Category Archives: Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 8, 1969] Another Orbit around the sun (Orbit 5)


By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

Having a teacher first as a mother, and now one for a wife, I think of the year as mirroring the school terms, with the new year beginning in September. But, looking at the newspapers, it doesn’t appear the world has changed much in the last twelve months.

On the home front, the troubles in Northern Ireland keep getting worse, with the presence of British troops now seeming to be resented by both sides. Meanwhile, The Conservative party base is pushing the party to take a harder anti-immigration line, and union chiefs clash with the Wilson government.

British Troops in Ulster in front of a burnt out shop
British Troops in Ulster, caught in the middle of escalating violence.

Peace talks over Vietnam are once again being held in Paris and apparently going nowhere, there are continued conflicts in the middle East and the Junta in Greece seems as unstable as ever. A harsh crackdown has just finished in Czechoslovakia and the Soviets are still making threatening noises at the rest of Eastern Europe.

Protesters running from tear gas on the streets of Prague
Scenes from the streets of Prague, one year on from the Soviet Invasion.

But, whilst the depressing politics of our time continues, so does the regularity of publishing. As such another anthology arrived in the post for me to review.

Orbit 5
Hardback cover of Orbit 5 from 1969

Somerset Dreams by Kate Wilhelm

We open with another tale from the ever-reliable Mrs. Damon Knight.  Here Janet Matthews returns to her hometown of Somerset after working in medicine in New York, where she wishes to look after her disabled father. At the same time, a Dr. Staunton is in town to study dreams. Annoyed by his pomposity Janet decides to join in with the project.

This is beautifully described, albeit with some unusual turns of phrase, but it goes on far too long for my tastes, only really becoming more SFnal towards the end. There are also a lot of interesting concepts, but I am not convinced they are explored well enough here to justify their inclusion.

Three Stars

The Roads, the Roads, the Beautiful Road by Avram Davidson

Highway Chief Craig Burns loves his vast new road constructions and does not accept any argument to the contrary. However, one day he misses his turn-off and finds himself in a labyrinth of tunnels and cloverleaf interchanges.

This is the kind of joke story Davidson used to regularly publish when editing F&SF, a feature I have not missed. Add on to this my general dislike of vehicular tales and I was not well disposed to this at all.

A very low two stars

Look, You Think You've Got Troubles by Carol Carr

Hector, A Jewish father is estranged from his daughter, Lorinda, because of her marrying a form of Martian plant-life named Mor. Months later, the parents receive a letter from her, saying she is pregnant and asking them to come visit her on Mars.

I believe this is the first story from a well-known fan (and wife of Terry Carr) and it marks a strong start. It follows the familiar routes you have likely seen on television programmes but they are not as common in the SF realm. In addition, this is told using a great tone of voice that makes it feel believable.

Four Stars

Winter's King by Ursula K. Le Guin

King Argaven XVII of Karhide is having a recurring visions of executing a crowd of protesters. This madness is attempted to be treated by physician Hoge, but what could be the real cause?

I was originally unsure if this planet is indeed meant to be Gethen from The Left Hand of Darkness, as it is only referred to as “Winter” and the gender changes in the book are not referenced here. However, its connections to the Ekumen seem to confirm that it does indeed take place on the same world.

I found this a confusing read. I started again four times and afterwards I was constantly jumping back and forth to try to get to grips with what was happening. It does not have the usual easy style of Le Guin, instead told through a series of “pictures”. Honestly, I am scratching my head over what to make of it.

Three Stars, I guess?

The Time Machine by Langdon Jones

Jones seems to be emerging as one of the great polymaths of English SF. He has been involved in editing New Worlds for a number of years now, writes prose and poetry, has produced photographic cover art, is helping the Peake estate put together new editions of the Gormenghast trilogy and has an original anthology coming out in a couple of months. Amazingly he still had time to sell this tale to Orbit.

In an unnamed prisoner’s cell sits a photo of Caroline Howard. We hear the story of his past relationship with her and the construction of a time machine to see her again.

This tale is told in a passive distanced voice with the connection of the four different situations not immediately obvious. As such, I imagine it will be alienating to some, but I found it quite beautiful and cleverly constructed.

The titular Time Machine is not a HG Wells type of mechanical construct but a strange device containing a Dali painting and creating a “concrete déjà vu”. This may actually mean that it does not really “work” as such but these are merely the memories and delusions of the prisoner. I believe the ambiguity is intentional on the part of the author and makes the tale all the stronger.

Some may find the conclusion and meaning of the tale a bit mawkish, but I liked it a lot.

A high four stars

Configuration of the North Shore by R. A. Lafferty

John Miller goes to analyst Robert Rousse to resolve an obsession he has had for the last 25 years, to reach the mythical Northern Shore. In order to cure this desire, they sail there in dreams.

Whilst I am a fan of what Mr. Jones does, the same cannot be said of Mr. Lafferty. As such this may work better for other people, but I found it all a little silly.

Two Stars

Paul's Treehouse by Gene Wolfe

Sheila and Morris’ son has been in a treehouse since Thursday and is refusing to come down. As they work with their neighbour to try to get him out, disorder is spreading throughout the town.

This is probably the Gene Wolfe story that has impressed me most so far. Not that it is brilliant, but it is well told and has a solid theme. Hopefully the start of an upswing in his writing.

A high three stars

The Price by C. Davis Belcher

The millionaire John Phillpott Tanker is in a traffic accident that caves in his skull. Whilst his body is still alive, he is braindead. After several tests the doctors conclude he is medically dead and use his organs to save a number of people. Whilst this is controversial, journalist Sturbridge writes a number of articles to win the public around. However, in a surprising turn of events, the recipients of the organ donations sue the Tanker’s estate claiming they are still the living John Phillpott Tanker.

These organ transplant stories are becoming a subgenre in their own right, and, unfortunately, this is among the poorer examples. Lem told a better version of this story in three pages last month than Belcher told in 27.

A low two stars

The Rose Bowl-Pluto Hypothesis by Philip Latham

At a track-meet at the Rose Bowl, three athletes all ran 100 yards in less than 9 seconds. If this wasn’t surprising enough, a whole set of other new running records were set that afternoon. What could be happening?

This spends a lot of time doing pseudo-scientific explanations for something incredibly silly. I was annoyed at having read it.

One star

Winston by Kit Reed

The Wazikis buy the four-year-old child of geniuses as a status symbol. Whilst he has an IQ of 160 they soon grow frustrated he is not yet able to win crossword competitions or answer any trivia question they pose.

This story irritated me for a number of reasons. First off, there is more than a whiff of eugenics about the concept here, with the child of a college professor being inherently smarter than this family with a name we seem to be encouraged to read as Eastern European or North African. At the very least, the way the Wazikis are portrayed feels classist.

Secondly, the fact that smart people are selling children to less intelligent people seems to imply that earning potential and IQ are inversely related. But the Wazikis see Winston as an investment, so are they just meant to be stupid and bad with money?

And then the story is just unpleasant with the amount of child abuse taking place in it. Maybe I am overly sensitive, as I am from the gentler school of parenting, but I found it to be gratuitous instead of aiding the storytelling.

One Star

The History Makers by James Sallis

John writes to his brother Jim about his arrival on Ephemera, a planet where the inhabitants live on a separate time-plane to humanity.

Sallis gives us another epistolary tale which, as usual, is written in a literary style and full of artistic allusions (including, strangely, the second mention of the same Dali painting in this anthology. I blame Ballard). I am not sure this has the same depth as his other works but it is still a wonderfully atmospheric read.

Four stars

The Big Flash by Norman Spinrad

The US military has a problem. Their war against a guerrilla insurgency in Asia is not going well and they want to use tactical nuclear weapons to sort it out. However, the public are squeamish about this sort of thing. The solution? Using a violence obsessed rock group The Four Horseman, to spread their message.

A biting critique of both the American military-industrial complex and the hippy groups selling out. Incredibly timely, clever and disturbing.

A high four stars, bordering on five.
(I recently discussed this with some friends over at Young People Read SF if you want to see more of our thoughts.)

The Cycle Continues

8 albums:
Johnny Cash: At Folsom Prison and At St. Quentin
Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline
Tom Jones: Delilah and This Is
Moody Blues: In Search of a Lost Chord and On the Threshold of a Dream
Some of the same artists, still in UK charts a year on

And so we complete another Orbit anthology, with it feeling pretty similar to the last one.

The main difference is that there is more New Wave influence creeping in (having stories by two of the editors of New Worlds will do that) but many prior authors reappear, doing similar things. Some of it brilliant, some mediocre, the rest best forgotten.

Will either Orbit or our politics break out of this cycle by autumn 1970? Only time will tell.






[September 6, 1969] A hot time in the old town (Worldcon in St. Louis!)


by Gideon Marcus

What an idea to have the 27th World Science Fiction Convention in crummy St. Louis in summer!  It was hot.  It was muggy.


From Fanac

And it was glorious.  Thanks, Ozark SF Assn., particularly co-chairs Ray and Joyce Fisher, for your bid and your hard work.  Apparently, the bid traced its beginnings all the way back to the Room 770 con party at Nolacon I (New Orleans 1951), the last of the small Worldcons—under 200 attendees.

Continue reading [September 6, 1969] A hot time in the old town (Worldcon in St. Louis!)

[September 4, 1969] Plus ça change (October 1969 IF)


by David Levinson

Silly season

It’s considered a truism in journalism that nothing happens in August, so the papers run filler stories about silly things to make up their page count. Sure, Hurricane Camille killed hundreds as it raged from Mississippi to Virginia, and China and the Soviet Union are on the brink of war, but that doesn’t sell papers. Madison Avenue also has a truism: sex sells. Now, the two have come together.

Newsday columnist Mike McGrady was disgusted by the schlocky, sex-obsessed books that regularly make the best-seller lists, so he recruited a bunch of fellow journalists (19 men and five women, by one count) to write a deliberately bad, oversexed book. The result is Naked Came the Stranger, in which the editors worked hard to remove any literary value from the tale of a New York woman’s sexual escapades.

When the book sold 20,000 copies, McGrady and his co-conspirators decided they’d better come clean. Nineteen of them appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, being introduced as Penelope Ashe (the book’s purported author) and walking out to the strains of A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody. As a result of their confession and discussion of their motives, the book has become even more popular. And as of last Sunday, it’s on the New York Times list of best-sellers. You have to laugh to keep from crying.

Penelope Ashe, in part, with the cover model superimposed.

This puts me in mind of a similar literary hoax with a more sfnal connection. Back in 1956, radio host Jean Shepherd was unhappy with the way best-seller lists were being compiled and urged his listeners to ask their local bookstores to order I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. He offered some vague hints about the plot, and many listeners who were in on the joke created references to the book elsewhere. Demand was so high, publisher Ian Ballantine convinced Theodore Sturgeon to knock out a quick novel based on an outline from Shepherd. Betty Ballantine wrote the last chapter as Sturgeon lay in exhausted sleep on the Ballantines’ couch after trying to write the whole thing in one sitting. The cover by Frank Kelly Freas is full of visual jokes and puns. The book is rumored to have gone to number one, but it doesn’t seem to have been on any lists, probably out of pique on the part of the list makers.


The pub sign features a shepherd’s crook and a sturgeon. Art by Frank Kelly Freas

New and old

I think we’re starting to see some of the influence of new editor Ejler Jakobsson. Editor Emeritus Fred Pohl doesn’t seem have ever had anything nice to say about the New Wave, while there is at least one story in this month’s IF with a nod in that direction. There’s a new printer, with a crisper typeface (though it seems better suited to a news magazine than fiction). No one’s mixed up their e’s and o’s, but instead of lines being printed out of order, some lines are just missing. Hopefully, that will be corrected in future issues.

Supposedly for Seeds of Gonyl. If so, it’s from later in the novel. Art by Gaughan

Continue reading [September 4, 1969] Plus ça change (October 1969 IF)

[September 2, 1969] People, Machines, and Other Thinking Entities (October 1969 Fantastic)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Machine Language

Two events occurred today that demonstrate how computers can communicate with each other and with people.

At the University of California in Los Angeles, a gizmo called an Interface Message Processor (IMP) allowed two computers on campus to have a conversation, of sorts.  (I assume it was something like beep boop beep.) Plans are underway to set up another IMP at Stanford University, so the two institutes of higher education can share data.  One can imagine computers all over the planet chatting away, plotting to take over the world . . . well, maybe not that.


The thing that lets computers exchange information.  Don't ask me how it works.

The same day, a device replacing your friendly neighborhood teller appeared at a branch of the Chemical Bank in Rockville Centre, New York.  Apparently it can take your money, give you back your money, etc.  Is it just me, or does Chemical Bank seem like a weird name for a financial institution?  Not to mention the fact that the city doesn't know how to spell center


Possibly depositing some of the money his company makes from the robot teller.

Fittingly, the latest issue of Fantastic features machines and other things besides humans who are capable of communicating, and performing other activities that demonstrate intelligence.


Cover art by Johnny Bruck.

As usual these days, the cover image comes from a German publication.  It's not Perry Rhodan for a change.


Translated, this says The Ring Around the Sun.  This seems to be a version of Gallun's 1950 story A Step Further Out, with additional material from German writer Clark Darlton, one of the folks behind Perry Rhodan.

Editorial, by Ted White

The new editor talks about the cancellation of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour because of material CBS considered offensive.  He goes on to discuss the hypocrisy of some members of the older generation, and how science fiction and fantasy might help bridge the gap between young folks and their elders.  Pretty serious stuff.  He also admits that Fantastic is less popular than its sister publication Amazing, and promises to do something about that.

No rating.

It Could Be Anywhere, by Ted White

Maybe printing his own fiction is part of the editor's plan to improve sales of the magazine.


Illustrations by Michael Hinge.

The author spends half a page explaining the provenance of this story.  He was inspired by Keith Laumer's story It Could Be Anything (Amazing, January 1963.) Note the similar title.  My esteemed colleague John Boston gave this work a full five stars.

At first, White's tribute took the form of a novel called The Jewels of Elsewhen a couple of years ago.  The Noble Editor gave that book four stars.  Will this latest variation on a theme reach the same exalted level as its predecessors?


When the familiar becomes unfamiliar.

The narrator is a big guy who works as a private detective.  After a very long day, he tries to ride home on the subway in the wee hours of the morning.  A wino falls out of his seat.  When the gumshoe tries to help the fellow, he finds out that he's not really a genuine human being, but some kind of lifeless simulation.

The only other real person on the subway is a young woman.  (In the tradition of popular fiction, she's always called a girl.) When they get off the subway, they find out that the entire city is fake, just a bunch of empty buildings.

The premise reminds me a bit of Fritz Leiber's short novel You're All Alone, in which almost all people are mindless automatons.  There's an explanation, of sorts, for what's going on.  The characters are interesting, even if they are mostly passive observers of the situation.  The way in which the woman's ring plays a role in the plot struck me as arbitrary.

Three stars.

A Guide to the City, by Lin Carter

This was a big surprise.  I expect Carter to offer very old-fashioned sword-and-sorcery yarns or equally outdated space operas.  Who knew that he could venture into territory explored by Jorge Luis Borges or Franz Kafka?

The story takes the form of an article.  The author lives in a gigantic, possibly infinite, city.  A single neighborhood takes up hundreds of thousands of blocks.  Traveling such a distance is the stuff of legends.  The author explains why mapping the entire city is impossible.

This is not a piece for those who demand much in the way of plot or characters.  It's all concept, an intellectual exploration of an abstract, mathematical premise.  I enjoyed it pretty well; others may find nothing of interest in it.

Three stars.

Ten Percent of Glory, by Verge Foray

In the afterlife, people continue to exist based on how living folks remember them.  George Washington can expect to be part of the collective memory for a very long time; Millard Fillmore, maybe not.

The main character is an agent of sorts, who collects a percentage of the renown of his clients in exchange for promoting them in various ways.  The plot involves the motives of his secretary.

Stuck somewhat between whimsy and satire, this odd little tale winds up with an ending that may raise some eyebrows.  I'm still not quite sure what I thought of it.

Three stars. 

Man Swings SF, by Richard A. Lupoff

This is a broad spoof of New Wave science fiction.  It starts with an introduction by the fictional Blodwen Blenheim, which alternates lyrics from songs performed by Tiny Tim with a rhapsodizing about an exciting new form of speculative fiction coming from the Isle of Man. 

After this, we get a story called In the Kitchen by the imaginary author Ova Hamlet.  Like a lot of New Wave SF, it's hard to describe the plot.  Suffice to say that it's full of outrageous metaphors and features a doomed protagonist.  The piece ends with a mock biography and a ersatz critique of Ova Hamlet.

The (real) author is able to write convincingly in the style of some of the things found in New Worlds, with tongue firmly in cheek.  Amusing enough, even if it goes on a little too long for an extended joke.

Three stars.

A Modest Manifesto, by Terry Carr

This essay, reprinted in the magazine's Fantasy Fandom section, originally appeared in the fanzine Warhoon.  It wanders all over the place, but for the most part it deals with what the author sees as a cultural revolution, both in fantasy and science fiction and in the outside world.  Food for thought.

Three stars.

So much for the new stuff.  Let's turn to the reprints.

Secret of the Serpent, by Don Wilcox

This wild yarn first appeared in the January 1948 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

As I noted at the start of this article, we're going to run into a lot of entities that have as much sentience as human beings.  Would you believe that this one is a gigantic people-eating serpent?


Illustration by Jones also.

Let me back up a little.  The serpent used to be an ordinary guy, until he wound up on what the author calls a space island. If that means something other than a planet, it escapes me.

He encounters a huge two-headed cat (don't look at me, I don't make up this stuff) who used to be a woman.  The place is also inhabited by a bunch of pygmies, who used to be people living on Mars.  Not to mention some Mad Scientists.  Or the guy who is a giant skull on a small body.

Very long and complex story short, the formerly human serpent gets partly changed back, and he becomes a serpent with human arms and legs.  Somebody wants to turn him into a skeleton for a museum.  There's a revolution by the enslaved pygmies against the Mad Scientists.  A lot more stuff happens.

I hope I have managed to convey the fact that this is a crazy story.  Plot logic is thrown out the window in favor of action, action, and more action.  The only explanation for the weird transformations?  The water on the space island does it.

Nutty enough to hold the reader's attention for a while, but at full novella length the novelty soon wears off.  I got the feeling the author was pulling my leg at times, but there's not enough humor to make the story a parody.

Two stars.

All Flesh is Brass, by Milton Lesser

The August 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this grim tale.


Cover art by Walter Popp.

The Soviet Union has conquered Western Europe, and is now attacking the United States via Canada.  The story takes the form of the diary of a soldier.  He learns that some dead fighters are being replaced by robotic duplicates, who not only copy their bodies but also their minds.


Illustration by Ed Emshwiller.

The replacements don't even know that they're not human, until that fact becomes obvious in one way or another.  They are also designed to be eliminated within a couple of years after they're activated.  Let's just say that the situation doesn't work out well.

In addition to the plot, the story paints a vivid and realistic portrait of warfare, as seen by an ordinary soldier.  I was particularly impressed by the way the author handles the subplot concerning the female fighter encountered by the main character.  I wasn't expecting that to go in the direction it did.

Four stars.

According to You . . ., by Ted White, etc.

After an extended absence, the letter column returns.  I wouldn't bother to mention it, but it's odd in a couple of ways.  First up is a mock letter from Blodwhen Blenheim and Ova Hamlet (remember them?) thanking the editor for printing Hamlet's story.  A cute extension of the joke.

Next are a couple of letters asking for more sword-and-sorcery stories.  One reader includes a poem about Conan.  I probably shouldn't say anything about the quality of the verse.

Last is a missive attacking just about everything in the April issue.  The writer, if he's real, is in jail.  Hmm.

No rating.

Isolationist, by Mack Reynolds

This ironic yarn comes from the April 1950 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones again.

The narrator is a cynical old farmer, suspicious of technology and of the modern world in general.  When an alien spaceship lands in his field, he thinks it's an American vessel of some sort.


Illustration by Julian S. Krupa.

The accents of the friendly inhabitants convince him they're foreigners, which makes them even less welcome than before.  Not to mention that they ruined part of his crop of corn.

This is a very simple story, with an inevitable conclusion.  The crotchety narrator is a decent creation, but there's not much else to it.

Two stars.

The Unthinking Destroyer, by Rog Phillips

The December 1948 issue of Amazing Stories offers this philosophical tale.


Cover art by Harold W. McCauley.

Two guys talk about the possibility of intelligent life being unrecognizable by human beings.  (Back to the theme with which I started this article.) In alternating sections of text, two beings discuss abstract concepts.


Illustration by Bill Terry.

It took me a while to get the point of this story.  It might be seen as a rather silly joke, or as something a bit more meaningful.

Two stars.

Fantasy Books, by Fritz Leiber and Francis Lanthrop

Leiber offers mixed reviews of a collection and a novel.  Lanthrop praises three books by Leiber about the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

No rating.

Worth Talking About?

This was a middle-of-the-road issue, with everything hovering around a three-star rating.  Not a waste of time, but not particularly memorable either.  Maybe someday a computer will be able to read it to you, so you don't have to turn the pages of the magazine.


The Parametric Artificial Talker (PAT), developed by the University of Edinburgh in 1956, was the first machine to synthesize human speech.





[August 31, 1969] Over (and under) the Moon (September 1969 Analog)

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

Being #2, they try…harder?

Last October, just after Apollo 7 went up, it looked as if the Soviets still had a chance at beating us to the Moon.  Their Zond 5, really a noseless Soyuz, had been sent around the Moon two months ahead of our Apollo 8 circumlunar flight.  Just a month later, the similar Zond 6 took off on November 16 and zoomed around the Moon before not just landing, but making a pinpoint landing in the Kazakh S.S.R. (near its launch site) with the aid of little wings.  Apparently, the prior Zond 5's splashing down in the Indian Ocean was not according to plan.

Shortly after the flight, the Soviets dropped the bombshell that Zond 6 could have been manned—and the next one might well be.

Continue reading [August 31, 1969] Over (and under) the Moon (September 1969 Analog)

[August 28, 1969] Aussie-British Publishing (Vision of Tomorrow #1)

Join us on August 29 at 7pm Pacific Daylight Time for the first edition of Science Fiction Theater—every week, we'll broadcast an excellent show or two, accompanied by fanzine readings and, of course, with commercials!



By Mx Kris Vyas-Myall

In general, there is a certain patriarchal attitude us Brits have towards the Commonwealth. We assume we will be the mother country that will be investing in and helping out the former colonies. Yet recent evidence suggests the opposite is true. And now we see it in publishing with the plan to rescue The Sun newspaper by 37-year-old Australian entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch in 1969 sitting in a chair whilst holding a newspaper
Australian press-magnate, Rupert Murdoch

Back in 1964, the Daily Herald was Britain’s 4th biggest selling newspaper, with a specific interest in advancing the trade union movement. However, it was still losing money as its readership were generally older and of lower income—not the audiences advertisers wanted. The paper was folded and replaced by The Sun, designed to appeal to the “steak-eating weekenders” of the aspirational working class. However, this did not end up reviving its fortunes and International Publishing Corporation was losing £2m a year on the paper. As such they have declared they need to sell or shutter it by January 1970.

Also in 1964, Rupert Murdoch, having inherited News Ltd. from his father in 1954, launched Australia’s first national newspaper, The Australian, to compete with the established state papers. He got the local papers he controlled to move away from “stodgy” local news items, into human interest and television interests. This all led to the company’s profits rising from £30k to £1.2m. But he continues to have ambitious plans for expansion.

Having already beaten out Paul Maxwell to take over the weekly News of the World at the start of the year, the acquisition of The Sun will mean he has a daily publication under his belt. What he will do with it remains to be seen but sensationalism may be the order of the day. His News of the World has already attracted controversy by publishing extracts from Christine Keeler’s memoirs.

Whatever the fate of these papers, another collaboration has interested me. That between Australian publisher Ronald E. Graham, and British editor Philip Harbottle. United by their love of John Russell Fearn, they have put out a new Science Fiction magazine, Vision of Tomorrow.

Vision of Tomorrow #1
Cover of Vision of Tomorrow #1 with a colour painting of a dead man on an alien planet lying on the ground with his space helmet next to him. To the left another suited spaceman runs out whilst being watched by a floating spherical robot.
Cover by James

In spite of initial reports, this will not contain any John Russell Fearn reprints (a secondary magazine may be produced for that purpose in the future) rather “Vision” is dedicated only to publishing new stories by British and Australian authors, along with new translations of European authors.

In contrast to the semi-professional style of Alien Worlds or the arthouse feel of New Worlds, this feels like a traditional professional magazine. One that could sit in the racks happily beside Analog and Galaxy, albeit a 64 page slick, rather than the advertised 196 page pocket book. But what is inside?

The New Science Fiction by Philip Harbottle

In his editorial for the magazine, Harbottle sets out his stall. He declares that this magazine will deal with humanity trying to adapt to the increasing pace of change. Personally I think this sounds rather similar to what Gold was attempting in Galaxy in the 50s.

Swords for a Guide by Kenneth Bulmer
Black and white ink drawing of people fighting with swords whilst other people descend from the sky in globes
Illustrated by G. Alfo Quinn

As the sole member of the Kenneth Bulmer Fan Club [Not quite true—Jason Sacks likes him, too! (ed.)], I was excited to see he would be leading the magazine. Here Jeffrey Updike Grant is a Captain in the Guides, a kind of Galactic Administration military force, but one trained only to use weapons equivalent to the technological level of the alien planets they are on. When he is stationed on New Bangor, an uprising takes the Guides by surprise.

After a distress call is sent out, it is answered by local freetraders (read smugglers) who have no truck with the rules on technological advances. Whilst they initially push the Bangorians back, they are eventually overpowered and their atomic weaponry ends up in the hands of the natives. With the natives now aware that the Guides are not from this world and in possession of advanced weaponry, the chances of survival for the Terrans are slim. Their only hope is to travel down river to the largest settlement, with the natives hunting them.

Black and white ink drawing of five people sheltering on the raft as others fire at them with bows from the riverbank.
Illustrated by G. Alfo Quinn

Whilst I usually enjoy Bulmer’s work, this is not his standard fare, more a Victorian Boys-Own adventure, with lots of action and heavy descriptions, but not much depth. There is possibly some critique of colonialism at the end, but this work primarily seems designed to appeal to those that lament the loss of a “sense of wonder” in SF today. I am not one of those people.

Two Stars

When in Doubt – Destroy! by William F. Temple
Two spacemen look at a spherical floating robot with mechanical arms and two large eyes
Illustrated by G. Alfo Quinn

Pathfinders Cordell & Marston are surveying the Pluto-esque Scylla-8, awaiting a much-delayed supply ship. Instead, a robot named Mark 1105 appears. It tells them it has captured their ship along with a previous survey mission, and they will be imprisoned, without food or water, until they answer its questions about humanity.

This has a great moody sense of doom penetrating throughout and it has interesting ideas about psychology. Unfortunately, I found it let down a bit by using a very old and silly cliché to battle a robot.

Three Stars

Anchor Man by Jack Wodhams

Tirk and Ken are members of the experimental EPD, where psychic impressions of objects and people are used to investigate police cases. Mary Pantici, a prostitute, is found murdered in a sound proofed flat with no witnesses and the EPD is brought in for the first time on a case like this. Ken is indeed able to get an impression of the murderer. However, his gift leads him to the conclusion that the killer is a police officer, one who has mental abilities of his own.

Given Wodhams’ regular sales to Analog, and the centrality of ESP to the tale, I can’t help but wonder if this was meant for Campbell but was rejected because of the grimmer elements. Whatever its origin this is a reasonable update of the occult detective story, well told but with a bit of a limp denouement for me.

Three stars

The Vault by Damien Broderick

Dr delFord, a logician, is awoken at 3am and taken on a secret flight. His old friend Gellner reveals to him that, under the lunar crater Tycho, an ancient buried computer complex has been discovered.

Much of it seems to have been destroyed in a nuclear attack; however, they are able to deduce from a map the location of two other alien bases. One at the bottom of the Atlantic and one under Ayres Rock. It is to the latter one that delFord is flown. The titular Vault inside Uluru does not allow any electronic equipment in and so far has resulted in the deaths of 173 people trying to enter it.

With a new protective suit, delFord has one hour to try to work a way in, discover all he can and make it out alive.

It has become fashionable of late to claim every piece of mythology or construction project before 1945 is secretly the work of aliens (see, for example, Chariots of the Gods?). This sits within that genre. Not bad per se, but I feel that it could easily be made into an unremarkable episode of Star Trek or Doctor Who.

Three Stars

Sixth Sense by Michael G. Coney
A black and white ink drawing of a man helping a young woman in climbing up rocks
Uncredited illustration

This short story comes from a new writer who recently debuted in the pages of New Writings. Jack Garner is a publican who possesses a sixth sense others don’t. He recalls a summer three years before when a quarrelling family came to stay and how he made use of his unusual ability to help them.

The actual plot is fairly thin, being the kind of tale you would read as the text feature in an adventure comic, padded out with mind-reading sections. In addition, there are leering descriptions of a 14-year-old girl’s body from the point of view of our 37-year-old narrator. Less than this got Mr. Hedges branded a pervert by the local community in an episode of Please, Sir!.

One Star

Consumer Report by Lee Harding
A black and white ink drawing of a fleet of rocket like spaceships against a galactic background
Uncredited illustration

Previously one of Carnell’s crew, he wrote one of my favourite short stories of the decade, The Liberators, but I haven’t seen anything from him in a few years.

Crossing the spaces between galaxies the self-proclaimed Lords of their universe come on a mission of conquest, but they find only dead planets. What could have caused this?

Thankfully, this is not one of those awful John Brunner vignettes we usually see in Galaxy. Instead, Harding gives us a serviceable but unremarkable piece of space horror.

Three stars

Are You There, Mr. Jones? by Stanislaw Lem

This is a work from a leading Polish SF writer (translated by Peter Roberts) representing his first appearance in English. It tells of the legal case of Mr. Jones, a race car driver who has replaced parts of his body with cybernetics following various accidents. He has been unable to pay his debt for them and, indeed, claims they are faulty so he should not have to. However, a previous court ruled he could not have them removed as it would kill him.

As such the Cybernetics Company tries a new tact, arguing that as so much of him is replaced, he is no longer human and they are merely recovering their property.

I have heard from continental friends that Lem is already well liked in Germany and France, and this showed me why. This is only a short vignette but addresses fundamental questions in a concise and amusing manner.

Four Stars

The Impatient Dreamers Part 1: First Encounters by Walter Gillings

The editor of the first British SF magazine begins a history of 20th Century British Science Fiction. A largely auto-biographical piece, this opening section tells of the early days of British fandom in the 20s and 30s, talking of the influence of imported American magazines, short lived fandom, Edgar Rice Burroughs books, BBC Radio dramas and the film Metropolis. An interesting and pleasant introduction to an era before I was born.

Four Stars

The Shape of Things To Come
Text saying:
Don't miss this powerful novelette of one man's incredible fight for freedom across the burning desert of Zen, the Prison Planet...hunted by men and beasts alike!

Quarry by E. C. Tubb

Also
Moonchip by John Rankine
Dancing Gerontius  by Lee Harding
Frozen Assets by Dan Morgan
Minos by Muarice Whitta
Echo by William F. Temple
A Judge of Men by Michael G. Coney
Strictly Legal  by Douglas Fulthorpe
Undercover Weapon by Jack Wodhams

Plus the continuation of Walter Gilings' great series, a special report on SF In Germany, and a new book review section!

Vision of Tomorrow offers you the finest science fiction available - place a firm order with you usual supplier or write direct to the editorial address.
Coming next time

In spite of Harbottle’s introduction discussing the New Science Fiction, this is quite a traditional selection of stories, although generally solid ones. It is certainly no worse than we see from If or Analog and the one weak piece being from a new author I hope we can see more of.

As such, I am excited to see more of this collaborative exercise. Bring on the second issue.

Black and white ink drawing of a one man shooting another from below with the man about to be hit has arms spread wide
One final illustration from G. Alfo Quinn






[August 24, 1969] Flying and dragging (September 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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

Flying

By the time this makes press, we'll already (hopefully) be on the flight back to San Diego.  As with most publications, though we try to hit the press as fresh as possible, there is a delay between writing and printing.  This is exceptionally unavoidable this time 'round because…

…we're off to Woodstock!

Specifically, the Woodstock Art & Music Fair, an "Aquarian Exposition" in White Lake, New York.  There's an art show and a craft bazaar and hundreds of acres of sprawl, but the main draw is the music: 27 bands, from Jimi Hendrix to Janis Joplin to Glen Beck to Sweetwater to Ritchie Havens, playing in 12-hour swathes, 1pm to 1am, every day (except the first—then, it's 4pm to 4am, apparently).

Well, we couldn't miss a chance to see something like this, so we booked tickets to Idlewild…er… JFK, chartered a bus, and we're headed for Max Yasgur's farm.  This isn't our first rodeo, so we've taken a few precautions:

1) We left early to avoid the rush.  With more than 100,000 expected to show up for this thing, there's going to be traffic jams;

2) We bought supplies in case we can't get what we want to eat;

3) We brought our own toilets!  A handy trick we developed camping up in Sequoia country: take a bucket, fill it a quarter way with Kitty Litter, and stick a toilet seat on top.  It works as well for people as it does for cats, and you don't have to dig latrines!

So, we're hopeful to get good seats and enjoy, as much as anyone can, three days of fun in the open air.  We'll have a full report when we get back!

Dragging


by Chesley Bonestell

Continue reading [August 24, 1969] Flying and dragging (September 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

[August 22, 1969] Peake District: New Worlds September 1969


by Fiona Moore

Hello! I’m taking over the New Worlds reviews from Mark Yon, which is a little intimidating, but I hope I’ll be able to live up to his excellent legacy.

On the UK Star Trek broadcast front, I missed “Mudd’s Women” due to having to take a work trip to Glasgow, but “A Taste of Armageddon” was decent anti-war satire if a bit heavy-handed. Having seen a few episodes in colour on trips to North America, I have to say it works less well in black and white, but at least we do get the idea.

Cover for New Worlds, September 1969Cover for New Worlds, September 1969

Lead-In (New Worlds 194) by The Publishers

This is brief, without the edge of hysteria from last month, which leads me to hope that they’ve got the financial issues under control. It’s also good to know that JG Ballard has a collection coming out, The Atrocity Exhibition. The lineup this month features regular contributors and well-known people on the New Wave scene, but perhaps it’s a little too conservative as a result. Three stars.

A Place and a Time to Die by JG Ballard

Picture from A Place and Time to Die by JG BallardArt by Mal dean

This story is about an implied Chinese Communist takeover of an implied USA, though with a degree of vagueness as to time and place. It follows two men attempting to hold the line as the invaders, or maybe exponents of an internal coup, come into town. This is a bleak description of warfare; no one is heroic and everyone is ugly. It also highlights how ideological takeovers can be more powerful than armed ones. Four stars.

Pictures from an Exhibition 9 and 10 by Giles Gordon

Illustration from Pictures from an Exhibition by Giles GordonArtist unknown

Two vignettes, inspired by pictures in a Sunday colour supplement, and part of a longer work. The two pictures have little in common apart from featuring in the same publication, and the point seems to be both to draw narratives out of the images and to highlight how newspapers juxtapose unrelated imagery, causing the reader to look for meaning. Three stars.

Transplant by Langdon Jones

Transplant by Langdon JonesThe text of Transplant, with concrete effects

A concrete poem about a heart transplant. It’s dramatic and evocative, making one think about how horrific even a life-saving surgical procedure really is. Cutting open humans and sticking new hearts in them is a horrifiying idea, and yet lives are saved. Four stars.

The Incomplete Science by B.J. Bayley

This is a non-fiction piece on economics, a concept SFF writers ignore far too often. The author presents two sets of economic dynamics, one relating to production and the other to land values, and concludes without reconciling them. The subject is very interesting but unfortunately it’s also very dry. Two stars.

The Capitol by George MacBeth

This is a series of sonnets that appear to be found poetry, a set of lines from newspaper stories all thrown together out of context. Like “Pictures at an Exhibition”, the only real meaning I could discern was to point out the absurdity of capitalism and journalism. I’m afraid it left me cold. Two stars.

The Party at Lady Cusp-Canine’s by Mervyn Peake

Illustration by Mervyn PeakeArt by, of course, Mervyn Peake

This is one of the issue’s highlights, including an essay by Langdon Jones. It seems that the original edition of Peake’s posthumous novel Titus Alone excluded a lot of good material and was poorly edited, and Jones has done a lot of work trying to develop a new edition which is closer to what Peake intended. As a Peake fan I’m thrilled by the news, and hoping that the revived Titus Alone will be something more in the style of the first two Gormenghast novels. The excerpt is certainly in line with Peake’s ascerbic wit, capturing the brittle nastiness of cocktail parties with a plethora of evocative animal names and similies. There is also brief news about another posthumous novel by Peake coming out, Mr Pye, which should be worth comparing to his earlier fiction.  Five stars.

Lines of White on a Sullen Sea by Maxim Jakubowski

Illustration for Lines of White on a Sullen SeaArt by Mal Dean

This is the latest in the ongoing shared-author story featuring Jerry Cornelius. It doesn’t make any more sense than the other ones, but making sense is less of a priority than evoking a mood. Jerry is preoccupied with a Chinese rival; a female Cornelius turns up; there are lovely descriptions of clothes, and characters with absurd names like Treblinka Durand. If you liked the previous entries you'll probably like this. Three stars.

Books (New Worlds 194)

This issue contains no less than five full pages of book reviews, making the reviews section longer than any of the stories. This is a bit much, particularly given the magazine’s current reduced page count.

Slum Clearance by John Clute

John Clute's book reviewsJohn Clute's book reviews

Clute reviews Omnivore by Piers Anthony, Let the Fire Fall by Kate Wilhelm, Retief: Ambassador to Space by Keith Laumer, Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen, The Mezentian Gate, an unfinished novel by by E.R. Eddison, and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. He quite likes the Le Guin, is scathing about the Anthony, Laumer and Saberhagen, and mixed on everything else. Three stars.

Come Alive—You’re in the William Sanson Generation by Joyce Churchill

Churchill reviews Death Goes Better with Coca Cola by Dave Godfrey, Cape Breton is the Thought Control Centre of Canada by Ray Smith, Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick, The Island Under The Earth by Avram Davidson, and Penguin Modern Stories. She doesn’t seem too happy with any of them, and her comments didn’t leave me wanting to read any of them other than out of morbid curiosity. Two and a half stars.

Getting it Out by Norman Spinrad

Spinrad’s book review article, unlike the other two actually has a theme: he focuses on the output of Essex House, a paperback line whose agenda is to be for pornography what the New Wave has been to SF, leading to a subgenre of “speculative erotic fiction”. He reviews Season of the Witch by Hank Stine, Biker by Jane Gallion, the Agency trilogy by David Melzer, Evil Companions by Michael Perkins and A Feast Unknown by Philip Jose Farmer. Spinrad makes some of them, at least, sound intriguing. I’m going to keep an eye out for the Stine, a gender-bending body horror that sounds up my street. Four stars.

While at first glance it looks like the magazine is back on an even keel after last month’s financial woes, I’m still a bit worried. The writers are all White men with one exception (who I suspect is also White). Meanwhile, a recent trip to see Yoko Ono’s latest show has reminded me that London’s art and film and literature scene is simply exploding with talented people from all over the world. If NW wants to survive, simply writing about sex isn’t original enough any more; it needs to bring in some of the new voices on the scene.






[August 18, 1969] Tarnished Silver (August Galactoscope Part 2!)

by Brian Collins

The market has been changing violently over the past few years—perhaps for the better, perhaps not. As someone who came to love science fiction through the magazines little over a decade ago, it pains me to see those magazines either discontinued or struggling to adapt with the times. There are, of course, one or two exceptions. For those who see fresh potential in original anthologies, though, it's hard to argue with the results—even if, say, Damon Knight's Orbit series has offered mixed results.

The latest one-off anthology, Three for Tomorrow (the editor is uncredited, but I've heard rumors that Robert Silverberg is the mastermind behind this volume), features three new novellas from Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, and James Blish, plus a foreword from Arthur C. Clarke explaining the anthology's intriguing premise.

Three for Tomorrow

Cover art by Barry Martin.

Foreword, by Arthur C. Clarke

In just a couple pages, the venerated Arthur C. Clarke sums up what the ‘60s will probably be remembered for: a historical text written in blood. Clarke cites, among other things, the Charles Whitman shooting back in ‘63, that massive blackout in the northeast back in ‘65, and of course, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Clarke then asks a rather curious question: “When will some Lee Harvey Oswald attempt to assassinate a city—or a world?” Thus the following stories will presumably share a theme of sorts, although as we’re told in the editor’s introduction, Silverberg, Zelazny, and Blish wrote totally independently of each other.

No rating for the foreword.

How It Was When the Past Went Away, by Robert Silverberg

The first novella is also the longest, at a solid eighty pages. More of a tapestry than a focused narrative, we follow a number of characters in San Francisco after a disgruntled man taints the city’s water supply with an experimental drug—said drug causing selective amnesia. The year is 2003, where robots handle much of the manual labor and people get their news through the “data-net,” the problem now being that not everyone remembers it’s 2003. We follow, among others, a famous sculptor who has sunk into a hilarious amount of debt with several corporations, a magician or “mnemonist” who has an existential crisis after part of his memory has been wiped, a doctor who has been guilt-ridden for the past decade because of a family tragedy he holds himself responsible for, a decorated war veteran who only drinks bottled water out of paranoia (I suspect this is a deliberate reference to Dr. Strangelove’s General Ripper), and I could go on a bit more. None of these characters could be considered “the hero,” but while the story is short on anyone individually sympathetic, we do get a rather colorful ensemble cast as compensation.

Silveberg has been writing at a furious pace for the past few years, apparently having come to maturity since he started writing fiction again back in—was it ‘63? I was impressed with The Man in the Maze when it ran in If last year, and “How It Was When the Past Went Away” further hints at a growing maturity, although it has a few issues that weigh on it.

The most immediate problem is that it is overstuffed for a novella, with more characters than the reader could reasonably keep track of, most of them one-note. The women (the wives and secretaries, as nobody else of the female persuasion seems to exist here) get it the worst. Silverberg is able to conceive a believable future San Francisco in which technology has largely been computerized and creditors come in the form of robots with automated messaging, but for some reason he struggles to conceive female characters who do not exist simply to be stared at. There is a curious subplot in which a husband and wife have forgotten getting divorced, because of the drug, and so work to reform their relationship; but again it feels undercooked, because the wife is written less like a person and more like something to be gained. Overall this story would not win awards for character psychology.

I’m prefacing my complaints just to get them out of the way, because what Silverberg does right is certainly commendable. Between this and some other recent stories (especially the novels), Silverberg has been hunting intellectual big game. The San Francisco of 2003 is vividly and believably realized, sort of coming off as like a Stand on Zanzibar in miniature, but the thematic implications of the drug at the story’s center are ultimately what give it a certain heft and a sense of foreboding. Silverberg seems to posit that if we really value our own happiness that we would choose to forget our past trauma, or at least some of it; yet the fact that characters struggle to come to terms with forgetting part of their pasts implies that we do value something more about ourselves than our happiness. If only we could articulate what that is. Alienation has been a recurring theme for Silverberg since at least “To See the Invisible Man,” but here he tethers it to our sense of memory and how our memories can connect us with other people. The shared amnesia for the people in this story becomes its own moment of collective memory for them, which I have to admit is a lovely idea. If we were able to forget then we would be happier, but then would we also become slightly less human? And would the inverse be true, that by remembering we become more human?

A high three stars, but I feel Silverberg could have very feasibly tweaked it to bring it up to four. I also would not be surprised if we see a novel expansion in the future.

The Eve of RUMOKO, by Roger Zelazny

He’s only been around half a dozen years or so at this point, but Zelazny has quickly become one of my favorite writers to have coincided with the New Wavers. I do fear, however, that despite still being quite young he has already taken to repeating himself. To make a long story short, “The Eve of RUMOKO” (so named “after the Maori god of volcanoes and earthquakes”) is about Project RUMOKO, in which nuclear explosives are used deep underwater to raise up volcanic islands. In “How It Was When the Past Went Away” society’s stability is threatened by a tainted water supply, but with Zelazny’s story the underlying problem is overpopulation. Project RUMOKO may provide additional land for human habitation, but the ecological consequences of these new islands could be severe—never mind the effect on societies that already live in undersea domes. Our narrator/protagonist, “Albert Scwheitzer” (he makes it clear that this is not his real name, which we never learn), has been brought on ostensibly as an engineer, but his real job is as a private detective—in the case of Project RUMOKO, to find the culprit behind what seem to be attempts at sabotage.

To give credit where credit’s due, we don’t often see SF and detective fiction cross-pollinating, for reasons that have mostly to do with the fact that you have to provide both suspense and plausibility when writing a mystery in an SF setting. Or to put it another way, how would you provide a plausible mystery in a setting where presumably developments in technology would make it harder to get away with a crime? Zelazny sidesteps this by having the setting be mostly grounded, as in not too different from what we now recognize, other than that humanity has become overcrowded enough that even the aforementioned undersea domes have proven to not be enough. Given how islands are naturally formed, it isn’t too far a stretch to imagine man-made islands as a possible solution to overpopulation. Whatever other problems this story has, at least it remains internally consistent. Zelazny, when he tries, has an imagination that can be disarming.

Unfortunately, while the bones of the story are arguably new territory, the meat and organs are not. “The Eve of RUMOKO” is a Frankenstein monster comprised of at least three previous Zelazny stories, namely “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth,” “This Moment of the Storm,” and “The Keys to December,” each of these a very good story in its own right. The problem is that when you throw these three stories into a stew to form a fourth, the result reads like Zelazny is coasting for the most part. It doesn’t help that “Schweitzer” might be the moodiest and most insufferable protagonist in what is becoming a rather long line of moody and insufferable Zelazny protagonists, all men, all interchangeable: He smokes like a chimney, is cool with the ladies, and is even able to outsmart a couple of goons in a drawn-out interrogation sequence. I’m also becoming tired of Zelazny’s penchant for using mythological symbolism as a crutch, especially (such as here) when he cribs from non-European cultures for his material. Overall I found the experience concerning—not in a vacuum but rather in conjunction with Zelazny’s previous work.

Taken simply on its own it’s a perfectly fine story, perhaps three stars; but with Zelazny I expected a lot more.

We All Die Naked, by James Blish

Blish’s story is the shortest and darkest of the bunch, both in its premise and implications. It’s also the best. This is the only story of the three which follows through on Clarke’s foreword, in the sense that technology has actually contributed to apocalyptic conditions. Blish speculates here that if humanity is doomed, it’s because of the sheer amount of waste we produce, and how much of that waste can’t be destroyed. We’re told that by the end of the 1980s sea levels will have risen enough to submerge the world’s coasts, including Manhattan, which aside from the crunched timetable (I seriously doubt people will be traveling via canoe in the city in thirty years’ time) sounds plausible enough. The problem is twofold: how much waste we produce and how we might (or might not) be able to dispose of said waste. For example, nuclear power is perhaps more efficient when it comes to producing waste than burning coal, but nuclear waste is hazardous long-term, and there isn’t a foolproof way to dispose of it. Thus, Blish posits, we (or at least Earth) will be doomed in the end.

The protagonist is a union leader who has been called on to pick three men and six women to board a shuttle for the moon—no children allowed. The idea is that while Earth may be doomed, tiny colonies of humanity can be saved. People are chosen based on fertility and each group leader’s personal preference, children and presumably the elderly being left behind. The situation is bleak. I do have a few quibbles first, none of which I could consider a major issue at least by itself. Aside from the crunched timetable there are some odd asides made via the third-person narrator, such as a certain bureaucrat being singled out as “an obvious homosexual,” along with the few female characters at times being described in unflattering terms. Characters are also fluent in what we would call Expositionese, and a fair portion of the wordage is spent on monologues detailing how the world got to this sorry state. I also have to warn the reader that this story stops abruptly, quite literally in the middle of a sentence such that I was unsure at first if this was deliberate or a misprint; but I’ve since come to think the abrupt (and hopeless) ending is quite deliberate.

Something SF and horror have in common is the capacity to ask disturbing questions, in that these questions dislodge the reader’s complacency. Blish asks a simple but brutal one: “Would mankind be able to survive without our possessions, and even our waste?” Would we be able to bury Shakespeare, or even personal items which possess only sentimental value, for the sake of the race’s survival? Blish supposes we wouldn’t. While there is a tangible irony to the plot, along with stylistic flourishes (there’s a cat named Splat!, with the exclamation point as part of the name) that suggest Blish is trying to fit in with the New Wave crowd, the impending doom of “We All Die Naked” evokes the God of Abraham rather than a comedy act. This is Blish at his most merciless, even if his shortcomings as a writer (his inelegant dialogue, his uncharitable attitude towards his female characters) work to form cracks in the armor.

It’s imperfect, but it still has a haunting power. Four stars.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Up the Line, by Robert Silverberg

[We received this review of the novel version of "Up the Line" at almost the same time as we received John Boston's commentary on the serialized version. We considered both articles to be worth reading, even if "Up the Line" might not be… -ED]

But we're not done with Silverberg! He's said recently that he refuses to write anything purely for money now, which implies artistic integrity, but that hasn't slowed down his output much. His latest novel, Up the Line, started its serial run in Amazing Stories a couple months ago, but you can now read the full novel, uncensored (it's a very dirty novel) and in paperback. Unfortunately this might be the worst novel Silveberg has written since he returned to writing half a dozen years ago. It's such a misshapen creature of a book that I honestly have to wonder what Silverberg meant by it.

Cover art by Ron Walotsky.

Ever since the invention of time travel, one's notion of objective time has broken down, with only "now-time" being taken into account—in this case now-time is 2059. Judson Elliott III is a new recruit as a Time Courier, whose job basically involves being a guide and babysitter for a bunch of rich tourists. Time travel has been commercialized such that notable events in history are industries unto themselves, especially the deaths of famous people. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the assassination of Huey Long are just two examples, in which the crowds gathering around the slain historical figures are at least partly comprised of time travelers.

Silverberg goes to great lengths to rationalize how such a business would work, so much in fact that for about the first seventy pages of this 250-page novel the plot is all but nonexistent. This isn't necessarily a negative, or at least it didn't have to be. We grow accustomed to Jud's new profession, the rules he is expected to follow, and the few friends he makes among the fellow Couriers, including Sam, a white man's idea of a black man, and Capistrano, a melancholy fellow who fantasizes about committing suicide in a rather odd fashion—by going back in time and murdering one of his own ancestors, thereby preventing his own birth.

Up the Line works on the presumption that you, the reader, are already thoroughly familiar with the time travel genre. The Time Patrol, a police faction whose job specifically calls for making sure the Couriers and their clients don't destroy mankind through some paradox, could be a hat tip to Poul Anderson's own Time Patrol, or even the late H. Beam Piper's Paratime Police. And why not? Any time travel story written in the past five years or so would have to draw comparisons with, among other things, Robert Heinlein's masterful "'—All You Zombies—'," which similarly concerns sex and how it might act as a catalyst for time paradoxes. However, while the sex in Heinlein's little jewel of a story is kept offscreen, there are quite a few scenes in Silverberg's novel that could be considered pornographic. Something Jud quickly learns about the Time Service is that the Couriers are almost too busy chasing tail to look after their clients, and the women they chase after are (somehow) always willing. The biggest hedonist of them all has to be Themistoklis Metaxas, a senior Courier who, quite opposite from Capistrano, goes out of his way to bed the female members of his own ancestry. Incest ends up playing such a prominent role in the novel that it's basically responsible for the plot even starting in earnest, as Metaxas's roguish behavior inspires Jud to think about the incest taboo with regards to his own ancestry.

The problem with Up the Line is that it's quite a bad novel, to my mind, and yet it's easy to see how other readers might think it's another victory for Silverberg. Who doesn't love a good time paradox? Not to mention the rampant sex, which will draw in younger readers and those who are predisposed to think about sex regularly (and I admittedly fall into both of those groups), while at the same time reminding us that the New Wave is here to stay. The locations are exotic, especially the fulcrum of the action, that being Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul across the centuries, the city which Metaxas frequents so often as to have residency there. There are constipated passages in which the action ceases so that Jud (read: Silverberg) can educate us on, for example, what rural life was like in 12th century Byzantium. The amateur historian's passion for his subject can be infectious, which I think was what Silverberg was counting on, so that he might distract us from how uneventful this book really is. If I were to keep only the necessary background information and Jud's quest to trace his family lineage backwards, I would have cut the novel in half, to have it squeezed nicely into one half of an Ace Double. Remove most of the sex scenes and historical tangents, and you would have maybe a long novella. It doesn't help that by lingering so long on the mechanics of his time travel business, Silverberg invites us to poke holes in it. Indeed, why are the Time Service and Time Patrol separate organizations? Why is it so easy to abuse such a fragile system? How have we not been devolved to the state of primordial ooze thanks to some tourist stepping on a butterfly?

So there isn't enough action to sustain this 250-page novel. So what? The ideas are ambitious, and deliberately headache-inducing. What about the characters? Indeed, what about them. As I was reading Up the Line, I was intrigued but also at times disgusted—intrigued by the precarious relationship between the Couriers and the fabric of time they play with, and disgusted by the Couriers themselves. Jud starts out as sex-starved and only becomes more preoccupied with the notion of bedding a distant ancestor of his, namely the 17-year-old Pulcheria Dulca, in Byzantium. "It was lust at first sight," as Jud tells us; and of course Pulcheria, despite being married, is perfectly eager to go to bed with him. Truth be told, I've become concerned that Silverberg does not see women as fully autonomous beings, with their own interior lives and ambitions. The women in this book are granted even less personality than Sam, who himself is a caricature, with even Pulcheria barely qualifying as a character. There are also some comments Jud makes about a few female characters younger than Pulcheria (including a disturbing episode in which he encounters his own mother as a five-year-old) that I found revolting. I do mean this with the intention of giving some offense when I say Up the Line reads almost more like a Piers Anthony novel than Silverberg.

Pains me to say this, but I must give it two stars.






[August 16, 1969] Soaring high and low (August 1969 Galactoscope)


by Victoria Silverwolf

Ladies of Darkness

Two very different novels by women fell into my hands this month. Just about the only thing they have in common is a downbeat mood. Even that, however, is treated in highly dissimilar ways by the authors. Let's take a look.

Shadows of Tomorrow, by Dorothy Daniels


Anonymous cover art. Woman running away from a mansion that has a light in one window? Must be a Gothic Romance.

The setting is Connecticut in 1895. The narrator is a nineteen-year-old woman named Cassandra whose mother has just died. Her father died soon after her birth, and she spent almost of all of her life in boarding school. Returning for her mother's funeral, she is dismayed by the fact that the only other mourners are her mother's second husband, who left her some years ago, and her mother's faithful Gypsy companion.

Her mother had the ability to predict the future. The villagers thought of her as a witch. Adding to their superstitious fear was a mysterious light that appeared in the sky at the time of her death.

Cassandra (an appropriate name, as we'll see) settles into the family home with the Gypsy and her stepfather. In true Gothic fashion, she wanders into the cellar in order to investigate a noise, only to barely escape being strangled by an unknown assailant. It soon turns out that Cassandra also has precognition, which she considers to be a curse rather than a gift.

Other Gothic elements include a séance conducted by the Gypsy, a secret room in the mansion, and a murder. Since this is also a Romance, we have a handsome young stranger show up.

The novel definitely follows the pattern of a Gothic Romance. Fans of that genre, or of the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows will find it satisfactory, if less than original. It's a quick, easy read, suitable for light entertainment of an enjoyable spooky nature.

Three stars.

A Sweet Sweet Summer, by Jane Gaskell


More anonymous cover art.

The narrator is a young man named Pelham, known as Pel. He is also called Rat. In a dystopian near future, he and his father run their home as a combination boarding house and brothel. His cousin Frijja shows up, having barely survived a brutal attack. You see, the aliens told him to take her in.

The aliens? Yes, it seems that gigantic extraterrestrial spaceships hover over the British Isles. A force field isolates the inhabitants from the rest of the world, leading to a breakdown in society. The aliens send messages to people in the form of small talking spheres, something like ball bearings. Failure to obey their orders leads to disintegration.

The aliens put various parts of London under the control of gangs, some Communist and some Fascist. Early in the book, Frijja defends the home from an invasion by the Fascists in a violent way. That doesn't prevent them from taking over pretty soon anyway.

The other major character is Connor, one of the Fascists. Pel is obsessed by him, although he tells the reader that it's not in a sexual or romantic way. (Frankly, methinks the fellow doth protest too much.) In turn, Connor is obsessed by Frijja. This triple relationship is complicated, blending love and hate in strange ways. It's also the heart of the book.

Without going into the myriad plot complications, let's just say that this unlikely trio goes on an odyssey through a transformed England. Along the way we get more violence, rape, sexual blackmail, and cannibalism.

This is a very grim book, as you can tell, although it's also got moments of bitter humor. Despite the aliens, who never show up in person, it's much more like A Clockwork Orange than Childhood's End. The narrative style is dense and eccentric, so this is a book that requires careful reading.

Five stars.


The Older Generation and the Newer Generation


by Jason Sacks

The Three Faces of Time, by Frank Belknap Long

I usually love writing for this column. I have tremendous fun exploring the work of promising new writers, or obscure works to which I can provide some attention, or even to celebrate the work of an acknowledged science fiction master.

But it provides me no joy to discuss The Three Faces of Time by Frank Belknap Long.

Mr. Long, born in 1901, has a long and distinguished career in science fiction and horror. He's published dozens of books which often sit in the uneasy and unsettling boundary between science fiction and horror. His many short stories were foundational in the golden years of the classic Weird Tales pulp, often sitting side by side in a given issue next to his close friend H.P.  Lovecraft and exploring similar mythos and settings.

I frankly love the classic work of Messers. Long and Lovecraft for their gothic, creeping horrors and their inescapable dark energy.

But that work was released 30 plus years ago, and I'm sad to say that Mr. Long, now well into his Social Security years, is no longer the writer he used to be. Or, more accurately, he's too much like the writer he used to be.

The Three Faces of Time is, frankly, a bore. The writing is turgid, characters are wafer thin, and the plot simply refuses to become interesting.

A flying saucer has landed in a small suburban town. When people go to investigate the thunderous sound the spaceship makes, they become lost in a maze of incomprehensible pathways and confusing signposts, which all serve to alienate all the people from their environments.

We follow Susan Wentworth as she tries to find her husband and her children in such a space, where she does eventually catch up with the family – and some mysterious aliens. The strange creatures then transport the humans thousands of years into the future in search of some sort of truth about human immortality – or something like that. I think that's what happened; my attention kept wandering as I tried to make my way through endless thickets of run-on sentences, inhuman dialogue and exhausting conceptual obtuseness.

This would be a fun book in the hands of a more modern writer like Ellison or Brunner, who would highlight the confusion or the characters' existential doubt. Dick would have made the leads more full of angst, and LeGuin would have chonicled the beauty of the aliens' worldview. But Long is not of the newer generation. He reads like a man who's 68 years old and who time, sadly, has left behind.

I regret I have to give this book 1 star.

The Wizards of Senchuria, by Kenneth Bulmer

After my frustrating experience with Mr. Long's book, I was anxious for something that felt fresh, breezy and contemporary.

The Wizards of Senchuria by Kenneth Bulmer was just what I needed.

I've had mixed experiences in the past in reading Mr. Bulmer's fiction. But this book was pure joy for me.

Senchuria is a breezy and bright story. It's a kind of updated version of the high-adventure stories which accompanied work by Lovecraft and Long in the old pulps, but updated for a more modern audience.


Scobie Redfern is a guy in his 20s on the way home from a game of tennis at a Lower Mahattan gym on a cold and snowy night. Scobie calls a cab, but at the same moment another man jumps into the taxi with him. The cabbie talks them both into sharing the vehicle, but quickly odd things start happening. Scobie catches a glimpse of a strange creature who seems to attack the car, and when his fellow passenger persuades Scobie to stop for a drink, a burger, and an explanation, so begins the wildest experience of Scobie's life.

Scobie soon finds himself in an adventure he hardly could have imagined, involving strange portals, terrifying creatures, love, hate, fear, battles on a grand scale, and the kind of nonstop adventurous life that would make a Robert E. Howard character feel exhausted.

This is one of those books where each chapter ends in a cliffhanger before the tension and silliness of the story rachets up even further, a wild, high-tension ride which gets much of its power from the reader wondering how much longer Bulmer can sustain his high-wire act.

Rest assured that everything in Kelly Freas's delightful cover actually happens in the book!

Maybe this book hit me so hard because I was so disappointed in the F.K. Long book above, but this was a thorough delight. The Wizards of Senchuria won't contend for a Hugo, but it's a nearly perfect half of an Ace Double.

4 stars.



by Victoria Lucas

The Edible Woman

Author Margaret Atwood and I are nearly the same age (she has a couple years on me). But she has published 5 books of poetry, and written a libretto–so far–and I'm sure she'll keep ahead of me. She has also just published this, her first novel. I've been wanting to read her work, especially since it (a) smacks of feminism at first glance, and (b) was written by a native of Canada, a country to which my husband and I aspire, and which we may yet reach as we slowly move north.


by John Schoenherr

I am a proud Stanford University alumna thanks to that university’s help finding me the money to go to school (student loan, job). As I understand it, the faculty have always believed that the school is not just there to teach about what students are going to do in life, but also help them discover what kind of person they will become. Clearly, as far as Atwood’s fictional alumna, Marian, is concerned, the school she attended (University of Toronto by the geographical and environmental clues) failed on both counts.

She is lost and feels formless, trying to understand what is required of her and fit into the molds offered. Every now and then she attempts to escape, finding some ease from the pressure of becoming a woman in today's society by running off the rails.

People in her life are mostly in a similar state of becoming and are extremely puzzled when she tries to run away–with one exception, a man she seeks without realizing she is looking for him. Clearly he has run off the rails himself and is possibly dangerous. But for Marian, sometimes danger is preferable to the destination of the tracks, perceived by her as motherhood (of which she is frightened) within marriage (although her roommate is at first set on motherhood alone), a job that is boring and expected to disappear with marriage, a life as a consumer of products such as girdles (worn by "vulcanized" women), and meals of real-life, killed animals.

Starting with strong reactions to types and cuts of meat reminiscent of the living beast, she begins crossing foods off her list of possible edibles as she tries to stay the course to the arms of her fiancé and their upcoming wedding. In a supermarket she “resents” the music because she knows it is only there to lull consumers like her into a euphoric state in which they will buy anything; her own fingers twitch to reach away from the market basket and pick up something–anything–with a "bright label." (I particularly identify with this: not only do I dislike the music itself, but I wish they would leave my mind alone, and I start talking to the speakers and gloomily thinking about bringing wire cutters and stair steps to the store.) After awhile, most foods are eliminated from her diet until she makes something she can eat.

Atwood’s book is funny with a dark humor, growing darker and funnier as Marian’s story unfolds. I give it 5 stars. Beautifully done.


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

Out of the Mouth of the Dragon, by Mark S. Geston


by John Schoenherr

The Biblical book of Revelations foretells of the final battle between Good and Evil.  In this second book by Mark S. Geston (author of Lords of the Starship, which seems to be something of a prequel), Armageddon was just the first of climactic battles, subsequent ones being told of in the Book of Survivors, the Book of Eric, the Dialogues of Moreth.  Thousands of years later, the diminishing forces of Earth, spurred on by crusading fury, continue to clash.  The last ships, the remaining aircraft, the pitiful remnants of humanity are all drawn, sooner or later, to fight what will hopefully be the last fight at "The Meadows."

Born into this world is Amon VanRoarke, an aimless naif who finds motivation when the prophet Timonias comes to town on an ancient, motor-powered merchantman.  The holy man's words fill VanRoarke with the urge to sail to The Meadows, not necessarily to fight, but simply to discover what has happened to the battered Earth, what consumes men to combat to the end.

So he sails on the Garnet, along with the drunken and dying veteran, Tapp, the religion-crazed Yarrow, and the half-sane ex-librarian Smythe, the last of whom has some borrowed knowledge of what the world was, though not why it's become what it has.  Eventually, they arrive at The Burn that borders The Meadows, where a mighty army is encamped and ready to fight.  There too is the "rim army", a force of strangers, origin (as yet) unknown.  The stage is set for…something, but not what you expect.

Dragon is very much a mood piece, a commentary on the futility of war, and perhaps even of humanity (or at least, this cast of humanity).  If Ballard were to write a catastrophe book, where the catastrophe is the red-steeded Horseman of the Apocalypse, this might well be the result.  It's downbeat, descriptive, brooding, and more than a little surreal.  It reminds me a little of the endlessly warring tankers of the Great Plains in John M. Foucette's post-apocalyptic The Age of Ruin, but more compelling, more deliberately written.

It's not a happy book, but it is an interesting one, and I had no trouble tearing through most of it in a single reading.

3.5 stars—others might rate it higher.



by George Pritchard

Rip-Roaring and Rollicking

As I have heard mixed reports about Lin Carter, it gives me great joy to report that his newest collection, Beyond the Gates of Dream, is simply delightful. The collection is written as a deliberate throwback to serial fiction and the heyday of Weird Tales, and in that sector, Carter (what a suitable name!) thrives. In this era of the New, Carter's writing can often seem antediluvian, so it is a joy to see those fins and gills be used as they were meant to be.


by Jeff Jones

My favorite story was actually the first, “Masters of the Metropolis”. Written with Randall Garrett, it describes the main character going from New Jersey to New York City in the modern day, except that he has “Wonder-sense” — the ability to see the incredible wonder that exists all around us.
Four stars.

“Keru” is one of the shortest stories in the collection, a Floridian horror story right out of Weird Tales. It has one of two female characters in the book, which is both accurate to the era Carter is recreating, and to Carter's sensibility as an author. Its racial politics are somewhat muddled, but it is leagues ahead of what Campbell is putting out.
Four stars.

The closest to New Wave that Carter gets is in “Owlstone”, but it's firmly in the slow, thoughtful realm of New Wave, rather than anything close to sexuality and gender. I enjoyed it, particularly the ending. The story is from the perspective of a slave creature, who is used by the leader of Earth to fly through space and meet with the leaders of other planets. Called to communicate with the computer who commands the universe, the leaders discover they are being replaced by computers. But what will happen to the slave creatures?
Four stars.

“Harvey Hodges, Veebelfetzer” is an attempt at a SFF comedy epic short story. There is potential in it, but it is all so tangled up with early-author nonsense that should have been trimmed back long ago that even said author apologizes for its existence. It is not bad in a way that makes me angry, but it needed considerably more work, that it did not necessarily justify. It’s definitely the weakest of the lot.
Two stars.

There are two sections of unfinished stories, which I am not rating. The stories are not finished, so it does not seem fair to judge them just yet.

Admittedly, this collection is best taken in slowly, as Carter's joy coming through the pages can often be overwhelming if read for long periods. I was reminded of interacting with a particularly exuberant horse, or a large puppy, in book form. If frequent fannish winks, nods, and asides fill you with annoyance and dread, I do recommend avoiding this book. He writes such notes at the beginning and end of each story, and at the beginning and end of the book, like a joyful Rod Serling, from Worldcon rather than the Twilight Zone, and hopped up on PDQ chocolate powder.
3.5 stars if you like this sort of thing, one star if you don't.

But why shouldn't Carter be excited? He was allowed to finish a posthumous Conan story, and that tale, “The Hand of Nergal”, takes up the majority of the book. I enjoyed it as a Conan story, and was glad to see Carter avoid the numerous potential pitfalls that Howard set up in his world and writing style. This is a place where Carter’s weaknesses in the New Wave become strengths in the old. Lucky for the reader, despite Conan’s supposedly barbarous nature, he has little interest in the beautiful servant girl who briefly crosses his path, before going to destroy the demonic vampires threatening the world! I wonder if this is related to Conan’s mighty thews in any way, after the revelations in Sports Illustrated back in June regarding the significant use of steroids in professional sports.
3.5 stars.

”So close your waking eyes/And picture endless skies” — and wonder!

Four stars overall.