points out that there are several other explanations for the phenomenon, and that it really isn't that well established anyway. The whole thing will probably be of more interest to experts in orbital mechanics than the general reader.

Two stars.

By Way of Mars, by Ron Goulart

A guy falls for a girl, but she keeps standing him up at their dates. The Government Lovelorn Bureau tells him to forget her, but he doesn't give up that easily. Things rapidly get way out of hand, as the fellow gets in trouble with the cops, is shanghaied to Venus, escapes to Mars, and becomes the leader of a rebellion on the red planet.

I found the author's satiric portrait of a near future Earth, with suicide clubs and sex book plotters, more effective than the protagonist's interplanetary misadventures. The intent seems to be comic, although nothing particularly funny happens.

Two stars.

Pariah Planet, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.


Illustrations by John Giunta

A spaceman kills a man in a bar fight on a planet with an odd system of justice. Although it was self-defense, he is convicted of murder, and transported to a prison planet. The underground society of this world is ordinary enough, with a couple of exceptions.

There are two groups of citizens. Type A people wear all different kinds of clothing, but Type B people must wear black at all times. Type B citizens are also required to repeat the crimes for which they were convicted, with the Type A citizens as victims. The protagonist, for example, is told to murder one Type A person each week.


The Type A people aren't really bald, as shown here, but the illustration sort of clues the reader in on what's going on.

This leads to a crisis of conscience, as the unspecified consequences of failing to commit one's assigned crime are said to be very serious indeed. As time goes by, the main character grows more and more fearful of what fate awaits him, and finds himself tempted to kill one of the Type A people, who seem like perfect victims.


The protagonist in a brooding mood.

The contrived situation reminds me of the sort of thing that used to show up a lot in Galaxy in the old days, with some aspect of society reflected in a funhouse mirror. Here, of course, it's crime and punishment. You'll probably figure out the nature of the Type A people, and how this eccentric system of justice is supposed to work, long before the end.

Two stars.

That's About the Size of It

After a big start, the second half of the magazine shrinks into a collection of disappointing little stories and articles. Maybe it's just the contrast between Niven's wide-ranging imagination and much shorter, less ambitious pieces. In any case, the publication is large enough to accommodate losers as well as winners. What do you expect for half a buck, anyway?


A big coin for a big magazine.

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