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Magazine, Serial

[February 28, 1965] Tragedy and Triumph (March 1965 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Casualty of War

Malcolm X was shot on my birthday.

While I was celebrating with friends on February 21, 1965, enjoying cake and camaraderie at a small Los Angeles fan convention, Malcolm X, one of the highest profile fighters for civil rights in America, was gunned down.  At a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), a group X founded, three shooters attacked the 39-year-old father of four (soon to be five), wounding him sixteen times.  He did not survive the trip to the hospital.

Two of the assailants were captured, but their motive is still unclear.  All fingers point to the Black Muslims, however.  After his disillusionment with and fraught departure from the group, X had cause to worry that they intended to rub out a man they thought of as a traitor.  Indeed, X had received a number of death threats prior to the OAAU meeting. 

Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims, had to arrive at a rally at New York's Coliseum on February 26 flanked by police protection.  Addressing the large audience, he made clear that he'd come to savage X, not to praise or bury him. 

Malcolm X was a controversial figure.  Whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent methods have earned him almost universal admiration from America (those who fight the old order, anyway), X was a militant Afro-American.  It was only recently that his attitude toward Whites began to soften, the result of a pilgrimage to Mecca, which he shared with many light-skinned Muslims.  Nevertheless, there is no question that the war for civil rights has claimed one of its most important generals. 

As Black Americans prepare for a freedom march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, the cynic in me wonders who will be next.

Cheering News

In recent months, that kind of a downer headline would segue easily, if dishearteningly, into a piece on how the latest Analog was a disappointment.  Thankfully, the magazine is on an upswing, and the March 1965 Analog, last of the "bedsheet" sized isues, is one of the best in a long while.


by John Schoenherr

The Twenty Lost Years of Solid-State Physics, by Theodore L. Thomas

Theodore L. Thomas takes a break from his rather lousy F&SF science vignettes to talk about the patenting of the first transistor.  Apparently, a fellow named Lilienfeld worked out the theory long before Shockley et. al., filing a patent as early as 1930!  Yet, Lilienfeld never tried to build the thing, and the invention had no effect on the world save for complicating the filing of later patents by others.  Sad, to be sure, although Lilienfeld had a prolific career otherwise, and I'm given to understand that materials technology was not sufficiently advanced to make the device back then anyway.

Still, it makes you wonder what other inventions lie buried at the patent office, lacking a vital something to bring them into common use.

Four stars.

The Case of the Paradoxical Invention, by Richard P. McKenna

Speaking of inventions that haven't found their era, McKenna offers up a motor powered by the stream of radioactive particles from a decaying source.  The problem is, it appears to be both physically possible and impossible simultaneously.

The math is over my head, and probably over the head of most of Analog's readers, too.

Two stars.

The Iceman Goeth, by J. T. McIntosh


by Leo Summers

Andrew Coe is an iceman.  Years ago, he had his emotions wiped clean, both punishment and societal protection, for Coe had murdered an ex-lover for unfaithfulness.  Now he makes a living with a clairvoyant and telepathy act — except it's no act.  He's the real deal. 

It appears nothing will change the colorless unending cycle of work and sleep, but outside Coe's harshly circumscribed life, the city he resides in is slowly going mad.  Psychotic breaks followed by motive-less murders and suicides have been steadily on the rise.  The police are at wits end as to their cause until a scientists pinpoints their origin to an unexploded dementia bomb, dropped in a war 50 years before. 

To find the thing, Coe will have to have to use his full mental powers, only accessible if he gets back his emotions.

There is a five star story here, one where the drama resides in the decision to restore Coe to his former self.  Coe is a killer; is it worth it unleash one madman on the world to stop a hundred?

The problem is, that's not how McIntosh plays it.  Instead, Coe simply finds the bomb, receives a pardon, gets a new girl, and everyone lives happily ever after.  No mention is made of his past crimes.  We never learn about the woman he killed.  If anything, McIntosh almost seems to excuse Coe's act as forgivable given the circumstances.

Deeply dissatisfying, but God, what potential.  Three stars.

(Have we seen this concept of the iceman before?  It seems awfully familiar.)

Balanced Ecology, by James H. Schmitz


by Dean West

The McIntosh is followed by a tale as delightful as the prior story was disappointing.  On the planet Wrake, the ecosystem is uniquely interdependent.  Among the groves of diamondwood trees reside the skulking slurps, whose primary prey are the ambulatory tumbleweeds, whose seeds are tilled by the subterranean and invisible "clean-up squad".  Other denizens are the monkey-like humbugs, with an annoying tendency to mockingbird human expressions, and the giant tortoise-like mossbacks, who sleep for years at a time in the center of the forests.

Ilf and Auris Cholm are pre-teen owners of one of these woods, heir to a modest fortune thanks to their well-moderated timbering operation.  When greedy off-worlders want to effect a hostile takeover for a clearcutting scheme, do a pair of kids stand a chance?  Not without a little help, as it turns out…

I really really liked this story, almost an ecological fable.  The only bumpy spot, I felt, was the part where the villain revealed his evil scheme in a bit too much of a stereotypical, if metaphorical, cackle.

Four stars.

The Wrong House, by Max Gunther


by Adolph Brotman

Out in the suburbs, they're building giant subdivisions with rows of handsome houses on gently curving lanes.  Many find them charming, but others find them unsettling — like the young woman who confesses (in The Wrong House) to her engineer husband that her home seems somehow "unfriendly."  To his credit, the man takes his spouse seriously and determines to understand why the air duct pipe is warm instead of cool, and just what all those strange electronics installed in their attic might be…

Another good story, maybe a little too pat, but well executed.  Four stars.

The Prophet of Dune (Part 3 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by John Schoenherr

Now we come to the centerpiece of the issue, the sweeping serial scheduled across the first five months of 1965.  In this latest installment, Paul Atreides and his mother, the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica, fulfill prophecy and become spiritual leaders of the Fremen, the indigenes of the desert planet Arrakis.  Meanwhile, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, usurper of the Atreides fiefdom on Arrakis, schemes to parlay his control of the geriatric spice melange into rulership of the entire galactic Empire.

There were times when the immense scope and obvious attention to detail threatened to elevate Dune into four star, even classic territory.  And then Frank Herbert's fat fingers got in their own way and gave us such classic passages as this:

Paul heard hushed voices come down the line: "It's true then–Liet is dead."
Liet, Paul thought.  Then: Chani, daughter of Liet.  The pieces fell together in his mind.  Liet was the Fremen name of the Planetologist, Kynes.

Paul looked at Farok, asked: "Is it the Liet known as Kynes?"

"There is only one Liet," Farok said.

Paul turned, stared at the robed back of a Fremen in front of him.  Then Liet-Kynes is dead, he thought.

I guess Kynes is dead.  He's also called Liet.  I thought.

How about this one:

"This" — [Baron Harkonnen] gestured at the evidence of the struggle in the bed-chamber–"was foolishness.  I do not reward foolishness."

Get to the point, you old fool! Feyd-Ruatha thought.

"You think of me as an old fool," the Baron said.  "I must dissuade you of that."

Fool me thrice, shame on Herbert.  The third-person omniscient/everywhere/everyone vantage is clumsy; a better writer could go without such exposition and switching of viewpoints, instead saving it, perhaps, for the times when Paul goes into one of his prescient fugues.

But I do want to keep reading, if for nothing else than to know what happens.

Three stars.

Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann

For some reason, Analog's editor, John W. Campbell Jr., decided to include a set of homilies from the inside of Old Saint Paul's Church in Baltimore, dated 1692.  At first, my atheistic side bridled, but I ultimately found the platitudes refreshing and timeless.

No stars for this entry, for it's not really a tale nor an article.

The Legend of Ernie Deacon, by William F. Temple


by Dean West

Last up, we follow the exploits of Arthur, captain of a two-place merchant ship plying the lanes between Earth and Alpha Centauri.  It's a twelve year trip, reduced to a subjective 18 months thanks to time dilation.  It's still a long time, but Art finds it lucrative and satisfying, trading full-sense movies called "Teo's" for the life-saving medicine, varos.  Legend is a philosophical piece, discussing the morality of preferring a vicarious life to a "real" one (and of facilitating the addiction thereto), and also evaluating the reality of fictional creations whose existence comes to shadow that of their creators (e.g. Holmes over Doyle).

Good, thoughtful stuff, with an ending that can be viewed as mystical or simply sentimental.

Four stars.

Summing Up

The counter to tragedy is hope, and the latest Analog gives me a lot of hope — that the magazine that ushered in the Golden Age of science fiction will rise to former glory (some may argue that the magazine never fell; it has maintained the highest SF circulation rates for decades.) In fact, Analog is the month's highest-rated mag, at 3.3 stars, for the first time in years.

Fantastic followed closely at 3.2; all the rest of the mags were under water:

Amazing and New Worlds both merited 2.9 stars (but the former made John Boston smile, so that's something).  Science-Fantasy scored a sad 2.6.  Fantasy and Science Fiction was a lousy 2.3.  IF, at 2 stars, was so bad that I'm not sorry to stop reviewing it; that harsh task now falls on the shoulders of one David Levinson, whom we shall meet next month.

And February does end with one more bit of tragedy: out of 45 fictional pieces published in magazines this month, only one was written by a woman.

Here's hoping March offers better news on that front, and others.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 24, 1965] Doctors, Hunchbacks and Dunes … New Worlds and Science Fantasy, February/March 1965

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

As I briefly mentioned last time, much of this month has been about the country dealing with the death and subsequent state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. It has felt like the passing of an era – the old guard, admittedly, but an end, nevertheless. It seems to have cast a cloud over everything.

I turned to the two magazines to try and cheer me up.

The First Issue At Hand

So: which magazine arrived first? The winner was (again)… Science Fantasy.


[Impressive cover this month. Remember the bad old days covers of the Carnell New Worlds era?]

Looking beyond the arty cover by Agosta Morol, I see that the magazine, like New Worlds, now has an Associate Editor. In this case its J. Parkhill-Rathbone (no first name given.) This is, no doubt, to cope with the extra volume created by the magazine going monthly.

Not that that is shown particularly by the Editorial, which even admits that there’s little to say this month and then fills the space by mentioning up-coming works of interest. There’s also an intriguing glimpse into the life of an editor, which involves Kyril, Jim Ballard, Brian Aldiss and some Liebfraumilch.

To the stories themselves.

The Outcast, by Harry Harrison

We start with a big name, the usually wonderful Harry Harrison. He has been here before but in his many guises as short story author, editor and collaborator. It is great to read a longer story. This is one of those “spaceships as cruise liner” type of tales, with a notorious passenger causing unrest amongst the passengers. I guess that it must be akin to being on a holiday with someone like Josef Mengele!

It’s told with the usual Harrison skill, with the occasional plot-point to keep the reader guessing. The protagonist is given a surprisingly nuanced character and is not the monster some would suggest, and by the end the story becomes one of redemption. Solidly thought-provoking, if unremarkable. It’s a good start to the issue. 3 out of 5.

Song of the Syren, by Robert Wells

A story about singing alien plants and the development of bad worker relationships, but also about the trouble women cause in space when surrounded by men. As bad as it sounds, this attempts to tell a mystery plot with misogynistic clichés that I thought went out with the pulps of the 1940’s. For example, “She was a sixth year student, one of the brightest in the unit’s botanical section, but it was an open secret that she would resign when her seven years tour of duty was complete and opt for a mating and reproductive role back in Solar.” Not one of the magazine’s brightest moments. 2 out of 5.

Moriarty, by Philip Wordley

A crime story about the protagonist’s relationship with a female telepathic cop in L.A. The twist here is that the policewoman wants the burglar to hold off from robbing a bank so that she can get a bigger catch, a big-time mobster planning to rob the same bank in a few days’ time. Another predictable story that doesn’t upset things too much. 2 out of 5.

Bring Back A Life, by John Rackham

Peter Raynor is a biochemist who finds himself abducted by a group of VIPs for a secret mission – the Prime Minister has been struck down with Ringer’s Parethis – a brain disease which has only been cured before by accident – before a major political conference in three weeks’ time. Raynor is asked to try and come up with a cure for the PM. The solution appears to be one in the past, so Raynor travels to get it. An adventure story, admittedly fast-paced, that seems rather contrived when you stop to think about it. 2 out of 5.

[Image by the writer]

The Jennifer, by Keith Roberts

What? Another month, another Keith Roberts story? This is the latest from a magazine favourite, an Anita story that was delayed from last month’s issue. If you like the continuing stories of this young teenage witch, described as “shameless” in the banner, I can’t see why you wouldn’t like this one – even with the still-present annoying Granny. This time Anita and Granny Thompson are on holiday at the seaside when Anita meets a mermaid, much to Granny’s disgust. Anita catches a Serpent ride into the sea… and then the story abruptly stops, as if the writer had run out of time and space. I would have liked more, which is the sign of a good story, although I’m going to dock a point for its abrupt end, which makes it feel like more of a story extract than a story. However, like most of these Anita stories, The Jennifer is light and fun, even if Granny still irks me. 3 out of 5.

A Cave in the Hills, by R. W. Mackelworth

Here’s an author you may recognise from the Carnell New Worlds days. He was last seen in the February 1964 issue of New Worlds with The Unexpected Martyr. This is the story of a bored housewife who in a utopian future finds that her boring husband has ended up in debt and in Debtors prison. Her own future is uncertain, dependent on a visit from the Adjudicator. But bigger issues are at play. This is another story of the value of identity and being different from the majority, themes that Mackelworth has examined before, but manages pretty well. 3 out of 5.

Hunt a Wild Dream, by D. R. Heywood

Another new writer. Do you remember recently when editor Kyril Bonfiglioni said that he was a fan of “time-travel safari” stories? Well, this one starts with a safari, at least.

Our hero of the piece is Manfred ‘Mac’ Cullen, known for “bringing them back alive” (which wins points from me, though I’m not entirely sure whether that statement means animals or tourists!) We follow Cullen as he starts a journey into the African grasslands, which suggests that he’s a more complex character than my stereotype might suggest. However, this one just starts to get interesting and then stops. There’s some ruminations on the spiritual beliefs of the local Nandi tribe, that Cullen knows and understands, but as soon as we hear of some murders that may have happened on lands where the locals refuse to go, the story stops, to be continued next month.

Based on what I’ve read here, this could develop into an interesting and scary story or fizzle to nothing. The jury is out, but based on what I’ve read here I’ll give Hunt A Wild Dream a cautious 3 out of 5 so far.

Summing up Science Fantasy

Although this issue of Science Fantasy is more up-beat than the last, I am a little underwhelmed by it. There’s nothing badly wrong – OK, there’s one story that’s really not good – but it’s a solid issue. And that may be the problem. Most of it is entertaining, but there’s nothing here to really grab my attention like the Burnett Swann serial did in previous months. I’m pretty sure that this is another issue that was worth me buying, yet I’ll have forgotten about by the end of the year. The best stories for me are the Harrison, and even that is not the best of his I’ve read, and the Anita story, which has its issues.

So let’s go to my second issue.

The Second Issue At Hand

As the cover heralds, this month’s New Worlds has a couple of well-known authors: J G Ballard and Arthur C Clarke.

This month’s Editorial, I’m pleased to say, is back to the discussion format that we seemed to have lost last month. It’s another call to arms, a rumination that science fiction is moving away from the traditional space exploration story to ones set on Earth and are more involved with inner space – the mind and its “capacities and defects”. It’s an interesting point, and I guess one which makes the British SF increasingly different to the majority of stories I see in the American magazines. It ends with the point that new young writers must look forward and not back as the values of the Sixties are not those of the 1950’s.


[Art by aTom]

All the King’s Men, by B J Bailey

A stand-alone novelette from Barrington J (BJ) Bailey this month. And I liked it very much, up to the end.

In 2034 the Earth has been invaded and peacefully vanquished by aliens, who whilst keeping control over the locals fight against each other over the Earth territories. The story is told by Smith, the human second in command who with Holath Horan Sorn has kept Britain generally peaceful for the alien King of All Britain, although, unsurprisingly, Sorn and our narrator are seen as traitors by many of the native populace.

The story begins with the fact that Sorn has died and there is an impending power struggle to take his place. Smith is bullied by Hotch to take the human’s side and use the disruption to cause chaos for the King, who has relied heavily on the advice of his human advisors to maintain order. It has in the past made decisions that are mistakes that the humans have had to nullify.

At the same time the King is concerned with a war between himself as King of Britain and other aliens who have taken over Brazil. Much of the story is how Smith tries to fulfil the role of Sorn as intermediary between the alien King, who is aware that his thinking is very different to that of Humans, and at the same time Smith struggles to represent the British people, who are constantly fretting under the control of an alien leader.

So why did I really like this one? The setup is intriguing. It’s an engaging mixture of historical ideas (kingdoms, courts, feuding Kings) in a future setting (spaceships, alien art, electric trains), with a character-based tone that I really engaged with. I was going to give this one 4 stars, until I got to the ending, where the author abruptly gives everything up and the lead character basically says “I don’t know what happened.” 3 out of 5.

Sunjammer, by Arthur C Clarke

I really like Arthur’s clarity of prose and this one doesn’t disappoint, although my enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that it is a reprint of a story first published in the USA as a juvenile story in Boy’s Life in March 1964. Sunjammer is the story of a race around the Solar System using spacecraft that use solar winds for propulsion. I really liked it as a good old-fashioned ‘sense of wonder’ story that Clarke is so good at – but it also shows us what was mentioned in the Editorial, that British SF has changed a lot recently and this one is definitely old school. Like I said last month about another old-style story, Sunjammer’s exciting and I enjoyed it a lot, but it is nothing that would be out of place from the magazines of the 1950’s, and it has been printed before. 3 out of 5.

First Dawn, by Donald Malcolm

Here’s the return of an author from the Carnell Era. Donald Malcolm was last seen in the April 1964 issue of New Worlds, the last issue edited by Carnell. I thought that beyond the reach of storms was OK, if nothing special. I liked this one more, though it is a minor piece describing dawn on an ice planet as seen from the perspective of a mole-like alien. It’s nicely done but like Malcolm's last effort nothing to remember for too long. 2 out of 5.

Dune Limbo, by J G Ballard

To say that this story is much-anticipated is an understatement. If you didn’t know already, JG is making an impact not just here in Britain but also overseas with his strange fiction. He is an author that always makes me think and pushes literary boundaries at the same time. I never know what a story of his is going to say, or indeed how it is going to say it!

Dune Limbo is a little bit of a cheat however, as it is an extract from a bigger work. The Drought (also known as The Burning World to you in the US) is due out as a novel later in the year (hurrah!) and Dune Limbo is from the middle part. This is a little disappointing – how do you feel about starting a novel in the middle? – but there is a lengthy summary of what has gone before at the start.

It is obvious early on that Dune Limbo does have some of the usual Ballard-ian themes though. It is basically about a world in decline, where a global drought has changed the world we know. To this Ballard brings his usual types of characters – strange and often unpleasant. This middle part shows us a story of this new harsh environment, with humans hanging on to existence in a world different to our own.

This sounds like the Ballard of The Drowned World and Equinox. But…. dare I say it, Dune Limbo is slightly more straight-forward, perhaps even less challenging than some of Ballard’s other recent work I’ve read. It feels like there’s elements here I’ve read before. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that for me it doesn’t quite have the impact that, say, The Terminal Beach had. Don’t get me wrong – there’s some lovely images created by the prose, for example – but it may not create as much of a stir as some of his earlier work. I liked it, though.

Perhaps it may introduce the author to some new readers previously unfamiliar with Ballard’s work, but I felt a little short-changed as it felt more like an advertisement for his upcoming novel than an actual story. Nevertheless, Ballard’s prose is still seductive, and so for all my grumbles it is still 4 out of 5.

Escape from Evening, by Michael Moorcock

And here’s another story by the Editor. This time it is a novelette from the ongoing series that riffs heavily on the later stages of H G Wells’ The Time Machine. (Well, if you’re going to borrow, why not borrow from the best?)

Escape from Evening is set in a distant future, where a Moonite decides to go and live on the Earth. Despite the Earth people feeling that he would find their decaying society boring, Pepin Hunchback revels in the fact that Earth is real and not artificial like the Moon and decides to explore his new home. His travels lead him to Lanjis Liho, where we pick up points and meet characters we have heard of before back in the story The Time Dweller in the February 1964 issue of New Worlds. Lanjis Liho is the home of the fabled Chrononauts who (as we found out in the last Chrononaut story) can travel through time at will. Pepin attempts to travel back in time to a place where he would feel more in tune with their world, but there are revelations it would be wrong for me to reveal here.

There are parts of this story I liked, and it is quite different to Moorcock’s last outing – though the use of a character named ‘Pepin Hunchback’ and a ‘Hooknosed Wanderer’ may be borrowing from the classics a little too much for comfort. 3 out of 5.

The Uncivil War, by R J Tilley

Another war story in this issue, of a sort. RJ Tilley’s tale is an attempt to lighten the mood a little as we read of a young reporter’s first visit to the notorious Firkl’s Bar. Whilst there he is regaled with a shaggy-dog story about an old space-dog’s secret mission where miscommunication and bad assumptions almost start a war. Tired and overlong. 2 out of 5.

Articles

Mixed throughout the issue this month. There’s a review by Alan Dodd of the film Voyage to the End of the Universe (isn’t current thinking that there is no end?) and a summary of the latest amateur magazines.

In terms of Books this month, there is only one book reviewed, but as has been the trend of late, the review is in detail. Assistant Editor Langdon Jones has a quote for a title guaranteed to grab your attention – "That Is Not Oil, Madam. That Is Jellied Consomme", a quote from the Introduction of The Weird Ones, a collection introduced by H L Gold, who you may also know as the Editor of Galaxy magazine.

The book surprises with its unusual introduction (and is where the titular quote comes from) but is quite frugal otherwise. Frederik Pohl’s Small Lords starts well but soon becomes no more than ‘readable’, Poul Anderson’s Sentiment Inc. the same, whilst Milton Lesser’s Name Your Tiger is the most readable and perhaps predictably Eando Binder’s dated Iron Man the worst. There’s some wincingly awful quotes to make that point too.

The Letters Pages are a pleasing mixture of praise and complaint. Moans about Ron Goulart’s review of Aldiss’ Greybeard, praise for the move to monthly and monstrous book reviews – and still more argument about Langdon Jones’ story I Remember, Anita (reviewed back in issue 144).

Ratings this month for issue 146 (January 1965). Very pleased with this one. Well done to David Rome, one of the more accessible New Wave stories of late – and we have a tie!

Summing up New Worlds

Another strong issue this month, perhaps the one I have consistently enjoyed most in a long time. There’s the usual eclectic mixture – it is mentioned as such in the Editorial – but it was one of the rare issues where I loved pretty much everything, even the stuff I would normally say I didn’t. No religious preaching, no apocalyptic Armageddons, for a change.

Summing up overall

Whilst Science Fantasy has its moments, the New Worlds issue is a clear winner.

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

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

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Book, Magazine, Serial

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

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by Gideon Marcus

Monthly Muchness

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

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

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

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

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

The Issue at Hand


by McKenna

Stone Place, by Fred Saberhagen

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

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


by Jack Gaughan

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

Meeting on Kangshan, by Eric Frank Russell

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

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

All We Unemployed, by Bryce Walton

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

One star.

Of One Mind, by James Durham


by Gray Morrow

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

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

Three stars

Million-Mile Hunt, by Emil Petaja

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

Two stars.

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


by Gray Morrow

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

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

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

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

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

Summing Up

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

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




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Magazine, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

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

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

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

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

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

The First Issue At Hand

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


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


Back Cover. Notice anything wrong?

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

To the stories themselves.

Present From the Past, by Douglas Davis

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

The Empathy Machine, by Langdon Jones

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

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

Harvest, by Johnny Byrne

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

Petros, by Philip Wordley

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

Flight of Fancy, by Keith Roberts

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

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

The Island, by Roger Jones

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

The Typewriter, by Alistair Bevan

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

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

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

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

Summing up Science Fantasy

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

The Second Issue At Hand

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


Cover by Jakubowicz

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

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

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

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

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


Oh look- more rubbish artwork!

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

More Than A Man, by John Baxter

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

When the Sky Falls, by John Hamilton

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


This is better! Artwork by James Cawthorn

The Singular Quest of Martin Borg, by George Collyn

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

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

The Mountain, by James Colvin

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

Box, by Richard Wilson

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

Articles

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

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

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

Book Reviews

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

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

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

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

Summing up New Worlds

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

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

Summing up overall

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

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

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

mall>

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Magazine, Serial

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

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by Victoria Silverwolf


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

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

Caution: May cause diabetes.

Climb Ev'ry Mountain

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


Chief Justice Earl Warren administers the oath of office.

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

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

Do Re Mi

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

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


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

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


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

My Favorite Things

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


Cover art by Heidi Coquette.

A Fortnight of Miracles, by Randall Garrett

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

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

Three stars.

Passage to Dilfar, by Roger Zelazny

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

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

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

Three stars.

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


Illustration by George Schelling.

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

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

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

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

Four stars.

Winterness, by Ron Goulart


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

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

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

Three stars.

The Vamp, by Thomas M. Disch

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

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

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

Three stars.

So Long, Farewell

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

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




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Magazine, Serial

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

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by Gideon Marcus

Eulogy for One

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

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

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

The Issue at Hand


by Jack Gaughan

Marque and Reprisal, by Poul Anderson

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sin of Edna Schuster, by Willard Marsh

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

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

Please enlighten me?

Mrs. Pribley's Underdog, by Sue Sanford

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

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

Time and the Sphinx, by Leah Bodine Drake

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

Four stars.

Harmony in Heaven, by Isaac Asimov

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

Three stars.

The Switch, by Calvin Demmon

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

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

Look Up, by Karen Anderson

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

The Absolutely Perfect Murder, by Miriam Allen deFord

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

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

The Placebo Effect, by Theodore L. Thomas

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

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

Three stars.

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

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

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

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

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

Good for what it is.  Three stars.

Celebration for All

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


by "Moonman82"

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[January 12, 1965] Last Minute Reprieve (the February 1965 Amazing)

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by John Boston

The Issue at Hand


Paula McLane

Well, what have we here?  A pretty decent issue of Amazing, not a common occasion at all, with some good and/or interesting material, one disappointing item by a big-name author, but no offenses against reason and decency!  Let us count our blessings, and proceed directly to their dissection.

He Who Shapes, by Roger Zelazny


George Schelling

Roger Zelazny’s two-part serial He Who Shapes concludes in this issue, and is the most pleasant surprise here: a capable writer taking on a substantial task and working hard to do a good job of it.  It features a psychiatrist specializing in neuroparticipation therapy: he projects hyper-realistic dreams into his patients’ minds and then stars in them, directing the action to the therapeutic end of his choice.  This is Render, the Shaper—a hokey note, but not misplaced, given the oratorical level of the whole. 

Neuroparticipation is a powerful tool, but sometimes double-edged: the therapist can lose control of the action and wind up in the patient’s movie, not his own.  Render is someone whose roots in his own reality are a little tenuous, by at least unconscious design: after the death of his wife, he maintains a determinedly superficial relationship with his mistress (sic) Jill, and a parental relationship with his son that is ostentatiously concerned (e.g., he changes the son’s school repeatedly) but seems emotionally arms-length.

So when another psychiatrist, brilliant, female, blind since birth, and of course also beautiful, asks Render to instruct her via neuroparticipation in visual imagery so she too can become a neuroparticipation therapist, the sophisticated reader can only think “Uh-oh.” I won’t go further; this is one that deserves to be read.  Not that it’s perfect by any means; unlike almost everything else in sight, it seems too short, and the end in particular seems rushed and underdeveloped.  But it’s a welcome sign both for the magazine and for the author, who seems to have moved from the “promising” column to the “delivering” one.  A strong four stars.

Far Reach to Cygnus, by Fritz Leiber

Fritz Leiber’s Far Reach to Cygnus, a sequel of sorts to The Goggles of Dr. Dragonet from Fantastic of a few years ago, is labelled a short story but at 23 pages is as long as many novelets in this magazine.  It’s a rambling, low-intensity sort of thing, agreeable enough while reading, but it compares badly to Leiber’s tighter and sharper pieces like Mariana (Fantastic, 1960), A Deskful of Girls (F&SF, 1958), or for that matter the short novel The Big Time (Galaxy, 1958). 

Here’s another psychological theme, of sorts.  To open, our first-person narrator is racing eagerly to Dr. Dragonet’s redoubt in the Santa Monica Mountains, lured by Dragonet’s promise of “a drug that is to mescalin and LSD as they are to weak coffee.” Upon arrival there is some byplay involving the police, a beautiful young woman, and a possibly illusory black leopard.

Our hero then enters a sort of seance featuring another beautiful young woman, recumbent in a long white dress, and already drugged, describing a scene on an extraterrestrial planet featuring blue grass and inhabited by elvish blue people who ride unicorns.  Also present are a Professor, a Father, a Sister, “a handsome crophaired sun-tanned suavely muscled” young Hollywood man in all-white garb, who is “the newest and most successful Brando-surrogate and homegrown Mastroianni” of the media, and of course Dr. Dragonet.

The drug, or “psionic elixir,” is brought in by a third beautiful young woman (now we have a brunette, a blonde, and a redhead, all of them Dr. Dragonet’s nieces, if I am keeping score correctly).  But first, several pages of debate about the mind-body problem!  Finally, sixteen pages in, the characters start to take the drug, one by one, leading into several pages of drug effects, not badly done—the drug, as advertised, is psionic, so each character is seeing through the eyes of all of them.

And of course the drug effects become very palpable and menacing (mind-manifesting rather concretely, one might say) and are banished, and the Brando-surrogate, who it turned out was pretty dangerous, is psychically neutralized, and the white-garbed sort-of-medium recites some appalling developments on the blue planet (invaders with flamethrowers), and the police show up again briefly and comically, and much is made throughout about how fetching the young women are and how aroused and frustrated the narrator is (cheesecake without pictures, one might say). 

But all of these (slowly) moving parts don’t really add up to much (the police and blue planet subplots in particular go nowhere), and certainly don’t disguise the fact that the story is no more than a facile pot-boiler with some trendy furnishings.  Two stars.

The Answerer, by Bill Casey

New writer Bill Casey contributes The Answerer, the sort of story that might have appeared in Unknown in the early ‘40s—a fantastic premise developed like SF—except that editor Campbell wouldn’t have dared publish it.  Suddenly, prayers are being answered.  Everybody’s prayers.  So what happens?  As one of the characters puts it: “There can be nothing more dangerous than a personal god who actively interferes in the lives of men.” Hint: what if a lot of mental patients started praying?  It’s not the vignette one might expect to see on this theme, but an actual story, with a suitably sardonic ending.  Four stars.

Reunion, by David R. Bunch

David R. Bunch, who mostly hangs out in Fantastic these days, has his first appearance here in almost two years.  His short story Reunion is more lucid and less precious than his usual.  The language is also more straightforward though the preoccupation remains the same: the lives of humans whose bodies have been largely replaced with machinery (“new-metal” held together with “flesh-strips”; I think “cyborg” is becoming the fashionable term).  The unnamed protagonist is visited in his Stronghold by his twin brother, who “went with the big Paper Shield” (i.e., became a minister) rather than the metal one.  Protagonist is much troubled about their relationship and the prospect of meeting again, and considers shooting him, but in the end puts on the dog for him, mechanically speaking.  A moment of epiphany follows, but once the brother leaves—back to business as usual, war with the neighbors.  Three stars.

The Gobbitch Men, by Alfred Grossman


George Schelling

There’s a different flavor of the surreal in The Gobbitch Men by Alfred Grossman, who we are assured is “a novelist of some repute” responsible for Acrobat Admits and Many Slippery Errors, which I haven’t read, but which I gather could be described as black humor with anarchist tendencies.  So what’s he doing in Amazing?  I think writers use the term “salvage market.”

Grossman’s protagonist Irving is an ineffectual, incipiently alcoholic graduate student of the future, working on his thesis on the unbearably tedious, advisor-dictated subject of popular music of the late twentieth century, when he is delivered by mistake some spools titled Population and Catastrophe and the like.  He asks questions, learns how things really are in his world, is warned that he should keep on the straight and narrow or else, but the or else is imminent anyway.  Oh, the title?  The gobbitch men make a big racket with the cans, but that’s to cover their more sinister covert errand, which has suddenly become highly relevant to Irving.

This one is an interesting try, a heavy-handed dystopian satire in the mode of early Galaxy, cartoony and overdone, but still quite well written, as befits “a novelist of some repute.” Three stars, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Mr. Grossman slumming here again.

S. Fowler Wright: SF’s Devil’s Disciple, by Sam Moskowitz

Sam Moskowitz soldiers on with the SF Profile series, this time with a less familar and more interesting subject than usual: S. Fowler Wright: SF’s Devil’s Disciple.  Wright is a particularly good subject for Moskowitz, who prefers writing about work of the ‘30s and ‘40s, since almost all of Wright’s SF work was published then or even earlier.  The best-known of his novels include The Amphibians (1924), The Island of Captain Sparrow (1928), Deluge (1928), Dawn (1929), The World Below (1929), Dream, or The Simian Maid (1931), The Adventure of Wyndham Smith (1938), and Spiders’ War (1954).

Titles to conjure with!  But not much else, since as far as I can tell, Wright’s SF is entirely out of print, at least in the US—suffering the fate of his ideas.  Wright, who is still around, 91 next month, is distinguished by his opposition to scientific progress generally and birth control in particular (no hypocrite he—he has ten children), and much of his work is dedicated to extolling the virtues of noble savagery.  Moskowitz’s denunciation of these views helps make this article rather livelier than many of its predecessors, and the unfamiliarity of his work lends it considerable interest.  Four stars.

Summing Up

So—not a bad issue of Amazing, something one doesn’t see more than once or twice a year.  There’s even a sort of unifying theme, psychology, if you count the ostentatiously neurotic protagonist of The Gobbitch Men.  Can Amazing do it again?  Maybe even make it a trend?  The public breathlessly awaits.

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Magazine, Serial

[December 31, 1964] Lost in the Desert (January 1965 Analog)

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[Today is your last chance to get your Worldcon membership! Register here to be able to vote for the Hugos.]


by Gideon Marcus

Wandering

Setting: The Sinai, after the Exodus

Aaron: Hey, Moses! We've been walking a long time!

Moses: Nu?

Aaron: Haven't we seen that rock before? Are you sure you know the way to the Holy Land?

Moses: Who's the Moses here? I know the way to go. The Sinai is only 150 miles across. It'll only take us…

Narrator: FORTY YEARS!

I cite this absolutely accurate historical vignette for two reasons. One, my daughter has decided to give the Torah a deep dive and analysis over Winter (I believe the gentiles call it "Christmas") Break. The other is, well, the next installment of Frank Herbert's Dune World saga has been staring me in the face for weeks, ever since I bought the January 1965 issue of Analog. I found I really didn't want to read more of it, having found the first installment dreary, though who am I to argue with all the Hugo voters?

And yet, as the days rolled on, I came up with every excuse not to read the magazine. I cleaned the house, stem to stern. I lost myself in this year's Galactic Stars article. I did some deep research on 1964's space probes.

But the bleak desert sands of Arrakis were unavoidable. So this week, I plunged headfirst into Campbell's slick, hoping to make the trek to the end in fewer than two score years. Or at least before 1965. Join me; let's see if we can make it.

The Issue at Hand


by John Schoenherr

It's Done with Mirrors, by Ben Bova and William F. Dawson

Our first step into the desert is deceptively mild. Amazing's science guy and his friend offer up the suggestion that the universe really isn't so big — all the billions of galaxies we see are really the light from a few thousand going round and round a small universe.

It doesn't sound very plausible to me, but I enjoyed the cosmological review, and the picture included was drafted by my nephew's astronomy professor at UCLA!

Three stars.

The Prophet of Dune (Part 1 of 5), by Frank Herbert

And now we sink waist deep.

The Prophet of Dune is not just the sequel to Dune World; it picks up right at the cliffhanger where the other left off. Unlike most serials, but similar to how it was done with Cordwainer Smith's The Boy Who Bought Old Earth, the story begins without explanation. You simply have to have Dune World fresh in your mind.

Otherwise, you won't know why Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, are refugees from Baron Harkonen in the deserts of Arrakis. You won't know who the Padisha Emperor is or why his Sardaukar elite forces are dressed in Harkonen House garb. You won't know who Duke Leto Atreides was, or why he's dead; who Yueh was and why he defected from House Atreides to the Harkonens; the significance of Hawat the mentat…or even what a mentat is. The significance of the melange spice, which is the desert planet's sole export.

I'm not sure why (editor) Campbell didn't include a summary at the beginning, but unless you've read Dune World, you will be lost.

If you have, you'll be bored.


by John Schoenherr

I won't go into great detail since this serial will cover a ridiculous five installments before it is done, but suffice it to say that includes all the features I came to dread in the first serial. That is to say:

  • Characters declaiming in exposition.
  • Endless fawning over wunderkind Paul Atreides, who has the gravitas of his father, the ability to see all futures, and no weaknesses (or character) that I can discern.
  • Every other line is an internal thought monologue, usually unnecessary, flitting from viewpoint to viewpoint according to author Herbert's fancy.
  • Lots of sand.

Dune presents an interesting, well-developed world populated by uninteresting plots and skeletal characters. And it looks like I'm suck in its deserts for at least another half year.

Two stars.

A Nice Day for Screaming, by James H. Schmitz


by Kelly Freas

A momentary respite as we trudge out of sand and onto more solid ground…

Schmitz shows us the maiden voyage of a new space vessel, jumping not into overspace but to the quantum beyond — Space Three! But upon its arrival, a terrifying entity appears and invades the ship, wreaking havoc with its systems.

The nature of the encounter is not what it seems. I like a story that turns a horror cliche on its head.

Three stars.

A Matter of Timing, by Hank Dempsey


by Robert Swanson

A tingling in our mind distract us, and suddenly we are again ankle deep in the dunes.

Until I read the byline (I've never heard of Dempsey), I thought A Matter of Timing was an inferior entry in Walter Bupp's psi series, in which a secret organization keeps a cadre of esper talents on hand to deal with weird events. While Dempsey's introduces a lot of potentially interesting characters (all apparently quacks; the organization that handles them is the Committee for Welfare, Administration, and Consumer Control — CWACC), the story doesn't do anything with them.

Droll setup and no resolution. Two stars.

Final Report, by Richard Grey Sipes

From out of nowhere, there is a blast of hot wind, and we are inundated with a spray of stinging sand and…paper?

Told in military report style, complete with typewriter font and army-esque jargon, Final Report pretends to be the results of the test of a psionic radio system. In the end, despite the set's fantastic capabilities, it is rejected as a prank, especially as it's too cheap to even be government pork.

Heavy handed, highly Campbellian, and utterly pointless. One star.

The New Boccaccio, by Christopher Anvil

As we reel from the last blow, the clackety clack of machinery assails our ears, but at least we're walking on stable rocks again.

In The New Boccaccio, Anvil covers the same ground as Harry Harrison did a couple of months ago in Portrait of the Artist — an automatic creator is brought into a publishing house to replace a human artist.

The prior story was serious and involved a comic maker. Anvil's is comedically satirical and involves a device that writes literate smut. It's a bit smarter, I think, but not worth more than the three stars I gave the other story.

Finnegan's Knack, by John T. Phillifent


by Kelly Freas

Look! Off in the distance…is that a line of trees? Or is it just a mirage? Our pace quickens, but our boots keep sinking in the shifting sands.

John Phillifent's Finnegan's Knack involves the arrival of an alien ambassador. His race is so far in advance of ours that there's nothing we can do to impress him. A demoralized Colonel joins his rather lackadaisical Major friend on a fishing expedition to relate his woes. Along with them is a certain Private Finnegan with a knack for accomplishing the darndest things (landing fish with a boat hook; making a hover car pop a wheelie; make a call to a private number). Maybe he can impress the aliens with his illogical prowess?

Maybe. Certainly nothing in the story made any particular impression on me, and as with so many of the other stories in the issue, the lack of a solid ending killed whatever competent writing came before.

Two stars. Oasis lost.

Does not Compute


"Rhoda" the robot…signed by Julie Newmar, herself!

How can it be that the one-proud magazine that Campbell built can pour forth little but a torrent of desert dust? All told, the magazine earns an dismally low 2.1 stars, This is significantly below the 2.5 star mags (Amazing) and (Fantasy and Science Fiction) and far below IF (2.9), Fantastic (3.3), and New Worlds (3.5).

Maybe SF is suffering in general, if this month's distribution is any indication. Certainly, it was a sad month for female representation (2 stories out of 37). On the other hand, it's not all bad news: you could fill three magazines with the superior stuff this month.

Every desert has an end, even if it's just the desert of the sea. Perhaps, if we keep trekking, we'll find out way back to verdant lands.

You know — after four more months of this fershlugginer Dune installment…

Happy New Year anyway! Thank you for following the Journey!




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Magazine, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial, TV

[December 29, 1964] Be Ye All of Good Cheer… New Worlds, January 1965

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

I hope Christmas for you was a good one. Christmas was good to me in that I received a copy of Charles L. Harness’s The Paradox Men. So far I’m really enjoying it as an over the top Space Opera. Why has it taken so long to be published here in Britain, though?

More good cheer: this month’s New Worlds editorial begins with a loud “Hurrah!”, announcing that both New Worlds and Science Fantasy are to return to monthly publication in 1965.

This is wonderful news for both New Worlds and Science Fantasy. Clearly the increased readership has paid dividends on both counts. Let’s hope this continues. More on this particular issue later.

News-wise, politics has been on its Christmas break. So not a lot to particularly report there.

The contest for the Number 1 single slot is always competitive, but Brits have a particular obsession for the Christmas Number 1 single. This year that enviable position was held by (unsurprisingly) The Beatles with another catchy tune – I Feel Fine.

Music-wise, most of the year’s reviews seem to have focused on the global domination of our Fab Four as they travel the world, permanently surrounded by screaming teenagers. Not only having the British Christmas single, they will also be pleased to know that their single Can’t Buy Me Love, is the single to have spent longest as Number 1 for a majestic 3 weeks, back in March and April. More seriously, it really has been their year and I can see 1965 carrying on in much the same way.

At the cinema I am pleased to write that I enjoyed our Christmas movie,  Father Goose, starring Cary Grant. A rather comedic role with a feel-good family tone. It’s not Cary's best, but it was pleasant enough. And in the middle of Winter, pleasantly tropical.

But be warned – My Fair Lady is due at the end of January. I know that you’ve had to endure this film already in the US – all 170 minutes of it – and the reviews have been quite good, but I still haven’t managed to come up with an excuse of sufficient importance to avoid it. Can I claim that I’m much too busy reporting to you to go? I doubt it, sadly. I may have to bow to the inevitable.

On a more positive note, on the television I am enjoying the latest Doctor Who, which seems to be regaining its confidence after a couple of so-so episodes, and hopefully that upswing should continue in 1965. Jessica’s already mentioned this, but the latest Dalek episodes are in my opinion the most enjoyable series yet.

The Issue At Hand

cover by Robert J. Tilley

This month’s cover shows that, as hinted at last issue, circles are ‘in’.

Personally, I still yearn for art with some detail, but am resigned to the current vogue, whilst at least appreciating that, despite being crude and simple, it’s still not as bad as Carnell’s last issues.

The Editorial, as shown earlier, is pleasingly upbeat. It is akin to a state of the nation address, showing us where we are in the current state of things artistic and literary. There’s mention of a new critical magazine edited by Messrs Aldiss and Harrison, which sounds intriguing.

To the stories themselves.

The Power of Y (part 1), by Arthur Sellings

The triumphant tone hangs over to this first part of a serial by Arthur Sellings, who is highlighted in the Editorial for producing “stories of a consistently high standard since he began writing.” To me this does sound a little like faint praise, though I must admit that the serial is one of the most enjoyable I’ve read for a while. Max Afford is an art dealer in a world where Transdimensional Multiplying, or Plying, allows an object such as a painting or a car to be borrowed from multiple universes. You want the original Mona Lisa? You can borrow it and have it in your home, for a price.  There are limits, however. It is a very expensive process and an object can only be plied to a maximum of twenty copies. Plying living objects, such as a beloved pet, is seen as impossible.

This is an intriguing concept, but one that becomes more complicated when Max suddenly finds that he can tell the difference between plied objects and the original simply by touching them.  The story then ends on a cliff-hanger involving the President of the Federated States of Europe.

It’s all written in a deceptively chatty style that Heinlein is so good at, a combination of charming bonhomie and sly digs at both the establishment and the world of art – although Sellings is clearly an author the editor Mike Moorcock prefers. Nevertheless, it read well and was entertaining, and most of all I’m intrigued to see where this one goes. The most negative thing I could find about it was the awfully childish art throughout the prose! A great start. 4 out of 5.


Childish art? I rest my case, m'lud. But perhaps it's intentional irony in a story about art…

The Sailor in the Western Stars , by Bob Parkinson

A debut author. You can tell from the artwork at the beginning that this is a story retold as if it were ancient myth, a folk-tale rather like a science-fictional Arabian Nights. I liked the romantic tone of this, that the main character is some sort of wandering pirate-trader destined to sail across space. It’s similar to Bertram Chandler’s Rim stories or even Poul Anderson’s David Falkayn /Star Trader stories, but deliberately more lyrical and enigmatic. Behind the poetic sheen there’s not a lot going on, admittedly, but I remembered it more than many stories. File under “Interesting”. It’s nicely done, but fairly inconsequential. 4 out of 5.

Tunnel of Love, by Joseph Green

And here’s the return of Moorcock’s friend, Joseph Green, after Single Combat in the July-August 1964 issue. The title suggests a cheap fairground ride, but it is actually an ethnologic study with a creepy twist. Two young graduates, realising a way to make money, attempt to make a movie on Procyon Nine, a planet known for its beautiful people but whose strict moral code is that visitors do not seduce them. The twist is that the would-be suitors of the girls have, as a rite of passage, to crawl through an interdimensional portal that connects Procyon Nine to the nuptial bed! This is not quite as outré as it sounds and there’s a big old twist at the end. I found it better than I thought it was going to be, an adventure story that also made me think of it as a raunchier take on Chad Oliver’s themes. 3 out of 5.

There’s A Starman in Ward 7, by David Rome

And now something a bit darker. Very pleased to see the return of this writer, last seen in the August 1963 of New Worlds. As far as the New Wave type stories go, this is actually one I liked.

It is the story of a psychotic murderer who is locked up in an insane asylum and who claims to have been in a ward with a new inmate – a Starman from Alpha Centauri. It’s written in a deliberately disjointed and irrational manner and is filled with those stylistic typing patterns and fragmented streams of consciousness that you may remember in Alfred Bester’s work. It is something that the New Wavers should love – and for a change, I also liked. Unlike most stories that try this technique I found that David’s story doesn’t lose its purpose or its narrative thread along the way.  4 out of 5.

Election Campaign, by Thom Keyes

Oh-oh. Here’s the return of Thom Keyes, whose last story, Period of Gestation, was in the September – October 1964 issue of Science Fantasy.  I really didn’t like it. But actually, Election Campaign is a more straightforward tale than I thought it was going to be. General Aldheyer is sent on a mission to secure the votes for the General Dynamics Party of an obscure and out of the way colony. Unfortunately, the brain-in-a-box space pilot malfunctions on the way and the only solution is to create a replacement pilot. Consequently, Aldheyer’s brain is transplanted into the ship.  There’s a lengthy description of the surgical process and the story ends with the spaceship’s arrival on the planet to begin its electoral campaign.

After our recent change of government, this story is perhaps surprisingly topical. Some politicians will do almost anything for power! I must admit that this was more enjoyable than Keyes’ last story, but the purpose of it seems a little pointless, other than to make the reader question what makes a machine human and vice versa. Anne McCaffrey’s done all this before, of course.  3 out of 5.

Space Drive, by Gordon Walters

We then get a lengthy chunk of the magazine concerned with reviews and non-fiction. Gordon Walters is a writer new to me, although you may know him better as George Locke.  This is an article that discusses the different means of travelling around science-fictional space that have been used by authors in the past. It’s a nice discussion that sums up concepts from a range of books and authors.

Books: Fancy and Imagination, by Michael Moorcock, James Colvin and Langdon Jones

As expected from previous comments there’s reviews of Charles L. Harness’s The Paradox Men and Brian Aldiss’s Greybeard. Michael Moorcock likes both.

The bulk of the reviews from Colvin (aka Moorcock, of course!) and Langdon Jones pick up a rag-bag of books. Honorary mentions go to Andre Norton’s Judgement on Janus, which is OK, James Blish’s A Life for the Stars, which is ‘better’ and Alan E. Nourse’s Scavengers in Space (good for children.) On the other hand, Poul Anderson’s Time and Stars and Damon Knight’s Beyond the Barrier both get a mauling. The second New Writings in SF anthology is ‘disappointing’, which probably means that I will like it.  The Best from F & SF is above average yet summarised as overpraised, but A Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction, with stories from the magazine originally published between 1949-59, is 'excellent'.

There’s also the usual endorsement of J G Ballard, this time for the US publication of The Burning World, and praise for Anthony Burgess’s 'powerful and horrifying' A Clockwork Orange, which is one of the most unusual books I’ve recently come across.

Langdon Jones then positively reviews Arthur Sellings’ The Uncensored Man and C. M. Kornbluth’s The Syndic.

The Letters pages show that I Remember, Anita, published in the September-October 1964 issue, seems to have generated some controversy. There’s also a letter complaining about the return of illustrations, which shows that people are never satisfied.

Summing up

It may be the season, but I’m pleased to say that this issue of New Worlds was one I enjoyed more than I didn’t. I enjoyed the range of stories, but most of all I liked the actual stories, which were not anything particularly radical yet made me feel like it was worthwhile paying my money to read them. Last month I said that I was enjoying Science Fantasy more. If this is New Worlds’s response, then the differences between the two magazines might not be as much as I had thought. Science Fantasy may have a fight on its hands for my attention!

And with this in mind, next month I should have two magazines to review – New Worlds and Science Fantasy! It’ll be interesting to see which one turns up first.

All the very best to you and yours for 1965.

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

mall>

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Book, Magazine, Serial

[December 23, 1964] Odds and Ends (January 1965 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

A Hodgepodge of Happenings

It's the season for clearing out all that stuff you've got piling up in the closet, ready to greet the new year with a fresh start. With that in mind, and given the fact that no one news item dominated the headlines this month, allow me to throw out a few observations about what's been going on lately.

Italy joined the Space Age this month, with the launching of that nation's first satellite, as recently discussed in great detail by our own Kaye Dee.  Named the San Marco, the spacecraft rode on top of an American Scout rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Although this is primarily just a test flight, the satellite does carry a couple of instruments designed to study the ionosphere.


The San Marco is the striped, spherical object, shown here being loaded into the Scout rocket. It seems fitting that an object intended to soar into the heavens is named after a saint.

After months of surprisingly passionate debate over its design, a new flag will now symbolize the nation of Canada. Some English-speaking Canadians wanted to retain the Union Jack found in the old, unofficial flag, while many French-speaking Canadians objected. The current flag looks like a good compromise.


The old design, known as the Red Ensign. Besides everything else, it just looks messy.


The new design, which seems much more aesthetically pleasing to me.

The late Ian Fleming's master spy continues to draw moviegoers to the box office like flies to honey, as his latest cinematic adventure arrived in the USA this month.


I think that woman in the middle has been sunbathing too long.

A Miscellany of Music

Unlike some months earlier this year, December offered no overwhelmingly popular song at the top of the American charts. There were no less than four hits that reached Number One this month, and maybe we'll even hear from a fifth contender before 1965 arrives.

Spilling over from late November was Leader of the Pack by the girl group the Shangri-Las. I can't decide if this tragic tale of a romance ended by a fatal motorcycle accident is an example of a Teenage Death Song, or a tongue-in-cheek spoof of that macabre little genre.


These smiling ladies aren't saying one way or the other.

It would be hard to find a starker contrast with that bit of feminine adolescent angst than Lorne Greene's rendition of the cowboy saga Ringo. Obviously, the record is cashing in on the popularity of his hit television series Bonanza. Greene doesn't really sing so much as narrate this tale of the final confrontation between an outlaw and a lawman.


I wonder how many young people think this song is about the drummer for the Beatles.

It wasn't much later that Greene was outgunned by crooner Bobby Vinton, returning to the top of the charts with the tearjerking ballad Mr. Lonely.


The singer kindly provides the address of his official fan club right on the record sleeve.

Not to be outdone, the Supremes gave us their third smash Motown hit with the catchy little number Come See About Me.


And they're classy dressers, too.

A Smorgasbord of Stories

In a similarly generous fashion, the latest issue of Fantastic supplies a wide variety of short stories, as well as the first half of a novel.


Cover art by Emsh

The Girl in the Gem, by John Jakes


Interior illustrations also by Emsh

Here's another swashbuckling adventure of the mighty barbarian Brak, whom we've met many times before.

In unheroic fashion, our protagonist is passed out drunk in a seaside inn. A bunch of dwarfs rush in, armed with knives, but deliberately avoid hurting him. It's all part of a plot to frame him for robbery. You see, an earthquake tumbled the old palace into the ocean. Another one raised it up again. Meanwhile, the local king is dying. His daughter blackmails Brak with the threat of death for thievery if he doesn't undertake the dangerous task of rescuing her sister, who was imprisoned in a gigantic jewel, from the recently revealed palace. Of course, this means he has to defeat a hideous creature.


The mandatory monster

The author writes vividly and definitely keeps the action moving. This is the shortest tale of Brak yet, and it's got plenty of plot for its length. The characters are standard for the sword-and-sorcery genre, and a few incidents seem arbitrary. (Why are the royal servants who invade the inn all dwarfs?) Despite a lack of originality in some aspects, it's worth reading.

Three stars.

Journal of a Leisured Man, by Bryce Walton


Illustration by George Schelling

In a technologically advanced future, an accountant loses his job to a computer. Like many other people, he is forced to remain unemployed for the rest of his life. To add to his troubles, his faithless wife leaves him for another man.

The company that formerly employed the fellow makes automatons, in the form of animals, children, and adults. We witness some gruesome ways customers use these simulacra. In what seems to be at first an act of kindness, an employee of the company offers the man a synthetic duplicate of his wife, to do with as he pleases. You may predict the twist ending.

Although there are few surprises, the story has a certain grim power. It's not always pleasant to read, but is likely to remain in the memory.

Three stars.

On the River, by Robert F. Young

A man finds himself on a raft, floating down a river by day, staying at deserted inns on shore by night. He meets a woman in the same situation, and romance blooms. It soon becomes obvious that both of them attempted suicide, and that the river leads to death.

(The idea of an afterlife on a world dominated by a river also appears in the most recent issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. Given the delays in the publishing industry between writing a story and seeing it in print, this must be nothing more than a coincidence.)

I'm a sucker for this author's bittersweet love stories, so I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The conclusion may be obvious, but any other ending would have been inappropriate for a writer who wears his heart on his sleeve.

Four stars.

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


Illustrations by George Schelling

A little research reveals that this novel is set in the same universe as two previous works, each published as one-half of an Ace Double. The series as a whole deals with what are known as Zarathustra Refugee Planets. Many centuries ago, the star which the colony planet Zarathustra orbited went nova. The inhabitants, fleeing the disaster, wound up populating a large number of planets. The Galactic Corps watches over these worlds, making sure that outsiders don't interfere with their development, while refraining from becoming overly involved themselves.


Cover art by Emsh


Also by Emsh

In the style of Philip K. Dick, the author uses many different viewpoint characters, so it takes a while before the main thrust of the plot becomes clear. The story mostly takes place on Cyclops, a relatively poor planet, although there is a wealthy upper class. An agent of the Galactic Corps, who was, I believe, the protagonist of Secret Agent of Terra, reviewed by our own Rosemary Benton some time ago, arrives after twenty years of service. Her reward for two decades of unpleasant, thankless work is considerable. She will have her youth restored, and her life extended for two centuries.

The extremely advanced medical technology of the Galactic Corps is one reason why the ruler of the planet resents them. (Although the government of Cyclops is, in theory, representative, she wields the real power.) There is also the fact that many natives of Cyclops were killed by the inhabitants of another world when they tried to make slaves of them. (I think these events also appeared in Secret Agent of Terra. Castaways' World does not seem to be as closely related to this new novel.)

The ruler's lover is an ex-spaceman who lost a leg in an accident. Although it was replaced, he is no longer allowed to serve on spaceships. While hunting the gigantic shark-like creatures who live in the oceans of Cyclops, he loses the same leg. After a brief stay in the local Galactic Corps hospital, he is whisked back to the care of his lover and her doctor. This creates a mystery for the Galactic Corps; how was the man's leg replaced, given the limited medical technology of Cyclops, and how do they expect to do it again? The author soon reveals the answer in scenes that take place on another world, where a sinister conspiracy takes advantage of unsuspecting victims.

Although a bit melodramatic in parts, this is an intriguing novel, full of richly defined characters, many of whom I have not even mentioned.


I haven't talked about these people.


I also haven't brought up these folks.

The author balances scenes of violent action with necessary exposition. It's interesting to note that the characters who are, I assume, the main protagonist and the primary antagonist are both powerful women. The complex background is fully developed, without becoming overwhelming.

Four stars.

Make Mine Trees, by David R. Bunch

The magazine's most controversial writer returns with another dark and strange story. This one is more comprehensible than most, and the title definitely helps you understand what's going on. The narrator, who is clearly as mad as a hatter, used some kind of formula to change his wife and her lover into trees. Now his young son is undergoing the same transformation. Typical for the author, the plot is much less important than the eerie mood and the eccentric style.

Three stars.

Multiple Choice, by John Douglas

A trio of young men, who have undergone a series of tests to become part of the elite, wait in a room for their final examination. They hear gunshots and screams from outside. Each one has a different theory about what's happening. Is it a hoax, designed to test their nerves? Are those who fail the last exam shot to death? Is it even possible that everyone is killed? The story's ending is inconclusive, which may be the point. Many readers will find the lack of a full resolution frustrating.

Two stars.

Something For Everyone?

Although the overall mood of the issue is on the dark side, there are all kinds of imaginative fiction to be found between its covers. From a heroic fantasy set in a distant past that never existed, to an adventure in deep space in the far future, and from a romantic parable of love and death, to a cynical portrait of tomorrow's dystopian society, there is enough variety to please just about every reader of speculative literature. You won't enjoy every story, but I don't think you'll dislike all of them. (If you do, turn to Robert Silverberg's book review column for more recommendations.)


He mostly reviews anthologies and collections in this particular column, so you've got lots to choose from.

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