Category Archives: Serial

[April 10, 1970] A Style in Treason (May 1970 Galaxy)

[Be sure to tune in tonight at 7PM PDT for Science Fiction Theater!  It's Nimoytacular—plus Apollo 13 pre-launch coverage!]

A color photograph of Leonard Nimoy and a white woman standing together in front of a curtain.  He is looking down and to the right of the frame and the woman's eyes are closed as she leans on his shoulder.


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

Backlash in D.C.

50,000 people marched on Washington last week protesting the course of the Vietnam War.  Sure, you think, another day ending in "y", right?

Except these kooks were protesting for the war!

A black and white photograph of a pro-war protest outdoors in Washington DC.  Government buildings are in the background.  In the foreground a group of white women are holding up a long banner which reads Let's Demand Victory in Vietnam. The woman at the center of the banner is holding two American flags crossed over her chest.  Behind them a crowd of people are holding up signs.  The only one legible reads In God We Trust.
Photo taken by Tom Norpell

Organized by a fundamentalist coalition, religious fervor dominated the gathering.  That said, there were plenty of Birchers and Nazis in attendance, too, making this a truly ecumenical demonstration.

A black and white photograph of white men marching down a city street while carrying banners on long poles.  At the top of each pole is a symbol of a lightning bolt inside a circle.  Beneath that a sign reads NSRP, the acronym for the National States Rights Party.  The banner extending down from the sign also has the circle-and-lightning-bolt motif, with God Bless America written above and below it. A crowd of onlookers is in the background.
Photo taken by Tom Norpell

There were even counter-counter protestors.

A black and white photograph of a white man with chin length dark hair standing outdoors.  He is wearing a knit cap and leather jacket and smoking a cigarette. He has his hands in his pockets and is frowning.  Over his jacket he is wearing a pillowcase with arm and head holes cut in the seams.  On it is painted Thou Shalt Not Kill. -God.  The center of the O in Not has a button attached to it showing a hand making a peace sign. A woman in an overcoat and rain hood is standing behind him.
Photo taken by Tom Norpell

Which poses the question: can Nixon still call them a "silent" majority?

A black and white photograph from a newspaper showing more of the people attending the pro-war protest.  In the center front is a man in a wheelchair holding an Merican flag, with another man standing behind him guiding the chair.  A woman to his left is holding a sign with multiple slogans  pasted on it, including Stand Up for America and Wallace 72. In the background other protesters are carrying American flags as well as other signs, mostly reading In God We Trust or Victory in Vietnam. The newspaper caption reads: March for Victory: Some of the estimated 50,000 people who took part in the parade advocating victory in Vietnam as they assembled in Washington yesterday.

Calm after the storm

There's really nothing to protest in the latest issue of Galaxy, which offers, in the main, a pleasant reading experience.

A color photograph of the cover of the May 1970 edition of Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine  Along the left side are listed stories by David Gerrold, James Blish, Avram Davidson, and Arthur C. Clarke.  The image shows a blue and black blob-like shape with multiple eye-like orbs embedded in it, against a yellow background.  Other orbs extend upwards from the blob, attached by black threads.  Parts of the blob seem to have been pulled up like pieces of dough around these upper orbs. The upper orbs have, from left to right, a green-cast image of half of a man's face (the other half is in shadow); A red-cast image of a man standing and looking outward; and a star or galaxy against a backdrop of outer space.
by Jack Gaughan for A Style in Treason

The DDTs, by Ejler Jakobsson

Our new(ish) editor starts with a rather odd screed against the banning of DDT.  What's a few birth defects compared to the plunge in malaria throughout the globe?

I understand the idea of "acceptable losses", but surely there must be a better way to combat disease than with malady.  Let's strive for the best of both worlds.

A Style in Treason, by James Blish

The two-page title spread for the story A Style in Treason.  The title, author, and story summary are written on the right-side page, superimposed over the image.  THe image shows a black and white charcoal collage-style drawing of many different faces of men and women in a variety of poses.  All are in light grey except one person near the center of the image who is drawn in stark black and white, looking up and to the left.
by Brock Gaughan

Two empires vie for control of the galaxy.  One is the realm of High Earth ("not necessarily Old Earth—but not necessarily not, either") .  The other is authoritarian Green Exarch, composed entirely of non-humans.  The humanoid worlds, and the ex-Earth planets, are fair game for both sides.  The plum of the spiral nebula, perhaps even the linchpin, is rich Boadicea, proud first to rebel against the cradle of humanity.  If one could claim that world as an ally—or a conquest—it could turn the galactic tides of fortune.

Enter Simon du Kuyl, Head Traitor (read: spy) of High Earth.  His plan is to appear to sell out High Earth but really buy Boadicea.  His sensitive information, that may or may not be true, is that High Earth and the Green Exarch are actually in limited collusion.  But the success of du Kuyl's mission lies in delivering this information to the right people at the right time, and perhaps even to be caught in the act.

This is an odd piece from Blish, a sort of Cordwainer Smith meets Roger Zelazny.  It feels a bit forced at times, and the ending is a touch opaque.  On the other hand, I like Cordwainer Smith, who is no longer offering up new sources.  And Zelazny's own works have been more than a bit forced (and opaque) these days.  In comparison, Blish's work feels the more grounded.

Four stars.

The God Machine, by David Gerrold

The two-page title spread for the story The God Machine.  The title, author, and story summary are written on the right-side page in a white space  in the middle of the image.  It is unclear whether the image has been erased under the title or if there is simply a white space in the picture.  The picture is an abstract black and white drawing.  The outline is uneven and curves around the page, and is filled in with straight lines and cross-hatched shading.  At the center of the left-side page, a circular graphic is superimposed, consisting of seven birds surrounding and facing inward toward a circle with the letters SS inside it.
by Jack Gaughan

As I guessed might happen last time, the tales of HARLIE (Human Analogue Robot, Life Input Equivalents) the sapient machine continue.  This is a direct sequel to the first story, in which HARLIE occasionally "trips out", distorting his inputs so as to stimulate gibberish output.  Now we find out why he's doing it.

HARLIE wants to know the meaning of life, particularly the meaning of his life.  Auberson, his liaison and "father" is stumped.  After all, if humans haven't figured that out, how can we explain it to a machine, however human?

In the end, HARLIE decides religion is the answer…but whose religion?  His?

Once again, a pretty good tale, although the pages of CAPITAL LETTER DIALOGUE WITHOUT PUNCTUATION CAN BE HARD TO FOLLOW.  Also, Gerrold hasn't yet figured out how to write convincing romance.

Three stars.

Neutron Tide, by Arthur C. Clarke

This very short piece is mostly a set-up for a truly bad pun, but I appreciated how it takes the piss out of Niven's Neutron Star by demonstrating the physical impossibility of a close approach to such an object.

Three stars.

The two-page title spread for the story Neutron Tide.  The title and author's name are written on the right-side page, superimposed over the right edge of the image, which is mostly on the left-side page.  A series of concentric circles suggest a neutron star.  A blocky object appears to be flying toward it, with flames extending backward from it toward the viewer.
by Jack Gaughan

The Tower of Glass (Part 2 of 3), by Robert Silverberg

The two-page title spread for the story The Tower of Glass, Part II.  THe title and author's name are written at the top of the left-side page.  Below, and then extending upward toward the right, the image shows a tower extending toward the sky in sharply forced perspective. At its base, people appear to be congregating around a blocky machine.  In the right foreground, a woman with a scared expression extends a hand palm-out toward the viewer as if to stop something, while her other hand clutches her chest.
by Jack Gaughan

The tale of old Krug's tower, the one that will reach 1500 meters in height to communicate with the stars, continues.  Not much happens in this installment.  Krug's ectogene (artificial womb) assistant Spaulding demands to see the android shrine.  Krug's android right-hand man Thor Watchman misdirects him with tragic results: when two members of the Android Equality Party approach Krug, Spaulding assumes it is an assassination attempt, and he kills one of them.  This causes a crisis in faith among the androids who worship Krug as a redeemer.

If the pace is rather turgid, the philosophical points raised are fascinating.  Four stars.

Timeserver, by Avram Davidson

The title image for the story Timeserver.  The title, author, and story summary are written below the image.  The image shows charcoal line drawings of three men who appear to be inside a drinking glass. One faces down with hands on knees as though he had just finished a race.  One faces the viewer as though preparing to run.  The third stands upright but leaning to the side as if drawing back from something he is looking at on the ground.
by Jack Gaughan

This story is about a fellow who lives in an overcrowded, underloving future.  Surcease from gloom is gotten by scraping off the scarred outer layers of one's psyche, exposing the unsullied id for a short while.  Except our story's hero has been crushed by society so long, there's really nothing underneath.

These days, Davidson is writing nonsense that makes R. A. Lafferty scratch his head.  Both facile and confusing, I didn't like it much.  Two stars.

Galaxy Bookshelf (Galaxy, May 1970), by Algis Budrys

The title image for the Galaxy Bookshelf column by Algis Budrys.  The words are written in a calligraphic font inside a square border with rounded corners.  Stars and planets are drawn around and inside the words.

Budrys devotes his entire column to savaging Silverberg's Up the Line:

Maybe he just wanted to write some passages about Constantinople and going to bed with Grandma.  That would be a pretty smart-arse thing to do, though, considering how much auctorial effort and reader seventy-five centses are involved here.

It's a non-book.  I guess that's what Up the Line is.  It isn't sf — neither tech fiction nor any other previously recognized kind.  It's a new kind of non-book.  And as you may have gathered, it doesn't even find anything new in Grandma.

Whatever Became of the McGowans?, by Michael G. Coney

A black and white line drawing.  In the foreground stand three people who appear to be turning into trees.  Their arms end in branches, and twigs extend from their heads, backs, and shoulders.  They no longer have facial features.  In the background, two people stand in high grass.  They are holding hands and looking at the trees.  A stylized sun is overhead.
by Jack Gaughan

The planet Jade seems like a paradise—setting aside the complete lack of animal life and the eerie quiet.  A couple has settled down to raise Jade Grass for export; their only disappointment is that their neighbors, the McGowans, seem to have disappeared.

As the months go by, unsettling things happen.  Time seems to rush by.  The settler couple and their new baby develop a kind of jaundiced skin.  They feel compelled to spend all of their time naked in the sun.  Eventually, their feet grow roots…

The scientific explanation at the end the weak point of this story, just complete nonsense, and unnecessary.  The rest of the story, though, is really nicely told.  It feels very '50s Galaxy, which is not a bad mood to evoke.

Three stars.

Sunpot (Part 4 of 4), by Vauhn Bodé

The title images for the story Sunpot.  The title, author, and story summary are written above the images, which are in two panels like a comic strip.  The left shows a phallic spaceship above a planet, with a nearby star and its corona in the background among a sea of stars. The right panel shows the same spaceship and planet from a different angle - this time the planet is above the spaceship, and the sea of stars is below.

The Sunpot crashes into Venus. 

Two stars.

The Editorial View: Overkill, by Frederik Pohl

The ex-editor of Galaxy offers up a short piece noting the correlation between the rate of infant mortality and the era of above-ground nuclear bomb testing.  Apparently, kids were dying less and less in infancy…until Strontium 90 entered the environment in a big way.  For 15 years, until the Test Ban Treaty, infant mortality no longer declined.  Now it has resumed its drop.

Correlation is not causation, but folks are at least starting to investigate the possible connection.

Summing Up

And there you have it!  A perfectly decent read, trodding the middle road between The New Thing and Nostalgia.  I like Jakobssons's mag, and I intend to continue my subscription when it comes up.

A black and white image of the subscription reminder at the end of the magazine.  It reads:  REMEMBER: new subscriptions and changes of address require 5 weeks to process!



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


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[April 6, 1970] Uncovered (May 1970 Amazing)

Apollo 13 coverage starts tonight and goes on for the next two weeks!  Don't miss a minute.  Check local listings for broadcast times.


A black-and-white photo portrait of John Boston. He is a clean-shaven white man with close-cropped brown hair. He wears glasses, a jacket, shirt, and tie, and is looking at the camera with a neutral expression.
by John Boston

Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye

The May Amazing presents a new face to the world.  That is, the cover was actually painted for the magazine, as opposed to being recycled from the German Perry Rhodan.  It’s not by one of the new artists editor White was talking up in the last issue, but rather by John Pederson, Jr., who has been doing covers on and off for the SF magazines since the late 1950s.  Ditching the second-hand Europeans is a step forward in itself, though this particular cover is not much improvement: a slightly stylized picture of a guy sitting in a spacesuit on a flying chair with a disgruntled expression on his face, against an improbable astronomical background.

Cover of May 1970 issue of Amazing magazine, featuring a painting of what appears to be a spaceship (made for maneuvering within an atmosphere a la a contemporary jet plane) flying away from a pair of planets.  Overlaid over that space scene, there is a picture of an aging white man in a space-suit seated in what appears to be a command chair with lap controls.
by John Pederson, Jr.

But it is an interesting development for a couple of reasons.  First, in the letter column, White goes into more detail than previously about the European connection, in response to a question about why the covers are not attributed.  White says: “The situation is this: an agency known as Three Lions has been marketing transparencies of covers from Italian and German sf magazines and has sold them to a variety of book and magazine publishers in this country, including ourselves.  These transparencies were unsigned.  One of our competitors credited its reprint covers to ‘Three Lions;’ we felt that was less than no credit at all.  Therefore, unless the artist’s signature was visible, we omitted the contents-page credit.  As of this issue, however, Amazing returns to the use of original cover paintings by known U.S. artists.”

So much, then, for Johnny Bruck, and a hat tip to the diligent investigators who have identified all his uncredited reprint covers as they were published.  In addition to Pederson, White says, he’s obtained covers from Jeff Jones and Gray Morrow, and in fact a Jones cover is already on last month’s Fantastic.  Further: “I might add that, beginning with our last issue, the art direction, typography and graphics for the covers of both magazines has been by yours truly.” So White has pried one more aspect of control of the magazine from the grip of Sol Cohen, presumably all to the good, though the visible effect to date is limited.

The editorial this issue is a long response to a letter about the state of SF magazines, from a reader who gets a number of things wrong.  White sets her straight, describing at length the economic and other constraints of publishing SF magazines, though little of what he says would be a surprise to the sophisticated readership of the Journey.  He also notes that Alan Shaw will be the new Assistant Editor and will take over the proofreading, and not a moment too soon.  White has acknowledged that spelling is not his long suit and regularly proves it, e.g. by beginning a story blurb “Scenerio for Destruction.”

In this issue’s book reviews, the chief bloodletter is Alexei Panshin, who says of Robert Silverberg’s three-novella anthology of stories on a theme set by Arthur C. Clarke that “there is no reason why the . . . book should be so mediocre.” He says Silverberg’s own story is “cheap science fiction,” while Roger Zelazny’s is “merely cheap.” James Blish’s entry, though, “is something else and something better”—but Panshin then says because it’s only novella length, it “carries the joke out to thinness but does not allow true in-depth examinations” of character and motive.  A few pages later, he says of the Wollheim and Carr World’s Best Science Fiction 1969, “This is not a book that I would recommend to the uncommitted.” But the problem is not with the editors.  “The trouble is that the science fiction short story is the limited corner of an extremely large field.  It is an almost inherently trivial form used for forty years for the illustrations of moralities, for the drawing of fine scientific distinctions, and for the building of psionic sandcastles.  There simply seems to be no room left for much beyond restatement or a trivial refinement of the already trivial.” The fault is not in the editors but the whole enterprise!  I guess everyone should quit and go home.

Less flamboyantly, Greg Benford offers measured praise for Bob Shaw’s The Palace of Eternity, Richard Lupoff gives less of the same to Dave van Arnam’s Starmind, Richard Delap provides a very mixed review to Burt Cole’s The Funco Files, and Lupoff is about as nice as possible to a 67-page vanity press book authored by a high school student.

By Furies Possessed (Part 2 of 2), by Ted White

The main event here is the conclusion of editor White’s serial By Furies Possessed, which starts out like a standard Heinlein-flavored SF novel (“It was a routine run.  We made liftoff at 03:00 hours and were down on the Moon three meals and two naps later.  I always slept well in freefall.”).  But then it turns into another flavor of Heinlein, or two: The Puppet Masters vs. Stranger in a Strange Land.  Which will win?  Will everyone grok?  Or will it be “Death and Destruction!,” as Heinlein so elegantly put it in The Puppet Masters?

The first-person narrator Dameron, field investigator at the Bureau of Non-Terran Affairs (and rather far down in the hierarchy), is on the Moon for the arrival of the Longhaul II, returning from the colony of Farhome, which has been isolated for generations.  He’s to meet Bjonn, the Emissary from Farhome, and show him around on Earth. 

Bjonn is a weirdly impressive character—tall, with white-blond hair, burnished walnut skin, pale blue eyes.  When he shakes hands with Dameron, “[t]he contact was electrical.” Bjonn hangs on to his hand and looks into his eyes.  Dameron is flustered.  Later: “his movements had a cat-like grace. . . . There was something more there than simple suppleness—he had a body-awareness, a total knowledge of where every part of his body was in relation to his immediate environment.” Dameron mentions the fact that Bjonn’s friends and family will all be 30 years older when he returns, and he remarks, strangely and without explanation: “True.  And yet, I am the Emissary.  I could not have stopped myself from coming here, even had I wished.”

At this point, plausibility problems begin to emerge.  When they arrive on Earth, “a Bureau pod was waiting” for them—but no higher-ranking welcoming dignitaries, functionaries, or spies.  Dameron takes Bjonn to his hotel suite, and Bjonn suggests ordering up room service for two.  “I felt the blood leave my face, and my limbs went watery.  I all but collapsed into a handy chair. . . .” It seems that on Earth nowadays, as Dameron puts it, “The act of food-partaking, like its twin and consequent act, is man’s most jealously guarded privacy.  It is an unbroachable intimacy.  I shall say no more.  It is not a subject I can or care to discuss.” We later learn that eating and “its twin and consequent act” are actually done together, sucking pureed food through a tube while sitting on a glorified toilet seat.

Now this is happening in a seemingly ordinary default American-style mid-future, though it’s called “NorthAm” and not the U.S. of A.  The population has grown and sprawled; transportation is faster and easier (Dameron commutes to his job in Megayork from Rutland, Vermont, where he can still see trees out the window of his high-rise).  There are a few flamboyant details from the playbook, such as women going bare-breasted in public.  But the eating taboo?  How did we get there from here?  There’s not a clue.  Religious movement?  One is mentioned, but has nothing to do with alimentation.  Cataclysm after which civilization had to be rebuilt?  Nope.

But onward.  Dameron has fled to his office, where he gets a call from his boss Tucker telling him that Bjonn is out on the town.  Dameron suggests his work buddy Dian come with him, and they find Bjonn easily because he’s had a surveillance device planted covertly under his skin.  Dameron shortly departs leaving Dian with Bjonn.  Later he learns Bjonn also propositioned her for a meal in order to share a “customary ritual” with her.  Dameron suggests to her that maybe she should see Bjonn again and consider accepting his offer.  She’s repelled, but she’s thinking about it.  Later, she calls and asks Dameron to come to Bjonn’s room.  When he gets there:

“Something had happened.
“Dian was changed.
“ ‘It’s so marvelous, Tad—so wonderful,’ she said.  ‘We want to share it with you.’ ”

It’s a meal she wants to share, of course, and Dameron flees again, throwing up on his shoes in the elevator.  And he goes home without reporting to anyone.

Black and white halftone illustration of a black-haired white woman staring intently at the viewer, reaching to offer a bowl whose contents splash out sprays of pseudopods.  In the foreground, a blond-haired white man reacts with fear and horror, recoiling at the prospective meal
by Gray Morrow

So let’s review the bidding.  Earth establishes contact with a lost colony after generations, and brings back an emissary who acts and talks in a strange and overbearing manner.  When he arrives, he is met and escorted to Earth by a single low-level government agent, who takes him to a hotel room and leaves him there.  There’s no other escort, protection, or surveillance other than his subcutaneous tracer, and there are no meetings or ceremonies planned or conducted for him with any higher-level officials.  Bjonn offends his contact with an offer that violates this society’s most fundamental taboo, which, as already noted, is not explained at all.  This can’t have been an ignorant mistake since (as Dameron notes) Bjonn has been on a spaceship with a crew from Earth on a several-month voyage to Earth, but there’s apparently been no report to Dameron’s agency of his not knowing of the taboo or seeking to breach it.  Dameron's superior now knows about this (though not yet about the last encounter with Bjonn and Dian) and hasn’t put on any greater security or surveillance, and as far as we know hasn’t reported it up the chain of command (his position is not stated but it’s clearly middle management at best, and we don’t see anyone higher up). 

This is some pretty major and implausible contrivance, the sort that might ordinarily warrant throwing the book across the room.  But White is a smoothly readable writer, so disbelief or exasperation gives way to wanting to see what happens next.  Which is: Dameron’s supervisor Tucker wakes him up in the morning demanding to know what happened to Dian.  He tells Tucker that she’s gone over to Bjonn—has shared a meal at his suggestion and has become “alien.” Tucker is not pleased, especially since Dian and Bjonn have vanished and Bjonn has removed his tracker.

Turns out, they’ve split for the Coast.  Dameron gives chase, doesn’t find them, gets called back East, and goes back to his routine work.  So no one, it appears, is paying attention to the mystery and potential menace of a weird alien with the power to transform human personality running around loose.  This changes only when Dameron attends a decadent high-society party which features (in addition to much corporeal sex ‘n drugs) erotic 3-D projections, one of which features Bjonn and Dian.

So, back on the trail!  Dameron gets on his infomat (seems like a miniature computer with a radio or telephone connection) and learns easily that Bjonn and Dian are still in California, just north of Bay Complex, and have set up a religion called the Brotherhood of Life, which offers the Sacrament of Life.  Dameron goes out and visits them, gets nothing but doubletalk as he hears it, and leaves, grabbing a girl named Lora from the lawn and taking her forcibly back to the local Bureau office for a biological examination.

Now somebody pays attention.  Dameron and Tucker are called to Geneva where they are informed that Lora's examination showed that she has been invaded by an alien parasite which has “created a second nervous system, directly parallel to her own.” So what are they going to do about it?  “Religious freedom is always a touchy issue.  Instead, we want you, Agent Dameron, to join his Church.”

Here I will stop with the plot synopsis, and say only that Agent Dameron returns to carry out his mission in an atmosphere of growing paranoia, and ultimately essays a far-fetched, long-odds, last-ditch plan to save humanity—though, of course, things don’t go as planned, nor are they as they seem.

But one more thing.  Along the way, White has sown clues that Dameron, though useful for his intuitive talent at making sense of fragmentary information, is—and is regarded as—a bit flaky and unreliable, possibly related to his upbringing (father dead, mother relinquished him to a “den”—a futuristic orphanage, not much better than present and past literary orphanages).  Just before he’s summoned to Geneva, he makes an appointment with a psychiatrist—his mother.  I have mixed feelings about how successful White is in developing the motif of Dameron’s psychological issues and how they affect his perceptions and actions (the Furies of the title have more than one referent). But it’s an interesting effort to wrap around the frame of an otherwise conventional SF novel.

So—an ambitious but flawed attempt to upgrade yer basic mid-level SF novel, whose flaws are smoothed over by capable writing.  Nice try.  Three and a half stars. 

As I mentioned last issue, the protagonist’s name is a slight variation on that of a distinguished jazz composer and musician.  The novel also contains a fair amount of “Tuckerization,” the practice initiated by Wilson (Bob) Tucker of using names from the SF community in SF writing—starting of course with Dameron’s boss, Tucker.  More elaborately, when Dameron goes looking for the roommate of disappeared Dian Knight, the names over the doorbell are “Knight—Carr.” The very well known fan Terry Carr, now an editor at Ace Books as well as author of a story in this issue, was once married to a woman named Miriam, who later became Miriam Knight.  When we see Ms. Carr’s full name, it’s Terri Carr.  There’s more: e.g., reference to the old Benford place, and later to Benford's son Jim (Greg and Jim Benford are brothers).  Exercise for the reader: Bjonn.

The Balance, by Terry Carr

Crosshatched ink title illustration for 'The Balance', featuring a dawn scene with a bare-chested white woman emerges from the peak of a mountain on the left, scaled as though wearing it as a skirt.  She looks away from the sun to lower right, but her left arm is outstretched, hand raised, holding the string of a pendulum which stretches all the way to the ground.  In the starry sky above her head, a saucer-shaped ship holds station.
by Michael William Kaluta

And here is the real Terry Carr himself, whose story The Balance displays a kind of schematic cleverness entirely too characteristic of the SF magazines.  Alien planet has two intelligent species, and the only thing they can eat is each other, so they have a cooperative relationship in which each hunts and eats the other only after their respective breeding seasons to avoid exterminating one and thereby starving the other.  They call this way of life the balance.  But there’s now a substantial human population on the planet, and some of them, including the protagonist, are trading knives and guns, which threaten to make the hunting and killing all the more efficient.  How to preserve the balance then?  There's only one logical response.  The protagonist gets a hint from a human tourist he’s dating and hastily leaves the planet, trying to warn “the local Federation office” but without much success.  A reluctant three stars—well turned, but entirely too formulaic.

Blood of Tyrants, by Ben Bova

Ben Bova’s Blood of Tyrants is presumably a satirical allusion to Thomas Jefferson’s pronouncement that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Boffins develop a program to take urban gang leaders off the street, hook them up to teaching machines so they can learn to read competently, instruct them in civic values, and prep them to go back into their communities and provide a more constructive sort of leadership.  It doesn’t quite work out that way, though the program certainly succeeds in making some of its subjects more effective leaders.

Black and white cartoon illustration of the door of a (apparently open) tobacconist's shop, liberally plastered with advertisements reading 'Canada is Dry' and 'Baby Ruth/Outasite', and a cigarette advertisement suggesting 'Be as ahead today, ZIF spring zepher'.
by Michael Hinge

This is essentially a Christopher Anvil-style reactionary fable, except competently written.  Bova presents it in movie-treatment form: “STILL PHOTO . . . Fast montage of scenes . . . Establishing shots. . . .,” etc. etc.  My first reaction was “Oh no, another casualty of Stand On Zanzibar,” but he makes the technique work, and it permits him to cut out a lot of connective tissue in service of a crisp narrative.  Three stars and a hat tip. 

Nobody Lives on Burton Street, by Greg Benford

Greg Benford’s Nobody Lives on Burton Street is another in the vein of Blood of Tyrants, but it suffers from the comparison.  The main characters are police supervisors who manage Burton Street, which is a sort of mock-up, like a Hollywood set, for people to riot in.  So who’s rioting today?  “The best guess—and that’s all you ever get, friends, is a guess—was a lot of Psych Disorders and Race Prejudice.  There was a fairly high number of Unemployeds, too.  We’re getting more and more Unemployeds in the city now, and they’re hard for the Force to deal with.  Usually mad enough to spit.  Smash up everything.”

Black and white line & wash drawing of two armored humanoid figures, labeled '5' and '7', with cannister backpacks sprouting antennae, carrying what appear to be rifles
by Jeff Jones

So as the rioters pour down the street, our heroes send in the AnCops, and later firefighters, who are all androids, and whom the rioters are allowed to abuse without limit, and after they all mix it up for a while, the rioters move on and the reclaim crew comes in to clean things up.

The idea seems to be that people who engage in disorderly protest are just angry in general, and all you have to do is provide a fake outlet for their anger and they’ll calm down until the next round.  There is a sort of contemptuous depersonalization here—the rioters are reduced to capitalized categories—which contrasts poorly with Bova’s story, cynical as it is.  There, at least, the bad guys are recognizable human beings.  There’s also another theme lurking here: apparently there’s a means for the more respectable elements like the police characters to manage their own anger and frustration; whether it’s chemical, psychosurgical, or other is never made clear.  Anyway, two stars.

A Skip in Time, by Robert E. Toomey

Black and white illustration with concentric layout, where the center depicts a humanoid working at some room-sized machine, where the expanding rings are capped with XII, suggesting a sequence of midnights, expanding out to the outer rings where pterosaurs fly in clouded skies
by Michael William Kaluta

Robert E. Toomey’s A Skip in Time is the kind of jokey and trivial story that has saved the back pages of SF magazines from blankness since Gernsback started receiving manuscripts.  Protagonist is drinking in a bar when there’s a commotion outside: a brontosaur is running loose and wrecking things.  He meets a guy on the street who explains he did it with his time displacer.  He invites protagonist to come see the time displacer.  After some more drinking, protagonist agrees to go back in time and try to scare away the brontosaur so it won’t be (or won’t have been) picked up by the time displacer.  Etc., with more drinking.  I’ve been tired of this kind of stuff for years, but this one is slickly done.  Three stars for competence.  This is Toomey’s third professionally published story.

Saturday’s Child, by Bill Warren

Saturday’s Child, by Bill Warren, is a cliched tear-jerker.  It’s the one about the old space dog who wants nothing more than to blast off again, but he's too old and sick.  In this variation, 600-plus-year-old Captain Dorn, and his telepathic hunterbeast (who adopted Dorn on some planet long ago) are rusticating on an unnamed and barely inhabited planet when an “earnest young man in Space Force black” informs him that the sun’s going nova, time to go, and by the way we’ve already packed up your possessions and taken them to the ship.  Dorn of course is having none of it, but they kill the hunterbeast and bundle Dorn up and the takeoff kills him, but not before he forgives them all and gets a final look out the window into space.  Cue the violins.  Well, it’s competently written.  Two stars.

Master of Telepathy, by Eando Binder

Black and white two-page spread for Master of Telepathy featuring illustrations of a pair of scientists, one man working over a complex assortment of electromechanical devices and glassware, with the other looking up in astonishment, hands poised over their instruments.
by Robert Fuqua

This issue’s Famous Amazing Classic is Master of Telepathy, by Eando Binder, from the December 1938 Amazing.  Professor Oberton, a psychologist, is studying extrasensory perception, having picked up quickly on the 1934 researches of Prof. J.B. Rhine, who is given due credit in the text and a footnote.  Young and shabby Warren Tearle shows up because he needs the five dollars that Oberton is paying to anyone who makes a high score on his tests.  Tearle aces them and, now better paid, becomes a daily fixture in Oberton’s lab, rapidly developing his powers not only of telepathy but also of clairvoyance and command.  Or, as he puts it to Darce, the professor’s beautiful assistant (you knew that was coming):

“I have reached the third level of psychic perception!  I now have practically unlimited clairvoyance and telepathy.  It was like having dawn come, after the dark night.  Professor Oberton had some inkling of what it would mean, but he had no idea of how much power it gives.  I can read thoughts, Darce, as easy as pie.  But more than that, I can give commands that must be obeyed! . . .
“My mind is not in direct contact with what the professor called the main field of the psychic world.  It is a sort of crossroads of all thoughts, all ideas, all minds, all things!  I can see and hear what I wish.  But more, I can force my will where I wish, carried by the tremendous power of the third level!”

So the world is at the mercy of an omnipotent megalomaniac!  But Professor Oberton figures out a way to use his own invincible powers against him, and the world is saved until the next issue.

This is actually a pretty well-written and developed story in its antiquated way, probably well above average for its time (well, maybe better five or six years earlier).  For ours . . . three stars, generously.

Where Are They?, by Greg Benford and David Book

Greg Benford and David Book contribute another “Science in Science Fiction” column, this one titled Where Are They?—Enrico Fermi’s famous question about intelligent extraterrestrials. They start by knocking off the notion that we are extraterrestrials, survivors of an ancient shipwreck or emergency landing.  Next, they point out that interstellar exploration would be fabulously expensive and extraordinarily boring, since faster-than-light travel is not in the cards or the equations.  Why bother?  And why keep at it after you’ve found a few other solar systems?  Colonization?  Forget it; if that were realistic, it would already have happened.  Exploitation of raw materials?  Too expensive.  Knowledge and ideas?  Now we’re talking.  Send probes, not space travellers, and if anybody’s there, try to open communications.  But this assumes the aliens are like us; if they are sea dwellers, would they look on land?  And what about the time scale?  If there’s life, but not usefully intelligent life, probes could wait and listen for radio signals.  Etc.  That’s a little over half the length of this dense and fertile run-through of possibilities, imaginative and thorough if long on speculation.  Four stars.

Summing Up

The issue is not bad, not great, but then what is among the current SF mags?  Even if there’s nothing here for the ages, the news about White’s progress in getting control over the magazine’s visual presentation is encouraging.



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


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[April 2, 1970] Being Human (May-June 1970 IF)

A white man with short gray hair poses in front of a wooden wall. He is wearing a gray blazer, yellow shirt, and black necktie, and is smiling toward the left of the viewer.
by David Levinson

Counting coups

March saw not one, but two attempts to overthrow the established government in smaller countries. One failed, but the other looks like it may have succeeded.

A color geographic and political map of the Mediterranean basin, showing the island of Cyprus in the middle of the image.
Cyprus is the island south of Turkey, west of Syria, north of Egypt

Cyprus is a troubled nation. The populace is divided between those of Greek and Turkish decent, and the long-running hostility between Greece and Turkey spilled over to Cyprus. When the island sought independence from the United Kingdom, Greek Cypriots hoped for eventual union with Greece, which was not acceptable to Turkish Cypriots. The British were able to block annexation (or enosis, as it is called in Cyprus) as a condition for independence, but relationships within the island are so rocky that UN peacekeepers had to be brought in to keep the two populations from each other’s throats.

A major figure in the independence movement was Orthodox Archbishop Makarios III, who has led the country ever since. Before independence, he was a strong supporter of enosis, but was persuaded to accept that it would have to be put off as a hoped for future event. Makarios isn’t terribly popular with western leaders; he’s been a major voice in the Non-aligned Movement. Some in Washington have taken to calling him “the Castro of the Mediterranean.” In the last few years, he’s made himself unpopular at home as well. He’s taken away guarantees of Turkish representation in government and has also moved away from the idea of enosis. His justification is the Greek military coup of 1967, stating that joining Cyprus to Greece under a dictatorship would be a disservice to all Cypriots.

A white man with short gray hair poses in front of a wooden wall. He is wearing a gray blazer, yellow shirt, and black necktie, and is smiling toward the left of the viewer.Archbishop Makarios III visiting the Greek royal family in exile in Rome earlier this year.

On March 8th, somebody tried to kill Makarios. His helicopter was brought down by withering, high-powered fire. Makarios was uninjured, but the pilot was severely wounded. Fortunately, nobody else was on board. At least 11 people have been arrested, all of Greek heritage and strong supporters of enosis. Given the military nature of the weapons used, some are also accusing the Greek Junta of involvement.

Meanwhile in south-east Asia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk is out as the leader of Cambodia. Like Makarios, he hasn’t been popular in the west, due to his cozy relations with both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. He’s also allowed Cambodian ports to be used for bringing in supplies for the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong, while also ignoring the use of Cambodian territory as part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

A color geographic and political map of the southeast Asian peninsula, with Cambodia in the center of the image.

Sihanouk was out of the country when anti-North Vietnamese riots erupted both in the east of the country and in Phnom Penh. Things quickly got out of hand, with the North Vietnamese embassy being sacked. By the 12th, the government canceled trade agreements with North Vietnam, closed the port of Sihanoukville to them, and issued an ultimatum that all North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces were to leave the country within 72 hours. When the demand wasn’t met, 30,000 protesters rallied outside the National Assembly against the Vietnamese.

On the 18th, The Assembly met and voted unanimously (except for one member who walked out in protest) to depose Sihanouk as the head of state. Prime Minister Lon Nol has assumed the head-of-state powers on an emergency basis. On the 23rd, Sihanouk, speaking by radio from Peking, called for an uprising against Lon Nol, and large demonstrations followed. A few days later, two National Assembly deputies were killed by the protesters. The demonstrations were then put down with extreme violence.

Two black and white photos.  On the left, Prince Sihanouk stands outside in front of several other men.  He has black hair and a concerned expression.  He is wearing a suit and tie and an overcoat, and is gesticulating with one hand while looking to the right of the photographer.  On the right, a head shot of Prime Minister Lon Nol.  He has gray hair and is wearing a black suit and tie.  He looks directly at the camera with a neutral expression.l: Prince Sihanouk in Paris shortly before his ouster. R: Prime Minister Lon Nol.

Where this will lead is anybody’s guess. The new government (it should be noted that the removal of Sihanouk appears to have been completely legal) has clearly abandoned the policy of neutrality and threatened North Vietnam with military action. Hanoi isn’t going to take that lying down; if the war spreads to Cambodia, will the Nixon administration expand American involvement? Add in Sihanouk urging resistance to Lon Nol and the deep reverence for the royal family held by many Cambodians, and it all looks like a recipe for chaos.

What is man

Some of the stories in this month’s IF deal directly or tangentially with what it is that makes humans human. The front cover also raises a question that we don’t have an answer to. We’ll get to that at the end; let’s look at the issue first.

The cover of the May-June 1970 edition of Worlds of If science fiction magazine. The magazine name and edition date are written in yellow across the top of the cover, except the word IF which appears in large white letters over a red rectangle.  Below this is a color painting of a white man's head staring directly out at the viewer. At the top of his head there are black lava-rock-like shapes that appear to be exploding out from his forehead.  The head appears to be emerging from a red and yellow pool of lava which is surrounded by dark swirls around the edge of the pool. At the bottom of the cover titles are listed: Novelette The Piecemakers, by Kieth Laumer; The Reality Trip by Robert Silverberg; Zon by Avram Davidson; Troubleshooter by Michael G. Coney. To the right the tagline of the magazine reads: If, the magazine of alternatives.Suggested by Troubleshooter. Art by Gaughan

The Reality Trip, by Robert Silverberg

What appears to be David Knecht is actually a small, crab-like alien inside a humanoid robot. He has spent 11 long years on Earth, studying it, possibly as reconnaissance for an invasion. Things start to go wrong when a young woman living in his residential hotel falls in love with him.

A black and white drawing of a crab like alien in a small white oval enclosure.  It is using its many legs to push levers and press buttons while looking at clocklike displays on the sides of the oval. Outside the oval what appear to be nerves and cells, drawn as lines and polygons and dots, drawn in white on a black background, flow outward from the levers and buttons.The real David Knecht. Art uncredited, but probably Gaughan

There’s the basis here for a really good story about alienation, isolation, and communication; Silverberg might even be the right person to write it. Unfortunately, he missed the mark. Not by much, but there’s a lack of emotion to the first person narrative, even when emotion is being expressed. There’s also the all too common Silverberg issue of highly sexualized descriptions of the female character. It’s especially off-putting and unnecessary coming from such a non-human character.

Three stars.

Troubleshooter, by Michael G. Coney

DeGrazza is a troubleshooter for Galactic Computers, sent out by the company whenever a client is having problems that no one else can solve. Following a disastrous mission which has left him shell-shocked, he’s called back from leave early to find out why spaceships in the Altairid system keep disappearing. Plagued by nightmares, if he can’t pull himself together he may soon be the victim of the next disappearance.

A black and white pen and ink drawing of a man staring directly at the viewer.  The background is shaded in cross hatches.  As in the cover image above, black lava rock like shapes appear to be exploding out of his forehead.Art uncredited, but since it’s nearly identical to the cover it must be by Gaughan

Combat fatigue, shell-shock, whatever they’re calling it these days for the boys coming back from Vietnam, science fiction has far too rarely dealt with that sort of trauma. When it has, it’s always the result of combat; this story takes the unusual step of pointing out that it’s not only war that can cause it. Coney isn’t quite up to his theme—downplaying DeGrazza’s mental state, for example—but he made a good effort.

A high three stars.

The Piecemakers, by Keith Laumer

Two-fisted interstellar diplomat Retief is back. He and his frequent boss Magnan have been sent alone to mediate a war between the Groaci and the Slox, neither of which has asked for or wants Terran meddling. The usual nonsense ensues.

A black and white drawing of a man and an alien having a conversation.  On the left, the man is in a tailcoat, dress pants, and knee high spats and is sitting on one of a series of mushroom-like growths, gesturing with one hand.  He is facing toward the alien, which resembles a huge bell-like flower rooted into the right side of the image, but with eyestalks and a tongue-like extrusion coming out of the inside of the flower bell.  Other, smaller bells appear to be growing from the side of the stalk.  The man's head is close enough to the bell to almost be inside it but not quite.As usual, Retief makes friends with the locals. Art probably by Gaughan

It’s been about a year since the last Retief story, and broad spacing between them helps. But it’s still the same old pattern. If you’re familiar with Retief, you know what you’re getting and if you’ll like it. If you aren’t, this isn’t the best place to start, but it’s not the worst either.

Three stars.

Human Element, by Larry Eisenberg

A wealthy young woman visits a gambling mecca and requests an android assistant. The good part is that Eisenberg isn’t trying to be funny; unfortunately, he doesn’t really develop his theme. He’s not helped by the fact that Robert Silverberg’s The Tower of Glass currently running in Galaxy is covering the same ground. It’s all right, but maybe I’m better disposed towards it for not being an Emmett Duckworth story.

Three stars.

The Nightblooming Saurian, by James Tiptree, Jr.

Tiptree’s latest is a trifle, really just a set-up for some not very funny scatological humor. It concerns a group of time traveling scientists studying pre-humans in Olduvai Gorge. They’re worried about budget cuts, but a non-scientific member of the team has promised a member of the budget committee a dinosaur hunt to get him to look favorably on the project. The problem, of course, is that Dr. Leakey’s proto-humans came tens of millions of years after the dinosaurs went extinct.

Barely three stars.

Reading Room, by Lester del Rey

A black and white image of an architectural drawing of a rectangular room, with an inward-opening door symbolized in the upper left corner.  In the center of the rectangle the title, Reading Room, written in a swooping serifed font. Below the title, the author's name, Lester Del Ray, is written in smaller block capitals.

This month, del Rey looks at three books he considers experimental in some way. The first is The Eleventh Galaxy Reader, where the experiment is that the stories were chosen by the readers. In 1968, Galaxy polled subscribers to determine the best stories of the year, with large cash prizes for the best. More clearly experimental is John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar. Unlike most reviewers, del Rey is neither hot nor cold (our own Jason Sacks gave it five stars); he enjoyed much of it, but feels that Brunner let form distract him from story. Finally, there’s Lord Tyger by Philip José Farmer, about an attempt to produce a real-life Tarzan. Lester isn’t too keen on the result, but he likes the honest look at the underlying ideas of Burroughs’ creation.

The Misspelled Magician (Part 1 of 2), by David Gerrold and Larry Niven

Two familiar names have teamed up to bring us a story about magic and science. Larry Niven should need no introduction for regular readers of science fiction over the last five years, while David Gerrold scripted a couple of Star Trek episodes and looks to be making the jump to print.

A human scientist has landed on an alien world and runs afoul of local customs, all told from the viewpoint of the locals. They see “Purple” (as they come to call him from what his translation device says his name is) as just another wizard, one who is trespassing on the turf of their own without making the proper overtures. This installment ends with local wizard Shoogar performing a mighty curse on Purple’s “nest,” leaving it in the river.

A black and white drawing of an alien landscape. In the foreground, a stampede of alien animals is running toward the left of the image.  A black bubble floats up from the animals, in which is written The Misspelled Magician, by David Gerrold and Larry Niven.  In the background a humanoid figure appears in silhouette between two clumps of trees.  It is raising one arm as if to shake its fist.The mud creatures rise to attack. Art by Gaughan

So far, so good. It’s a well-told examination of Arthur C. Clarke’s assertion that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. When Purple tries to explain that he uses science, not magic, his translator uses the same word for both terms.

But there’s a problem, a big one: the authors are trying to be funny. This mostly comes out in the names of the various local gods. For example, there’s Rotn’bair, the god of sheep, whose symbol is the horned box; his great enemy is Nils’n, the god of mud creatures, whose symbol is a diagonal line with an empty circle on either side (i.e. %). There’s a lot of this; the narrator’s two sons, who make bicycles, are named Wilville and Orbur. It really distracts from an otherwise good story.

Three stars for now, maybe less if you have a low tolerance for the humor.

Zon, by Avram Davidson

A man called Rooster crosses a wasteland, possibly many generations after WWIII, in search of a wife. His search takes him to a stronghold of Zons (clearly shortened from Amazons) just as their Mother King lies dying.

A black and white pen-and-ink drawing of an outside post-apocalyptic scene, with tattered tents and exposed building girders.  In the foreground a man stands facing away from the viewer.  His left hand is upraised in a wave and his right is pulling what looks like a leash that extends out of the image without showing what's on the other end.  In the background, groups of people appear to be fighting and arguing.  Some appear to be women and others are of indeterminate sex.Rooster arrives at the Zon burrough (that’s not a misspelling). Art by Gaughan

Apart from the last couple Orbits, it’s been a while since we’ve heard from Avram Davidson. This has that Davidson feel to it, but somewhat darker in tone than is usual for him. I don’t think I can say how well he handled certain aspects of a society completely without men, but it seems better than most would have done. And despite the darkness, it ends hopefully and beautifully.

A high three stars

Summing up

Another straight C issue. I keep hoping for something better, but I’m grateful we aren’t getting anything worse. I wonder, though, if there are clouds on the horizon. This is the second straight issue without an “IF first” new author and the fifth without an editorial. Look again at the cover; it’s dated May-June. Is this a one time thing, or is IF going bimonthly? What does that portend? Some word from the editor about what’s going on would be greatly appreciated.

Black and white text from the back of the magazine reads: Subscribe now to the new If, the magazine of alternatives. I’m not sure I’d subscribe without some explanation of what’s going on.






[March 31, 1970] Seed stock (April 1970 Analog)

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

It's the end of the month, and that means the latest Analog is on tap.  This one starts and even mids with the usual drudgery… but the latter third breeds a little hope.

April 1970 cover of 'analog SCIENCE FICTION SCIENCE FACT' featuring a blue man in a large visor helmet with a single eye decal pointing over the shoulder of a hooded wizard writing in a notebook, wearing a large medallion. The caption reads HERE, THERE BE WITCHES
EVERETT B> COLE
by Kelly Freas

Here, There Be Witches, by Everett B. Cole

Frequently, some author will tailor a story to Analog editor John Campbell's particular idiosyncracies hoping to get some of that sweet, sweet four-cents-a-word payout.  In this case, Everett Cole has aimed at this kooky premise: the reason why humans didn't develop psionic powers (more than we have) is that true adepts were burned as witches.

And so, in this lead novella, we have a planet of exact humanoids going through their equivalent of the 17th Century.  The nobles are finding witches right and left because bumping off the psychics (who, naturally, are doing a bit better than the average population) is a lucrative business.  It's up to Hal Carlsen, agent of a galactic "Philosophical Corps", to alter the course of the planet's history.

Black and white image of aclose up man in a goggle-like mask and helmet with antennae. His hands are raised and clasped and smoke raises from one of his fingers on the righthand page the sillouette of a vulture sits in front of the moon in front of a body of water. The caption reads HHERE, THERE BE WITCHES
by Kelly Freas

Obviously, Cole succeeded at his mission—securing a check for several hundred dollars.  He does not accomplish much else, though.  The tale is by-the-numbers, and the premise is dumb on multiple levels.  Plus, I really didn't need several pages luridly describing the tortures that the accused had to endure.

Two stars.

Quiet Village, by David McDaniel

Black and white image of a man perched on one knee with a futuristic looking blaster in his hand. He carries a bow on his back. The caption reads 
QUIET VILLAGE
Force- like any other tool- is itself neither Good nor Evil.
The purpose- not the thing- determines value!
DAVID MCDANIEL
Illustrated by Vincent diFate
by Vincent DiFate

Three hundred years after The Plague eliminates most of the human population, pockets of America are slowly clawing their way back to civilization.  Their progress is hindered by rats—bandits clad in bullet-proof "street suits" and wielding blasters.  When a San Gabriel Valley community is threatened by a pack of rats, a contingent of Scouts is hired to flush them out.

Boy Scouts, that is.

This intriguing set-up quickly devolves into a competently told but otherwise uninteresting combat tale.  I suppose the "moral" is that, in times of trouble, a unified, God fearing organization like the Scouts will keep America going, like the Catholic church in the Dark Ages.  Or something.

A low three stars.

A Case of Overprotection, by Hazel Moseley

Ms. Moseley offers up a history of the Food and Drug Administration, notes its virtues, and decries its recent cautious slowness.  I appreciated the data, but I disagree with the sentiment.

Three stars.

Black and white caroon drawing of two surgeons in front of a large body on a table, organs clearly visible. Caption reads:
DEPARTMENT OF DIVERSE DATA
GASTRO-
INTESTINUS
DIAPANUS or GLASS GUT
E.T. from Polaris IV,
quite friendly as long as you keep him well fed.
A favorite object of research among E.T. biologists, since no X ray is required to study his metabolism.
by David Pattee

The Siren Stars (Part 2 of 3), by Nancy and Richard Carrigan

Black and white image of scantily clad male and female figures crawling among the weeds in front of a wooden house. A man in dark clothing and a large brimmed hat holding a large rifle stands in front of the structure. In the foreground is an overturned wooden boat. The caption reads THE SIREN STARS
by Kelly Freas

Here we are again with the bland adventures of bland adventurer John Leigh.  This time around, after the failure of John's attempt to infiltrate his own base (as practice for a mission to investigate a Soviet facility which has received signals from an alien race), he meets up with Elizabeth Ashley.

She is a woman.

Oh!  You want to know more about her?  Well, in many ways, she is like every woman in the world: appreciates expensive clothes, startles easily, and has preternatural intuition.  In other ways, she's most unlike women.  For instance, she is very smart—despite being a very beautiful woman.

You think I'm being overly snide?  Read this installment, if you can.  Virtually every description and depiction of Dr. Ashley either emphasizes her femininity (explicitly) or contrasts this or that character trait with stereotypical femininity.  It's ridiculous.

Anyway, Ashley is an astronomer who came up with the hypothesis that maybe the ultimate evolution of intelligence is the creation of sapient machines.  And maybe said machines would conquer the universe by sending signals to other smart species that promise great technological increases.  And maybe those technologies are actually a Trojan horse, and if they are built, the hapless dupes will realize too late that they've actually created alien robots, who will take over.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Well, Ashley obviously struck a nerve with that one—foreign mooks first try to kill her, then succeed in abducting her.  Because nothing hides a cunning plan like offing the one person who has made casual surmises (without evidence, mind you) of the truth behind it.

The Carrigans also offer up some local color, showing off the places they have obviously seen personally.  There are some truly insipid love scenes, including a very brief peek inside Ashley's thoughts, just so the reader knows she is genuinely attracted to John and isn't just some kind of enemy agent.  We also get some Fleming-lite action sequences.

Things end with John now tasked to go to the USSR not to see which way their radio dish is pointed (it's a moot point—the Americans have also gotten the Lorelei signal; one astronomer has gone insane) but to destroy any technology derived from it.  Also, to extract a (presumably beautiful, and definitely female) defector.

Well, at least the Carrigans acknowledged (tardily) that satellite photography was an easier way to see which way the Russkie dish was pointed…

Two stars.

Come You Nigh: Kay Shuns, by Lawrence A. Perkins

Black and white image of a man clad in white looking angrily at a sheet of paper in front of a desk of machinery.
by Craig Robertson

A two-man fighter craft of the Tellurian International Space Force is disabled by a Zhobehr magnetic beam and left adrift in the solar system.  This turns out to be a blessing in disguise as the crippled craft winds up near the enemy aliens' secret local base.  But how to broadcast their findings to Earth without 1) giving away their position, and 2) letting the aliens know they've been found out?

The clue is in the title.  It's a cute story that, thankfully, goes no longer than it needs to.

Three stars.

The Life Preservers, by Hank Dempsey

Black and white image of a futuristic two-turret tank with a castle drawn in the background.
by Vincent DiFate

Here we've got another story about mechanical teleportation by "Hank Dempsey" (Harry Harrison in disguise).  This time, it's set much further in the future.  Teleporters have been situated on planets throughout the galaxy for so long that they've had time to be abandoned for centuries. 

Preservers is the story of Emergency Plague Control, a corps of doctors whose job is to ensure the health of humanity.  Alien planets have not spawned harmful diseases—the ecosystems aren't similar enough.  But isolated groups of humans evolve new spins on old epidemics, and its up to the EPC to keep them in check.

And so, a team is dispatched to a primitive world, regressed for a thousand years, to do a check-up.  Unwittingly, they bring death with them…

It's a pretty good tale, more nuanced than I had expected, and told in Harrison's taut style.  Not brilliant, but worthy.

Three stars.

Seed Stock, by Frank Herbert

Dark image of a hand reaching to sow seeds on the surface of an obfuscated planet. A ship or satelite glows in the foreground. The caption reads 'seed stock'.
by Vincent DiFate

A few months ago, I attempted a book by Rex Gordon called The Yellow Fraction.  The premise was that a colony world had divided into two factions: the Greens advocated terraforming the world to be a paradise for humans; the Blues said the settlers should adapt to the planet.  (There was also a minority group that said the planet was no good, and they should just up and leave—the yellows.)

Frank Herbert's newest story presents the Green vs. Blue debate in a much terser, much more compelling fashion.  It is told from the point of view of Kroudor, a laborer with an instinctive knack for the rhythms of their new world.  While the highfalutin scientists struggle in vain to make their imported crops and livestock survive in increasingly difficult conditions, Kroudor and his wife, the technician Honida, find and cultivate local resources.

The result presages survival for the colony… if not quite that which had been envisioned when the group left Earth several years prior.

This is probably the best thing I've read by Herbert.  I imagine he sold it to Campbell because it has a bit of the anti-egghead bias the editor enjoys so much, but it is a story that would have fit in any other mag.

Four stars.

The Reference Library, by P. Schuyler Miller

Schuy sings the praises, this month, of Poul Anderson's future history as told in the tapestry of his dozens of published tales.  The occasion is the novel releases of Satan's World and The Rebel Worlds, both of which Miller liked, but we were less impressed with.  He likes the new collection Beyond the Beyond, too, whose contents include many stories we've covered on the Journey.

There's a neat bit about how SF veteran Alan E. Nourse is chartering a flight to Heidelberg's Worldcon this August—might be worth it for you folks who want to hop the Pond to West Germany.

Of Eight Fantasms and Magics, a Jack Vance collection of works that fit in the gap between SF and Fantasy, Schuy says, "If you don't like this kind of thing, stay away from it.  If you do, sample Vance: he is a master of the genre."

He also enjoys the 18th volume of The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: "It's the best F&SF anthology in a long time."  This tallies with our assessment—that magazine finished at the top of the heap last year when we awarded the Galactic Stars

Finally, he lauds the A. Bertam Chandler collection, Catch the Star Winds, and contemplates making an encyclopedia for all of the Galactic Rim stories (whose main protagonist is Commodore John Grimes).

Signs of sprouting?

A dark haired woman is shown operating a large boxy computer, an IBM 2265 terminal.
a woman working at an IBM 2265 terminal

All told, this month's issue scores just 2.8 stars.  The concluding pages were such a comparatively pleasant experience that I'm left with a bit of optimism.  Sure, there's a Campbellian smugness that suffuses all that gets submitted; yet, the best authors seem to overcome that particular editorial tic.  Of course, this also suggests that Analog would get even better with a different man at the tiller.  That doesn't seem to be forthcoming any time soon…

As for the other sources of short fiction this month, we had a bumper crop.  From best to worst, there was:

Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.8), Fantastic (3.1), Galaxy (2.9), IF (2.8), Nova 1 (2.7), New Worlds (2.5), Orbit 6 (2.4), and Vision of Tomorrow (2.2)…and Andre Norton's collection of old and new stories: High Sorcery.

Individually, no outlet was outstanding (except for F&SF), but there was enough 4 and 5 star work to fill three full digests.  Also, women contributed 12% of the new fiction, which is on the higher side (again, thanks to Norton).

I suppose if you cast lots of seed, you're bound to get sprouts.  It just takes a lot of stock for this strategy to work.  And a lot of subscription fare!

Thank goodness books bought by the Journey are tax deductible.

Aren't they?



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[March 8, 1970] They say that it's the institution… (April 1970 Galaxy and the incomplete Court)

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

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

There ain't no Justice

It was only a few months that President Dicky tried to ram a conservative Supreme Court justice pick through the Senate to replace the seat left open by the retirement of the much laureled Chief Justice Earl Warren.  Clement Haynworth's candidacy went down to defeat in the Senate on November 21 of last year.

Now up is G. Harrold Carswell, until last year, the Chief Justice of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.  He was elevated to the Fifth Circuit Appellate Court last June.  To all accounts, he is no less conservative than his predecessor, and he's a (former?) segregationist to boot.  His jurisprudence is also lacking: 40% of his rulings were overturned on appeal!  As Senator McGovern observed, "I find his record to be distinguished largely by two qualities: racism and mediocrity."  Nebraska's Senator Hruska damned with faint praise in his reply, to the effect saying, "Sure he's mediocre…but don't the mediocre warrant representation, too?"

Black-and-white photograph of a white man wearing a judge's robes.
G. Harrold Carswell

But as LIFE and other outlets are noting, Nixon's soothing rhetoric thinly veils a deeply conservative agenda, cutting social programs, withdrawing from world affairs, and trying to stack the Court with allies.  Carswell's nomination passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 16 of this year.  We'll see if the Senate as a whole can stomach him for the Court proper.

Plus ça change

Galaxy's editor Eljer Jakobsson is like Richard Nixon (well, perhaps this is a stretch, but indulge me—I need some sort of transition here!) He is trying all of the styles at his disposal in this new decade of the 1970s and seeing what sticks.  The result remains inconsistent, but not unworthy.

This month's issue trumpets Silverbob's newest serial (sure to be novelized, perhaps as we speak) The Tower of Glass.  Stephen Tall has the lead "breakthrough novelette", which I presumed meant this was his first work, but checking my index cards, I see it's not, since he first wrote a story for Worlds of Tomorrow four years ago.  And then there's Ray Bradbury, undeservedly getting a third of the cover's masthead, presumably because of his pop culture stature.

The editor starts out the issue with an interesting piece, noting that even if there something to genetic races, it's meaningless anyway because none of us stick exclusively to our own (something folks of my persuasion blame on how lovely those shiksas always end up…) It's short and sweet.  Then it's onto the "breakthrough novelette".

Allison, Carmichael and Tattersall, by Stephen Tall

Ink drawing of the faces of three men wearing astronaut helmets, shown against a background of black space. Text next to the drawing says: Allison, Carmichael and Tattersall. Space history echoes with their achievements. If you haven't yet read about them, start now! Text further below shows the name Stephen Tall.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

The three names in the title belong to a trio of compatible astronauts sent on the first expedition to the Jovian moon, Callisto.  A biologist, a mathematician, and a computer engineer, the three have just barely settled in for the several month trip when the first of them, Tattershall, makes an interesing hypothesis: space is a near vacuum but not a complete one—what if the interplanetary cosmos harbors life?  Incredibly diffuse, extremely voluminous life, to be sure.  Unrecognizable at a passing glance, certainly.  But there, nonetheless.

Seek, and ye shall find.  As the Albratross sails for Jupiter, the ship sails by and inside a number of planetoid-sized creatures, sensed only by their abnormal particle densities.  Unfortunately for the "Callistonauts", one of them take a fancy for their krypton-powered engine, and their fuel supply soon becomes dangerously depleted.

If this story appeared in Analog, it'd be a thrilling (or maybe just turgidly technical) SF action piece.  In F&SF, maybe fantastically whimsical or horrific.  Here, it's… pleasant.  More inches are devoted to the genial interactions of the tic-tac-toe playing Allison and Carmichael, the blissful absorption in ant farms of Tattershall, and the dietary proclivities of all three.  Plus, lots of discussion of biology.

Frankly, I suspect space life as posited by Tall is impossible.  Things don't scale like that (and someone tell Irwin Allen…) Still, it's a nice story.

Three stars.

Discover a Latent Moses, by Michael G. Coney

Two-page spread. On the left-hand page is the title: Discover a Latent Moses, then the name of the author, Michael G. Coney, and text further below says: Green Earth was a memory, and memories were not for builders. On the right-hand page is an ink drawing of the top portion of a tower in ruins, the rest of which is covered by the sands of a vast desert.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

Here are the adventures of Jacko, Paladin, Switch, Cockade, and the Old Man, a band of humans surviving the Fifth Ice Age perhaps fifty years from now.  They live under a dozen feet of snow in an entombed town, surviving on canned food and bottled booze.  But they dream of land in the warmer West… if only they can outmaneuver the winged, snow skiing, Flesh Eaters.  It reminds me of a bit of Michael Moorcock's series involving the ice schooner.

It's never explained what causes the big freeze.  The general consensus of scientists is that industrial emissions will cause a global warming, but I've read at least one article lately that suggests smog particles will block the Sun and cause cooling.  Maybe that's it.  Or maybe, like in Robert Silverberg's Time of the Great Freeze, the next Ice Age will trump any artificial effects.

Anyway, the story is excitingly told and the characters vivid, if cardboard.  It's enjoyable reading, but it brings little new to the table.

Three stars.

The Tower of Glass (Part 1 of 3), by Robert Silverberg

Two-page spread with an ink drawing of amorphous gelatinous blobs that seem alive. At the bottom of the right-hand page is the title: The Tower of Glass, the name of the author, Robert Silverberg, and text further below says: Krug rivaled God Almighty as the creator of Heaven and Earth and Man. Now he just wanted to talk to all three of them!
illustration by Jack Gaughan

Robert Silverberg sure loves him some dark futures.

Over the next several decades, the world will undergo plague and war that mow down the Third World.  Birth control and ennui take care of the rest.  But the productivity of the race remains as high as ever, thanks to mechanization, computerization…and the development of androids.  These perfect physical specimens range from moronic (the gammas) to brilliant (the rarefied alphas—someone's been reading Huxley), and they fill the role of technician, nanny, nurse, and (but only secretly) lover.

The much-reduced human population lives effete, rich, and pampered, interplanetary and even nearby interstellar, knit globally by a network of "transmats" that eliminate commutes and homogenize culture.  This, then, is the world 250 years hence, contemporary with Star Trek, but oh so different.

For one thing, this is no utopia.  The androids seem quiescent, but there is indication that they might be on the verge of insurrection, or perhaps being manipulated to do so by human interests.  And then there are the women…

Silverberg seems to hate worlds in which women are anything but shallow playthings.  There is no narrative reason for women to get such short shrift in this story, and they do in all of Bob's stories, so I suspect it's more tic, less deliberate intent.

Anyway, that's the background.  The story involves billionaire Simeon Krug and the constellation of relatives, top staff, and associates who surround him.  Krug is building a 600 meter transmission tower in the tundras of Ontario to reply to a message recently received from the stars: "2-4, 2-5, 1-3" repeated ad nauseum.

So far, the story seems to be about thwarted expectations: Krug is disappointed that the alien senders seem to hail from a bright O-class star, precluding anything akin to humanity.  His son is dissatisfied with both his unexciting human wife and his vat-produced android paramour.  The android foreman Thor Watchman is dissatisfied with a nameless something, probably attached to his inferior position in human society, even as one of the most powerful beings on Earth.

It's all written with Silverberg's usual, if somewhat overdramatic, brilliance and not a little emphasis on sex.  There are some very nifty concepts here, from the eternal dawn or noon that teleportation affords, to the "jacking in" to vast computet networks (the ultimate evolution of ARPANET, perhaps).

So, bad taste in my mouth aside, I am interested to see where this goes.  It's in the same vein as his blue fire stories, which I liked.

Four stars.

Darwin, the Curious, by Ray Bradbury, Darwin, in the Fields, by Ray Bradbury, and Darwin, Wandering Home at Dawn, by Ray Bradbury

A trio of pointless poems from the master of mawk: what if Chas sat in a field all day, and on the way home, passed a fox?

Two stars—the illustrations illuminating them are nice.

The Rub, by A. Bertram Chandler

Two-page spread. On the left-hand page is an ink drawing of a woman looking in horror at a humanoid figure crawling on the ceiling. On the right-hand page is the name of the author, A. Bertram Chandler, additional text that says: Can anything be more terrifying than realizing all your dreams? and the title: The Rub. The text of the story begins below the title.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

The adventures of John Grimes, intrepid if cantankerous officer of the Space Scout Service, have been going on for more than a decade.  Like Horatio Hornblower, we've now gotten most of his career, from Ensign through Commodore.  There's not a lot of room left to fill.  How then can Chandler keep this cash cow going?

Why, by returning to the mystical planet of Kinsolving, where dreams become reality.  In this case, Grimes ends up in a nightmare parallel universe where, instead of meeting his lovely wife, Sonya, and advancing to flag rank, he instead marries a shrew and ends up in a dead-end job as commander of a fourth-rate backwater base.

And yet, even schlub Grimes has got a touch of that seadog magic…

I quite enjoyed this story, although it ends just a touch too abruptly.  Four stars.

Sunpot (Part 3 of 4), by Vaughn Bodé

Drawn illustration of an irregularly-shaped spaceship near a big round planet floating in black space. Above the illustration is text in cartoonish letters. First is the title: Sunpot, by Vaughn Bodé. Next to it is this text: Sunpot, the planet, moves across the quiet opulence of fat solar space like the great red phallic temple of Brother Mercury... White Venus awaits in the distance.
illustration by Vaughn Bodé

The adventures of the Sunpot continue to take turns for the worse—this time, the pages aren't even printed in the right order.

I said one star last time, but there's (a little) less sexism this time, and the pictures are pretty, even if the typeface is still illegible.

Two stars.

Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

An elegant piece of calligraphy with the words: Galaxy Bookshelf, Algis Budrys. Tiny stars decorate the space around the letters.

The magazine's book column is devoted solely to The Universal Baseball Association, Inc, by J. Henry Waugh.  It is about a fellow who creates his own private universe, centered around a baseball team, using a self-devised chart and dice to randomly determine what happens next.  It's a bit like how Philip K. Dick created The Man in the High Castle (he used bamboo sticks and the I Ching.

As Budrys puts it:

It does convey a convincing approximation of how a God might be infinitely creative and yet not in direct control of his creation, omnipotent and yet prey to events, omniscient and nevertheless blind to the future.

Though not technically SF or F, and thus perhaps not sold in the same outlets as our beloved regulars, Budrys recommends in no uncertain terms that we read it.

No Planet Like Home, by Robert Conquest

Undecipherable drawing composed of multiple circular shapes that resemble eyes.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

A race of humanoid aliens, prone to frequent mutation, wrings their collective hands over what to do about a comically tragic pinhead nephew of a Senator.  The aliens scour the galaxy until they find a race that constitutes a close physical match so they can deposit the hapless lad on their world.

Three guesses which world, and the first two don't count.

Two stars for being obvious.

Kindergarten, by James E. Gunn

Heavily darkened illustration, probably shaped like a coastline seen from above.
illustration by Jack Gaughan

Speaking of, here's a (charmingly illustrated) tale about a precocious child who creates a planet for his amusement, but its inhabitants are too dangerous to be allowed to live.  The world's genesis takes, of course, six days.  The name of the planet is…

Well, you already know the answer.

Two stars.

Diverging courses

The Supreme Court's constitution has evolved since 1950, becoming for a time one of the most liberal Courts in the nation's history.  The building remains the same, but the members change…and only time will tell if we'll be happy with the new direction.

The magazine that Gold launched in 1950 also continues its slow, insensible slide toward whatever lies ahead in the '70s.  It still retains the same dimensions as when it started, the same tactile feel to its cover and pages.  But its cover art, its typeface, its stable of authors, the literary style, all have evolved.  Perhaps not always for the better, but generally still worthy.

Sure, I'll renew.

Page of a magazine. At the top is a drawing of a man standing next to a crashed car. Below it is this text: It doesn't take a genius to figure out how much you hate missing the best story of you favorite writer or the major part of a great novel. But we can't compute a formula to stock every newsstand in the country with enough copies of our popular magazines to satisfy every reader. So we sometimes miss you and you miss us, and that's a double tragedy. But there's an answer. It doesn't take a genius to handle it either. All it takes is a minute of your time, for which we want to repay you with a handsome saving over the newsstand price. Just fill in the coupon or write the information on a piece of plain paper and mail it to us. Then you'll be sure instead of sorry. To the right of this text is a sample cover of Galaxy magazine, showing an illustration of a woman's face inside concentric curves. At the bottom of the page is a form to order a magazine subscription.



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[March 2, 1970] Par for the course (April 1970 IF)


by David Levinson

The Veep that couldn’t shoot straight

I’m no fan of golf (unless it involves little windmills), but a lot of people seem to like it. They show it on TV and not a week goes by without at least one golf joke in the funny pages. It also intersected with politics last month. February continues to be the month that gives me very little to talk about, so I guess this is it.

The Professional Golfers’ Association likes to start their tour early in the pleasant climes of Hawaii and California. One such event is the Bob Hope Desert Classic held on a variety of courses in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. The highlight of the tournament for many is the pro-am event, where the pros competing in the tournament are matched with (celebrity) amateurs for one day’s round.

Pro Doug Sanders—best known for his odd swing and dapper dress—found himself in a foursome with Bob Hope, California Senator (and former song-and-dance man) George Murphy, and Vice President Spiro Agnew. On his very first shot, the Veep managed to hook the ball so far to the left it ended up on the path for an adjacent fairway. (Probably the farthest left he’s gone since being elected governor.) Trying to get back to the right fairway, he then sliced hard to the right. (This whole thing is starting to sound like a metaphor for Agnew’s political career.)

Bob Hope and Doug Sanders were standing in the path of the ball. Hope managed to duck out of the way, but Sanders was struck on the head. The blow drew blood, which Hope mopped up with a towel. Agnew was duly apologetic, and Sanders played gamely onward. At the nine-hole break, he was examined by a doctor, and the wound was sprayed with a pain-deadener.

Wire photo of Doug Sanders, Vice President Agew, and Bob Hope Wire photo of the aftermath.

Agnew went on to have a terrible day. He frequently missed putts and took penalties for giving up on a hole. As the AP put it, “Agnew chatted amiably with the fans when his ball landed in or near them, which was often.” Sanders didn’t do much better, though he was already having a poor tournament. He won $200, far less than the top prize of $25,000. Agnew rather crassly quipped that it should just about cover his medical bills.

Am I picking on Spiro Agnew? Yes. Yes, I am. After his recent attack on the press, he deserves all the opprobrium he can get. He’s already being talked about as the clear front-runner for the Republicans in 1976. Let’s nip that idea in the bud right now.

Down the fairway

When he took over as editor, Ejler Jakobsson got off to a strong start. Since then, there’s been something of a return to form, although those C+ to B- issues have felt fresher than they did in recent years under Fred Pohl. Has he sent this issue cleanly down the fairway, hit a hole in one, or—worst of all—smacked the reader in the head with an errant shot? Let’s find out.

Cover of the April 1970 edition of if Science Fiction, featuring a large undersea robot illustration. Art for Waterclap by Gaughan.Arrival at Ocean-Deep. Art for “Waterclap” by Gaughan

Waterclap, by Isaac Asimov

The long-standing lunar base and the new deep sea base at the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench must compete for the limited financial resources offered by the Planetary Project Council. After the first fatal accident on the Moon, safety engineer Stephen Demerest travels to Ocean-Deep, ostensibly to learn more about their safety procedures. His real purpose is to convince them to turn down any increase in funding at the expense of the Moon base, and he’s willing to take extreme measures.

Black and white sketch of a man in a space suit making a point to two other similarly dressed patrons.Demerest makes his case. Art by Gaughan

This is a very unusual Asimov story. There’s no puzzle, the characters are a little more fleshed out than is typical, and the tone is a lot darker. He pulls it off quite well. It could be tightened up here and there, and Demerest’s real plans are foreshadowed a little too strongly, but all in all, it’s solid, with a maturity that’s often not in evidence in the Good Doctor’s work.

A high three stars.

To Touch a Star, by Robert F. Young

Angry at being rendered impotent as punishment for a crime he didn’t commit, Ben Powers steals the starship Mary and heads for the one place he can reverse his condition. Unfortunately for him, the ship’s computer is intelligent and programmed to combat theft.

black and white illustration of the Mary, a Sputnik-like figure, being exposed to ChiMuZeta (whatever that is). Art uncreditedThe Mary being exposed to ChiMuZeta (whatever that is). Art uncredited

Science fiction editors have long rejected out of hand any story which ends with the characters becoming Adam and Eve. Can we extend that to include any Biblical figure? Just in the last couple of months, we’ve had Jesus, Jonah, and even God. It’s trite. Add in Young’s nonsensical science, and this is an awful story. Only the author’s ability to write halfway decent sentences keeps this from the bottom of the barrel.

A low two stars.

Spaceman, by Lee Harding

Facing a long layover on the planet Hydria, Captain Marnsworth takes the opportunity to find out why his best friend jumped ship there three years earlier. What he finds shocks him to the core.

A squiggly black and white drawing of a surprised mans face.Marnsworth can’t comprehend what he sees. Art uncredited, but obviously Gaughan

The back to nature movement is popular with young people, especially hippies. Star Trek even used it for a plot last year. Concern for how the technological life and separation from nature, especially life in space, will affect humanity is a worthy subject for SF to confront. This really could have been the story to do that; Harding doesn’t take sides, showing value in both approaches. But it’s too long. That or Marnsworth’s general confusion makes the narrative heavy going. Either way, it brings the story down.

Three stars.

Swap, by Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart give us another of his tales of technology gone very wrong. This time, it’s computerized spouse swapping sending the protagonist to the wrong part of town. It’s got that typical Goulart wackiness, but with a darker than usual undertone. If you’re familiar with Ron, you’ve got a pretty good idea whether you’ll like this or not; if you aren’t, this isn’t a bad place to start.

Three stars.

Black and white sketch of a shadowy figure standing over another who is picking themselves up off of the ground.When blind dates go wrong. Art by Gaughan

Ride a Tin Can, by R.A. Lafferty

Two folklorists investigate a race of goblinesque creatures that most people don’t think are intelligent.

A sketch of a goblinesque creature with large ears and eyes, and an open pointed mouthThe Shelni hope to ride a tin can one of these days. Art by Gaughan

For me, the best Lafferty stories are those that actually don’t have much in the way of plot. This one has a bit, but not enough to spoil the essential Lafferty-ness of the whole thing. I could say the same thing here as I did about the Goulart story. I liked it.

Three stars.

Thou Spark of Blood, by Gene Wolfe

One hundred and thirty-five days into the first mission to Mars, the three astronauts aboard are cracking up. They’ve been out of contact with Earth for weeks, and most of the equipment for improving their quality of life has also broken down. When the man in the middle seat is found with his throat cut, tensions run high, with the two survivors accusing each other of murder.

an outlined drawing of a man in a space suit holding up the limp body of another inside of a padded chamber.How do you dispose of a body without a functioning airlock? Art by Gaughan

Gene Wolfe started out writing in a slightly New Wave style, but seems to have fallen into a more traditional form since—he’s not the better for it. I also saw the ending of this one coming. Despite this, I was originally prepared to give the story three stars, but the more I think about it, I can’t. There’s a massive flaw that I can’t really discuss without giving away the ending, but it renders the whole thing completely unbelievable.

Two stars.

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

Saboteur Extraordinaire Jorj McKie and the Bureau of Sabotage race to prevent the death of the Caleban Fannie Mae. If she dies, almost every sentient being in the galaxy will die with her.

Two figures in a sketchy style with swirly lines confront eachother in a moment of tension.The final confrontation as the clock runs out. Art by Gaughan

Herbert manages to bring his novel to a fairly satisfying conclusion. There’s enough action and about as much tension as you can expect in a story like this. We also learn the true nature of the Caleban, though it may stretch credibility. If I have a complaint, it’s that Herbert never really engages with the interesting questions he raised in Part 1 about the problems of communicating without common references. It’s still an engaging read, which might read better over the course of a few hours than a few months, though I don’t find myself at all motivated to test that hypothesis.

Three stars for this segment and the novel as a whole.

Reading Room, by Lester del Rey

Lester del Rey turns his attention to two recent Buck Rogers books, one a retrospective on the long-running comic strip, the other a reprint of the original two stories by Philip Francis Nowlan. He uses the occasion to discuss Buck Rogers’ limited connection to SF as it is and its role in furthering the ideas of the Yellow Peril. He even asks if the comic might have played a role in the internment of Japanese Americans during the War by keeping those ideas alive.

A high three stars.

Bordered in bold text Reading Room
Lester Del ReySumming up

That’s another issue in the books. No holes in one and maybe a couple of bogeys, but at least the reader never gets conked with an errant shot. The magazine seems to be drifting back into its old routine. The freshness I mentioned earlier that keeps it different from the Pohl era is still there, but it’s starting to get a little stale. Asking for a four or five star story every month is probably too much, but the magazine needs a real highlight every now and then to keep the reader interested. Fingers crossed for next month.






[February 28, 1970] Revolutionaries… (March 1970 Analog)

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

Turbulent times

Unless you've been living under a rock the past two years, you know the shockwaves from The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are still reverberating.  The open fighting on the convention floor, the fascist polemic of Mayor Daley, the protests, the baby blue and olive drab helmets, and the crippled candidacy of the man tasked to thwart Dick Nixon from taking the White House.

Aside from the shambolic shuffle toward further embroilment in southeast Asia, two other phenomena have kept the convention in the public eye.  The first is last year's neck-clutch of a movie, Medium Cool.  Half drama, half documentary, Haskell Wexler's film follows a jaded Chicago news cameraman in the weeks leading up to the crisis point.  Indeed (and I didn't realize this at the time), the footage of Robert Forster and Verna Bloom in and around the convention hall during the clashes, hippie vs. fuzz, Dixiecrat vs. DFL, was all shot live. 

A brunette woman in a yellow dress walks in front of a line of police officers. There are hippies of various ages at the left side of the frame, including a young boy.
Verna Bloom, playing an emigrant from West Virginia, searches Grant Park for her lost son

If you haven't caught the film, check your local listings.  It may still be running in your local cinema.  Be warned: it will take you back.  If you're not ready for it, you will be overwhelmed.

A movie poster for <i>Medium Cool</i>. The tagline is
Robert Forster is the news man.  You'll recognize Marianna Hill (Forster's girlfriend) as a guest star in Star Trek's "Dagger of the Mind"

As for the other reminder, for the past two years, the papers have kept us apprised on the trials of the "Chicago Eight", charged by the United States Department of Justice with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot.  They included Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale.

(in the midst of his trial, Abbie Hoffman jumped on the stage at Woodstock during the performance of The Who to protest the incarceration of White Panther poet and musician, John Sinclair—it was a trippy scene)

Abbie Hoffman: "I think this is a pile of shit!  While John Sinclair rots in prison…"

Pete Townsend: "Fuck off!  Get off my fucking stage!"

A blurry black-and-white still of a floppy-haired white man in a white tunic. The image is timestamped 02:10:56:06
Pete Townsend, just after recovering the stage

The verdicts came down on February 18, a mixed bag of positive and negative news for the accused.  Apparently, four folks on the jury held out until the bitter end, but eventually went with guilty for some of the charges.  The verdicts were:

Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Hoffman, and Rubin were charged with and convicted of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot.  All of the defendants were charged with and acquitted of conspiracy; Froines and Weiner were charged with teaching demonstrators how to construct incendiary devices and acquitted of those charges.  Bobby Seale had already skated when his case ended in mistrial.

Six men with long, wild hair stand smiling at the camera, arms wrapped around each other
Six of the "Seven": (l. to r.) Abbie Hoffman, John Froines, Lee Weiner, Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, and Tom Hayden

So, it's jail time for five of the eight while their cases go to appeal.  You can bet that these results aren't going to lessen the flames of discontent in this country, at least for the vocal minority.

A news clipping, showing a crowd of people in front of a statue. Two people carry signs. One says 'COURTS OF INJUSTICE CANNOT PREVAIL!'. The other says 'FREE MARTIN SOSTRE'. The caption of the news clipping reads 'Protest rally in New York: Surrounded by demonstrators protesting the conspiracy trials of the Chicago 7 and the Panther 21, William M. Kunstler, defense attorney in the Chicago trial, addresses rally Monday in Madison Square Park in New York. One youth was injured in a clash with police, and windows were broken in several stores.'
From page 3 of my local paper on the 24th

Steady and staid

You wouldn't be aware of any of this turmoil if you lived under a rock and did nothing but read Analog Science Fiction.  It remains a relic and deliberate artifact of a halcyon past as envisioned by editor John Campbell.  The latest issue is a representative example.

The cover of the Analog issue. It shows a man with a gun looking over a desert cliff at a massive radio telescope facility.
by Kelly Freas

The Siren Stars (Part 1 of 3), by Richard Carrigan and Nancy Carrigan

First up, we introduce a new writing duo as well as a new James Bond-style hero.  John Leigh is a veteran, a fair hand with a souped up, armored Triumph sports car, and most importantly, a Physicist.  Shortly after serving his hitch in Korea, he is recruited by SPI—no, not the wargame company, but "Science Processing, Inc."

Leigh's latest mission is to infiltrate a Soviet radio telescope facility.  It seems that the Russkies have picked up signals from an alien civilization, and Leigh needs to take pictures of their dish to see which way it's pointing, and also to pick up the computer data tapes to see what the Reds have heard.

At the end of Part One, Leigh has infiltrated his own facility as a dry run for his attempt in the USSR, only to find that the Soviets are already trying to infiltrate the American base for some reason.

A two paneled image, white lines on a black background. There is a psychedelic image of a woman strumming a harp in a futuristic city.
by Kelly Freas

We get a lot of inches of Leigh driving his cool car, a lot of glimpses of incidental women through the eyes of men ("The blonde at the mail desk had been hired for her ornamental qualities as well as her fast hand with the correspondence…Like most men, [Leigh] approved highly of ornamental mail girls providing they didn't mangle the correspondence too badly."  "Emily Parkman was that rarity among women—the completely discreet human being.") and a lot of "thrilling" action, like a car chase in a parking garage.

I'm bored.  Two stars.

One Step from Earth, by Hank Dempsey

A single panel image, black ink on white background. Two figures are in insectoid spacesuits. One is standing on top of an jet engine, and the other is on the ground, holding a round ball. The legend at the top right reads 'ONE STEP FROM EARTH: The length of a step depends on how you measure distance -- and on who's trying to step on you!'
by Vincent DiFate

I hear tell Hank Dempsey is really Harry Harrison—I suspect he's nom d'pluming since this is going to be the first tale in a collection that deals with teleportation, coming out later this year.  Hey, if the apple will support multiple bites, why not chomp that baby?

Anyway, this is the story of our first manned trip to Mars.  A robot ship drops off a matter transmitter just big enough for a scientist to crawl through in a space suit.  The components of a base and a larger transmitter are teleported to the Red Planet.  Before their assembly can be finished, one of the two-man crew succumbs to a mysterious malady.  Our hero must decide between spending life in quarantine on Earth or becoming the first permanent resident of Barsoom.

It's fine for what it is, an episode involving grit, courage, and pioneering spirit.  Three stars.

Rover Does Tricks in Space, by Walter B. Hendrickson, Jr.

A grey image of a nuclear rocket on a black and white background. The background breaks the page in half vertically, and the grey rocket crosses it diagonally. On the white half, a legend in black leathers reads 'ROVER DOES TRICKS IN SPACE'

This is one of the best articles I've read on NERVA, the nuclear rocket stage being developed for use with the Saturn V.  Apparently, they've gotten the thing to work, which means that it could, if produced, perhaps triple the lifting capacity of our biggest rocket.  And once in space, NERVA engines could halve the trip time to our neighboring planets.

But here's why I suspect we'll never actually build the thing: the Saturn V assembly line is being shut down in the wake of the successful Moon landing.  NERVA is expensive, so its benefits only really manifest once a space program is mature, rockets are being made by the dozen, and orbital infrastructure has been established.  That doesn't like it'll happen any time soon.

Sure, NASA is working on its reusable, winged "space shuttle", which will reduce cost to orbit once it's operational, but that's a fair piece down the road, and I don't see a place for nuclear engines in that program.  Still, the option is there for someday.

In any event, four stars for this clear and interesting piece.

Protection, by Steven Shaw

A two panel image, black ink on white background. The left panel is of three muscled humanoid figures. They are all wearing helmets and armored vests, but only one is carrying a ray gun. The right panel shows some scientific equipment under shadowy trees.
by Vincent DiFate

This piece starts promisingly, alternating viewpoints between a native sentinel on an alien planet, squatting near the defensive line, and the security man providing protection for a scientific expedition.  When members of the team start crossing the line, they are slaughtered ignominiously by some unknown technology possessed by the aborigines.

I was enthralled until the story abruptly ended, the lead-up all in service of the "twist"—the aliens were using simple poison-tipped blowdarts.  What an allegory!  It's like our well-equipped troops getting aced by the "primitive" Viet Cong!  How the proud fall!

Except that it is repeatedly established that the security men are wearing body armor.  Last I heard, flak jackets repel bamboo reeds almost as well as bullets!  Moreover, were the humans really unable to recover the darts presumably still in the corpses, nor identify the poison coursing through their bloodstreams?

One star.

Ravenshaw of WBY, Inc., by W. Macfarlane

An two-paneled image, black ink on a white background. A floating platform hovers above the ground, with a fantastical astronomy lab atop it. There is a figure on the platform, facing away from the viewer. Two figures, a man and a woman, look up at the platform from the ground in the bottom left corner. The bottom right corner has the legend 'RAVENSHAW OF WBY, INC.: It takes a special sort of man to let logic go to hell -- and act on what he sees, even when he knows it's impossible!'
by Vincent DiFate

Here's a story that I found almost indistinguishable from the serial.  The hero is even named Leigh (in this case, Arleigh Ravenshaw).  He's a veteran with a knack for innovation—for instance, in Vietnam, he plied the local kids with ice cream to get them to turn in mines and weapons caches.  I'm sure it's that easy.

Ravenshaw is recruited to work for FBY (Flying Blue Yonder), a San Diego-based agency that entertains every crackpot in the region in the hopes that there might be wheat amongst the chaff (an endeavor Campbell surely thinks much of, but I can tell you, having worked with the publishing arm of the American Astronautical Society, which occasionally gets unsolicited papers, cranks are just that—cranks).  He is accompanied by a "palomino-haired" young woman with a "bitter-honey voice" and a penchant for dressing bright, clashing colors.

On their first mission, to the desert near Borrego Springs on the trail of the creators of a matter converter, they find a wall-less room that houses an iodine thief from a parallel universe…and what may be the younger version of Ravenshaw's female companion.

Apparently, this will be the first in a series of loosely connected (and rather tedious) tales.  Two stars.

An image, black lines on a white background, of a small alien going through grass. The alien resembles a hybrid of a stag beetle and a lawn sprinkler, and is about the same size. The title of the image is 'Department of Diverse Data', suggesting it is a comic series. The caption reads
by David Pattee

Wrong Rabbit, by Jack Wodhams

An image, black lines on white background, of two men in hazmat suits holding cattle prods, facing an alien stuck in a ring. The alien looks like an enormous sort of walrus-bear-cat thing, with blobby lobster claws.
by Vincent DiFate

Earth has a working matter transmitter setup, with each booth operated by a single technician linked psychically with her or his unit.  One day, wires get crossed, and the passenger of a similar, alien network ends up in a human booth…swapped with a human stuck in an extraterrestrial receptacle.  Chaos ensues.

Wodhams tells the tale in alternating viewpoints to illustrate that both races, despite being repulsively different from each other, have surprisingly convergent societies and thought processes.  Ultimately, the two reach a rapprochement and combine their networks.

I feel this tale would have been more effective had the two perspectives differed considerably.  I also felt the constant use of nonsense terms as shorthand for untranslateable concepts ("I cannot describe to you the feeling of kooig that permeated by slaktuc.") was silly given just how similar the two species turned out to be, at least in mindset.

Two stars.

Revolutionaries, by M. R. Anver

A two-paneled image, black on a white background. On the left panel, there is a bust of an old man looking outward, and two full-body drawings of women. One mostly-naked woman, or possibly alien, is looking down, holding a tool like a futuristic metal detector. The other woman is wearing a short dress, looking out at the viewer. The legend on the left-hand panel reads, 'REVOLUTIONARIES: Many things will be changed in an interstellar culture -- but some things haven't changed since Cheops was cheated by the Pyramid contractor!' On the right panel, another bust of an old man looks outward. There is a planet in the background, with two spaceships flying over its surface. Below the image of the planet are two futuristic-looking space cars.
by Vincent DiFate

Achates is a new Federation colony, a joint effort by humans and the blue-furred humanoids of Azure.  An important election is coming up, between Ronan, head of the bi-racial United Party, and the reactionary Manoc—who is willing to win at any price, including a coup d'etat after a potential UP victory.

In the middle of it all is John Cameron, a Federation observer, who appears to be playing both sides against the middle… but are his loyalties really in question?

Anver seems to have taken a page from Mack Reynolds' book, turning in a competent, but unexciting (and not at all SFnal), political action thriller.

Three stars.

The Reference Library, by P. Schuyler Miller

Analog's veteran book reviewer covers Orbit 5, which he notes wanders further from the truly SFnal than ever before, but he finds it a worthy effort, nonetheless.  He damns with faint praise the books we also didn't sing huge praises of: The Palace of Eternity, Masque World, and Galactic Pot-Healer—which just goes to show how good Miller's taste is!  Which means you should perhaps avoid J. T. McIntosh's Six Gates from Limbo and seek out Edmond Hamilton's World of the Starwolves, which we never covered, but Miller does.

Tallying the results

A woman in a blue dress, sitting at a printer desk. In the background, a man in a dark suit is punching into a large computer.
IBM 360 Model 65 with a woman at the IBM 1052 printer in the foreground, a man at the Direct-Access Storage Devices (DASDs) in the back

Analog these days reminds me nothing so much as Hugh Heffner's Playboy.  Where the latter magazine is aimed squarely at the smug youngish libertarian with delusions of yacht-hood, Analog is for the smug youngish libertarian with aspirations in engineering.  Every story reinforces the notion that, if you're a scientifically educated man, you too can save Democracy, make the girls swoon, and show up those stuffy institutionalists.  Perhaps Campbell sees his mag as a kind of Fountain of Youth to recover never-gained glories.  Or maybe this kind of slop is just the secret to getting 200,000 subscribers.

Regardless, I'm getting pretty tired of it.  Maybe others are, too.  If they rate tales as I do, this issue scored just 2.4 stars—the lowest of any mag this month.  It is beaten by Amazing (2.8), IF (2.8), Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.8), The Year 2000 (3), New Worlds (3), Galaxy (3.2), and Vision of Tomorrow (3.5)

The overall average this month was 2.9, and the four and five star material in the eight mags that came out would fill two full-size mags.  If you're keeping count, women produced about 9% of new short fiction published this month. 

Luckily, as you can see, Analog just constituted one end of the bell-shaped distribution.  Somebody's gotta be tail-end Charlie, I suppose.  I'm just regretting that I drew the short straw and have to be the one to review it every month.

On the other hand, I could have gotten John Boston's gig and suffered through Amazing since Goldsmith left its helm.  And anyway, since things are finally starting to look up for him over there, maybe there's hope on the horizon for this hoary, once-honorable magazine…

An advertisement for Universe Book Club, which allows you 4 books per year, for 98 cents plus shipping and handling. Subjects include astrology (described as 'The Space Age Science'), ESP, reincarnation, the supernatural, yoga, hypnosis, and 'the black arts'.
Does astrology really count as a science?  Space Age, my Aunt Petunia!



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[February 12, 1970] Up Front (March 1970 Amazing)

A black-and-white photo portrait of John Boston. He is a clean-shaven white man with close-cropped brown hair. He wears glasses, a jacket, shirt, and tie, and is looking at the camera with a neutral expression.
by John Boston

Let’s be up front.  That is, the front of the March 1970 Amazing, depicting a space-suited person with outstretched arms following or yearning after or paying homage to an apparently departing spacecraft.  The contents page says it’s by Willis, illustrating a story called “Breaking Point.” However, Ted White’s editorial says, first, that he’s contacted some “promising young artists” whose work will appear on future covers, but right now they’re “sifting” the European covers that they apparently buy in bulk and having stories written around them “whenever possible,” like Greg Benford’s “Sons of Man” a couple of issues ago.  And this issue’s “Breaking Point” was written around the present cover, so the story illustrates the cover rather than vice versa.

Cover of Amazing magazine showing a silver space vessel skimming a rocky surface and seemingly poised to hurtle along a fiery path traced in the orbit above a planet daubed in yellows, with traces of red and mottled greens.  In the foreground a space-suited figure trails in its wake, arms outstretched
by Willis

And now that we have that straight, who’s this Willis guy?  Well, informed rumor has it that the cover is actually by our very familiar friend Johnny Bruck, from the German Perry Rhodan #201 from 1965.  The style and subject matter certainly look like Bruck’s.

Moving on to more straightforward matters: the contents look much like the previous White issues, with a serial installment, several new short stories plus a reprint, editorial, book reviews, fanzine reviews, and letter column. 

White’s editorial is mostly devoted to the tortuous history of his novel By Furies Possessed, serialized starting in this issue. This is another of his commendable efforts to educate the readership about How Publishing Works.  And he says it in black and white!  “It helps to Know Somebody, to Have Friends.” Well worth reading.  White also notes the addition of Arnold Katz, Arnie to fandom, who as Associate Editor “will have the task of pouring [sic, I hope] through all those smouldering [ditto] old issues” looking for Classic Reprints.  He also announces a new program of Reader Feedback: since he gets more letters than he can print, he will forward unprinted letters to the authors on whose work they comment, cutting up the letters concerning multiple stories.  I wonder how long that laborious task can be maintained.

The book review column is its usually slightly incestuous but quite readable pool of contention, with editor White praising Ursula LeGuin’s new juvenile A Wizard of Earthsea as not at all juvenile, and Greg Benford praising White’s new juvenile No Time Like Tomorrow only a bit less fulsomely.  Dennis O’Neil responds lukewarmly to The Andromeda Strain, Richard Lupoff offers qualified praise to Michael Moorcock’s The Black Corridor (“doesn’t quite make it, but it was a worthwhile effort . . . and will be equally worthwhile for serious readers of science fiction”), and—whoa!  What’s this?  Speaking of incestuous, or maybe recursive, Hank Stine is here to refute Richard Delap’s mild praise last issue of Harry Harrison’s Captive Universe: “This book is a crime.  If it is as common a crime as the smoking of marijuana, it is no matter; the offense is the same. . . .  There was simply no reason for this book to have been written and no reason to read it. . . . It could have been written twenty years ago”—and it was, “at least once a year since then.” (Sounds about right.)

And here’s Delap, pounding away at Josephine Saxton’s The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith.  He praises the earlier, shorter version “The Consciousness Machine” published in F&SF, but . . . “In discarding the concept used in the shorter version—an emblematic fantasy of the subconscious recorded pictorially by a machine used in psychoanalysis—the author has left her tale stranded in a hazy, directionless waste, discarding all the original sf elements in favor of unnecessarily extended feminine symbolism.” (Actually, I liked it pretty well, though maybe that makes me hazy and directionless too.) Oh, and I see I skipped over Alexei Panshin’s very succinct praise of R.A. Lafferty’s Fourth Mansions, which concludes: “It’s a wild book full of prodigious lies, and I’ll probably read it again.”

The letter column is the usual mix of the inane and the intelligent, with some apparent self-parody (“The November Amazing is a groove! . . . The first installment of the Philip K. Dick novel was a trip! . . . Dick must be stoned out of his mind—on talent!  And Ray Russell . . . came through with a mind-blower. . . .”).  Or maybe it’s just part of the inane.  Rocks are thrown at John J. Pierce’s anti-New Wave comments.  The only news here about the magazine’s functioning is that its artists must be near at hand because its deadlines are too short, so mailing stories to the West Coast and receiving art by return mail is not feasible.  The fanzine review column is full of fanzines, some analyzed with more nuance than I suspect goes into their production.

As for the fiction . . . it’s still a frustratingly mixed bag. 

By Furies Possessed (Part 1 of 2), by Ted White

Halftone ink illustration of a well-groomed taller man dressed in tights, a robe, and a tie, shaking the hand of a shorter person (facing away from the viewer) who carries a satchel and appears to be wearing a suit
by Gray Morrow

White’s serial novel By Furies Possessed comes with a celebrity blurb.  On the cover: “Big and powerful, gut-hard stuff!—Philip K. Dick.” Inside the magazine, there’s more, equally fulsome, from PKD.  I will as usual withhold comment until the serial is complete.  But looking through the first few pages, I see that White has rung a change on Tuckerization, Wilson Tucker's practice of giving his characters the names of prominent SF figures.  White, the sometime jazz critic, has named his protagonist Tad Dameron.  Tadd Dameron—birth name Tadley—was a respected jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who died young (1917-1965).

Breaking Point, by William C. Johnstone

Did I say straightforward above?  Let me take that back.  Breaking Point is blurbed as “Story Behind the Cover,” though the Cover is actually Behind the Story, as White’s editorial discloses.  The author, William C. Johnstone, is there said to be “a writer new to SF and these pages, but he’s somewhat better known in Hollywood, where he has accumulated numerous TV and screen credits.  He originally queried us about a novel he wanted to write, and the cover-story commission grew out of this.  ‘Breaking Point’ is actually the opening story in a projected book-length series.  You’ll be reading the rest of the stories here as fast as they’re written and we can publish them.” However, plausible gossip has it that Johnstone is actually a pseudonym of White, and the style is noticeably similar to White’s.

In any case, this introductory story is not actually a story.  It is an introduction, or maybe a first chapter.  A spaceship full of colonists-to-be, dormant in the Sleep of the Long Moment, malfunctions and breaks up into component modules.  A crew member caught in a corridor outside the modules hangs onto one of them and dies when it hits atmosphere.  (That must be what the cover is alleged to depict.) The module lands on an Earth-type planet (the four occupants are out breathing the air almost immediately).  The viewpoint character, Aaron, awakes to discover that one of the others, Chaimon, is hysterical because his girlfriend was in a different module and now he’ll never see her again.  Aaron, a psychotherapist, divines that their acquaintance was only a matter of days and Chaimon’s disturbance results from a vivid Dream of the Long Moment, and talks him down.  Then they see a headlight racing across the valley below.  There are people here!  And that’s it, after seven pages.  Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment, if any.  Two stars, subject to revision.

Trial by Silk, by Christopher Anvil

Christopher Anvil’s Trial by Silk begins with a demonstration of the moral hazard of payment by the word.  The good ship Starlight has been directed to an unnamed planet for shore leave, and Captain Engstrom is warning the crew of its perils—but he can’t explain them.  He begins: “Men—ah—This is very difficult.  I don’t quite know how—But it’s my duty to tell you, as a captain, that the—er—women—ah—on this planet—are . . . not—quite the way they seem.” And he goes on for some time in this vein, mentioning the food and drink, and concluding, “Whatever you do, don’t enjoy yourself.  –I mean—You know what I mean! –Anyway—That’s it.” This spiel, and the description of the crew laughing during it and after it, and everybody talking and joking about it before they actually manage to get off the spaceship, goes on for four and a half pages.

Halftone ink illustration of a man (wearing a vest, trousers, and calf-height motorcycle boots) and woman (wearing a short dress, necklace, and heels) in front of a sign reading 'sizzle palace'. The woman, is talking and and gesturing with her hands, while the man's head appears bowed in consideration.
by Ralph Reese

At that point, the story actually begins, and proves to be a discourse on other sorts of moral hazard.  Upon entering the nearby city, the spacemen are met by beautiful women offering to show them the sights—the “fountains, pools, lakes, theatres, wine shops, a communal feast and barbecue center, free communal dwellings, drug shops, fume dispensaries, sizzle palaces.” The narrator, the ship’s first officer, asks what’s a sizzle palace? His guide says “It’s terrible.  I can’t talk about it.” The sizzle palace has a skull and crossbones logo on it—as does, he notices, his guide’s hair clip, and the small bottle of highly captivating scent that she keeps applying.  They go to a public feast site where food (mainly meat) and drink are constantly replenished, and people including crew members are compulsively stuffing their faces.  He sees a cook seasoning meat from a box with the label Addicteen, also with skull and crossbones. 

The narrator bails on this G-rated orgy and says to a doctor who is treating its casualties, “I’m from off-planet.  What’s the purpose of this pleasure set-up?” The doctor responds with a bolus of Anvillean philosophy (i.e., Campbellian, but cruder): “Why, to let the unfit pleasure-lovers eliminate themselves!  If you let them have their own way, they will wreck any civilization ever built—unless you make allowance to get rid of them. . . .  Yes, you see, rot and corruption set into every civilization ever built, unless an iron discipline is imposed or some means is provided to exterminate the hedonists who spread the corruption.  The best way to get rid of them, obviously, is to provide them with exactly what they want.  It is the genius of our planet that we have worked out how to do it.  The expense is really very modest, as long as you let them finish themselves off fast, so their numbers don’t become too great.”

So why couldn’t the captain, who has been to this planet before, explain that to the crew in just that many words?  Because if he had, there wouldn’t be much of a story at all, let alone those delicious four and a half pages of remunerative surplusage at the beginning.

Speaking of philosophy, there’s an earlier exchange with the narrator’s alluring guide when he asks her why there’s hardly anybody around who looks older than 35.  She explains that when people are worn out, they “take a recoup”—i.e., go into the recuperator, which renews them.  Forever?  No, most last until 28 or 29; 35 is “frightfully old.” She giggled.  “Who would want to live that long?” So the recoup wears them out?  “No, silly.  Man was made for pleasure, and it’s the pleasure that wears him out, not the recoup.” The narrator protests that in this system, people lose half their lives.  She says, “But shouldn’t a life be measured by the total amount of pleasure received; not by the years it lasts?” Narrator responds, “What about accomplishment?” and she says, “You belong up there with them!”—referring to the people who actually do the work of keeping the society going, who pass by above the fray on overhead walkways with disapproving looks—and she walks away.

So why didn’t this appear in Analog?  Too unsubtle even for Campbell, maybe.  It's a toss-up whether it is more tedious than offensive, or vice versa.  Either way, one star.

I'm Too Big but I Love to Play, by James Tiptree, Jr.

Psychedelic ink illustration of a solitary suited figure piloting a car-sized vessel.  The turbulence of the ship's passage and the interior shadows of the cockpit create a woman's 'hair', flowing back from the woman's face which is silhouetted across the vehicle's nose.
by Michael Hinge

Matters are somewhat redeemed by the next item, James Tiptree, Jr.’s “I’m Too Big But I Love to Play,” which is a little reminiscent of A.E. van Vogt, or what van Vogt might be like if he had a sense of humor and his writing were less ponderous.  The protagonist is an energy being who spends his life (Tiptree’s pronoun usage) sailing around the universe on energy currents, until the day he discovers Earth and the subtle energy exchanges of human communication and interaction.  What fun!  He tries to join in but can’t get it right, causing havoc wherever he goes.  This Tiptree guy loves to play and he seems to be about the right size, though he, like his protagonist, needs to get a little more practice.  Three stars.

The Tree Terror, by David H. Keller, M.D.

The “Amazing Classic” this issue is David H. Keller’s “The Tree Terror,” from the October 1933 Amazing, and it is actually a charming relic, unlike some of its decidedly un-charming predecessors.  Keller is back on his usual theme—people mess with the natural order of things and disaster results.  President Tompkins of Cellulose Consolidated needs more cellulose, because it’s essential to making “a thousand synthetic products.” And he needs lots of it, and cheap, and near to his factories.  Horticulturist Simcox is ordered to do it or be fired.

So Simcox goes to work, consulting a paleo-botanist who tells him about club mosses, which (supported by stems) grew a hundred feet high during the Carboniferous and which we are now burning as coal.  Then he talks to a biologist who is irradiating ferns, and figures out how to return club moss to its ancestral glory, and bingo!  We’re in Sorceror’s Apprentice territory, starting with a test plantation in rural Nebraska and proceeding straightway to dense forests of club moss with roots so deep they can grow almost anywhere, and do.  “Their falling trunks began to block the highways, arteries of commerce.  Only by constant vigilance were the railroads kept open and safe.” Food crops are crowded out.  Everyone flees to the cities to starve.  (At least the club moss doesn’t grow in concrete.)

Now Simcox returns to confront Tompkins and demands that this captain of industry rise to the occasion.  He’s brought with him an eccentric genius who has invented a machine that costs three dollars to make and will grind up club moss and turn it into food.  Simcox tells Tompkins he’d better crank up his company to distribute these machines nationwide so the starving millions can go out and eat the club moss out of existence.  “Broadcast it!  Put food into the stomach and hope into the soul of the desperate men of the nation!” And you don’t have to pay the inventor, he’s too busy on his next invention.  Harmlessly amusing, three stars.

Is Anybody Out There?, by Greg Benford and David Book

Greg Benford and David Book continue their “Science in Science Fiction” series with “Is Anybody Out There?,” which as you might suspect is about the prospects of intelligent life elsewhere than Earth.  They lay out plainly and methodically the numerous questions that have to be answered en route to getting the big answer, and the current state of knowledge about each, and they don’t obscure the fact that most of their answers are essentially pulled out of the air, er, are very gross estimates.  This lucid presentation is a pleasure to read compared with the run of SF mag science articles.  Four stars.

Summing Up

Uneven.  Promising.  Disappointing.  Have patience.  The same things I said for years about the Goldsmith/Lalli version of the magazine, punctuated by transitory bursts of excellence.  I am tempted to get a rubber stamp made.  Meanwhile, how about one of those transitory bursts?



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


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Illustration of a thumbs-up

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

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

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

A pleasant Escapade

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The New Thing in America

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

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

The Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys

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

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

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

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

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

Now on to the fiction!

The Region Between, by Harlan Ellison

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, my goodness, five stars.

The Propheteer, by Leo P. Kelley

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

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

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

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

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

Two stars.

A Place of Strange, by George C. Willick

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

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

Indeed, there must be.

Two stars.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunpot (Part 2 of 4), by Vaughn Bodé

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

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

A waste of space.  One star.

Reflections, by Robert F. Young

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

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

Three stars.

Summing up

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

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

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

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



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


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


by David Levinson

The Super Fight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not what it looks like

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

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

SOS, by Poul Anderson

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

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

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

A high three stars, but could have been better.

Telemart 3, by Bob Shaw

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

Two stars.

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

The Thing in the Stone, by Clifford Simak

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

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

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

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

The Ethics of Trade, by Timothy M. Brown

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

Three stars.

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

In the Silent World, by Ed Bryant

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

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

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

Three stars.

Traps, by Jack Dann and George Zebrowski

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

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

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

Three stars.

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

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

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

Three fading stars.

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

The Time Judge, by Dannie Plachta

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

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

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

Two stars.

Love Thy Neighbor, by E. Clayton McCarty

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

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

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

Three low, but not too low stars.

All Brothers Are Men, by Basil Wells

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

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

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

A very solid three stars.

Miscellany

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

Summing up

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