Category Archives: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[October 4, 1966] The Real Treasure Was The Friends We Made Along The Way (Doctor Who: The Smugglers)

1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

It’s been a long couple of months, but Doctor Who is back, and so am I! Did you miss me?

I had heard rumours that William Hartnell was thinking about hanging up the TARDIS keys, but with a new series I think we can safely say those rumours are a load of tosh. I for one am very pleased– both because I enjoy the show, and because I'd be out of a job!

Though I do appreciate them, a pure historical story is an odd choice to start off a new series. Let’s be honest. Kids are not watching Doctor Who for the often fairly dry historicals. They’re watching for the bug-eyed monsters. Still, this story by Brian Hayles has pirates in it, and what kind of kid doesn’t like pirates? What's more, for the first time ever we have a woman in the director's chair, Julia Smith. Well, the kids might not care much about that, but I do.

Last time we saw the Doctor, we said a rather abrupt goodbye to companion Dodo, and said hello to Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills). Let’s see how they got along on their first adventure: The Smugglers.

Continue reading [October 4, 1966] The Real Treasure Was The Friends We Made Along The Way (Doctor Who: The Smugglers) →

1 Comment Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[October 2, 1966] At Heart (November 1966 IF)

2 Comments


by David Levinson

Throughout the millennia in every human culture, the heart has been a key symbol. From the center of the body to the seat of life, emotion, mind or soul, its meaning varies, but it is always important. These days, it’s mostly a symbol of love, but it’s also connected with courage and desires of other kinds. It can also mean the center of something, from arguments to artichokes. Whatever it may mean, you gotta have it.

Hearts of darkness and light

It’s been a rough month for the civil rights movement. On September 2nd, Alabama governor George Wallace signed a bill refusing Federal education funds, believing that will prevent the integration of Alabama schools. Two days later, the Congress of Racial Equality marched in Cicero, Illinois and was met by a mob hurling rocks and bottles. By the end, 14 were injured and nearly 40 people (mostly white) had been arrested. But the ugliest scenes were in Grenada, Mississippi.

Back in June, the March Against Fear passed through Grenada, and marchers spent about a week there. Town officials appeared cooperative. They gave police protection to the marchers, six Black voter registrars were hired and 1,000 Black voters were registered. But it was all for show. Once the country’s attention moved on, the registrars were fired, and it was discovered that none of the voters were actually registered. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference set up shop in town and went to work.

In August, a Federal judge ordered Grenada to allow Black students to enroll in previously all white schools. Many parents took advantage of this, but a campaign of intimidation caused many to change their children’s enrollment to Black schools. School started on the 12th, and things went smoothly at one elementary school, but it was very different at the local high school. A white mob prevented Black students from entering the school, chasing Black children through the streets and beating them with chains and pipes. They even attacked reporters. And the police turned a blind eye to the whole thing. Federal protection finally arrived for the children on the 17th.


Martin Luther King walking children to school in Grenada, Mississippi. Photo by Bob Fitch

A few days earlier, a car carrying Martin Luther King and some other SCLC leaders was stopped at a red light in Grenada. A man at a nearby gas station recognized him, ran over, stuck a gun in Dr. King’s face and threatened to blow his brains out. Dr. King simply looked the man in the eye and said, “Brother, I love you.” Stunned, the man lowered his gun and walked away. That is a heart full of courage and love.

Hearts of men and robots

From the heart of battle to the heart of the galaxy, this month’s IF is full of action. Let’s dive right in.


Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots dispute the best way to care for humans. Art by Adkins

Continue reading [October 2, 1966] At Heart (November 1966 IF) →

2 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 30, 1966] Return to Base (October 1966 Analog)

6 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

The Comfort of Old Friends

One of the brilliant things about the new show, Star Trek, is that it combines the storytelling breadth of a science fiction anthology show (a la The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits with the anchoring of a returning ensemble cast.  This has never really been done before (at least in the United States — the UK has Doctor Who and the various marionette shows).  In addition to the exciting new situations that arise every week, we can also enjoy watching our favorite characters grow over time.

Many science fiction magazines are like the older anthology shows, offering a brand new cast of characters and new ideas with every montly set of stories.  Others, like Analog, and in particular this month's issue, are like Star Trek, bringing us back to familiar territory for further explorations of a known universe.

I think both are valid formats, particularly if the established properties are successful.  Analog did a pretty good job this month.  Let's dive in…

The Issue at Hand


by John Schoenherr

Strangers to Paradise, by Christopher Anvil

Chris Anvil is an author who has occasionally shown flashes of promise — but always in other magazines.  In Analog, he has dug himself a rut with an anvil-weighted plow and happily buried himself in it.


by John Schoenherr

Strangers is yet another story that takes place in his galactic trade universe.  This one involves a ship whose gravitor has broken down, and whose crew has made planetfall to seek repairs.  Unfortunately, though the Michelin guide said there was a Class II repair facility on the colony world, it was never actually built.  Instead, the colonists proved so unruly that the computer running the outpost established draconian control.  The technicians who could override the machine exiled themselves rather than deal with either the colonists or the computer!

To fix their ship, the traders need help from the city dwellers.  But to get the help, they need the technicians back.  How do they repair the impasse?

I thought this might be setting up a Deathworld scenario, where the immigrants are the key to restoring harmony.  But this is Chris Anvil in Campbell's mag.  Instead, they accidentally develop a psychic projector, able to instill any emotion into any human at any range.  Over the course of many pages, they manipulate the entire planetary population in a haphazard fashion, ultimately getting what they need.  In the end, they consider dismantling the device as an unethical abomination…but decide to keep it.  Just too useful to destroy, you know.

I found this story quite distasteful.  Less glib than Anvil's other tales, but callous in a way that suggests support rather than condemnation for the actions of the shipwrecked crew.

Two stars.

The Sons of Prometheus, by Alexei Panshin


by Leo Summers

Sons sees the return of a fine new author who you've not only seen before, but who has even written a guest article for the Journey!  (the line between fan and pro in the 'zines is a blurry one.) This new tale appears to be set in the compelling timeline set up in What Size are Giants? and the amazing Down to the Worlds of Men.

The premise: on the brink of atomic self-destruction, Earth sends out more than a hundred colonies.  Fifteen years later, Earth is a radiated wasteland.  The only humans left live either in struggling settlements or rather comfortably as crew and passengers on starships.  This sets up a haves and have-nots situation.  The planeteers are primitive, suspicious folks.  The ship dwellers have limited resources to assist.

This particular tale involves a fellow named Tansman, who embeds himself on a plague-infested colony to conduct anthropological research.  His ultimate dilemma: does he offer what limited medicine he can to save a few, revealing himself, putting his mission and possibly his person in danger?  Or does he watch as the colonists die in droves?

It's a vivid story, though I feel it doesn't do quite enough with the setup.  It also stacks the deck a bit toward a certain outcome.  I also could have done without the extremely graphic, drawn out scene in which Tansman puts a suffering colonist out of his misery (warning: it's in the last third of the tale).

So, three stars, but I wouldn't mind seeing more in this setting.

Challenge: The Insurgent vs. the Counterinsurgent (Part 2), by Joe Poyer

With the non-fiction column, we return to last month's topic — namely counterinsurgency.  Poyer notes the great strides that have been made in tracking insurgents, using infrared, electronic bugs, even scent.  He correlates this increase in counterinsurgency effectiveness with the decline in successful insurgencies since 1956.  He makes the hopeful prediction that the golden age of guerrilas may be at an end.

The problem, of course, is that better counterinsurgents only addresses one prong of the problem.  As even Poyer notes, until the populace's needs are addressed, insurgency will thrive.  Moreover, I was reading in the latest diplomatic journals that few expect the United States to be successful in Vietnam, our latest counterinsurgent operation.  That is because the issue is an Asian problem, and the US has limited ability to project force and influence in another continent.  Vietnam is not a colony.  It is a sovereign country riven with civil war.  One way or another, they're going to have to solve their own issues.  Our presence is an ephemeral condition, and it is arguable that it is making the situation any better.

Three stars for an interesting read and lots of pretty charts, but I doubt the author's conclusion.

Romp, by Mack Reynolds


by Leo Summers

Back to the world of Joe Mauser, where the Earth of the 1980s is divided into four camps: the free countries of Latin America and Africa, Common Europe, the somewhat democratic SovWorld, and the "People's Capitalism" of the West.  The United States has calcified into economic castes, and upward mobility is virtually impossible.

Enter Rosy Porras, born into the long-dead job of pretzel twister.  He has figured out how to live a life of crime in an ostensibly crimeless world.  When his latest "romp" goes sour, he has to make a run for the border.  Can he make it in time?

I find the Mauser setting fascinating if based on increasingly unlikely premises.  This story is a bit too pat, but it's a competent thriller.  Three stars.

Too Many Magicians (Part 3 of 4), by Randall Garrett


by John Schoenherr

And now we return to the world of Lord Darcy, a timeline in which magic has displaced science, the Angevin Empire is squared against the Polish Confederation, and a Holmes analog is tasked with solving two murders.  We learned in the last installment that both were secret agents in the employ of HRM, and that their deaths are connected with a super secret magical confusion ray.

What we don't know is how one succumbed in a locked room, how Demoiselle Tia Einzig (accused of dealing in the Black Arts) of a southern slavic state was involved, or how certain was the loyalty of the murdered agents.

This continues to be a fun novel, and the setting is positively lavish.  If there's just one thing that's mildly unconvincing, it's the development of modern-style military ranks, as well as English colloquialisms, in a timeline that diverged from ours nearly a millennium ago.

Also, it can be a little tough to keep track of an intricate mystery spread out over four months of reading.  Nevertheless, four stars for another fine installment, and high hopes for a satistfying ending in October!

Reading the Results

It's a shame about the Anvil, as it drags the issue down to a straight 3 stars.  The issue feels better than that because it improves as it goes along.  Ah well. 3 still puts Analog alongside Alien Worlds (3.0) and just below Galaxy (rounds to 3 but was slightly above).

This makes Campbell's mag better than New Writings #9 (2.9),
Amazing (2.5), and IF (2.5) this month, and not as good as Impulse (3.2), New Worlds (3.3), or Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.3).

Worthy stuff (four and five stars) could easily fill two magazine's worth, but women wrote just 7.5% of the new fiction this month.  So much for the renaissance I predicted last month.

That wraps up the October 1966 magazines.  In two days, the November crop comes in!



6 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 28, 1966] Garbage and Aliens (October 1966 New Worlds and SF Impulse)

9 Comments


by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

After last month’s changes, I must admit that I was really looking forward to this month’s issues. I was intrigued – would the change of editor at SF Impulse be noticeable yet? And could editor Mike Moorcock over at New Worlds manage to produce another stellar issue of the same standard as last month?

I’ll start with New Worlds.

Mike Moorcock’s Editorial is not-an-Editorial. Instead Mike extolls a writer, reviewing some of their work. This is usually something that I feel belongs in the reviews section of the magazine.

However, Mike this time tells us of the work of J G Ballard, last seen here last month (and will appear again, later). The Editorial is typically enthusiastic, claiming that Ballard is the “first clear voice” of a new movement in science fiction. To which I mused that his voice is clearly different, whilst his plots are rather obscure.

To the stories!


Illustration by James Cawthorn

The Garbage World (Part 1 of 2), by Charles Platt

The cover story first. Platt tells of a future where Kopra, a world used by the rest of the Belt to dump its waste, has become increasingly unstable on account of the amount of waste dumped upon it. The people there strive to survive in a world with pollutive skies and garbage-covered landscapes.

However, the arrival of an official with a construction team to build a gravity generator, and deal with the problem before it becomes a hazard to others in the Belt, is greeted with suspicion. The general feeling is that the real motive is to get the locals off the planet and then steal their hoards of accumulated “wealth”.

This is made worse when Isaac Gaylord, the mayor of Kopra, has his wealth stolen and as his stockpile is a sign of his authority, he is deposed. Although suspicion immediately falls upon the construction team, Gaylord blames the nomads from outside of the village for taking advantage of the new situation. The work of the space constructors is also slowed by attacks on them, determined to stop the work. Lucian Roach, a Recorder for the Belt party, and Gaylord and his daughter Juliette go to meet the outsiders to get them to allow a restart of the gravity generator construction but also to get his hoard back and regain his status. Whilst travelling around a mud lake, their tractor breaks down and their radio is stolen, leaving us with a cliffhanger until next issue.

I quite liked the premise of this one. The story makes use of a valid environmental issue – with a growing population, what should we do with our litter in the future? Unfortunately, whilst the idea is interesting, the characterisation is poor and the plot unoriginal. In particular, the mayor, Isaac Gaylord, comes across rather like Ralph Richardson’s Boss of Everytown in the film Things to Come – a man of the people, yet ill-mannered and decidedly small-minded. There’s a weak love story begun here too. Reminiscent of an old-school “planetary explorer” story, this was readable, but won’t win any prizes for its telling. 3 out of 5.

To the Pure , by Damon Knight

An appearance of an American author here, who rather like James Blish I seem to know more for his criticism than his fiction. I enjoyed this one. It is a story of human-Antarian relationships, a boy-meets-girl-meets-alien kind of story. When Mr. Nellith, a big bird-like Antarian, arrives to fix the hyper-radio, human technician Jeff Gorman is aggrieved and does everything he can to make the alien’s life horrible. Despite all of Gorman’s boorish antics and general unpleasantness, Nellith completes the job and leaves the planet, taking Gorman’s wife in the process. Although this may sound unreasonable, Gorman is particularly nasty, which gives the reader the feeling that in the end justice was served. Another that is quite readable, though totally predictable. 3 out of 5.

The Squirrel Cage, by Thomas M. Disch

And no sooner do we have one story from this promising young writer, but we have another. I was impressed by Thomas’s debut here in last month’s New Worlds. As for this month, you know the idea that with enough time, monkeys could type out the works of Shakespeare? Well, here’s a slightly different version. This time it is the story of a man named Disch and a typewriter, locked in a lighted room. The man has no idea why he is there – is it an experiment or an observation? – and without knowing what day or time it is, is reduced to copying out or making up dreadful poetry and stories to pass the time. The writer eventually produces the theory that he is in a squirrel cage, where the typing is purely exercise for him, and he is perhaps entertainment in a zoo.

Almost but not quite as good as last month’s effort, I think. Still readable. The trains of thought throughout are logical and there is a faintly amusing tone throughout to give the impression that the writer is in on the joke as well as part of the joke. The attempts at poetry and short stories are deliberately awful. Are we to make fun of the writer or sympathise with him? Not sure – but this confirms my idea last month that Disch is an author to watch. 4 out of 5.

Be Good Sweet Man, by Hilary Bayley

Hilary’s return to fiction after some time as a book reviewer. Whilst the setting is science fiction, this is really a story of sexual politics: on Mars the Conservative and Reform Party has dared to replace its previous candidate with a man! The main idea of the plot is that, after the Third World War, it is felt that it is time to let women run the place – the men made such a mess, after all.

It is amusing to read what can happen with gender stereotypes reversed, although the story makes the mistake, in my opinion, of simply swapping the genders and then letting the women behave like the stereotype of men and presumably the men more like the original stereotype of women. It lacks complexity and depth. 3 out of 5.

Crab Apple Crisis, by George Macbeth (for Martin Bell)

Mike continues his determination to foist poetry upon the readers. I know that there are many who like it, but generally it is not my thing. Having said that, this is a poem of war: of how an accumulation of minor events, namely the stealing of crab-apples, can lead to a major incident. 3 out of 5.

Divine Madness, by Roger Zelazny

Another American big-hitter. Roger’s latest is about a person experiencing time going backwards. The result? Lots of things in reverse – drinking, smoking – and sentences as speech written backwards. The attention is held by knowing that the narrator is about to repeat something that was unpleasant in reverse. It’s a nice idea, though rather impractical, and the reason for this happening is not entirely clear. However, this is pleasingly different from what we’ve seen from Roger so far – a sign of a talent, I think. Not his best, but good. 4 out of 5.


Illustration by James Cawthorn

The Steel Corkscrew, by Michael Butterworth

Michael is a relatively new talent that we’ve met before with Girl in the May issue of New Worlds. Eight outcasts return to land on a dusty deserted Earth. A strange corkscrew spire is all that remains. Lots of discussion about what it is and where it came from, before the crew find a way in. Death and strange things happen. All seems a bit pointless, although that may be the point. All is death and pain, it seems. 3 out of 5.

The Greatest Car in the World, by Harry Harrison

Just in case you haven’t realised, here’s Harry to remind us that he’s not just an editor and a critic over at SF Impulse, but also a writer. A story for petrol-heads, though you do not have to be one to like it: American Ernest Haroway visits in Italy the Maestro Bellini, the reclusive elderly creator of Bellini sports cars. Haroway returns an item from a Bellini car involved in a previous motor race crash and is given a prototype to drive home in, Bellini’s last ever effort. The ending describes the modifications Haroway will have to make to adapt the car for the US market, in other words to turn the genius of a once-in-a-lifetime car into an inferior mass-production model. Lots of technical talk, which sounds real, although it may not be. 3 out of 5.

Three Days in Summer, by George Collyn

George is now probably a veteran of these here pages, being a regular essay writer, reviewer and story writer at New Worlds. This one’s relatively minor, a re-tread of Orwell’s 1984. A Whitehall romance in a future despotic state, combining bureaucracy and public hangings with a horribly humid Summer. Very similar initially to A Hot Summer’s Day by John Bell in the July issue of Impulse, but this one is perhaps a little more restrained. Like Bell’s story, 3 out of 5.

Prisoners of Paradise, by David Redd

A new writer, I think. Shaamon is an artist who can change form and creates art with light. She finds and merges with a dying creature in a spaceship. The knowledge she experiences she takes back to her Nest mind pool to add to the group consciousness. The group decides to try and find more like this creature, who is clearly human. The purpose of the story seems to be that even in paradise, you should not stop pushing boundaries and acquiring new experiences for the greater good. Whilst this is a debut story, the lyrical writing and vivid imagery suggests that this is a writer with promise. 4 out of 5.

Notes from Nowhere, by J. G. Ballard

No doubt to go with Moorcock’s glowing recommendation in this month’s Editorial, here we have J G’s article "to produce these notes explaining some of his current ideas."

I am of a mind that if an author has to explain himself then I question the validity of their work. Nevertheless, Ballard does try to capture the impossible here. Interesting reading, although I suspect it will leave some readers as confused as ever. Some nice name-checking, though.

Book Reviews

This month James Cawthorn covers a pile of Jack Vance stories now available here in Britain: the stories in The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph, and the novels The Languages of Pao, and The Blue World. All are generally liked, although there are some weaker stories in the story collection.

Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17 also deals with languages, and is highly regarded, which ”only occasionally trips over its hyperbole”.

Frank Herbert, he of Dune fame, has two books reviewed this month. Destination: Void and The Green Brain seem to cover all the bases here – "Journeys also figure prominently… as do giant brains, highly-sexed heroines, religion and characters who endlessly analyse each other’s motives.” And if you didn’t want to read those books before, now you do!

No Letters pages again this month.

Summing up New Worlds

This is another one of those odd issues of New Worlds where I found a lot to like but not to love. Compared with last month’s issue, this is weaker and yet I can’t say I disliked it. Moorcock is using a broad range here and trying to introduce more relatively new writers alongside the established favourites. Will an article by Ballard be enough to persuade readers to buy? Or a story from promising new writer Disch? Not sure.

The Second Issue At Hand

And now to SF Impulse, under the rule of its new editor Harry Harrison.

With the feeling that there’s a sign saying “Under New Management” hanging off it, Harry in his Editorial sets out his stall. He acknowledges the work of previous editor Kyril and present Managing Editor Keith Roberts, promising much, calming troubled waters, and being positive about the future.

Day Million by Frederik Pohl

Another author who is also an editor. This one is a bit odd, as is perhaps befitting the New Wave. A story of genetics and boys not being boys and girls not being girls in a far future. It is also a love story, though Dora is seven feet tall and Don is a cybernetic man. The style is interesting – a story that is written in a conversational style and raises your expectations before contradicting them. I liked it: it doesn’t take itself too seriously, although it is however another reprint, from Rogue Magazine in the US. I guess that this might be where the sexual content was first suited. 4 out of 5.

The Inheritors by Ernest Hill

Ernest’s a New Worlds regular, last seen in the June issue with the not-great Sub-liminal. This time around, we are set in a future where food is processed and much of the work is automated. The overly stressed manager of this world spends most of his time on the verge of a mental breakdown. His attempt to escape the rat race is futile, leading to an inevitable, weak ending. Over-excited and yet predictable, this is another one that seems to be doing little but filling space. 2 out of 5.

Book Review, by Brian W Aldiss

And it would of course not be right to have a Harrison production without some input via Mr Aldiss. Just to make it clear, this is not a story named “Book Review”, but a book review of The Clone by Theodore L Thomas and Kate Wilhelm. Whilst the book under review seems to be nothing new, Aldiss’s review is entertaining , as usual.

Breakdown by Alistair Bevan

Keith Roberts’ nom-de-plume returns with another story set in Bill Frederick’s garage – you know, the one with the demonised car back in the August issue. This time Bill’s mechanical skills are put to the test when he is asked by a local to slow his car down as it has become too fast for him. Investigating further, we discover that the car, having broken down, was tuned up by an on-the-road mechanic to be better than ever before. The twist in the story is that the roadside rescuer is an alien, and Bill has to come to his rescue to fix his alien spaceship. It is all as silly as it sounds, but I liked the pleasingly breezy style to this story.

What is it with all the motor car stories, though? 3 out of 5.

Fantasy and the Nightmare by G. D. Doherty

G. D. Doherty is an academic who has written for the analytical fanzine SF Horizons before.

Here he discusses the point made by Ballard that the most important aspects of SF are really just Fantasy. Doherty unpacks the idea of what Fantasy is – or isn’t – and refers to Ballard, James Blish, Brian Aldiss, as well as non-genre works to make this point. Quite dense stuff that is different in tone and depth to the rest of the work in the magazine, although it is worth comparing to Ballard’s notes in New Worlds.

The Boiler by C. F. Hoffman

Following on from a discussion of Fantasy, we now have a reprint of a classic Fantasy story, first published in 1842. One of those creepy Weird Tales type of stories about Ben Blower, a seaman trapped in a boat’s boiler room during a heavy storm. Its style is quite out of step with the modern material in the magazine, and its olde prose quite jarring in comparison also. Effectively claustrophobic. 3 out of 5.

The Man Who Came Back by Brian Stableford

You might remember Brian for his illuminating attempt to define science fiction in the November 1965 issue of Science Fantasy, or his promising story in the same issue, Beyond Time’s Aegis co-written as “Brian Craig” with Craig A. Mackintosh. This time we look at the idea of identity through William Jason, a space pilot who wakes up in the form of something else. The big debate is whether he is still William or not. Short – I rarely say these things, but actually this one feels like it could do with being longer. 3 out of 5.

The Experiment by Chris Hebron

A new writer. Alfred is a child that like many others has been born with esper powers. The Race Purity League see this as a threat and are determined to destroy the mutants or at least limit them. Scientists try to investigate the matter further. Lots of talk about the importance of the espers' rights and their need to survive follows. Shades of Slan from over 25 years ago, or even John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos from 1957 show that this idea never goes out of fashion. 3 out of 5.

The Unsung Martyrdom of Abel Clough by Robert J. Tilley

This is basically a cowboy western in space. Alien Vat on his first solo Hunt crashes on an alien planet. He hopes to make good his error by capturing some of the human inhabitants of a village and attempts to disguise himself before going to the local bar. He fails. The humans, straight out of the Old West, manage to see through this. A weak ending. 3 out of 5.

Make Room! Make Room! (Part 3 of 3), by Harry Harrison

The last part of this serial novel has a lot to live up to. In this last part New York’s Summer has given way to Winter. Where it was once a heatwave, it is now freezing. Sol, the friend of Police Detective Andy Rusch has broken his hip and is now recuperating in their shared flat, being looked after by Andy’s now-girlfriend Shirl.

The killer of crime boss “Big Mike” O Brien, Billy Chung, is forced to leave the Brooklyn Shipyards where he has been hiding with his vagrant-friend Peter.

The unremitting misery continues, even though there’s a change in the weather. (How do people in New York cope with this?) The story is still bleak. There’s much talk, especially from Sol, of a need for family planning and how uncontrolled births have led to the world as it is today.

I was interested to see if the story caught the murderer in the final part. I’m pleased to say that the ending is quite satisfying, although the demise of the killer is rather quickly wrapped up. It seems that that part of the story is not that important; the setting is most significant. Whilst it is enjoyable, I think that this part was not quite as good as the initial set up or last month’s part, so 4 out of 5. Nevertheless, this has been a notable story and one I’ll remember for a while.

Summing up SF Impulse

The first issue of a new regime, although with assistant editor Keith Roberts still doing much of the work. I can’t see that much of a difference, at least at the moment. Like this month’s New Worlds, there are a lot of stories here, and the issue gains by range if not really in depth. The Harrison finishes fairly well, but there’s a lot of filler here, including reprints. The introduction of more sf criticism is an interesting move, but the use of “classic” stories to fill space a negative one.

Summing up overall

A tougher decision to choose this month. Both issues are fair, and both have gone for range rather than depth. But with nothing particularly strong in New Worlds, though I quite liked Disch’s story, the winner this month for me is, I think, SF Impulse [the Editor's averaging of Mark's star ratings be damned! (ed.)]. It’s not perfect by any means, but it just shows that the magazine is going to keep on fighting – at least for now.

Until the next…

(Join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the next episode of Star Trek!)

Here's the invitation!



9 Comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 26, 1966] All that glitters: in praise of Cele Goldsmith Lalli

22 Comments


by John Boston

Gone but not Forgotten

SF editors come in highly assorted makes and models and evoke equally varied reactions. Some are revered as movers and shakers (though not always unanimously); a few are reviled as debasers of the field; some are barely noticed at all. A few have earned sympathetic respect for making something out of nothing, or close to it. Before World War II, Frederik Pohl edited several pulp magazines with a budget of zero, and he had to beg for stories from his friends. Robert Lowndes had little more than zero to work with, but managed to publish three at-least-readable magazines through the 1950s, occasionally coming up with something excellent. (And he’s at it again with Magazine of Horror.)

Another in this mode was Cele Goldsmith, later Lalli, who joined Ziff-Davis in 1955, straight out of Vassar. First, she was editorial assistant to Howard Browne, then to Paul Fairman when Browne left, with promotions along the way to associate editor and managing editor. At the time she was hired, she had read no SF beyond Verne and Wells. When Fairman left at the end of 1958, she inherited the editor’s mantle. During that time, the magazines were firmly, and intentionally, stuck in a rut of formulaic stories. Most of them were produced almost literally by the yard by a small number of regulars (among them Robert Silverberg, Randall Garrett, Stephen Marlowe (nee Milton Lesser), and Howard Browne, joined in midflight by Harlan Ellison and Henry Slesar) under various pseudonyms and house names as well as their own names. Though more outright fantasy did appear in Fantastic than in Amazing, overall there was not much difference between their contents, and in fact the label Science Fiction appeared on Fantastic at times.

Things changed quickly under the new editor. (Hints of these changes were already apparent in the last months under Fairman, when Goldsmith was assuming progressively more responsibility). The contents pages gradually became more various, with respectable middle-grade writers from outside the regular crew appearing more and more frequently—some of whom, like Cordwainer Smith and Kate Wilhelm, became much more prominent later. Though some of the regulars—Silverberg, Garrett, Slesar, Ellison—continued to appear, the pseudonyms vanished.

Goldsmith’s most audacious coup in her first year as editor was the November 1959 Fantastic, which consisted entirely of five stories by Fritz Leiber. No SF magazine had previously devoted an entire issue to one author (though some issues of Amazing and Fantastic had probably come close, with authors’ identities obscured by pseudonyms.) Most notable among the stories was "Lean Times in Lankhmar," the first new entry in a number of years in Leiber’s sword-and-sorcery series featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, which signaled a revival of a style of fantasy that had fallen badly out of favor.

Fantastic November 1959

By 1960, the magazines had been reestablished as having some claim to merit, a welcome counter-trend to the rapid disappearance of other SF magazines. (No fewer than 15 magazines ceased publication from 1958 to mid-1960.) Amazing’s and Fantastic’s roster of contributors quickly became more impressive. Frank Herbert, James Blish, James E. Gunn, Damon Knight, and Clifford Simak all appeared during 1960, and Fritz Leiber made multiple contributions to both magazines. Other signs of an enterprising editor included the resumption in Fantastic of Sam Moskowitz’s articles on early figures in SF and fantasy, which had been running in Satellite when it folded; pieces on Lovecraft, Stapledon, Capek, M.P. Shiel and H.F.Heard, and Philip Wylie appeared in 1960. (The series was later continued in Amazing with more recent writers as subjects.) Amazing began a selection of reprints from its earliest days, selected and introduced by Moskowitz. Fantastic published a “round robin” story titled "The Covenant", with chapters by Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Robert Sheckley, Murray Leinster, and Robert Bloch, modelled on similar stories published in the 1930s. On the outside as well, the magazines improved, with the covers of Fantastic in particular becoming steadily less cheesy and more imaginative.

Goldsmith’s most often recognized achievement is the significant number of excellent writers whom she discovered and who went on to considerable success. The list speaks for itself: Keith Laumer, Neal Barrett, Jr., Roger Zelazny, Sonya Dorman, Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin, Phyllis Gotlieb, Piers Anthony. She also provided a home for David R. Bunch, who had been publishing in semi-professional and local markets throughout the ‘50s, but who became a regular in Amazing and Fantastic, albeit to decidedly mixed reception. Similarly, she was the first American editor to publish J.G. Ballard, who had made a substantial reputation in the British SF magazines but had not previously cracked the US magazines. Lalli’s lack of background in SF before she came to Ziff-Davis may have served her well by leaving her more open than other editors to departures from genre business as usual.

That’s the good news—the straw-into-gold part. But the magazines were not all gold by any means. Being at the bottom of the market in terms of pay rates meant that the stories Goldsmith received from the most prominent writers would be those that had been rejected everywhere else. She could (and had to) take a chance on new writers who might or might not pan out, and in some cases she had to take work that she probably would rather have avoided. Many of the serialized novels were quite weak. Jack Sharkey’s disastrous Amazing serial The Programmed People comes to mind. Overall, the bag was especially mixed in Amazing. Most issues of the magazine included some stories that were variously crude, inane, or otherwise barely readable. Reading Amazing month by month was a perpetual bait-and-switch game, with expectations raised by impressive issues and dashed the following month.

Nevertheless, by the end of the Ziff-Davis era, the Goldsmith/Lalli Amazing had put up an enviable score of memorable stories. There are too many to list here, but the highlights include Arthur C. Clarke’s Before Eden (June 1961); J.G. Ballard’s startling run including The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista (March 1962), Thirteen to Centaurus (April 1962), and The Encounter (June 1963); Mark Clifton’s scarifying Hang Head, Vandal! (April 1962); Roger Zelazny’s Moonless in Byzantium (December 1962); Keith Laumer’s It Could Be Anything (January 1963) and The Walls (1963); and Philip K. Dick’s The Days of Perky Pat (December 1963). The last half-dozen issues amounted to a crescendo towards oblivion, featuring Zelazny’s serial He Who Shapes (January-February 1965), Frank Herbert’s Greenslaves (March 1965), Clifford D. Simak’s brief and elegant Over the River and Through the Woods (May 1965), and Zelazny’s exuberantly shameless performance The Furies (June 1965). Fantastic offered among others Jack Vance's The Kragen (July 1964), Thomas M. Disch's chilly Descending (the same issue!), Ursula Le Guin's April in Paris (her first story!), and the renewed series of Gray Mouser/Fafhrd stories by Leiber.

It’s not clear whether Lalli had the option of staying with Amazing and Fantastic when they were sold, but if so, it’s just as well she didn’t take it. Life under the Sol Cohen almost-all-reprints, negligible-budget regime, shortly to be compounded by a boycott by the Science Fiction Writers of America when Cohen refused to pay for reprints, could scarcely have been anything but miserable. She wisely slipped sideways into Ziff-Davis’s Modern Bride, there to purvey a different sort of fantastic literature, while the Sol Cohen magazines’ editorials and letter columns rang with surly bad-mouthing of her time at the helm of Amazing and Fantastic. Something tells me that her decade’s foray into SF and fantasy will be well remembered long after her successor is forgotten.

Cele Goldsmith and the Sword and Sorcery Revival


by Cora Buhlert

When Cele Goldsmith took over editing duties at Amazing and Fantastic in 1958, sword and sorcery was not just dead – no, the type of historically flavoured adventure fantasy with a good dose of horror that was pioneered by writers like Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner or Nictzin Dyalhis in the pages of Weird Tales some thirty years ago did not even have a name. A few stalwarts were holding up the flame in the fanzine Amra, but commercially the subgenre was dead and those who'd written it during its brief flourishing in the 1930s had either passed away (Howard, Kuttner, Dyalhis) or had retired from writing (Moore and Smith).

One of the few writers from the genre's heyday who was still around and still writing was Fritz Leiber, who had published several stories about a pair of adventurers called Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Unknown and other magazines in the 1930s and 1940s. The last Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story "The Seven Black Priests" appeared in Other Worlds Science Stories in 1953. For all intents and purposes, the two rogues from the city Lankhmar, though dear to Leiber's heart, were permanently retired, as the market had moved away from the sort of swashbuckling fantasy that characterized their adventures.

Enter Cele Goldsmith and the Fritz Leiber Special Issue of Fantastic in November 1959. Of the five stories Leiber wrote for that issue, two were part of his Change War series (a novel in that series, The Big Time, had just won the 1959 Hugo Award for Best Novel), two were standalones and one, "Lean Times in Lankhmar", was the first new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story in six years.

Fantastic May 1961
The May 1961 issue of Fantastic, illustrating a memorable scene from Fritz Leiber's "Scylla's Daughter". There's also a reprint of a Robert E. Howard story.

 

"Lean Times in Lankhmar" is one of the best and definitely the funniest story in the entire series, a satire of organized religion that manages to be sharp but not offensive. The story must have struck a chord both with Cele Goldsmith and the readers of Fantastic, for over the next six years eight new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories appeared in Fantastic, more than had been published in Unknown, where the series originated in 1939.

Fantastic October 1962
Ed Emshwiller's striking cover illustration for Fritz Leiber's "The Unholy Grail".

In 1961, the still nameless genre that was about to undergo a revival finally got a name, when Fritz Leiber proposed "sword and sorcery" in an exchange with Michael Moorcock in the pages of the fanzines Amra and Ancalgon. The alliterative term stuck, so now there was finally a name for stories like the adventure of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Robert E. Howard's Conan.

Fantastic May 1964
Ed Emshwiller's portrait of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, patron wizard of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, adorns the cover of the May 1964 issue of Fantastic, which reprinted Fritz Leiber's "Adept's Gambit".

Cele Goldsmith had only just been born during sword and sorcery's first heyday in the 1930s and certainly did not read Weird Tales in the crib, but she knew a rising genre when she saw one. So she began publishing more sword and sorcery stories by other authors.

Roger Zelazny is one of Cele Goldsmith's great discoveries. His first professional story "Horseman!", which appeared in the August 1962 issue of Fantastic, was a sword and sorcery story. It wasn't even the only sword and sorcery story in that issue. The title story "Sword of Flowers" by Larry M. Harris a.k.a. Laurence M. Janifer as well as "The Titan," a reprint of a 1934 story by P. Schuyler Miller, were sword and sorcery as well.

Fantastic August 1962
Roger Zelazny debuted in the August 1962 issue of Fantastic which also featured sword and sorcery by Laurence M. Janifer and P. Schuyler Henstrom. The cover is by Vernon Kramer.

Zelazny has since branched out, but he keeps returning to sword and sorcery once in a while, for example in the haunting Lord Dunsany-inspired stories of Dilvish the Damned, three of which have appeared in Fantastic to date.

Fantastic June 1965
Roger Zelazny's Dilvish the Damned story "Thelinde's Song" is the cover story of the June 1965 issue of Fantastic, which was also the last issue edited by Cele Goldsmith-Lalli.

Though only in his thirties, John Jakes is already a veteran writer who has been publishing across various genres since 1950. An admitted fan of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories from the 1930s, Jakes created his own Conan-like character in Brak the Barbarian, who has appeared in four stories in Fantastic between 1963 and 1965.

January 1965 Fantastic
Ed Emshwiller's iillsutration for "The Girl in the Gem" by John Jakes.
Fantastic March 1965
Gray Morrow's cover for the March 1965 issue of Fantastic illustrates "The Pillars of Cambalor" by John Jakes.

 

British writer and editor Michael Moorcock has been a prolific contributor to the fanzine Amra and also pushed the sword and the sorcery genre into new directions with the adventures of Elric of Melniboné, an albino elven warrior who depends on drugs to survive and fights evil with his cursed sword Stormbringer. The majority of Elric's adventures have appeared in the pages of Science Fantasy, but "Master of Chaos" appeared in the May 1964 issue of Fantastic alongside a reprint of Fritz Leiber's 1947 Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story "Adept's Gambit."

Since Amazing and Fantastic were sold to Sol Cohen and Cele Goldsmith Lalli left for the greener pastures of Modern Bride, the appearances of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Dilvish the Damned and Brak the Barbarian have become rare in the pages of Fantastic (and what stories there did appear were likely leftover from Goldsmith's tenure). However, the sword and sorcery revival is still in full swing and Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, which started it all back in 1932, are set to be reprinted later this year.

One day in the future, when the history of sword and sorcery is written, Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock and John Jakes will be remembered as pivotal figures in the revival of the genre in the sixties. However, I hope that any history of sword and sorcery will also make room for Cele Goldsmith, who championed the genre when it had neither a name nor a market and without whom the sword and sorcery revival may well have been strangled in the crib.

Modern Bride, December 1965
No more mighty muscles in Cele Goldsmith Lalli's new stomping grounds, though at least the gothic castles and maidens in white gowns remain.




22 Comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[September 24, 1966] Science Fiction TV from West Germany: Space Patrol: The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion: Episode 1: Attack From Space

9 Comments


by Cora Buhlert

Through the Wall with a Bulldozer

Bulldozer breaks through Berlin wall
The aftermath of the daring bulldozer escape

Five years after the Berlin Wall was built, East Germans are still trying to overcome it and escape to the West, often with lethal consequences.

A particularly daring escape attempt happened last week in Staaken just outside Berlin. Four adults and a three-year-old child broke through the East German border fortifications – the so-called "death strip" – in a stolen bulldozer armoured with steel plates. The bulldozer flattened fences, concrete and barbed wire, until stopped by a tree.

Luckily for the five refugees, the tree was on the western side of the Wall, where the two families were rescued by western border guards.

Attack from Space

Meanwhile, on Saturday, September 17, West Germany's first science fiction TV series debuted on the broadcaster ARD.

The series has the unwieldy title Raumpatrouille – Die Phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion (Space Patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion), which viewers have already shortened to Raumpatrouille Orion or just plain Orion.

Like the new US series Star Trek, Space Patrol Orion starts with an opening narration, courtesy of veteran actor Claus Biederstaedt, which promises us a fairy tale from the future. In the year 3000 AD, nation states have been abolished. Humanity has settled the ocean floor and colonised far-flung worlds. Starships, including the titular Orion, hurtle through space at unimaginable speeds.

An impressive title sequence and a spacy and very groovy theme tune follow, courtesy of Peter Thomas, who also supplies the music for the Edgar Wallace and Jerry Cotton movies.

Then the show plunges us directly in medias res aboard the fast cruiser Orion 7 and introduces the five person crew: Commander Cliff Allister McLane (Austrian actor Dietmar Schönherr, who is the German dubbing voice of both James Dean and Sidney Poitier), chief engineer Hasso Sigbjörnson (Claus Holm), weapons officer Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz, who's best known for comic roles), astrogator (that's Orion speak for navigator) Atan Shubashi (F.G. Beckhaus) and space control officer Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig). As the names and the opening narration indicate, the series is set in a multicultural, postnational future, though so far, all characters are played by white actors.

Orion crew
The Orion crew at work on the command bridge

When we first encounter the Orion crew, they are trying to land on the Saturn moon Rhea, while orders telling McLane to stop and return to base echo from the communication system. McLane, however, chooses to ignore those orders.

Most dialogue in the opening scene is gadget speak (and not even regular gadget speak, but a lot of Orion-specific terms), yet it tells us a lot about the characters. Right away we learn that McLane is a Maverick who views orders as strictly optional suggestions. We also learn that his crew trusts him and that they are very competent at what they do.

Where Clothes Irons Control Space Ships

Orion take off
The Orion 7 rises from the ocean in an impressive special effects sequence

This is as good a time as any to talk about the Orion herself. Unlike the silver rocketships that still abound in visual science fiction, the Orion designers decided to go with a saucer shape, enhanced with fins and a transparent dome.

Orion command bridge
The Orion command bridge set on the soundstage of Atelier Bavaria.

The Orion has an impressive command bridge – courtesy of set designer Rolf Zehetbauer – with boldly curved control stands, flashing lights, beeping oscilloscopes and a massive, egg-shaped computer. Every available surface is covered with futuristic looking bits and bobs. If you look closely, some of those bits and bobs seem oddly familiar, since they are repurposed household objects such as pencil sharpeners, bathroom tabs, plastic cups and in one memorable moment, a Rowenta clothes iron.

Orion clothes iron
Is this clothes iron truly a part of the Orion's engineering control stand or does Hasso simply use it to iron his uniform pants?

Zehetbauer also makes copious use of the kind of modern furniture I discussed in my article on interior design last year. In fact, you can spot several of the pieces featured in that article in the show.

Women in Command

The scene shifts to an anonymous office, where one General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach) is expecting a fellow general, General van Dyke of the Fast Space Fleet Command. I'm sure I'm not the only one who did a double-take when General van Dyke entered, because the General is a woman, portrayed by theatre actress Charlotte Kerr.

Generals van Dyke and Wamsler
General van Dyke (Charlotte Kerr) confronts General Wamsler (Benno Sterzenbach) and his swarmy aide Lieutenant Spring-Brauner (Thomas Reiner)

We still see way too many all-male spaceship crews and all-male future militaries, so the presence of a female general was a breath of fresh air. Nor is General van Dyke the only female character of note in this episode. Indeed, there are four named and one unnamed women with speaking parts in this episode alone. Alas, all the women in the future have the exact same beehive hairstyle, only in different colours.

We already met Lieutenant Helga Legrelle, the sole female member of the Orion crew, though so far the script doesn't give her much to do. In this scene, we meet another female character, Lieutenant Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Plug) of the Galactic Security Service, who promises to play a prominent role in the series.

Tamara Jagellovsk
Tamara Jagellovsk (Eva Pflug)

McLane's flagrant disregard for orders has caught up with him, so General Wamsler demotes him and the Orion to space patrol service – against the wishes of McLane's direct superior General van Dyke. There are hints that McLane and General van Dyke have history – on professional and private level.

McLane and the crew
The disgraced Orion crew reports to be demoted. From left to right: Helga Legrelle (Ursula Lillig), Mario de Monti (Wolfgang Völz),Commander Cliff Allister McLane (Dietmar Schönherr), Atan Shubashi (F.G. Beckhaus) and Hasso Sigbjörnson (Claus Holm)

As if being demoted isn't humiliation enough, McLane is also assigned a watchdog, the above-mentioned Tamara Jagellovsk. Based on the first episode, the interaction between those two promises to be very interesting.

Dancing under the Sea

Before the Orion and her crew set off on space patrol duty, they relax in the grooviest nightspot in town, the Starlight Casino. The name is something of a misnomer, because the Starlight Casino is located on the ocean floor and instead of stars, oversized fish can be seen swimming beyond the transparent ceiling dome.

Starlight Casino
The impressive Starlight Casino

The Starlight Casino is a stunning set and I have no idea how Bavaria Atelier was able to build something like this on a West German TV budget. The set is not really underwater, but on a soundstage, while the fish are swimming in the aquarium of the Munich zoo and were copied into the scene via the magic of bluescreen technology.

McLane and Hasso
McLane and Hasso share a drink, while some very unique dancing is going on in the background

The nightclub scene also adds some characterisation and worldbuilding. We learn that astrogator Atan Shubashi is worried about his dog 264, one of the last 376 poodles on Earth. We also learn that chief engineer Hasso Sigbjörnson has promised his wife Ingrid (Lieselotte Quillig) to retire, but wants to go on one last mission and ropes McLane into breaking the news to Ingrid.

Ingrid Sigbjörnson
Ingrid, Hasso's long-suffering wife (Lieselotte Quillig)

During all this, extras are performing a fascinating dance routine to electronic music in the background. Science fiction tends to assume that people in the future will dance the same way we do and probably to the same music, too, but Orion does not make this mistake. And so the background extras perform an oddly formal dance (created by choreographer William Millié), where couples dance back to back. I suspect this dance will be a big hit in dance classes throughout West Germany.

One thing that impressed me about Raumpatrouille Orion are the many little worldbuilding hints dropped into the story. Why exactly do people in the year 3000 AD dance like that? Why are poodles almost extinct? What was the Second Interstellar War and for that matter, what was the first? When did people of European origin start eating with chopsticks, as many of the characters do, when using chopsticks in present day West Germany will have people staring at you as if you were a unicorn?

A lot of science fiction worlds end at the bulkheads of a spaceship or the atmosphere of a planet, but in Orion, there clearly is a world and culture beyond the little slice that we see. I hope that future episodes will explore that.

Trouble in Space

Once the Orion takes off and emerges from the ocean in a stunning special effects sequence, trouble soon find McLane and his crew.

McLane and Tamara
McLane steadfastly ignores Tamara.

For starters, McLane and his watchdog Tamara Jagellovsk don't get along at all. McLane alternately ignores Tamara, sends her to her cabin like a naughty child and snipes at her. Tamara, however, is no pushover and gives as good as she gets, while Hasso and weapons officer Mario de Monti watch in amusement. Mario, who's something of a womanizer, clumsily attempts to flirt with Tamara – without success. Meanwhile, Hasso wonders whether Tamara is actually a robot. Considering that there are references to robots being more efficient than humans scattered throughout the episode, I wonder whether this isn't foreshadowing a later revelation.

Helga, Atan and Tamara
Helga Legrelle and Atan Shubashi explain Orion technology to Tamara.
Mario and Tamara
Mario de Monti unsuccessfully attempts to flirt with Tamara.

But whether she's human or a sophisticated android, I really like Tamara, especially when she dresses McLane down for his patronising behaviour such as calling her "My dear child".

The Orion runs into a solar storm (another impressive effect) and then into a dead satellite. McLane wants to blow up the satellite, because it's a hazard to space traffic. Tamara countermands him in what will become a pattern.

Atan Shubashi reports that he cannot raise the satellite relay station MZ-4 on the radio and only receives nonsense code. McLane wants to investigate, because the MZ-4 crew are friends. Tamara tries to override McLane again, but McLane points out that if they don't fix the transmitter problem, an automated space cruiser will crash into MZ-4. And no, they cannot contact the cruiser themselves, because the dead satellite that Tamara would not let McLane to blow up is disrupting communications in the region. "Shall I send them a postcard?" an impatient McLane snaps.

So Hasso and Atan get into a Lancet, a spherical shuttle that looks very much like a modern lamp, to investigate. McLane also orders Hasso and Atan to wear space suits, because when a transmitter fails, a life support system may fail as well.

Lancet
The Lancet shuttle looks a little like a designer kitchen lamp.
Atan and Hasso
Atan and Hasso in their bulky space suits

If a character announces they will retire after "one last mission" like Hasso did, this is often a death sentence. And Atan is the only other crewmember who has someone waiting for him at home, so I became seriously worried about those two.

The Mystery of MZ-4

Atan and Hasso
Atan and Hasso explore MZ-4

And not without reason, for once Atan and Hasso reach MZ-4, they find the station without power and oxygen. The crew is dead, frozen in mid movement, and the transmitter is set to a frequency not used by humans.

The scenes of Atan and Hasso exploring the darkened station, their heavy footsteps echoing on the metal floors, are genuinely spooky. Though the discovery of the dead crewmen is marred by the fact that one actor blinks at the crucial moment.

Atan, Hasso and Clarence
Atan and Hasso find MZ-4 commander Clarence dead, frozen in mid movement.
Two dead MZ-4 crewmembers
Two more MZ-4 crewmembers frozen in mid movement. The guy on the right blinks.

Atan and Hasso are still trying to figure out what the hell happened, when they spot a curiously glittering, elongated humanoid shadow. Aliens – or "exo-terrists" in Orion speak – have taken over MZ-4 and they turn out to be immune to rayguns.

Frog alien
One of the "exo-terrists" that have taken over MZ-4.
Frog alien
Another "exo-terrist".

In filmic science fiction, aliens are all too often humans in rubber masks. However, Orion's exo-terrists – or Frogs, as Hasso and Atan nickname them – look truly alien. The glittering shadows were created via bluescreen technology.

Hasso and Atan call McLane who orders them to get the hell out of there. However, more trouble is coming, for Helga Legrelle detects seven unknown spaceships heading for the Orion. Worse, Hasso and Atan find that their Lancet has been sabotaged and cannot take off.

Space Battles and Moral Dilemmas

McLane promises to come back for them and goes off to fight the alien ships, only to find that the Orion's weapons are as ineffective as Hasso's raygun. The only course of action left is to return to Earth and warn everybody of the impending invasion.

However, Hasso and Atan are still stuck on MZ-4. McLane doesn't want to leave his friends behind. Tamara points out that Atan and Hasso are most likely already dead and the station is in the hands of the aliens. She orders McLane to destroy the station. McLane grudgingly agrees, but can't bring himself to press the button that will kill his friends. Not that it matters much, because the Orion has no firepower left after the encounter with the alien ships.

McLane may be a Maverick who ignores orders, but his first priority is to save lives. Therefore, I was disappointed that the convenient power failure took the decision whether to kill his friends and potentially save humanity out of his hands.

A Good Old Astounding Solution

But Atan and Hasso are still very much alive, though about to be overrun by aliens. They figure out that reason the aliens shut down the life support system is that oxygen is toxic to them. So Hasso uses the oxygen cartridge from his spacesuit to kill the aliens.

Hasso and Atan
Hasso and Atan wait for the aliens to enter, so they can flood the station with oxygen.

As solutions to cosmic mysteries go, this one was pretty clever. It feels like something that John W. Campbell might have published in Astounding twenty years ago. And indeed, the entire MZ-4 sequence with its try and fail cycles feels very Campbellian.

Hasso's cunning plan works. The aliens are overcome by oxygen and reduced to a pile of glitter on the floor. However, there's still the automated cruiser Challenger, which is headed straight for MZ-4 and will crash into the station, if not given a course correction. And Atan and Hasso can't hail the cruiser. What saves them in the end is ironically the aliens, who have placed a forceshield around MZ-4, blowing up the Challenger before she can hit the station.

A Meeting of Generals

The episode concludes at a conference table, where several military men – and this time around, they're all men; General van Dyke is presumably away on a mission – discuss what has just transpired.

General Wamsler, whom we already met, as well as the delightfully named Marshal Kublai Krim (Hans Cossy) and commander-in-chief Sir Arthur (Franz Schafheitlin) want to blow up MZ-4 in a pre-emptive strike against the aliens (at this point, they don't yet know that Hasso and Atan managed to take them out). The lone dissenting voice is Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff), head of the Galactic Security Service and Tamara's boss, who points out that maybe it would be better to find out what the aliens want first. Joloff is best known for playing villains, so it was nice to see him in a more nuanced role.

Generals
General Wamsler, Marshal Kublai Krim (Hans Cossy) and Sir Arthur (Franz Schafheitlin) have a meeting.
Colonel Villa
Colonel Villa (Friedrich Joloff), head of the Galactic Security Service and the lone sensible military man.

The "shoot first and ask questions later" policy very much matches postwar West Germany's view of unscrupulous generals who will do anything to eliminate a perceived threat, regardless of the loss of life.

The reunited Orion crew heads to the Starlight Casino to celebrate, including Tamara who has made peace of sorts with McLane and the rest of the crew. Tamara also reveals that she knows that McLane lied about the dead satellite disrupting communications and tells him never to lie to her again.

"This was just a nightmare, wasn't it?" Hasso, who's still shaken from his ordeal, asks Atan.

"Worse," Atan replies, "That was science fiction."

Science Fiction for Grown-ups

When my fellow Travellers here at the Journey raved about the new American show Star Trek, I was jealous, because Star Trek seems to be exactly what filmic science fiction so rarely offers, namely serious stories for adults that can compete with written science fiction. Little did I know that I would get my wish fulfilled only nine days later in the form of Space Patrol Orion.

Because Orion is exactly that: a serious science fiction story for adults and one that looks amazing, too. The beginning is a little slow and the MZ-4 plot is taken straight from a 1940s issue of Astounding. But comparing Raumpatrouille Orion to stuff like Familie Hesselbach (The Hesselbach Family), Stahlnetz (Steel Web) or Hafenpolizei (Harbour Police), which dominates the West German airwaves, is like comparing a Volkswagen to a Mercedes. Honestly, I had no idea that West Germany was even capable of producing something like Orion.

I hope that writers Rolf Honold and W.G. Larsen (a joint pseudonym used by Hans Gottschalk, Helmut Krapp, Oliver Storz, Theo Mezger and Michael Braun) will lay off the gadget speak, which is sure to scare away the mundanes, and focus more on the characters and their interactions. Because Orion has intriguing characters played by some of our best actors, so let's make use of them.

Episode 2 will air in two weeks and I for one can't wait.

Four and a half stars.

9 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 22, 1966] True Idols (the Isaac Asimov issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction)

8 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

The Good Doctor

If generations are measured in 20 year spans, then science fiction is entering its third generation.  It all started with Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and the other more speculative pulps of the mid 1920s.  By the 40s, we were in what folks are calling the "Golden Age", when Astounding ruled the roost.  Since then, we've had what I'd call the "Silver Age" (or perhaps the "Digest Age" or the "Galactic Age") and are just starting one called the "New Wave".

The pulp age is now so long ago that we've already lost some of its more prominent writers: Doc Smith passed away last year, Ray Cummings was gone by 1957, Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft didn't make it out of the 1930s.  Others are still alive and well…and still active: Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, Clifford Simak, Frank Bellknap Long, Hugo Gernsback.

The Golden Age spawned a new crop of greats, from Leigh Brackett to John W. Campbell, jr.  And there may be no author of that era of bigger stature, greater prolificity, not to mention bottom line, than Isaac Asimov.

One can say a lot about Isaac.  Garrulous, idiosyncratic, a workaholic, too pushy with his "harmless" romantic advances.  But also brilliant, thoughtful, charming (at least in print).  Love him or hate him, there's no question that he's left his mark on the field — from Nightfall, to I, Robot, to Foundation.  For twenty years, Asimov turned out SF stories with incredible reliability.  Then, with the launch of Sputnik, he turned his pen mostly to science fact.  He's found a permanent home at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, to that publication's credit.  Asimov also churns out a flood of science books for the mass market.  There's really no category of the Dewey Decimal System this fellow hasn't touched upon.  He's an inspiration (a cautionary tale?) to us all.

So it was perhaps inevitable that F&SF would devote an issue to this titan of the genre.  If you can get past the over-the-top cover — but it's nice to see EMSH back — then a decent mag awaits.  Especially at 50 cents, which is cheap these days for a digest.

The Man Behind the Curtain


by Ed Emshwiller

The Key, by Isaac Asimov

First up is Asimov's first new SF story of significant length in quite some time.  Two geologists stumble upon an alien artifact during a selenological expedition.  Its ramifications for humanity are profound, so much so that the two have a lethal brawl.  One escapes to hide the artifact before dying.

He leaves this clue:

It's up to Wendell Urth, the agoraphobe protagonist of several F&SF stories from the mid 1950s, to crack the case.

The beginning is pretty gripping, and I'm happy to say I got some of the clues.  But it boils down to a rather abstruse puzzle with a bit too much punning for my taste.

Three stars.

You Can't Beat Brains, by L. Sprague de Camp

Sprague's short bio of his friend, Isaac, is not entirely flattering, but it does spotlight Asimov's undoubtedly prodigious intellect.

Three stars.

Isaac Asimov: A Bibliography, by Isaac Asimov

If you ever wanted to know what Asimov has been up to (besides chasing skirts) for the last thirty years, this is a good ledger.  25 science fiction books (two of which the Journey has covered), three pages of short stories, three more pages of non-fiction articles (most of which the Journey has covered), and 30+ nonfiction books.

Whereas I've got just two books and four stories (and a thousand non-fiction articles) to my credit.  Ah well.  I'm still young.

Portrait of the Writer as a Boy, by Isaac Asimov

For this month's non-fiction article, Asimov takes on his favorite subject — himself!  Actually, I appreciated this glimpse into the world of science fiction reading and writing in the late 30s.  It's an era I missed, despite having been born just a few months before Asimov (not having gotten into STF in a big way until ~1950).  Perhaps he'll some day use this article as a nucleus for an autobiography.  He's written everything else.

Four stars.

The Prime of Life, by Isaac Asimov

Here's a mildly diverting poem about being a legend in his own time, but too young yet to be taken seriously.

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

The Mirror, by Arthur Porges

You didn't think it was going to be all about Asimov, did you?  Sure, he did, but you?

Mr. Porges offers up a paint-by-numbers piece of macabre about an old mansion with a spooky looking glass over the mantle.  The setup and the telling were quite good, but the ending was second-tier early days FSF — or maybe even earlier pulp.

Three stars.

Come Back Elena, by Vic Chapman

The science fictional notion of storing memories in a computer and then inserting them into an android or biological blank slate has been around a while.  This latest take from a new author starts quite promisingly.  A grieving husband finds his wife's doppleganger a decade after the wife's death.  She agrees to contribute sufficient biological material such that he can quick grow a new body as a vessel for her stored memories.  But, of course, All Does Not Go Well.

There's a novel's worth of premise to explore here: is it murder to displace the personality of a human being, even one that has been alive for just a few days?  Is the resulting person a new persona or a ressurrection of the old?  What are the legal ramifications, for the subject and the experimenter?

Chapman avoids all of these, instead turning in a rather humdrum "shock" ending.  It's a pity because the first half is quite strong.

Three stars.

Something in It, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Vignette on the immovable faith of a missionary encountering the irresistible force of an indigene's religion. 

Blink and you'll miss it.  Three stars.

The Picture Window, by Jon DeCles

"There's nothing new under the Sun."  So complains an industrialist to his artist friend.  Or should I say "former" friend as the dam the capitalist has erected is flooding out the beloved valley the painter has made his home.  The artist bets his ex-buddy $50,000 that he can make a truly new piece of art.

What he creates is…well, you be the judge.

Jon (he's a friend, so I call him Jon, even though that's not his actual name) has created a story that is, in execution, something of the opposite to Chapman's and Porges'.  It starts out a bit rocky, all shouty dialogue, but the latter half is memorable.

I'll take a good ending over a good beginning.  Four stars.

Burning Question, by Brian W. Aldiss

Speaking of memorable, here's a story snatched right from the front page.  An inhabited world far from Earth is soon to be a way station to the stars in a galactic continuation of the Cold War.  The indigenes have decided they would rather immolate themselves in protest than tolerate our base.  One sympathetic colonel's attempts to sway the American authorities to give in to native demands just this once fall on deaf ears.

There's some good philosophical stuff in here, and maybe some lessons for Lyndon.  Four stars.

An Extraordinary Child, by Sally Daniell

Lastly, a piece by another newcomer.  This one involves a child with a handicap of the mind.  He is brilliant, but tuned to another wavelength — one that allows him to see the little people.  Only these brownies/faeries/elves all speak like Beatniks, and they have murder on their mind.

Our Esteemed Editor has noted that woman authors are far more likely to have children featured in their stories.  I had high hopes for this one, a well-written piece portraying a sympathetic child with a mental aberration.  Unfortunately, it settles for cheap thrills rather than profound statements.

Three stars.  Maybe next time.

What's Up, Doc?

All told, this Asimovian issue is not one for the ages.  Part of the problem is the two newcomers are not stellar, and Asimov is a bit rusty.  That leaves just a couple of veterans to contribute comparatively good stories, and an old grognard to turn in…a typically unimpressive piece.

Perhaps Isaac deserves better than this.  Or perhaps, like a revue show featuring an over-the-hill performer, it's exactly what one would expect.

8 Comments Leave A Comment
Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[September 20, 1966] In the hands of an adolescent (Star Trek's "Charlie X")

4 Comments

A New Tradition


by Janice L. Newman

It’s official, we now have a “Star Trek” night at our house each week, when we gather our friends and watch the latest episode. Though we’ve only watched two episodes so far, the show is off to an interesting start! This week we saw “Charlie X”, which had thematic similarities to both of the pilots we saw at Tricon.

Continue reading [September 20, 1966] In the hands of an adolescent (Star Trek's "Charlie X") →

4 Comments Leave A Comment
Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 16, 1966] Is Censorship Heating Up? (Fahrenheit 451)

4 Comments


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Once thought to have died after the Chatterley trial, it looks like the Obscene Publications Act has risen from its grave and is out for fresh blood. Its latest target? Hubert Selby Jr.’s controversial Last Exit To Brooklyn, which has finally made its way over to Britain.

Last Exit to Brooklyn
British Hardback edition from Calder and Boyars Ltd.

A favourite novel of beatniks like Ginsberg and Burroughs, it tells unvarnished tales of lives of the poorest in New York in rhythmic prose. I really liked it myself, but it was clearly going to provoke a response. Australia had already banned its import last year, and Anthony Burgess said “American books like Last Exit to Brooklyn…go about as far as fiction may be expected to go.”

Cyril Black, MP
Cyril Black, MP

What is perhaps surprising is it did not come through the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney general, but rather is a private prosecution by Cyril Black, MP for Wimbledon. A Conservative and strict Baptist, Black has recently spoken out against Premium Bonds, decriminalizing homosexual behaviour and changing Sunday trading laws.

The trial is set for next month but, whatever the result, the debate over what is allowed to be published continues. This makes a new film release well-timed, the adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:

A Metropolitan Setup

Ray Bradbury is probably the most popular living science fiction writer, with his works being adapted for numerous television shows and even being able to demand higher rates for them than contemporaries such as Asimov, Pohl or Wyndham. There has even been an unofficial television adaptation Fahrenheit 451 which resulted in a lengthy lawsuit. However, his feature film works have been limited to the monster films of the 50s. As such there has been much excitement around putting his only adult (non-fixup) novel on to the big screen.

Director Francois Truffaut
Director Francois Truffaut

This is not, though, an American production, rather the result of a hodge-podge group of Western Europeans. The film is directed by French New Wave figure Francois Truffaut (most famous for The 400 Blows) with a script by French Actor/Writer/Director Jean-Louis Richard (who previously worked with Truffaut on Soft Skin). Given that we have also recently seen Goddard’s Alphaville and Marker’s La Jetee, there appears to be something about Dystopic fiction that attracts the French New Wave (maybe we will see Claude Chabrol making a version of The Drowned World in a few years?).

Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago
Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago

Unlike these productions, however, this is a British film production, made at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, with the hottest (pun-intended) British actress of the moment, Julie Christie, playing both the leading women. Already known to British SF fans for her wonderful performance in A For Andromeda, she led two of the most acclaimed films of last year, Darling and Dr. Zhivago.

Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools
Oskar Werner in Ship of Fools

Opposite her is the similarly acclaimed Austrian actor Oskar Werner. After appearing in Tuffaut’s previous beloved production, Jules & Jim, he last year appeared in both The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Ship of Fools. Add to this an equally impressive supporting cast, we have a confluence of talent from disparate sources.

Into The Fire

aerials in opening titles
The unusual opening credits

Rather than going for a point-by-point comparison of novel to film, I want to largely consider it as a work in its own right. I will touch on some changes where they deserve analysis but let us start with what actually happens in this movie.

After the credits being read aloud over a series of vibrantly lit TV aerials we see a group of firemen travel out to a flat in what appear to be very modern tower blocks. However, there is no fire, instead they are raiding the property for books to burn. We learn that in this world reading is banned and the role of firemen is now to raid properties (largely with the aid of informants) for this contraband and then burn it.

Montag and Linda watching an intersoap

Werner plays Guy Montag, a fireman on his way to promotion. His wife Linda (played by Christie) seems to be mostly obsessed with the interactive soaps on the TV and is regularly taking high amounts of medication. On a train he meets Clarisse (also played by Christie) a teacher who questions the world around her.

Montag’s first taste of Dickens
Montag’s first taste of Dickens

One day, curiosity gets the better of him, and Montag takes a book and begins to read it. Fascinated, he starts stealing more and more. One day he has to go to raid Clarisse’s house and finds her family have a secret library. A woman, possibly related to Clarisse, chooses to burn with the books rather than leave.

Horrified, he meets with Clarisse, who tells him he can run to The Book People, but Montag says he wants to take down the system from within. Unbeknownst to him, Linda has informed on him, and the firemen go to burn down his house. They order him to burn all his books but he keeps one and burns the other firemen.

Clarisse and Montag become living books
Clarisse and Montag become living books

Eventually fleeing to The Book People, he discovers each of them memorizes one book and become the living text of it so it cannot be destroyed. He does so with the book he stole and remains among The Book People with Clarisse.

Mixed Messages

Soviet Workers Poster
Soviet Workers Poster

The first question that arises is what is Truffaut trying to satirize with this? When I first started watching I was instantly reminded of the posters of workers I have seen from the Soviet Union. And the end with The Book People brings to my mind Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, which survived Stalin’s censorship by by her teaching it as a spoken poem to her friends.

Montag's secret collection of books is burnt
Montag's secret collection of books is burnt

But then there are definite allusions to contemporary capitalist culture. The profusion of television aerials appearing on otherwise picturesque houses, for instance. Further to this point about the profusion of television is the character of Linda, the soap obsessed and heavily medicated housewife. This is a dig not only at the prevalence of television, but the current phenomenon of the isolated housewife. In addition, in the shots of books burned, a number of works are shown that have only recently come out of censorship in our world.

f451 Burning

Additionally, the self immolation scene will surely remind most contemporary viewers of the death of Thich Quang Duc, who set himself on fire protesting the treatment of Buddhists in South Vietnam.

To add to the confusion, there is a reactionary point present here. When Montag and Beatty walk around the secret library, Beatty tells him that this all started because people were getting offended, citing complaints by minority groups about Nietzsche and Defoe (also including a copy of Mein Kampf in shot). This is further enforced by the TV screen, where the host is at one point emphasizing the importance of tolerating minorities and making sure they do not feel excluded. As a tool of the repressive state Montag and Clarisse are apparently fighting against, it seems logical that we are meant to take their pronouncement as wrong.

f451 hitler mein kampf
Sometimes this film is subtle. At other times… less so

I find this is a bit of an odd statement (and I found it so when I read it in Bradbury’s novel as well) as I have not come across the NAACP or the Anti-Defamation League leading the charge of banning books. Instead, it has seemed to be conservatives (like Cyril Black) who have been leading the charge out of prudishness or political beliefs.

Perhaps it is best to see it as a general libertarian argument about censorship coming from all sides and the need to be watchful for it. However, this does make the point more of a blunt one. And this bluntness extends to other areas of the production.

Translation Errors

Montag attending the unconscious Linda
Montag attending the unconscious Linda

I have heard much about Julie Christie’s performance in this film being poor, but I would push back on that somewhat. I think she is fine in the role of Clarisse, but for Linda she works hard to differentiate her characterization, playing it in a more heightened manner. This does make sense for Linda’s role in the story but it just seemed out of place as everyone else is so incredibly sedate.

One other complaint is that the picture is dull. I found it engaging enough, but I can see where this is coming from. Partially, I think this is the sedateness in performance I just mentioned along with Truffaut’s restrained film making. Against beautiful scenery, Fahrenheit 451 can feel more like looking at a painting than a motion picture. Partially it is trying to spend much of the time conveying the experience and the joy of reading, which can mean many scenes of people just reading books.

Then it is not aided by some of the dialogue, which can feel very unnatural at times. Apparently, this is the result of Truffaut not being strong in English and so some elements did not translate well.

A Case of Self-Censorship?

Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?
Like the informing neighbour, is this film helping to censor itself?

One change from the book that I feel needs to be called out is the book that Montag memorizes — literally becomes — at the end. In Bradbury’s novel it is the Book of Ecclesiastes, but in the film it is Edgar Allen Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. The change to a horror collection likely makes it more acceptable to a speculative fiction audience, but it is also a less interesting choice. Ecclesiastes, as many critics have noted, highlights the parallels between Montag and Solomon. If there is similar significance to Poe’s tales I cannot appreciate it.

Removing the references to the Bible means the filmmakers did not have to entertain complaints that might have arisen from both sides of the religious debate. A holy book at risk of being burnt that may upset some religious people, whilst having the person in pursuit of knowledge come to it through a book of belief might upset atheists.

But in a story about censorship, making a decision that is less brave feels disappointing and weakens the message of the film.

Accentuate The Positive

Fahrenheit 451 Book Cover

I have been predominantly critical so far, but it should be said there are some great parts to it.

Whilst a little confusing at times, the world Truffaut depicts is vivid and extremely intriguing. There are many great moments of the uncanny that are able to unsettle us. For example, the women who believe only “other people’s husbands” die in wars, or the neighbour who notes that Clarisse’s family are not really like them.

A commuter, desperate for connection?
A commuter, desperate for connection?

Many of the shots in it are also beautiful. One that stands out in my mind is when we see people on the monorail just silently running their hands over their bodies, as if they are looking for a connection they cannot find.

And the plot itself is engaging and pulls you through. So overall it is a good film. It is just it comes so close to being something great and reeks of a missed opportunity.

A high three stars

Tune in to KGJ, our radio station! Nothing but the newest and best hits!




4 Comments Leave A Comment
Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 14, 1966] All the Old Familiar Places (October 1966 Galaxy)

6 Comments


by Gideon Marcus

Where Men Have Gone Before

Last week saw the debut of the exciting science fiction anthology show Star Trek.  The opening narration describes a five-year mission, going "where no man has gone before."  Indeed, the second pilot of the program bore that very title.  Never mind that in two of the three episodes I've seen thus far (and in the sole episode yet officially aired), the featured space ship Enterprise went places men had gone before; the promise is still there.

This month's Galaxy, on the other hand, treads entirely familiar ground.  Not necessarily in the subject matter or the plots — these are reasonably fresh.  I mean that pretty much every story save the last constitutes the continuation of a prior story or setting.

Magazine editor Fred Pohl once explained that he has a reliable stable of authors for Galaxy.  As Pohl travels the country on various speaking engagements, he hits his writer friends up for new material.  Cordwainer Smith was on that list until his tragic passing last month.  Frank Herbert is (sadly) also on that list.  And so are most of the authors below.  I imagine each conversation with his pet authors eventually wanders around to "when do you think I might see more of…"

This isn't a bad thing, especially if you like the universes that get expanded.  On the other hand, it is the reason there about are twice as many Retief stories as there should be.

So let's see how this series of sequels fares:

Old Stomping Grounds


by Sol Dember

The Palace of Love (Part 1 of 3), by Jack Vance

In Vance's novel The Star King, we were introduced to Kirth Gersen.  Gersen is a vigilante, roaming the galactic space lanes to track down the elusive and nearly omnipotent "Demon Princes" of crime.  His first target, a fellow named Grendel, is defeated in the wild Beyond, the belt of untamed systems that ring the placid inner worlds.

Now, in Palace, Gerson applies the vast wealth of Grendel toward the next Demon Prince on his list, the volatile slaver and crime boss, Viole Falushe.  This time, the trail leads back to the original home of humanity, specifically, the portion of Europe known as Holland.


by Gray Morrow

I like Vance a lot, but this particular universe has never appealed to me.  Indeed, Palace has the exact same issues that plagued Kings.  At first, Vance's detailed setting descriptions and odd dialogue are compelling.  Over time, they just get tiresome.  Moreover, whereas in stories like The Dragon Masters or The Last Castle, Vance creates a rich world almost from nothing, filled with exciting new places and ideas, the far future in which Kirth Gersen resides feels almost unchanged from 20th Century Earth. 

I have a suspicion that the remainder of this book is going to be a slog.  Three stars so far.

How the Heroes Die, by Larry Niven


by Virgil Finlay

Larry Niven returns us to the Mars he set up in this year's short story, Eye of the Octopus.  The initial expedition that discovered evidence of indigenous Martians has been succeeded by a dozen humans in a bubble dome archaeological base.  When the natives prove elusive, tedium and frustration sets in.  One of the members of the all-male crew makes a pass at another.  Enraged, the target of his advances kicks him in the throat and watches him die.

Knowing that the rest of the team won't stand for it, murderous John "Jack" Carter plunges his Mars buggy through the dome in an attempt to release the air and kill his compatriots.  His plan fails, thanks to the fast reactions of the team.  Alf Harness, the party's linguist, heads out in pursuit.

The cat and mouse chase, with each of the two trying to outsmart the other such that only one can come back alive, working within the constraints of their air supply and their equipment at hand, is a pretty tight bit of writing.  I could have, however, done without the several paragraphs Niven devotes to the motivation of the crime: Lieutenant-Major Shute drafts a report to Earth explaining that a bunch of isolated men together always succumb to homosexuality.  Just like in the Navy.  Or boys-only schools.  Or the Third Reich (I'm not making these examples up).  The solution: Earth needs to send women with them, damn the Morality Leagues that frown on co-ed missions. 

This reminds me of stories I read last decade where female crew members were carried along solely for their convenient orifices.  I had hoped tales endorsing such notions were a thing of the past.  As for modern-day temperance leagues, while I recognize that cultures can regress, it seems to me that women have been serving alongside men for decades now.  Why, I recently saw an episode of Gomer Pyle featuring a woman Marine Captain.  I can't imagine that the trend over the next century is toward a reversal of that practice.

At least the characters in Heroes don't endorse the victim's murder.  The characters (and thus the author) seem to be saying that queers are people too, but that they are the sad creations of circumstance.  (Mr. Niven is apparently unacquainted with Dr. Kinsey, or the excellent documentary on homosexuality, The Rejected).

Three stars.

A Recursion in Metastories, by Arthur C. Clarke

Too short to describe.  A literary joke of unlimited scope if limited value.

Three stars.


by Jack Gaughan

The Ship Who Killed, by Anne McCaffrey


by Nodel

Many years ago, in The Magazine of Science Fiction, Anne McCaffrey introduced us to KH-834, the cybernetic spaceship.  The story was called The Ship Who Sang.  It involved the close relationship between the vessel's female resident brain, Helva, and the ambulatory "brawn" component, a man named Jennan. 

Jennan dies in that story, leaving Helva devastated but still spaceworthy.  She is detached from scout duty, instead being used for a sequence of odd job missions.  Her first, in which Helva's passenger is a doctor dispatched to a plague-ravaged world, was detailed in a recent Analog in a story titled The Ship Who Mourned.

And now Killed, appearing in yet another magazine.  This time, Helva is to be a metallic womb, ferrying a hundred thousand frozen fetuses to a world that has suffered a sterilizing catastrophe.  Her passenger is Kira, responsible for obtaining the unborn children from various worlds and taking care of them on their journey.  She has suffered the recent loss of her partner, too, and is expressedly suicidal.  Helva's orders are explicitly to avoid worlds on which suicide is legal.  Unfortunately, not all such worlds are cataloged…

One interesting bit is that Kira is a "Dylanist", part of a sect of cynical singer-songwriters who have almost deified ol' Bob.  She even plays "Blowin' in the Wind" at one point.  It's rather bold to extrapolate such a huge impact from something so recent as a popular singer (is there a rival faction known as "The Beatlers"?) And while it is possible that the former Mr. Zimmerman may go on to be so influential as to spawn religious adherents, McCaffrey fails to account for musical evolution: Kira employs the acoustic guitar in Killed, an instrument Dylan has already abandoned.

Such is the danger of precise prediction!

Anyway, that's just a side note.  The story itself has a reasonably good setup, but McCaffrey's writing style, filled to the brim with adverbs and acid repartee, just isn't doing it for me.  Each story in this series has been less compelling than the last.  This may explain why each one has been published in a new magazine; usually, editors hold onto writers as long as they can.

Two stars.

For Your Information: The Delayed Discovery, by Willy Ley

Willy Ley meanders through the history of atomic chemistry, covering a great many topics shallowly and without a lot of causality.  Asimov usually needs to trim his articles; Ley needed more connective tissue to make this one work.

Two stars.

Too Many Esks, by Hayden Howard


by Jack Gaughan

We're now four stories into the saga of the Esks, inhuman hybrids of Eskimos and an alien invader, who live above the arctic circle in Canada.  Esks grow to maturity in just five years.  Female Esks gestate and bear a child every month.  This new race has already outgrown its food supply, relying on government handouts to stay alive.

Dr. Joe West has been warning of a Malthusian nightmare for months now.  At last, some folks are starting to listen to him.  But the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, and West is concerned that once the hybrid Esks interbreed with humans (as one did with West), homo sapiens will be displaced by the more fecund breed.  Once this happens, there are signs that the original aliens will return to enslave the Earth.

And so, West hatches a plan to sterilize the Esks through biological warfare.  Like all of West's other endeavors against the Esks, the mission is a dismal and emotionally fraught failure.

These Esk tales oscillate between tedious and mildly engaging, all requiring a healthy dollop of suspension of disbelief.  I've been along for this ride long enough that I'm now kind of curious as to how it will end.

Three stars.

Planet of Fakers, by J. T. McIntosh


by McClane

McIntosh is an author with a long career.  He's written five-star stories, a number of pedestrian pieces, and a few truly awful ones.  Often, his works contain Sexist (or at least anti-feminine) portrayals of women.

So it was that I approached this last piece of the issue with some trepidation (especially given the weird art that suggested a sexual farce).

I am happy to report that I was pleasanty surprised.

Planet starts in medias res.  A tense trio, one man and two women, are subjecting a queue of persons to a test.  Their goal: to prove the humanity of each subject. 

Through adroit exposition, McIntosh slowly clues us in to the situation.  A colony of a few hundred has been besieged by an alien race of body possessors.  The fake humans are in telepathic communion with one another, so while it was once a trivial task to tell humans from sham-people, tests can only be used effectively once.  And the colonists are running out of tests.

While Planet does not take place in a preexisting universe, the bodysnatching genre has been around for decades, including such classics as Campbell's Who Goes There? and Heinlein's The Puppet Masters (and, of course, the 1956 movie which gave the genre its label).  Nevertheless, what McIntosh does with it is so deftly executed, and so neatly contrived, that's it's clear the old subject still has life in it.  At least in the hands of a master.

I'd originally planned to give it four stars, but it has stayed with me such that I think it earns a full five.

Dust Bowl's a comin'

With the exception of the standout final story, the October 1966 Galaxy is pretty mediocre stuff.  I think the lesson I've gotten is that fields can grow fallow, especially ones that weren't very fertile to begin with.

I think Pohl's writers would do themselves well to find some new land to plow.  And maybe Galaxy could use a more diverse set of farmers…

(If you're looking for something new, join us tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the next episode of Star Trek!)

Here's the invitation!

6 Comments Leave A Comment