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[May 24, 1965] Two faded stars (May Galactoscope #2)

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May's second Galactoscope reviews the latest works by two of the field's titans. Sadly, it looks like their best contributions are behind them, as the following article will demonstrate:


by Rosemary Benton

Mind Barriers and Mental Talents (Andre Norton's Three Against Witch World)

Andre Norton is a gem among authors. She is able to write everything from short stories to novels in quick succession, continues to be picked up by publishers (no small feat in the writing world), and has been able to carve out a reputation for herself as an author who can write extensive background lore into her stories.

That being said, I feel like Norton is in a bit of a writing funk lately. It hasn’t slowed her down, but her writing is starting to feel unbalanced. In particular, the trait that once was her strength – world building – is starting to weigh down her work. By the end of Three Against the Witch World, the third and newest short novel in the Witch World series, Norton successfully introduces better character development with respect to the earlier entries, but the world building is still too overpowering.

The Next Generation

Three Against the Witch World begins with a very condensed introduction to the early lives of Simon Tregarth and Lady Jaelithe's triplets. Told from the first-person narratives of the children, we learn that the first two decades of life have not been easy for anyone in the nation of Estcarp.

After the destabilization of Karsten at the conclusion of Web of the Witch World, a warlord stepped up to fill the power vacuum left by the former ruler Yvian and his extra-dimensional allies, the humanoid beings called The Kolder. Between the Alizon nation, the remains of Karsten and the formidable Falconers, Estcarp is locked in a long term guerrilla war that is slowly bleeding them dry.

Amazingly, despite marrying Earth man Simon Tregarth and thereby disavowing her role as a Witch, Lady Jaelithe still retains traces of the innate magic known (allegedly) only to be accessible in select virginal women. Unsurprisingly, given that Simon is also a Power user (albeit one from another planet), the couple's triplets Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea are also born with strong magical tendencies.

They are soon left on their own after their parents depart on vague and mysterious missions. Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea must contend not only with the front-line defense of the Estcarp nation, but with the jealousy and hostile machinations of the power hungry Witch Council. The Women of Power are determined to undermine the influence of Simon and Jaelithe, and the best way to do that is to take their daughter Kaththea for their own ranks.

By 20 years old the triplets are adrift in a highly unstable time with no nearby allies in all of Estcarp. Upon the ruthless kidnapping of Kaththea by the Witches, Kyllan and Kemoc decide to journey forth into the larger world to gain information and allies crucial to reclaiming the safety of their family.

What follows is a journey across all mapped nations, even into the twisted and nebulous eastern regions of the world – a massive mountain range interspersed with magically tainted creatures. It is literally a place which people are incapable of imagining due to a powerful collective compulsion in the human population. It's a race against time to save Kaththea, save Estcarp and prevent a horrific ancient accident from being repeated in the name of protecting their homeland.

The Witch World Lives On

Sounds like an amazing story, right? It's certainly an interesting premise with a solidly entertaining, if grandiose, climax. But is it a good read?

As I've noted in my review of Norton’s Witch World(1963) and its subsequent installment, if you like fiction liberally layered with lore and societal structures you will find this series intriguing. But just like before, Three Against the Witch World leaves the audience wanting a deeper connection to the main characters.

My, Oh My, Is It Ever So Dry

Stories that sacrifice character development for world building only engage their audience for so long before boredom begins to surface. With Kyllan, Kemoc and Kaththea as the beacons through Three Against the Witch World, it is a comparatively less tedious task to read through the extensive world history of Norton's realm. Three is still massively overwritten, but at least we have the enjoyment of seeing some of the cast grow instead of remaining stagnant cardboard cutouts.

Admittedly the triplets are not completely unique. They are rather standard fantasy warrior, scholar and sorceress/witch characters, but they are given more individuality than the previous protagonists of the series. Kyllan and Kemoc's strategics get much keener via increasingly difficult obstacles they face. Limitations are realized for Kemoc as he pieces together the knowledge held in Lormt, ancient bastion of scholarship, and Kaththea has to adapt to her increasing power.

However, Norton continues to hold her characters at arm's length. Her writing in general has been suffering of late because of this tendency: she is much more prone to showing her characters in action rather than letting us into their heads. Thus, the changes we see the triplets go through still have but a superficial connection with the audience. In short, within Three Against the Witch World we see that the series is still tripping over itself to engage with its audience.

Three Strikes and You're Out

At three entries into the series, the Witch World books continue to feel like Norton is far more interested in telling us about the mechanics of her world rather than the people living within it.

For existing Witch World fans, Three Against the Witch World offers new races and mysterious god-like entities, and I did appreciate Norton's attempts at expanded characterization. Nevertheless, that's not enough to save the series. After reading three books in the same series, I should have more than the shallowest of connections with the main characters. I should have a strong desire to continue to read further installments about their lives. The fact is, after reading Witch World, I don't. I know that Andre Norton is capable of better as a word smith and a story teller. Unfortunately, Three Against the Witch World is only worthy of a two and a half star rating.

Subspace Explorers, by E. E. 'Doc' Smith

By Jason Sacks

I was never a fan of E. E. “Doc” Smith.

Okay, that’s kind of unfair. It’s not that I read the man’s work and didn’t like it. Instead, I decided at a relatively early age that I didn’t want to read his juvenile sci-fi novels.

While some of my closest sci-fi loving middle school friends loved Smith’s Galactic Patrol stories, I never read any of his work, and the one time I borrowed one of his books from a friend I just never got around to cracking the cover. Maybe I felt an odd sort of aversion because I wanted to defy my pal Danny Alvarado’s deep love for Smith – you know, the way boys create friendly rivalries over nothing.

But that may be psychoanalysis after the fact. More likely I didn’t read Smith because I always wanted to read above my age group. Why read juveniles when there was so much great material being published by the likes of Asimov, Dick and Clarke?

Since I had never read any Smith as a kid, now seemed the perfect time to try out ol’ Doc’s work. I’ve grown older and mellowed a bit in my tastes in the last few years. So when my fine editor offered to have one of us staffers review a limited edition publication of Smith’s latest novel, Subspace Explorers, I jumped at the chance. Why not try a classic author, albeit one in the twilight of his career? I could either validate my pal Danny’s passion or smugly smile at myself that I made the right choice to skip Smith.

Well, young Jason is vindicated.

Subspace Explorers by E.E. Smith
The rather bland cover of Doc Smith's latest novel

Subspace Explorers is an odd book. It’s breakneck space opera sci-fi juxtaposed against a sort of exploration of psionics which in turn is juxtaposed against a kind of screed about a battle between virtuous business leaders and corrupt trade unionists. If you’re wondering how these odd elements all fit together in the space of some 200 pages, well, the answer is that they don’t.

The sci-fi and psionic stuff works the best in this book. The first chapter sets the stage with a disaster in space and the few survivors of that battle. This section speeds along in a kind of hurtling, breathtaking tumble of events in which the action seems never to stop, no matter that readers don’t have much of an idea who these characters are.

Once all the action begins to play out, we find there are nine survivors of the accident: four mafiosos, a genius, two officers, and two women. One of the women has the amazing psionic ability to detect any metal in space. After the mobsters are defeated, the women and officers very quickly get married and each of the couples have a baby after a pregnancy which is elongated by their time in space. Their kids inherit the psionic abilities and form a union of explorers who drive the rest of the book.

Right there in that quick summary of the crazily energetic beginning, you can see the joys and flaws of this book. It’s got energy and thrills. It’s got oddball ideas and puzzling events. It’s got thin characters and arbitrary plotlines. It’s got a lot of good and a lot of bad and I’m not sure I want to get into the discussions of labor unions which might embarrass Barry Goldwater in their stridency.

Even there, I might have enjoyed this book either as a grouchy polemic or the rambling of “an old man screaming get off my lawn,” as they say. But the shambolic plot, which seems assembled from several half-finished novels with the barest plot threads to connect them all, left me more baffled and annoyed than thrilled. If Doc wanted to produce a fun throwback space opera, why add the strange political notes, and if he wanted to write a screed, why include classic cardboard characters with psionic powers to muddy the waters?

Doc himself

Publisher Canaveral Press is well known for their lovely Edgar Rice Burroughs reissues, most with lovely art by Roy Krenkel and J. Allen St. John. This book boasts of the same high production values as the Burroughs books. It’s just too bad this book isn’t nearly a match for those classics.

Maybe Smith can pull his disparate storylines together if he writes a sequel to Subspace Explorers, but for a book released in hardcover in a limited edition with a matching grand cover price, this is a tremendous disappointment. Sorry Danny. Hope we can still have lunch together and discuss more pleasant things.

2 stars.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 22, 1965] Goodbye and Hello (June 1965 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Departures and Arrivals

One of the more intriguing events this month was the death of a celebrity, although not one you're likely to see in the obituary column. A tortoise known as Tu'i Malila (meaning King Malila in the Tongan language, although she was female) died on the sixteenth of May. Why is this notable? Well, they say she was one hundred and eighty-eight years old, a ripe old age, even for a tortoise.

The story goes that Captain Cook gave her to the royal family of Tonga way back in 1777, making her nearly as old as the good old USA. Some dispute this story, although there is no doubt that she lived in Tonga for a very long time indeed. No stranger to royalty, she greeted the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II when that monarch visited Tonga, a British protectorate, in 1953.


That's Elizabeth on the left, Tu'i Malila on the ground. You knew that, right?

As we bid farewell to this extraordinary reptile, we greet a new British import at the top of the American popular music charts. Herman's Hermits, hailing from Manchester, England, hit Number One this month with their version of Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter, a song first performed by actor Tom Courtenay in a British television play a couple of years ago.

Unlike many of the singers in British rock 'n' roll bands, lead man Peter Noone makes no attempt to disguise his accent. If anything, it sounds like he's exaggerating his Mancunian way of talking. (Yes, I just now learned the word Mancunian, and I'm showing off.)


Nobody in the band is named Herman. Go figure.

Exit Cele, Enter Joseph

My esteemed colleague John Boston has already reported, in fine detail, on the Ziff-Davis company selling Amazing and Fantastic to Sol Cohen. Editor Cele Goldsmith Lalli will remain with Ziff-Davis, working on their publication Modern Bride. Frankly, I think that's a step up for her, given the minimal interest that the publisher had in their fiction magazines.

Joseph Wrzos, using the more Anglo-Saxon name Joseph Ross, will be the editor, under the direction of Cohen. Fantastic will contain reprints from old issues of the two Ziff-Davis magazines, as will Amazing. The sister publications will alternate bimonthly publication. Of course, they will continue to publish new stories purchased by Lalli for a while, given the exceedingly slow way the publishing industry works. I hope that Wrzos will also offer previously unseen work once these run out.

As we lift a glass of champagne to Cele, and bid her a fond bon voyage as she sets sail for the world of wedding dresses and honeymoons, let's take a look at the last issue that will bear her name.


Cover art by Gray Morrow

Thelinde's Song, by Roger Zelazny

You may recall the story Passage to Dilfar in the February issue, which introduced the character Dilvish the Damned. He was a mysterious figure indeed, and that tale provided only hints as to his strange nature. This one gives us some of his background.

A young sorceress sings a ballad about Dilvish and the evil wizard Jelerak. Her mother warns her not to speak the name of the villain aloud, lest she draw the attention of one of his wicked minions. She then relates the encounter between the half-elf Dilvish and the sorcerer, as Jelerak was about to sacrifice a virgin in order to work his black magic.

Jelerak turned the heroic Dilvish into stone, and sent his soul to Hell. A couple of centuries later, Dilvish managed to return to life, this time with a talking steel horse as his mount. The rest of the story shows us why it's a bad idea to speak the name of Jelerak.

Although Dilvish only appears in flashback, he dominates the story, becoming a fascinating character. The author's style is poetic, creating a memorable sword-and-sorcery adventure. I hope we see more tales in this series.

Four stars.


This anonymous illustration appears at the end of the story. It has nothing to do with anything in the magazine.

The Destroyer, by Thomas N. Scortia

The setting is some time after a limited nuclear war, which apparently more-or-less destroyed Asia. The Western world, it seems, recovered nicely, leading to a society well on its way to a technological utopia. People travel by riding some kind of electromagnetic beams. For all intents and purposes, this is pretty much flying like Superman.

Anyway, the protagonist is the head of something called the Genetic Bank, which controls the manipulation of plant and animal genes. A government agent asks him to report any evidence of human genetic tampering, which is a crime so severe that it carries the only death penalty left on the book.

The hero investigates the case of a young boy named Julio. Although classified as severely mentally disabled, he has somehow managed to create a pair of magnetic blocks that produce a stream of energy between them.

Meanwhile, the main character's love interest, a woman just back from Titan, is dying from a fungus acquired on that moon of Saturn. When Julio removes a mole from the man's hand, just by thinking about it, you can predict what's going to happen at the end. Along the way the government agent gets involved in things, seeing Julio as a threat to the planet.

There are very few surprises in this tale of a kid with superhuman mental powers. The background is somewhat interesting, even if implausible. The premise that Earth folk have become timid and complacent, compared to those who explore the Solar System, was intriguing, but didn't lead to much. The notion that there is something inherently wrong with the accepted view of science, compared to the way the boy thinks, was unconvincing. Overall, I got the feeling that I've read this stuff before, as if it were a mediocre story from Analog.

Two stars.

The Penultimate Shore, by Stanley E. Aspittle, Jr.

A writer completely unknown to me spins a dream-like fantasy with hints of allegory. A man named Cipher winds up on a deserted shore after a shipwreck. Half-sunken into the ocean are the ruins of a city. He has visions of a boy and girl in the waves. A woman named Huitzlin, the Aztec word for hummingbird, emerges from the sea and becomes his lover. An old man called Thanatos shows up as well. It all leads up to Cipher's final fate.

I really don't know what to make of this story. It's full of beautiful and evocative descriptions, but the author's intention is opaque. The character's names are suggestive, but the symbolism is unclear, except for the way that Thanatos is explicitly connected with death. If nothing else, it made me think, which is a good thing, I suppose.

Three stars.

The Other Side of Time (Part Three of Three), by Keith Laumer

Our universe-hopping narrator escapes from the prehistoric world where he wound up last time with the help of his ape-man buddy from another reality. The hairy fellow explains that the evil folks from yet another parallel cosmos — another type of ape-men — destroyed the hero's home world.

All seems lost, until the buddy suggests that it might be possible to travel to that universe in such a way that the narrator arrives there before it's wiped out. In a nutshell, time travel.

The hero shows up just a short time before things are going to go very badly indeed. Not only does he face the menace of the invading ape-men, he has to convince the local authorities of his identity. Then there's the mysterious burning figure he encountered in the first installment; what does that have to do with anything?

After the relatively calm mood of the second part, the conclusion of the novel returns to the frenzied pace of the first part. There's also a lot of scientific double talk to try to justify the odd way that time travel operates in this story. It held my interest, even if I didn't believe in anything that was happening for a moment. Compared to the highly enjoyable middle section, the rest of the novel is merely a decent enough science fiction action yarn.

Three stars.


Another piece of filler art. I actually like this abstract image.

The Little Doors, by David R. Bunch

Two pages of pure surrealism from the the magazine's most controversial author. Some white egg-shaped things come out of the little doors of the title and onto an egg-shaped stage. Rectangular black things show up, open the lids of the egg-things, put pieces of themselves inside, and pull out small stones of multiple colors.

If the author is trying to make some kind of serious point, he doesn't help matters by called the stage ogg, the white things loolbools, and the black things guenchgrops. Maybe it's just my dirty mind, but I got the feeling that this was some kind of bizarre metaphor for human reproduction. I have to give it a little credit for sheer weirdness.

Two stars.


Has someone been doodling on the page?

Phog, by Piers Anthony

The inhabitants of a strange world face the menace of a seemingly sentient cloud of poisonous gas, as well as the deadly beast that lurks inside it. After losing his sister to the thing, a boy grows up to build an elaborate trap for it. Capturing and destroying the cloud and the creature is not at all easy, coming only at great cost.

The author certainly shows plenty of imagination. The way in which the young man uses sunlight, the cloud's only weakness, is interesting. Other than that, the plot proceeds just about the way you expect it to.

Three stars.

Silence, by J. Hunter Holly

Because the Noble Editor wishes to keep track of the number of female authors published in the genre magazines, allow me to point out the J stands for Joan. She's published half a dozen or so science fiction novels. I believe this is her first short story to see the light of day.

In an overpopulated future full of noisy gadgets, the level of sound increases to the point where people no longer hear. Their ears still work, you understand; it's just that their brains turn off the sensation of hearing. Music is just something that causes needles to move around on dials.

The protagonist is one such musician. He regains his hearing, in a society that has completely forgotten about sound, by blocking out all sources of noise, until his brain regains its lost function. His attempt to bring his rediscovery of real music to audiences leads to an ironic ending.

The premise is intriguing, if not the most believable one in the world. I found it hard to accept that music would survive in the way the story suggests among people who can't hear it. I'll admit that I liked the downbeat conclusion.

Three stars.

Before We Say Farewell

We have a typical issue of the magazine, with some high points, some low points, and a lot in the middle. I'd like to take a moment to look back on the editor's time with the publication. She introduced promising new writers like LeGuin, Disch, and Zelazny, who have already proved their worth. More questionably, she published the unique work of Bunch, which certainly tests the limits of fantastic literature. She also helped Leiber get back to the typewriter, which justifies her career all by itself. I'm sure we all wish her well in her new line of work.

Thanks, Cele!




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 18, 1965] Rubber Ball (or Skip the End) (June 1965 Fantasy & Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Bouncin' Back to You

Cast your memories back to the distant past — about four years. Remember when Bobby Vee exploded on the scene with his first hit, Rubber Ball.

It's a song about a fellow who should know better than to stick with an untrue love but, like a rubber ball, keeps coming back to her anyhow.  The tune came to my mind more than once as I read this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction, a magazine that has plumbed depths often enough to tempt me to cancel my subscription, but on occasion (like this one) produces such an excellent issue that I remember the good times of the 1950s, and love is rekindled.

Is it the doing of new editor Joe Ferman?  Statistical variation?  Either way, it was a pleasure to read.  Come join me and see why:

Bounce my heart around


by James Roth

Admiralty, by Poul Anderson

We begin with an ending of sorts, the conclusion to the exploits of Gunnar Heim, late of the Federation Navy, now a privateer savaging the Aleriona patch of stars known as The Phoenix.  His goal, to prosecute an undeclared war to liberate the conquered human world of New Europe before its inhabitants run out of Vitamin C, is about to come to fruition.  But how can one ship achieve victory against a starfaring empire?  More personally, will an old flame of Heim's be waiting for him planetside when all is said and done?

Admiralty is Anderson near the top of his form, which, like a sine wave, has definite positive and negative amplitudes.  What makes the piece frustrating is its incompleteness.  This novella and the other two that have recently appeared in F&SF are about to be compiled into a book called The Star Fox, and I strongly suspect that there will be expansions above and beyond what has appeared in the magazines.  Indeed, some of the most exciting episodes in Admiralty, like the capture of the Aleriona prize, Meroeth, are dispatched in a paragraph or two of exposition.  What remains is something of a Readers Digest abridged version — entertaining but dissatisfying.

Also, I wish Anderson wouldn't assume that we all speak French; there are paragraphs and paragraphs of the stuff that go largely untranslated.  I'm going to start sending him letters in Japanese…

Anyway, four stars, for this and the whole sequence, and I suspect the book will be even better.  Certainly Hugo material.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, by Fredric Brown and Carl Onspaugh

Dooley Hanks, a clarinetist of modest talent but tremendous desire, scours the world looking (listening?) for The Sound.  When he finds it, in an obscure town in Germany, the temptation to claim it for his own becomes overpowering…and hazardous.

A powerful story, evocative and beautifully told, it's the kind of reworked fable Robert F. Young wishes he could write.

Five stars.


by Gahan Wilson — better than his previous ones

Books, by Judith Merril

Normally, I don't give inches to the book column, but Ms. Merril is cutting and insightful in a way I can only hope to approximate. Don't miss her take on the latest SF to cross her desk (many of which have been covered by the Journey).

Rake, by Ron Goulart

Ben Jolson, shape-changing agent of the Chameleon Corps, is back for another adventure.  This time, in the guise of a student, he's investigating the development of a super-weapon by an academic ensconced at a public college.

This tale is far more obviously slapstick than his previous one, which I had quite liked.  Rake is just too silly, too random to be very good, and there's no reason for such a short piece to begin in medias res followed by a flashback to How It All Began.

Two stars.

Phoenix (the Science Springboard), by Theodore L. Thomas

Normally, Thomas' non-fiction vignettes, more story seed than article, aren't worth the two pages they're printed on.  This time, I quite liked his postulation that at the center of every gas giant lies a terrestrial core.  I don't know if it's accurate; I don't know how we could verify the accuracy, but it is an exciting idea that the planets of the solar system all started out as roughly similar planetoids that grew atmospheres as time went on.  Only the inner ones lost theirs because it was too warm so close to the Sun.

Of course, it's easy to make models that fit the one set of data we have.

Four stars, anyway.

The Ancient Last, by Herb Lehrman

The first of two reader-submitted stories fulfilling the call for tales involving Univac and Unicorns.  This is the more poetic of the pair.  Interestingly, its poignant ending is somewhat marred by two additional paragraphs; because the offending superfluity occurs on a following page, I didn't originally see them, and I thought the ending was stronger than it ended up being.

Funny enough, I was recently rejected by F&SF, whose editor suggested I trim out my terminal line to give the ending more punch.  I did.  We'll see how it does.

Stand-In, by Greg Benford

Another first from a fellow San Diego native.  This Univac/Unicorn story is more swinging and fun, but not particularly consequential.

I give three stars to both.  I'm glad the authors got their breaks and I hope this sets them on their way to stardom.

Story of a Curse, by Doris Pitkin Buck

Earth spacers are forever restless in search of change, intolerant of stagnation.  But when Earth, itself, has changed, the astronauts see the folly of their wanderlust.

Long on emotion, short on coherence, Story is more prose-poem than science fiction.  I liked it well enough, though.  Three stars.

Nabonidus, by L. Sprague de Camp

Archaeologist meets a ghostly colleague of ancient vintage.  This poem has a strange meter, but again, it's appealing.  Three stars.

Future? Tense!, by Isaac Asimov

In a surprise disappointment, the science column is probably my least favorite piece of the issue.  The Good Doctor begins by relating how on-the-spot he feels when asked to predict the future, then says he'll do it anyway, and then doesn't really do it at all.

At a recent bookstore interview, I was asked if a science fiction story's value is based on its predictive accuracy.  I felt that the answer I gave ("No — its value is in how well it entertains; science fiction can't predict the future; it can only extrapolate current trends.") was better and more succinct than the one Dr. A offers.

Two stars.

Of Time and the Yan, by Roger Zelazny

The Last Man of Earth meets the Last Man of Mars; unfortunately, time is not on the side of humanity.

Zelazny increasingly makes his stories more affectedly "literate."  It may get his stories sold, but it's getting tedious.  Two stars.  (Your hue and cry tells me I'm a too-harsh boor.  I do not disagree.)

Jabez O'Brien and Davy Jones' Locker, by Robert Arthur

Lastly, here is the tale of a young New England fisherman who seeks to win fame, fortune, wisdom and happiness through the capture of a mermaid.  Instead, he winds up…well, best not to spoil this gem of a story.

It's an absolutely charming work, the best I've seen from Mr. Arthur, and made all the better for my imagining it being narrated by Fractured Fairy Tale's Edward Everett Horton (now you'll have his voice in your head, too!)

Five stars.

My heartstrings, they just snap

In the end, even this issue bounces around like a rubber ball, but the pages of quality far outnumber the momentary lapses.  The June 1965 issue of F&SF is a stand-out…and my love is rekindled.

Don't break my heart, Joe!

Don't forget to register for our show on May 23 at 1PM DT!  We really want to see you there and hear your questions.





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Science Fiction/Fantasy

The 1965 Hugo ballot is out!

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by Gideon Marcus

This year's Worldcon will be in London this year, and they've already released the names of the nominees for the 1965 Hugo Award (for the best science fiction of 1964):

Since the Journey has covered virtually everything on the list, we've created a little crib sheet so you can vote in an educated fashion.

Also, we'll be talking about this ballot on May 23rd at 1PM PDT on a special broadcast of KGJ Channel 9 — so please tune in and join us in the discussion!

Best Novel:

Davy — It made Honorable Mention last year (I've only read the two novelettes that comprise the bulk of the story).  Cora's reviewed it.

The Planet Buyer — Really just a slightly expanded version of The Boy Who Bought Old Earth, which really shouldn't be judged alone, finished as it is by The Store of Heart's Desire.  Anyway, it got the Star, and I reviewed both.

The Wanderer — It, pointedly, did not get a Star.  Jason reviewed it.

The Whole Man — It got honorable mention.  Victoria Silverwolf reviewed it.

Best short story:

Little Dog Gone — VS reviewed it.  She gave it 4 stars, and I think that's fair.  It's fine, but no one nominated it for a Star.

Once a Cop — I reviewed it and I did nominate this one for the Star.

Soldier, Ask Not — I reviewed it.  It got nominated for the Star (not by me, but enough others did, and it was good enough not to merit argument).

Best Pro Magazine:

Your mileage may vary! However, we did meticulously rank them when we awarded the Stars last year.

Best Fanzine:

Double Bill A quarterly of news, articles, fanzine reviews, some poetry (genzine), and some big names slumming.  Two years old.

Yandro A venerable monthly that has been nommed for the Hugo a zillion times.  Another genzine.

Zenith A new genzine, probably a monthly (I haven't read this one)

[I should probably read all of the genzines more regularly, but my — 'zine plate is full with the news 'zines: Science Fiction Times, Ratatosk, and Fecal Pint…er Focal Point.]

Best Artist:

Ed Emshwiller

Frank Frazetta — he's pretty much escaped my ken this year, but here's a recent book cover:

Jack Gaughan

John Schoenherr

Best Publisher:

Ace Plenty of good stuff there including Delany's Towers of Toron, a lot of Andre Norton, and Purdom's excellent I Want the Stars.

Ballantine They did Davy, Martian Time Slip, but also The Wanderer and The Reefs of Space (in itself not bad, but the sequel was awful).  Also, lots of Burroughs reprints.

Gollancz Not quite so busy as the first two, and no titles that got the Star, but some decent ones in there.

Pyramid The weakest of them, to my mind, and the one (aside from Ace) I read the most from last year.

Best Dramatic Presentation:

Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, reviewed by Vicki Lucas, nominated for the Star.

Dr. Strangelove, reviewed by Rosemary Benton, awarded the Star.

Y'all Come

We want your opinion at our upcoming show, so please register — it's free, and it'll ensure you are promptly notified of our upcoming shows.

See you there!





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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[May 16, 1965] Gathering Dust (Doctor Who: The Space Museum)

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By Jessica Holmes

Thank you for joining me today, everybody. I hope we’ve all got our visitor’s passes and will be keeping our hands to ourselves, because today we’re going to be taking a tour of The Space Museum, and the main exhibit? The Doctor and his companions! Today’s serial was written by Glyn Jones.

The spaceship graveyard, with museum centre frame.

THE SPACE MUSEUM

If I may direct your attention to the opening of the episode, we can see that it picks up where it left off, with the TARDIS going dark. We then cut to a barren landscape dotted by rockets, among which the TARDIS materialises.

The crew seems dazed upon landing, and once the Doctor gets the lights back on, Ian and Barbara realise that somehow, they’ve changed their whole outfits.

Ian and the Doctor examine the ground.I used to wear socks like that for primary school…

We have a scene of Vicki getting water for the Doctor, only to drop the glass, spilling the water, which then un-spills and comes back to her hand. It’s a simple enough effect, but rather nifty, and it seems things might be a whole lot weirder than a change of wardrobe.

Upon viewing the spaceships outside, the Doctor comes to suspect, as they’re all from different time periods, that they’ve landed in some sort of museum. I wonder if they have a little shop? I like a little shop.

The group search for signs of life, leaving no footprints behind them as they walk. The gang soon find a building and some more people. They rush to hide, but when Vicki sneezes, it’s as if they didn’t hear her at all.

Two men pass by in the foreground as Vicki sneezes in the background.

Perhaps unwisely, the group enters the building to look around without even buying a ticket.

The gang get a nasty shock upon discovering the first item of interest. It’s a Dalek. A dead Dalek. Vicki, never having met the fiends, thinks it looks quite friendly. I really do love Vicki’s soft spot for creatures others might deem monstrous. Well, they’d be absolutely right in the case of the Dalek, but still. It’s sweet.

They have another run-in with some men, whose lips move but make no sound. That almost sounds like the opening to a riddle.

Think things can’t get any stranger? Think again! Caving to the urge to touch the shiny space exhibits, Vicki tries poking at an item only to find that her arm goes straight through. None of the others can touch it either, and a third group of men come by, looking right through them without seeing them.

Sorry, guys, but there’s only one conclusion: the TARDIS blew up and you’re all ghosts. I can think of worse places to haunt than a museum, so it’s not all bad.

The companions watch as the Doctor stands in the space where the TARDIS seems to be.My gut instinct says Pepper's Ghost so just take my word for it, okay?

Onwards, they find something quite unexpected: the TARDIS, but not where they originally left it. Still, one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth so they decide they might as well get in and go home for a nice cup of tea and some custard creams. Of course, it’s not that easy. The TARDIS isn’t really there. Or is it? Perhaps they’re the ones who aren’t really there.

Out of curiosity, I did a bit of research to find out how they achieved this visual effect. In conclusion: I’m not sure, and that irks me. My guess is either a double exposure or Pepper’s Ghost.

Or magic.

Something wicked this way comes, for in the room holding the TARDIS, the crew find themselves. Literally.

The four main characters as exhibits in a museum.

It seems the gang’s exploits have earned them a spot in the museum. These aren’t dummies though, oh no. These are the real people, preserved and shoved into a glass cabinet to gather dust for eternity.

The gang arrive at the conclusion that what they’re seeing is their future, or at least a possible version of it. There’s a bit of technobabble about dimensions in time and jumping time tracks that I can’t quite wrap my head around, but the bottom line is that the reason they can’t interact with anything in the museum is that they haven’t actually arrived yet, but are in another time dimension seeing the museum as it will be after they’ve arrived and done…something or other.

Don’t worry, it gives me a bit of a headache too.


It's hard to get an interesting image of people waiting for something interesting to happen.

The Doctor decides that they should wait around for themselves to actually arrive, at which point time should sort itself out and things will progress as normal.

But…but wouldn’t they still be moving forwards in time so that their true-present selves would never actually catch up with their slightly-out-of-sync-with-the-rest-of-spacetime selves?

Let’s upgrade that headache to a migraine, shall we?

It doesn’t take long before there’s some sort of reversal of time. Two men discover the TARDIS, and the glass cases disappear, and the footprints in the sand turn up.

I might need a diagram to get this straight.

So, the serial opens with an interesting and often creepy episode. The sterile atmosphere of the museum and the deep quiet of the space creates an uncanny feeling, and appropriately enough a sense that there is no time in this place at all. We’ve got some interesting visual effects on display too, and although I do find the explanation of the time-bending shenanigans to be quite confusing, I do find it an interesting idea. Can the companions discover what led them to be museum pieces in time to avert their fate, or are they going to have to find out the hard way?

The Morok governor and his lieutenant.
Nice hairdo.

THE DIMENSIONS OF TIME

I think it’s about time some other characters were introduced, don’t you? Say hello to the curators of this museum, the Moroks. They’re not doing anything very interesting right now apart from talking about some rebellion and finding the TARDIS.

Speaking of rebellion, say hello to the Xerons and their fascinating eyebrows. They’ve also learned of the arrival of a new ship, and hope to attain the assistance of the new arrivals.

Said arrivals are currently flouting the ‘do not touch’ rule and nicking one of the guns on display. Ian, grown man that he is, even makes the appropriate noises as he waves it around. Don’t worry Ian, I’m not judging you… much.

The Doctor tells Ian, a grown man, that guns are not toys.

The Doctor decides that to avoid the future they’ve seen, they should try and find the TARDIS as soon as possible. However, that’s easier said than done, because this museum doesn’t have any signposts. Not even one of those handy wall maps with a big red dot saying ‘you are here’.

As the group travel, the Xerons nab the Doctor in a moment of distraction, and the Doctor bravely drops down and pretends to be dead. It doesn’t take long for Ian and Barbara to realise the Doctor’s gone missing, and start bickering like a pair of stressed parents wondering the whereabouts of an errant child, and if that doesn’t sum up their entire dynamic I don’t know what does.

Two of the Xerons make the mistake of leaving one of their number alone with the Doctor for more than five minutes, returning to find their comrade bound and gagged on the floor, and the Doctor nowhere to be seen.

This precedes the single best scene in all of Doctor Who. I’m not exaggerating. I cannot do justice to the sheer joy this scene brought me.

We slowly pan across to see the Dalek on display come to life, and from within comes a familiar voice.

The Doctor does a delightful Dalek impression as he congratulates himself on his cleverness, even waving the weapons around for good measure, and popping out of the hatch with an expression of pure glee.

The Doctor pops out of his hiding place.

He’s a little too pleased with himself, however, as it takes him all of about ten seconds to run right into some Moroks on patrol and get himself captured.

The others, meanwhile, are still lost. While wondering what to do Ian has a bright idea and starts taking Barbara’s clothes off. As you do.

Don’t worry, the programme is still perfectly suitable for a family audience. Ian’s had the idea to use the wool in her cardigan to leave a trail behind them, like Theseus and the Minotaur, so that they don’t end up going round and round in circles. It’s not long before the Xerons start to follow the thread too, and the companions discover that the TARDIS has fallen into the hands of the Moroks.

Ian tries to unravel a cardigan with his teeth.Ian demonstrating how NOT to unpick a piece of knitwear.

The Doctor finds himself in the company of the governor of the Moroks, who explains to him this is a museum dedicated to the military conquests of the Morok Empire, though interest has waned of late. It seems the people of the homeworld are more interested in enjoying life than ending it in insatiable imperial expansion. The Doctor suggests that they try reducing the price of admission.

The Morok asks where the Doctor’s companions are, getting naught but a giggle from him. However, he then shows the Doctor an image of the companions elsewhere in the museum. How did he get it? From the Doctor’s mind.

The governor interrogates the Doctor

The interrogation isn’t as easy as all that however, as it seems the Doctor has excellent control over his mind, and when asked how he arrived, thinks of a penny farthing, and when asked where he’s from, imagines a colony of walruses, followed by a picture of himself in an old-fashioned bathing suit. It’s quite funny.

The fun and games can’t last, however, as the governor becomes angry when his men can’t find the companions, and orders that the Doctor be taken to the preparation room. He’s to become an exhibit.

THE SEARCH

The Moroks can’t get into the TARDIS, much to the lamentation of the leader of this little band.

Here’s one of the issues of the serial. The conflict within the Moroks themselves is… boring. It’s just dull as ditchwater, and the performances are not strong enough to carry it on entertainment value or get me invested in any of the characters. What are their names? I don’t know and I don’t care.

Three Moroks outside the TARDIS
Do you think they realise how ridiculous they look?

Even the wider conflict between the Moroks and the Xerons is not interesting to me. We’ve seen it plenty of times before in Doctor Who, and done better. I think what the writer’s trying to do is ambitious, but it feels very flat to me. Unfortunately, it gets more attention than the strange time travel shenanigans, so it’s really dragging down the serial, and it’s only going to get worse.

Watching this bickering going on, the companions let down their guard long enough for one of the Moroks to find them, and Ian confronts the armed guard with impressive courage and questionable judgement. He figures that the guard can’t shoot him, as he knows he ends up in a glass box. Even if he does, well hurrah for averting the future. Well, I suppose either outcome is a success of sorts.

Ian stares down the barrel of a gun, with Barbara and Vicki behind him.
Ian faces the guard, while behind him, Barbara prepares to use Vicki as a human shield.

Ian tackles the guard, giving the others a chance to make a run for it, and there’s rather a good and well-choreographed fight scene following his ensuing capture. Often fight scenes in Doctor Who are shot quite close up and are hard to make much out of, and those that are shot more clearly often look absurd, but this one is both clear and believable. At the end of it, he’s left two Moroks out cold, as the others left in pursuit of the women.

The women are separated in the chase, with Barbara ending up trapped in a storage room, and Vicki running into the rebel Xerons. Thankfully, the Xerons are friendly, and one of them goes to look for Barbara while the others lead Vicki to their hideout.

Ian hides behind the TARDIS, unseen by the guard.

So, how did Ian escape the Moroks after his victory in the tussle? Well, apparently by virtue of the Moroks being utter clattering buffoons, that’s how. You want to know where he went? His brilliant hiding spot? Behind the flipping TARDIS. Just behind it. And somehow, the guard stationed outside the ship fails to notice him.

Ian surprises the guard and takes him hostage, holding him at gunpoint as he demands information and guidance. This is another thing that bothers me.

Yes, we know Ian is the action hero of the group. Yes, Ian’s absolutely killed people. However, all his kills have been in the heat of the moment, when his own life was in danger, and it’s quite disturbing to see him carry on for the rest of the episode threatening to shoot this guard in cold blood. Wouldn’t Ian instead try to bring the guard around to his side before resorting to threats of violence? This is a cold, angry Ian and it doesn’t seem like him to be this way. Besides all that, it doesn’t seem a good message to be sending to the younger viewers. ‘Why try talking to people when threats of violence will work just fine?’

Ian brandishes his gun.

The governor of the Moroks receives word from his home planet that they’re displeased the youth rebellion hasn’t been crushed yet, and gives the order to flood the museum with a poisonous gas that will paralyse everyone inside, to flush out the intruders.

Putting it that way, it seems a little flawed.

One of the Xerons manages to find Barbara, but before they can find the others the gas cloud envelops them and they have to flee.

Meanwhile, the others are explaining to Vicki that this is their world, that the Moroks committed genocide on the native population, wiping out the adults and enslaving the children. Is that meant to get me invested, three quarters of the way into the serial? No need to actually show us the oppression the Xerons face, or give us much in the way of emotional stakes, just throw in a line about mass murder and voila, you have an invested audience, right? Wrong.

The Xerons eat dinner with Vicki.

To get invested in a conflict, I need to be shown a reason to care about it early on, rather than have a lump of exposition spat at me most of the way through. Beyond that, this narrative of ‘rebellion against the conquerors’ feels like a retreading of the conflict in The Web Planet, but it’s much less interesting.

So, how’s the dullest rebellion in the galaxy going to overthrow their oppressors? Well, they haven’t actually worked that out. The youth have been making all sorts of grand plans, but the fact is they don’t have any weapons and no plan to get some. What they do have is knowledge of where to find the armoury, and a smart ally by the name of Vicki.

Vicki tampers with the machine while the Xerons watch.

Vicki examines the security equipment guarding the armoury. It’s a machine that asks questions, and can tell if the subject is lying. Of course, just telling the truth isn’t enough to get in, you have to be telling the truth about your credentials, permits, valid reason for accessing the armoury, and on and on the questions go. Understanding how the machine works, Vicki cracks it open to take a look inside, and tampers with the equipment, making it so that all that’s needed is the truth, not the credentials.

Well, that’s a bit of a rubbish security system if it can be tampered with that easily. Had none of the Xerons ever thought to try it?

However, with one small victory, elsewhere things go awry, as the gas overcomes Barbara and the other Xeron.

Ian manages to make his way to the governor’s office, and orders him to take him to the Doctor… but he doesn’t like what he finds.

The Doctor, unconscious.

THE FINAL PHASE

To his dismay, Ian finds the Doctor unconscious in the preparation room. The Moroks have put him into a deep freeze, and according to the governor he’s as good as dead. Ian demands that they reverse the procedure, or else.

Having successfully broken into the armoury, the rebels arm themselves, while Vicki goes back to the museum to rescue the others, taking one of the young men with her.

Inside the museum, Barbara and her companion start to recover from the gas. Well, that was a bit pointless, wasn’t it? Surely it’d be better if the effects took a long time to wear off, so the guards could remove the gas then search the museum without their targets being able to move around.

The Doctor ends up at gunpoint.

The Doctor’s temperature returns to normal, and he wonders if this has been enough to change the future. However, the Moroks, having noticed that the guard outside the TARDIS has disappeared, swoop in on them, knocking Ian out and taking the pair captive once more. Well, that was a bit of a narrative cul-de-sac.

Barbara and her companion continue making their way out of the museum, but a guard hears them coming, and lies in wait to capture them.

The Moroks regroup, and it seems that their victory is close at hand. However, when they try to get a message through to their barracks, they don’t get a reply.

Barbara and her companion up against the wall at gunpoint.

Barbara and her companion emerge from the museum, only to run into the waiting guard. But before their escape can be foiled, Vicki and her friend show up and shoot the guard down. The victory doesn’t last long, as more Moroks arrive and shoot the youth rebels, taking the women captive. Again.

Well, with all the gang captured, at least everybody’s together now. It seems there is nothing they can do to avoid becoming exhibits, but maybe they managed to change more than they thought. The youth storm the museum, having managed to overrun the barracks which happened off-screen probably so that people like me won’t ask questions about how a bunch of teenage boys who have never held a gun managed to overrun a barracks of well-equipped soldiers of an interplanetary empire.

The Moroks are about to cut their losses and make a run for it, but the rebels arrive before the Moroks can dispatch the companions. They wipe them out, and with that, the revolution is won. That is about as interesting as I can make it sound without just making things up.

The Xerons make their attack.

The gang avoid becoming museum pieces, and the future has been averted. The Doctor at last reveals why the weird time shenanigans were going on. Prepare to sigh deeply with me.

It’s a faulty TARDIS component.

Seriously? Nothing to do with the actual plot? That is boring and just plain lazy. With it being so disconnected, the time travel is little more than a gimmick thrown in to make a below-average rebellion story feel more impressive and complex than it actually is. I strongly feel that the element of time travel could have been integrated into the story far better than it actually was, rather than being dropped after the first episode. I could think of a few ways I myself would go about doing it, but perhaps I would be asking for a different story than the one the writer set out to tell.

The Doctor shows Ian and Barbara the faulty component.

The Xerons dismantle the museum, but not before the Doctor liberates a souvenir, in the form of a time and space visualiser. I suppose it’s like a television you can watch next week’s Coronation Street on.

Everyone says their farewells and the TARDIS leaves for parts unknown. However, somewhere else in space, a familiar foe glides into view…

A real Dalek

Final Thoughts

This is unusual for me, as a person incapable of shutting up, but I can’t think of anything else to say about this serial. There’s not really anything much to dig into. Sure, the serial poses the question of whether destiny can be altered, but then answers it with a resounding ‘yes’, so there’s nothing I can add to that. It was all right, I suppose. I'll probably have forgotten about it by this time next week.

I really am wracking my brains trying to think of something interesting to say, but there’s nothing to elaborate on that I didn’t discuss above. So, I suppose that’s my takeaway: so adequate-but-no-better that even I can’t wring a good long ramble out if it.

Well, let’s hope there’s a bit more to get our teeth into next time, okay?

Please exit through the gift shop.

3 out of 5 stars




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[May 14, 1965] Keep A Civil Tongue In Your Head (July 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

The Four Forbidden Topics

Gathered around the dinner table with the family, or just chatting with friends, it's generally a good idea to avoid controversial subjects. Religion and politics, for example, are likely to lead to unpleasant arguments. Maybe Uncle Fred is a Goldwater buff, and Cousin Sue goes all the way with LBJ. Possibly you've got buddies who belong to different faiths, or none at all. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, and talk about something else.

The topic of money, or economics in general, may not be as controversial, but talking about how much you've got, or what somebody else earns, is generally considered to be in bad taste. As for sex, well, that's usually too personal to discuss, particularly if the kiddies are around.

Maybe it's a sign of the times, or maybe it's the influence of the British New Wave on science fiction, but the lead serial in the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow deals with religion, politics, and economics. That leaves sex, which shows up at the end of the magazine, like a tempting dessert.


Cover art by John Pederson, Jr.

Of Godlike Power (Part One of Two), by Mack Reynolds


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan

As indicated in the picture above, this novel takes place in a world of flying cars and other futuristic stuff. More relevant to the plot is the fact that automation results in a majority of folks being unemployed, but enjoying a reasonably comfortable existence in an affluent welfare society.

The protagonist hosts a radio show dealing with flying saucers, reincarnation, and other weird stuff. He's dating the daughter of the tycoon who owns the station, mostly in an attempt to move up to a position in television. Dad, daughter, and the station manager all belong to a right-wing organization dedicated to ferreting out commies and pinkos. (To give you some idea of this group, they think of the John Birch Society as too liberal.)

The manager asks our hero to check out the revival meetings of a preacher whom they suspect of subversion. He's supposed to be on a date with his wealthy girlfriend, so she reluctantly tags along.

The preacher speaks in vaguely religious language of an eccentric sort, frequently making reference to something called the All-Mother. What he really talks about, however, is the world's economic system, condemning wasteful practices such as pointless changes in car design, fads and fashions that come and go, planned obsolescence, and conspicuous consumption.

This is too much for the rich woman, so she heckles him. The preacher loses his temper and rants against makeup, fancy clothing, and elaborate hairdos. The next thing you know, the woman changes her ways, dressing simply and avoiding cosmetics. Not that she agrees with the guy, you understand; it's just that those things make her itch unbearably. Pretty soon the same thing happens to women all over the world, ushering in an era of down home, farm girl fashions.


Crisis in the radio studio!

The preacher winds up on the protagonist's radio show. Things get out of control, so the fellow goes into another tirade, this time against radio and, by extension, television.

The reader is way ahead of the characters by this point, so it's not a big surprise when all broadcasting goes haywire, forcing people to abandon their favorite forms of entertainment. With all those unemployed folks desperate for something to fill their hours, there's a sudden shortage of comic books and magazines. Bars and movie theaters are packed to overflowing. Even the preacher's revival meetings attract huge crowds, just because they have nothing else to do.


Would you buy a used car from this man?

Although not comic in tone, the novel has a strong satiric edge to it. The setting may be some years from now, but the author is really talking about today. The targets of his barbed examination of modern society are overproduction and excess consumption, as well as the seductive power of the electronic media.

The style is very readable, carrying you along as you follow the misadventures of the hapless hero. The preacher's astonishing ability to transform the world may not be particularly plausible, but once you swallow the premise the way it plays out is enjoyable.

Reynolds likes to play games with politics, and perform thought experiments with different economic systems, so I predict the second half of the novel will portray a new society, possibly a utopian one. We'll see if I'm right a couple of months from now.

Four stars.

Coming Out Party, by Robert Lory


Illustration by Norman Nodel

This brief tale begins with a young woman getting ready for the event mentioned in the title. Our first hint that something strange is going on is the fact that she's stark naked in front of her parents. The ceremony is also full of nude women. (Sorry, ladies, all the erotic content of this issue is obviously aimed at a male audience.)

I dare not say anything else about what happens, except to mention that the shock ending is an effective one. This is one of those stories that depends entirely on the twist in its tail. It succeeds at the modest goal it sets for itself.

Three stars.

The Shape of Us to Come, by Michael Girsdansky

Let's take a break from controversial topics of discussion and learn something about the way people might alter their bodies in the future. The author considers the fact that viruses inject their genetic information into the cells of other organisms, using the biological machinery of their hosts to reproduce themselves. The article speculates about the possibility of harnessing this ability to alter the genetics of humans in desirable ways.

Using this technique to treat diseases such as cancer seems reasonably plausible. The suggestion that the body might be changed in radical ways, to ensure survival on alien worlds, is a little less so. In any case, it's an interesting subject, and I learned something about viruses.

Three stars.

World of the Spectrum, by Emil Petaja


Illustrations by John Giunta

Take a look at that picture. We've got a muscular hero with a bladed weapon and a big, ugly monster. Am I reading the wrong magazine? Is this a sword-and-sorcery yarn, rescued from the yellowing pages of Weird Tales?

That's what it seems like at first, but we soon find out that this world of mighty barbarians fighting bizarre creatures exists for the amusement of the upper class on Earth, who vicariously experience the thrill of battle through a kind of telepathic sensory television.

The hero is in mental communication with a woman he thinks of as a princess in a castle located at the top of a cliff that nobody can climb. Naturally, he overcomes impossible odds and reaches the place, only to discover that things are not what they seem.


Don't look down!

The woman is actually a member of the upper class, who secretly belongs to a group of folks working to overthrow their repressive society. She uses a teleportation device to bring the man to Earth, teaching him about the place and enlisting him in her struggle. After many adventures, she confronts the ruler of the world, who turns out to be truly grotesque.


The heroine is shocked by what she sees.

Despite the science fiction explanation for everything, the story feels more like a fantasy adventure. The ruler of Earth might as well be another hideous monster for the hero to destroy. At first, the woman seems to be nothing more than a sexually provocative nitwit, but this is only a role she plays in order to further her plans. The main flaw is the need for a lot of expository dialogue to explain the complex background, with people telling each other things they should already know.

Three stars.

Lunar Weapons Tomorrow, by Joseph Wesley

Before we move on to sex, let's talk about something much less shocking, like war. (There's something wrong with that sentence, but I'll think about it later.)

The author starts this piece about military use of the Moon by dismissing the idea that it could be used to launch missiles at an enemy on Earth. He points out that this method is more difficult, more expensive, less effective, and less defensible than other ways of destroying the planet. Somehow I'm not reassured.

He goes on to imagine lunar military installations, assuming that these will be common in about twenty years or so. His prediction is that these will engage in a kind of lukewarm war, neither one completely destroying the other lest it be wiped out as well. Instead, the opposing forces make relatively minor forays against each other, fighting for territory in a futuristic version of the trench warfare of World War One.

The dry and rather frightening subject of this article is made more readable through the use of a fictional soldier on the Moon. We follow him as he watches for an enemy advance, and even engages in hand-to-hand combat, of a sort, in a spacesuit.

Three stars.

A Glass of Mars, by Robert F. Young


Illustrations by Gray Morrow

The version of the Red Planet depicted in this story is closer to the imaginings of Ray Bradbury than what most scientists believe. Maybe the Mariner 4 spacecraft, now on its way to Mars, will tell us who's right. Anyway, the plot takes place at least a full generation after people colonized the planet, building on the ancient ruins of the long-vanished Martians.

The main character is a new arrival, with romantic ideas about the distant past. In sharp contrast, his secretary, born on Mars, is all about the present. Like other women native to the planet, she is sexually assertive, openly boasting about her measurements, calling herself a sex machine, and offering to sleep with her boss (with the assumption that they will be married soon after.)

While commuting across the surface of Mars, the fellow is miraculously transported to the past. He meets a Martian woman, as delicately beautiful and demure as he imagined.

(In just about all ways except language, the Martian is completely human. We're told, more than once, that she has hyacinth hair. This rather obscure metaphor is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's ode To Helen, and it's not much clearer in the original. The allusion seems designed to suggest the man's dreamy vision of the ancient Martian woman, as romantic as Poe's poem.)


The ancient Martian and the modern human. Gentlemen, which one would you pick?

Without giving too much away, let's just say that the man's assumptions aren't completely accurate. I expected this to be a simple fable about the superiority of the past over the vulgarity of the present, but it's a little more complex than that. The author, no stranger to sentimental love stories and idealization of women, almost seems to be chiding himself for his romantic tendencies. The plot is pure fantasy, of course, but if you can get past that, it's worth a look.

Three stars.

Shall We Talk About It?

Overall, this was a pretty decent issue. Nothing was less than average, and the serialized novel was a high point. Maybe I'm just in a good mood. In any case, I would caution you to make sure that you discuss the themes raised in the magazine only under the right circumstances. Remember what Mom told you!


She didn't mention money or sex. Two out of four ain't bad.





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Magazine, Serial

[May 12, 1965] Da Capo (June 1965 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Changing of the Guard

So here we are at the end of the Ziff-Davis Amazing and the editorship of Cele Lalli.  What’s next?  The magazine doesn’t say.  “Coming Next Month” is conspicuous by its absence, as are interior illustrations.  But the story is being told elsewhere.  The banner headline on Science Fiction Times for last month—if “banner” is the word for large crude mimeographed lettering—says “ ‘AMAZING’ AND ‘FANTASTIC’ GO BI-MONTHLY & ADD 32 PAGES,” just above “DON FORD IS DEAD!”

The first post-Z-D issue will be the August Amazing, and thereafter the magazines will be published in alternate months as the new owner and editor try to build circulation, by leaving each issue on sale for a longer time, in preparation for a return to monthly publication.  The new publisher, as previously disclosed, will be Sol Cohen, and now it is announced that the managing editor—presumably, the guy who picks the stories—will be Joseph Ross, actual name Joseph Wrzos, but he is showing mercy to native English spellers.

Part of the plan for the new Amazing (and the new Fantastic too) is to use reprints as part of the contents, along with the original illustrations, a policy the SF Times describes as a “well-liked” recent feature of the Ziff-Davis Amazing.  Well-liked by some, no doubt, but most of the stories seemed to me to have only historical interest. 

Worse, even partial reliance on reprints from Amazing is a bad bet at least for any long term, since Amazing has been pretty mediocre through most of its history.  During the 1930s it fell progressively further behind the limited competition of the day, both in circulation and in interest, and then was purchased by Ziff-Davis and put in the charge of the notorious Ray Palmer, whose instruction to writers is said to have been “Gimme bang-bang.” From 1938 to 1949 Palmer filled the magazine with formulaic and juvenile adventure fiction, much of it produced by a coterie of local Chicago writers who mostly published little or nothing elsewhere, with much of their output in Amazing appearing under “house names” (pseudonyms maintained by the publisher for work by multiple writers).

The magazine enjoyed a brief renaissance (well, maybe a nascence) starting in 1953 when it switched from pulp to digest size and, more importantly, raised its pay rates, attracting bigger names and better material.  But it didn’t last; the rates were cut, and the magazine reverted by late 1954 to calculated mediocrity: mostly formulaic contents written by a new stable of regulars, though they kept some of the old house names, such as the durable Alexander Blade, a byline that flourished from 1940 to 1958.  Little improvement was visible until about 1959, when new editor Cele Goldsmith began her salvage operation.

So the past of Amazing is a barrel whose bottom will be scraped quickly, full of fish mostly not worth shooting.  One hopes for something more forward-looking as well from the new regime.

The Issue at Hand


by Gray Morrow

This final Ziff-Davis issue exemplifies the decidedly mixed bag of the Cele Goldsmith/Lalli regime: a potboiler of a serial from a prominent writer, an exercise in the higher self-parody by one of her best-known discoveries, a brief inconsequential story by a completely unknown new writer . . . the inescapable nemesis Robert F. Young . . . and David R. Bunch, the writer the readers loved to hate.  Not only is his story flagged and illustrated on the cover, but Bunch is also profiled and quoted extensively in the final editorial.  (Usually they’re by Lobsenz, but this one isn’t signed.  Lalli, maybe, at last?) This celebration of Bunch might be viewed as a final gesture of defiance from the editorial team, especially given the cover illustration of a robot waving two sledge hammers in fury.  But . . . probably not.  After all, Lalli is sticking around Ziff-Davis to edit Modern Bride.

The Corridors of Time (Part 2 of 2), by Poul Anderson

The largest fiction item is the conclusion of Poul Anderson’s perfectly adequate but neither inspired nor inspiring serial The Corridors of Time, the title of which is unfortunately literal.  Our hero Lockridge has been hired by the beautiful, enigmatic, and imperious Storm Dalloway to help her find some buried treasure in Jutland, but what she’s really about is a time war.  Turns out there are two contending factions, the Wardens and the Rangers, the former (Storm’s side) supporting a relaxed social philosophy consonant with matriarchal religion and traditional knowledge, the latter supporting a more regimented view consonant with science and patriarchal religion (to oversimplify grossly—and it is a bit of a set-up on Anderson’s part). 

So how does this time war work?  Well, there’s the rub, or lack of one.  Unlike its predecessors—Leiber’s Change War series, Jack Williamson’s The Legion of Time, Anderson’s own Time Patrol stories—in this one, you can’t change history.  So . . . what’s the point?  Well, as the synopsis (presumably written by Anderson) puts it, an agent can “become part of it, setting the mark of his own civilization on a culture and thus building up reserves for a final showdown.” That’s not changing history?  Maybe just a little?

This makes no sense at all, and undermines the story.  The time travel mechanism doesn’t help either.  The Corridors of Time are just that, long corridors buried in the earth at various places, with access to various times over spans of a few thousand years; just walk or ride down the corridor, and you go 35 days per foot, and you take the exit you want for the time you want, and also you can have chases and shootouts up and down the corridor, as happens within the first few pages.  As icons of the imagination go, this is pretty unimaginative.

On the plus side, Anderson gets to chase his characters around various historical eras, which Anderson seems to know well and in most cases to prefer to the present, and Lockridge reluctantly finds himself with an appealing Neolithic girlfriend (setting up an . . . unusual . . . triangle with Miss Dalloway), and ultimately Lockridge decides not to go back to the Twentieth Century, in a final affirmation of the barbarian virtues.  Overall, perfectly readable product, but below standard for a writer who has done much better.  Three stars, barely.  There’s a note indicating an expanded version is to come from Doubleday later.

The Furies, by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny’s novelet The Furies is ridiculous—purposefully so, it seems.  The author spends the first six pages in exposition, introducing us to Sandor Sandor, catastrophically disabled, but also a non-idiot savant with encyclopedic knowledge and memory of places all around the galaxy; Benedick Benedict, who upon shaking hands with another person, becomes privy to all that person’s most shameful secrets, which he proceeds to gossip about—and his talents extend to inanimate objects and animals; Lynx Links, who “looked like a beachball with a beard” but by calling is the galaxy’s most accomplished assassin; and (former) Captain Victor Corgo, “the man without a heart” (literally, replaced by a machine), formerly “a terror to brigands and ugly aliens, a threat to Code-breakers, and a thorn in the sides of evil-doers everywhere,” but now gone wrong.

The first three of these are the Furies, so-called by the author after the ancient Greeks’ “chthonic goddesses of vengeance” (says the Britannica), here retained by the authorities to chase down Corgo, a sort of Captain Nemo figure who has turned against humanity based on outrages we need not recount.  The story is rendered throughout in extravagant language and stylized dialogue.  A mid-range sample of the former:

“One time the Wallaby [Corgo’s spaceship] was a proud Guardship, an ebony toadstool studded with the jewel-like warts of fast-phase projectors.  One time the Wallaby skipped proud about the frontier worlds of Interstel, meting out the unique justice of the Uniform Galactic Code—in those places where there was no other law.  One time the proud Wallaby, under the command of Captain Victor Corgo of the Guard, had ranged deep space and time and become a legend under legendary skies.”

So what we have here is midway between a technical exercise and a barroom bet.  Zelazny has taken about the most hackneyed materials available and tried to render them publishable by pure force of his considerable writing skill, no doubt enhanced by his theatrical background, and he has succeeded.  That is, he has dazzled enough rubes to get this into print, and has considerably amused me.  If the young Shakespeare had started out in comic books (the names and talents of the Furies certainly suggest comic-book superheroes), the result might have been similar.  Four stars, but watch it, guy: you can’t get away with this more than once.  Or can you?

The Walking Talking I-Don't-Care Man, by David R. Bunch

As for Bunch (and speaking of extravagant language) the latest Moderan tale The Walking Talking I-Don’t-Care Man is made of that, though it’s more straightforward and lucid than some of its predecessors.  The titular Man has had himself entirely replaced with metal, unlike Bunch’s protagonist in his Stronghold who still hangs on to his flesh-strips.  The Man purports to have resolved the great philosophical dilemma of human existence by giving up humanity . . . but he still wouldn’t mind finding God and going after it with his sledge hammers. 

One could conclude that this meditation, or harangue, on last things might be the end of the Moderan series . . . except the point seems to be that last things really aren’t last.  But hey, four stars, at least in the spirit of “best of breed,” which I’d say this is for Bunch.  Note to future bibliographers: the commas in the title on the cover do not appear inside the magazine.

Rumpelstiltskinski, by Robert F. Young

And now comes the inexorable reckoning: Robert F. Young, square athwart the road, and no shoulder to slip by on.  First the bad news: Rumplestiltskinski is another of Young’s affected fairy tale rehashes, beginning “Once there was a miller who was car-poor but who had a luscious dish of a daughter named Ada.” The good news: it’s quite short and ostentatiously pointless, a sort of shaggy fairy story, perhaps signifying that Young is getting tired of himself.  Let me encourage him in that.  One star.

Satyr, by Judith E. Schrier

Finally, and almost imperceptibly, we have Satyr, a (very) short story by Judith E. Schrier.  Who?  Precisely—no one else has heard of her either, at least according to the available indexes.  An unmarried older woman works the night shift as a computer operator and the computer professes its love, she realizes how masculine it is, etc. etc. to the obvious end. Slickly written, at least.  Two stars, barely.

Lo! The Poor Forteans, by Sam Moskowitz

Sam Moskowitz plays out his season (rumor having it that he won’t be part of the new Amazing) with Lo! The Poor Forteans, a moderately interesting biographical sketch of Charles Fort and history of the Fortean movement, such as it is or was.  There is also some rambling and mostly perfunctory discussion of the Fortean influence in science fiction, much of which we know about because the authors (like Edmond Hamiliton and Eric Frank Russell) have commented on it, but much of which is questionable (The Children’s Hour by Lawrence O’Donnell a/k/a C.L. Moore?  I doubt it).  Moskowitz has also omitted some other fairly obvious candidates like Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters.  Moskowitz also tediously belabors his own disdain for Forteanism.  But still, three stars, chiefly for the history and not the commentary.

Summing Up

The Ziff-Davis Amazing under Lalli was always full of promise but never managed to deliver on it for more than a month or two at a time.  It winds down on a respectable note, with above-average stories from two of its most characteristic authors, plus a competent middle-of-the-road serial.  Quo nunc vadis Amazing?

Speaking of changed circumstances at publishing houses, please read this — it's important!




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Book, Magazine

[May 8, 1965] Skip to the end (June 1965 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Impatience

Normally, I'd open up with a discussion at length of the news of the day.  Like how the United States is still knee-deep in the Dominican Republic, losing soldiers to snipers every day despite the ceasefire between the current military-civilian junta government and the supporters of ousted President Bosch.

Or that Collie Wilkins Jr. was acquitted by a 10-2 hung jury in a trial for the murder of civil rights activist Viola Liuzzo, shot in her car after the Selma rallies.  Wilkins' defense attorney's statements included language so profane and racist that I cannot transcribe them here.

Or that the comedy/news show, That was the Week that Was, had its final show on May 4th.

And then, having given my report, I'd tie it pithily to the subject at hand, namely the June 1965 Galaxy science fiction digest.  But the fact is, there's lots to cover and I'm anxious to get it all down while it's still fresh in my mind.  So, you'll just have to pretend that I was clever and comprehensive in my introduction.  On to the important stuff:

Bob Sheckley and friends


by George Schelling

As is happening more and more often, the king-sized bi-monthly, Galaxy, is dominated by a short novel this month.  This time, it's by a fellow who probably was the best SF short story writer of the 1950s.  Bob Sheckley has turned to novels of late with something less than (to my mind) great success. The Journey of Joenes, The Status Civilization, Time Killer — none of them were triumphs, though some disagree.  Will this time be different?

Mindswap, by Robert Sheckley

Young Marvin Flynn is bored to death of living in the bucolic New York town of Stanhope, desperate enough to risk "mindswap."  And so, Marvin exchanges minds with the Martian, Aigeler Thrus.  Unfortunately, Thrus' body was currently occupied by the unscrupulous Ze Kraggash, who had taken residency to elude the police after a crime.  Thrus is entitled to his body; Kraggash has Flynn's.  This leaves Flynn six hours to find a body, any body, or be extinguished forever.


by George Schelling

An increasingly frantic Flynn ends up bopping across the galaxy, first as a collector of sentient ganzer-eggs on Melde, somewhere near Aldeberan; then on to Celsus for a stint as a professional victim wearing a ticking time bomb gift; and ultimately to a reality-bending place called The Twisted World.

It's complete fluff, vaguely satirical and fun-pointing, but for the most part, pointless.  I went along with it, mildly amused for about 60 pages, before my tolerance ran out and I skimmed the rest.  Unlike Harrison's brilliant and cutting Starsloggers, Mindswap is just self-indulgent…and far too long. 

Two stars.

Servant Problem, by Otis Kidwell Burger

On the dreary, sandstorm-plagued planet of Dexter, there's little for the married couples to do but drink and kvetch about their house-servants, a race of off-putting aliens that only look like middle-aged spinsters.  After an endless seven pages of this stuff, we learn that the servants are actually the masters, and the humans are being evaluated for their level of social development.  Turns out they're in the emotional equivalent of kindergarten.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.  Two stars.

Blue Fire, by Robert Silverberg

Nat Weiner, visitor from newly terraformed Mars, the "Sparta of space," arrives on Earth to sample the luxuries of an overcrowded, decadent world.  Assigned to escort him is Reynolds Kirby, a "major bureacrat who gets paid like a minor one."  Together, they attend a spiritual gathering of the devotees of Vorster, a pseudo-scientific cult that preaches the unity of humanity and worships at the altar of the cobalt reactor. 

Vorsterism is just one of many avenues of relief against the physical and mental crush of living amongst 10 billions; hallucinogens are also popular, and the upperclassmen, like Kirby, favor the sensory deprivation "Nothing Chambers".  Cosmetic replacement of external features with metal and plastic substitutes is popular. 


by Jack Gaughan

As the tour of the once-proud homeworld progresses, Weiner becomes increasingly belligerent, resolved to steal a Vorster nuke and put it to "worthwhile use" as an energy-generating reactor on Mars.  Through Kirby's interactions with Weiner, and with the Vanna, a Vorsterian with a face modifed to inhuman grotesqueness, Kirby comes to see his own life as a hollow shell of an existence and reconsiders all of his carefully created precepts.

Blue Fire is a day-in-the-life of a fellow on the edge of a midlife crisis in a tired world.  With deft writing and vivid imagery, Silverberg accomplishes in 25 pages what usually takes Philip K. Dick a full novel.

Five stars.

Think of a Man, by Karen Anderson

Poetess Anderson offers up a latter-day space shanty.  It might make a decent filk, but it will likely leave no great impression on you.

Three stars.

For Your Information: The Observatory on the Moon, by Willy Ley

Observatory on the Moon, by Donald H. Menzel

An Eye For Selene, by R. S. Richardson

The idea that astronomy is better conducted on the Moon than Earth is an old one.  Not only is Earth's celestial neighbor airless, but its slow rotation makes it much easier to do long film exposures.

This should be a fascinating topic; instead, this is probably the least interesting article Ley's ever written.  A truly disappointing development for a column that was a major selling point when I first began my subscription to Galaxy 15 years ago. 

The short counterpoint following the main article is equally undistinguished.  Richardson's comments, on the other hand, are interesting. 

Barely three stars for the lot.

Devil Car, by Roger Zelazny

Sam Murdock speeds across the Great Central Plain of a post-apocalyptic United States in his sentient car, name of Jenny.  His monomaniacal mission: to destroy the black Devil Car and his minions, who have been savaging the continent.  Though Murdock's conviction never wavers, Jenny is torn between her programmed loyalty to her driver, and to the Devil Car's sirensong call to join his pack.

Plausible?  Not for a second.  Slick and enjoyable?  Absolutely.  Four stars, and I'll bet this gets optioned for a movie or episode of a Twilight Zone revival.

One Face, by Larry Niven


by Nodel

Last up is the third short story from this promising new writer, which may or may not take place in the same universe as his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs.  The passenger liner, Hogan's Goat, has an accident in hyperspace on the way to Earth.  It ends up at the right place but billions of years in the future.  The Sun is a burned out husk, and humanity's home is an airless world with one face permanently locked toward its star.  With no way home and nowhere to go, Verd Spacercaptain, his crew and passengers, and their increasingly debilitated computer Brain must find a way to survive.

I'm not entirely sold on the science of this piece, but Niven has a way of creating a very rich world in just a few pages.  It's also obvious that Niven is a new writer: his cohort has no problem with presenting women as equal partners and in roughly equal numbers to men; moreover, he displays no preference in terms of skin tone or ethnicity.

Four stars.

Satisfaction

How to judge the latest Galaxy?  It contains a full issue's worth of slag, but then again, it contains almost a full issue's worth of gold.  Perhaps it needs to be a regular length bi-monthly?

Especially since editor Pohl is crowing about how next month's novel will be even longer, and by Frank Herbert.

God help us all…

Our last three Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 6, 1965] Back To Our Roots (New Writings in SF4 & Over Sea, Under Stone)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

A Musical Introduction

Bob Dylan is in the middle of his sellout tour of England and folk revival is hitting the mainstream as a result. Dylan himself has 2 singles and 4 albums in the charts.

Bob Dylan 1965 UK Tour

Also accompanying him on tour is Joan Baez who has reached mainstream attention with We Shall Overcome. Then we have home grown efforts such as the Iain Campbell Folk Group and Donovan, already proclaimed by some as The British Dylan.

Catch the wind

At the same time Country is doing pretty well with King of the Road sitting at number 2 and Jim Reeves continuing his presence with Not Until Next Time.

King of the Road

Whether this foreshadows a more permanent move away from the kind of pop music we have seen in the last few years remains to be seen. However, this is also true in today’s reviews, where the two books of May's first Galactoscopes represent a norm and a departure from it: Carnell presents us with a selection of tales representing many of the traditional themes of science fiction and we get a fantasy novel that is very much part of an older tradition.

New Writings in SF4 ed. by John Carnell

New Writings in SF 4

John Carnell continues his quarterly anthology series, with another solid but unremarkable edition. Whilst he talks in his editorial about each edition having a particular flavour, it seems to me that they are pretty much of a piece. In fact the main difference here from last time is the presence of a slightly higher number of reprints.

High Eight by David Stringer

This is not a new author but rather a new pseudonym for Keith Roberts, the ridiculously prolific writer for every British SF publication. In this piece Rick Cameron, a line maintenance boss at Saskeega Power, is investigating a series of deaths by electrocution, where people are apparently going too close to the lines. But is something else happening?

Unlike many I am not highly enamoured with Mr. Roberts' writing and the seeming combination of hard-boiled speech and use of offensive terms such as “halfbreed Indian” put me off this tale particularly.

Even putting that aside the main aim of this story seems to be to make electricity scary but doesn’t really succeed in doing it any more than it naturally is. It is certainly not the thought-provoking tale Carnell promises in his introduction.

One Star

Star Light by Isaac Asimov

The first of our reprints is this short vignette from the good doctor, originally appearing in Scientific American. Trent and Berenmeyer have stolen a fortune in Krillium, used to make robot brains, but now need to make a hyperspace jump to escape the police pursuing them.
I get the sense of Asimov writing on auto-pilot. It is not actually bad but if I was to get someone to write an imitation of his work it would end up something like this.

A high two Stars

Hunger Over Sweet Waters by Colin Kapp

On Hebron V, Blick and Martha are both stranded at floating processing stations after the power goes down and they set about working out how to survive.

The introduction says that Colin Kapp is “fast becoming one of our most popular sci-fi writers”, which is certainly news to me. Like The Dark Mind I thought this was fine, just a little old fashioned. This is the kind of problem story which would have looked at home in Astounding a decade ago. Well written, enjoyable but forgettable.

Three Stars

The Country of the Strong by Dennis Etchison

Our second reprint, this one from Seventeen magazine. This is a short evocative piece exploring a landscape after some kind of an apocalypse (probably a nuclear war from the description). Doesn’t have much meat to it but some good bones.

A high three stars

Parking Problem by Dan Morgan

A more silly satirical piece from another of the old New Worlds regulars. In the late twentieth century a solution to parking problems in inner cities is resolved by the development of extra-dimensional parking garages. Crunch and Pulver, two small-time criminals, attempt to break into one of these to steal high-priced vehicles.
Things end up taking a more surreal turn as it goes along and I found it quite sharp in the end.

Three and a half stars.

Sub-Lim by Keith Roberts

It seems you can never just have one Keith Roberts story in any issue, though this one appears without any pseudonym. Here he takes on subliminal messaging where drawings seem to be able to control people’s minds.

Whilst the subject matter is a rather well-trodden theme Roberts brings a great style to it and has an excellent twist ending.

Four Stars

Bernie the Faust by William Tenn

As noted in the introduction this piece, originally from Playboy, has already been reprinted in one of Judith Merrill’s excellent 'best of the year collections' (which I highly recommend), and it is easy to see why. Bernie is a salesman who has an unusual man, Mr Ogo Eskar, come into his store asking to buy increasingly more ridiculous things and thinks he is on to a great deal. But ends up regretting his choices.

As the name suggests, this is a modern take on the Faust story but with a nice twist and a real understanding of human psychology.

Four Stars

On the whole, a solid issue which got better as it went along. The only real disappointment was High-Eight and that could well be due to my aversion to some of Roberts’ work.

One other note. Paperback editions have started coming out for these from Corgi which, at 3/6 much more reasonable than the hardcover editions, at 16 shillings. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend picking these up over a copy of Science Fantasy and New Worlds, these are still very much worth the price.

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Over Sea Under Stone

Whilst I had more books as a child than many people I knew, with a school teacher for a mother, juvenile fantasy was not as big as it is today. We had Edith Nesbit’s, TH White’s and Mary Norton’s stories, along with The Hobbit, but primarily I read more adventure stories in the style of The Famous Five or Swallows and Amazons.

It seems since the release of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe there has been an explosion in excellent British fantasy stories from the pre-teen market. These include Roger Lancelyn’s Green take on King Arthur, Tom’s Midnight Garden, the Green Knowe and Alderley Edge stories, as well as more unusual works like Stig of the Dump or the Paddington books.

I now have a twelve-year-old sister and a nine-year-old brother who live in rural Ireland. As such they do not tend to see many of these books, so I like to try to find the best ones and send them over. This one certainly does not seem to be doing anything particularly new but looks like it could be another enjoyable series for the pre-teens.

We start off in the same mode as is traditional for British fantasy at least as far back as Nesbit, with a group of children (Simon, Jane and Barney) going to visit relatives in the countryside, this time their great uncle Merry in Cornwall.

The children decide to pretend to have a treasure hunt in the house they are staying in. In doing so they find first a secret attic filled with strange artifacts, then hidden within that, an ancient map. Taking it to their great uncle Merry they are told this relates to King Arthur, the battle between Good and Evil, and the Holy Grail.

In spite of the ominous tones that suggests for the story, it is actually rather an old fashioned jolly jape. Whilst there is a threat from another interested party, much of the time is spent with the three children (and a dog named Rufus) wandering around the countryside searching for clues. As such there is little doom and gloom but instead a real sense of fun.

One disappointment is the children feel rather thinly sketched here. In each of the Narnia books whoever is in the adventures has a distinct personality. Here it often feels Barney, Jane and Simon are interchangeable, merely serving the story function.

I am also trying to work out the time period this is meant to be set in. The children refer to the old fashioned way of speaking of some of the people in Cornwall but the main family still sound like they are from my childhood. Cooper was apparently inspired to write this story in response to a competition to write in the style of Nesbit so maybe this is an intentional artistic choice?

But in spite of my quibbles this is still an enjoyable story. What Cooper manages to do just as well as Blyton or Ransome have ever done is capture the joie de vivre of being a child having adventures in the English countryside and cast me back to my own young trips to Cornwall and Devon, clambering around Glastonbury or Tintagel hoping I might find the Sword in the Stone or a knight’s tomb. Certainly one I will be posting to my siblings when it comes into paperback and an author I will be keeping my eye on.

Rating: Three and a half stars

Coda

Is this a good direction for science fiction and fantasy? Honestly I think it can depend more on what the writer does with it. Both of these are enjoyable but not revolutionary publications. What I would like to see more of is works doing new things with these themes, as Tenn does with the Faust myth, rather than wholesale revivals as Doc Smith seems to be doing currently in If.

Whilst I wait to see which side it comes down on, I will join with the rest of the listeners of Big L in trying to guess what the actual the lyrics to Subterranean Homesick Blues are. Did he really sing "clients are in the bed book"?

Our last three Journey shows were a gas! You can watch the kinescope reruns here). You don't want to miss the next episode, May 9 at 1PM PDT, a special Arts and Entertainment edition featuring Arel Lucas, Cora Buhlert, Erica Frank…and Dr. Who producer, Verity Lambert! Register today and we'll make sure you don't forget.




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Magazine, Serial

[May 2, 1965] FORWARD INTO THE PAST (June 1965 IF)

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by David Levinson

Science fiction is generally considered to be literature that looks ahead. Much of Western culture also seems to be fairly obsessed with the miracles of progress and moving into a brighter future. Even communism, though less materially oriented, talks a good game about a better tomorrow. But there are also those who look to the past for better times, longing for the “good old days.” We can see the clash of these two world views in one form or another nearly every day in the newspapers. Perhaps the most obvious example can be seen in the Old South, where progress is resisted with fire hoses and police dogs. There, at least, we can hope that the moral arc of the universe is rather shorter than is its wont.

Looking Backwards

Details are still sketchy, but it appears that a coup was prevented last month in Bulgaria. Emboldened by the fall of Nikita Khrushchev and possibly influenced by the rhetoric of Mao Tse Tung, hardliners in the Bulgarian military and Communist Party denounced General-Secretary Todor Zhivkov for revisionism and opportunism due to his de-Stalinization of Bulgarian communism. Arrests between April 8th and 12th, as well as at least one suicide by a high-ranking general, seem to have prevented a major step back into the bad old days of Stalinism in Bulgaria. State-controlled media, of course, are denying the whole thing, but rumors abound.

Inside Baseball

On April 9th, the Houston Astros inaugurated their new stadium in an exhibition game against the Yankees. “Who?” you ask. For the last three seasons, they’ve been known as the Colt .45s. Now the sole owner, Judge Roy Hofheinz changed the name to the Astros to reflect Houston’s important role in America’s space program, and the new stadium will be called the Astrodome. What’s so noteworthy about all this? As you might have gathered from the name, the Astrodome has a roof. Over 700 feet in diameter, the dome consists a grid of semi-transparent panes of Lucite, and the field is covered with grass specially bred to be able to grow under the lower light conditions.


The Eighth Wonder of the World may be Texan hyperbole, but it is impressive

As any science fiction fan will tell you, innovations often produce unexpected consequences. That’s what half the stories in the field are about. As Victoria Silverwolf reported a couple of weeks ago, the problem in this case is that on bright, sunny days – and Houston has a lot of those – the glare from the roof panels and the grid of shadows caused by the support structure are causing players to lose routine fly balls. The decision has been made to paint the Lucite panes white, and a couple of sections have already been covered. The question now is if the grass will still get enough light to grow.

There was another experiment at the Astrodome that seems unlikely to be repeated. A catwalk structure hangs from the top of the dome. I don’t know how far above the field it is, but the peak of the dome is 208 feet above the playing surface. On April 28th, Mets radio broadcaster Lindsey Nelson was persuaded to call the game from the gondola. He was too scared to stand up until the seventh inning, getting the play-by-play via walkie-talkie from his producer. When he finally did get to his feet, he realized he couldn’t tell one player from another or a pop fly from a line drive. He refused to go up again, and it seems unlikely that anybody will follow in his footsteps. It might offer an interesting angle for a television camera, though.

Space Opera and Superscience

Lately, it has felt like science fiction has been doing a fair bit of looking back, too, what with the Edgar Rice Burroughs revival, Sprague de Camp putting Conan back in print, John Jakes’ Conan pastiche Brak, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. The three magazines under Fred Pohl’s leadership, in particular, seem to have been on a real space opera kick for a while. This month’s IF is no exception.


This supposedly illustrates Skylark DuQuesne. If so, it’s not a scene in this month’s installment. Art by Pederson

Skylark DuQuesne (Part 1 of 5), by E. E. Smith, Ph. D.

Dick Seaton, hero of the previous three Skylark books, is enjoying an evening at home with his family, when they are interrupted by the thought-projected simulacra of the ablest thinkers of the galaxy. It seems that the clever ploy which he used to imprison the evil thought entities and the disembodied mind of the villainous Dr. Marc C. “Blackie” DuQuesne at the end of Skylark of Valeron is doomed to imminent failure. Seaton’s partner Mart Crane is brought in, and a plan is hatched in which a thought message is sent out, which can only be received by beings who are of good will can help in the situation.

The scene shifts to the home world of the “monstrous” Llurdi on the edge of the universe. The leaders are discussing Project University, in which the best minds of their human slaves the Jelmi are given everything they could need or want in the hopes that they will produce new technologies for the Llurdi. The proceedings are interrupted by a suicide attack by 30 Jelmi attempting to give their fellows the opportunity to escape. They fail. No one is even killed on either side. Supremely logical, the Llurdi pack the revolting Jelmi into a spaceship and allow them to “escape”.


The Jelmi (background) confront their oppressors, the Llurdi. Art by Gray Morrow

Aboard the ship, the Jelmi deduce that they are being tracked, and that the Llurdi will give them free rein for a couple of generations, then swoop in, re-enslave their descendants and gather up anything new that’s been invented. They decide to seek out a world with sufficient sixth-order (I believe that means thought energy) forces to screen them from Llurdi scanning. The planet they choose: Earth.

Next, the scene jumps to a previously unknown Fenachrone fleet. The Fenachrone were the bad guys of Skylark Three, and Dick Seaton vaporized their home world at the end of that book. In Skylark of Valeron, Seaton learns of a secret colony ship, which he then hunts down and destroys. Now we find out that there’s yet another secret fleet composed of the evilest evil-doers of an evil people. In any case, the Fenachrone stumble upon a system containing two inhabited planets, one Llurdi and one Jelmi, whereupon the Fenachrone leader orders the vaporization of those two worlds. This draws the attention of the Llurdi, who proceed to destroy 16 of the 17 Fenachrone ships and capture the flagship.

Cut lastly to the ship containing the disembodied minds mentioned earlier. They have decided that Blackie DuQuesne doesn’t have what it takes to be one of them. They set him up with a ship capable of getting him to Earth and stick him back into his body. After a brief interlude in which the Seatons and the Cranes (both with infant children) as well as Crane’s former manservant Shiro and his new wife Lotus Blossom board the Skylark of Valeron, we cut back to DuQuesne. He is somehow detected by the Llurdi, but manages to evade them with his powerful mind blocks. Realizing how formidable the Llurdi are, DuQuesne sends out a call to Dick Seaton. To be continued.

Disclaimer: I do not care for the works of Doc Smith. I tried rereading the original Skylark five or six years ago, and flung it across the room in disgust about a quarter of the way through. On the other hand, I did rather enjoy The Imperial Stars last year, so I tried to approach this with an open mind.

When an English teacher, a critic, or even an author who has written what is very obviously science fiction condemns the genre with a wave of the hand, this is the kind of stuff they’re talking about. At best, it’s the genre’s juvenilia and is utterly unrepresentative of what science fiction is today. Line by line, there is some decent writing here. The opening paragraph is lovely. Too bad nothing that follows is worthy of it.

But my biggest problem is with the main protagonist. Firstly, Dick Seaton is racist. He would no doubt be shocked by this statement and point out that some of his best friends are green. I don’t mean he’d be likely to burn a cross on anyone’s lawn or join the Friends of Bull Connor, but the casual ease with which he tosses out phrases like “a Chinaman’s chance” or “If that’s true, then I’m a Digger Indian” (and what do you want to bet that phrase was cleaned up for publication) say a lot about how he views fellow humans who aren’t quite like him. Secondly and more importantly, Dick Seaton is a war criminal. He turned the Fenachrone world into a ball of expanding incandescent gas, and when he found out there were survivors, he hunted them down and killed them, too. When the Fenachrone leader destroyed those two worlds, we’re told he did it without remorse. If Seaton felt a twinge of remorse, that doesn’t make what he did any better.

Anyway, it’s hard to judge this as a whole, since the whole thing is really Smith just setting up the pieces, but it’s pretty bad. A low two stars, just because of that opening paragraph and the fact that I was able to get through the whole thing without too much effort. Even if you’re overcome with nostalgia, I doubt it could get all the way to three.

Simon Says, by Lawrence S. Todd

Lieutenant Nestil Lagotilom, an eight-foot tall reptilian (it’s not clear if he’s a mutant or an alien), is a member of the Terran armed forces, serving in a war against the Birds. Thanks to his brilliant tactical mind, he’s been ordered to take part in an experimental operation involving a new device called SIMO (Subelectronic Integrator for the Manipulation of Objects). Contrary to what it sounds like, it’s not a robot arm, but rather a device that will allow Nestil’s mind to be imprinted on some 2,000 Terran soldiers, and, once the action is over, all their experiences will be pumped back into his head so he can write a detailed after-action report. Thanks to a series of mishaps, Nestil’s consciousness winds up imprinted not only on the Terran troops, but the Birds and the local natives who aren’t happy about either group being there. Chaos ensues.


Lt. Nestil about to have his consciousness expanded. Art by Giunta

We go from the man who’s been at the science fiction game the longest to the newest. Larry Todd is this month’s IF first, though he’s not a complete newcomer. He’s had a few cartoons published, mostly in the late Imagination, but this is his first story. It shows. It rambles a bit, and the tone is a little too light for some of the things that happen. Even so, it was decent up to the final paragraph, where the author wrecked the whole thing by explicitly comparing events to the game Simon Says, and Nestil saying that he used to rig the game as a child (how does that work when you aren’t Simon?). He’s telling, not showing. Fix that and drop the “N” from the title and it’s a good story. As it is, a high two stars.

High G, by Christopher Anvil

James Heyden, head of the Advanced Research Projects Division at the Continental Multitechnikon Corporation, has just received a memo from his boss telling him to cut back on projects that might interest the government and focus on science kits for kids. Congress isn’t willing to pay for anything revolutionary at the moment. This is part of a fairly regular pendulum swing on his boss’s part between gung-ho government research and piddling commercial stuff. Makes it hard to keep good research engineers working for the company. Just then, one of his engineers comes in with a working anti-gravity device. Throwing caution to the winds, Heyden decides that the only way to convince his boss and a stingy Congress that this thing needs to be built is for him and his engineers to fly to the Moon. Through massive misappropriation of company funds and tons of overtime, the race is on to get to the Moon before the boss gets back from a company trip.


Engineers call something cobbled together like this spaceship a “kluge.” Art by Gaughan

Christopher Anvil tends to be a very uneven writer, sometimes up, sometimes down. This one is right in the middle of his range. Sadly, he tends to be down a little more often than he’s up. For the second month in a row, I find myself wondering why a story is here rather than in Analog. Anvil often writes for Campbell, and this one is right up the editor’s alley: stupid bureaucrats stupidly getting in the way of progress. It might have fared better there, but here it’s too long and filled with pointless minutiae. Do we really need to follow lengthy discussions about the pricing of those kiddie science kits? A high two stars.

The Followers, by Basil Wells

Balt Donner is part of the three-man crew of the exploration ship Avalon. Small, plain and timid in real life, his job calls for him to take mental control of a seven-foot tall robot covered in bronzed pseudoflesh. The ship is currently on the planet Hald, which is inhabited by a people who, though noseless and with elongated ears, are otherwise quite human. Each Halden has a twin, an oddly doglike, eight-limbed creature known as a Follower. The crew of the Avalon is trying to figure out the odd lifecycle of the planet which allows such disparate beings to be born from the same mother.

Their time in space is getting to the crew. Senior crewman Ernest Lytte fights off space madness with ever increasing doses of drugs, while Jeff Carney gets by with alcohol and forbidden carousing on planets with humanoid races. Up to now, Balt has managed to stay sane, but he has begun to fall for a native woman named Alno. She is an outcast, because her Follower died, and has fallen for Balt (in the form of the robot Cass), who appears to her to be an outcast as well. As the other crewmen squabble over procedure, Balt learns that Alno is going to be given a new Follower. Eventually, the biology of Hald is explained, and the ship lifts for the next stop on their long journey back to Earth.

This one is pretty good, though rather dark. Basil Wells has been cranking out stories in a variety of genres for a quarter century, and his prose style reflects that. It’s a little pedestrian, without being pulpy, but the story he tells here is neither. It’s much more in a modern mode, and an author more attuned to that mode – a Brunner or a Zelazny, say – could have turned this into a four, maybe a five star story. As it is, it’s a solid three stars and the best in the issue.

No Friend of Gree, by C. C. MacApp

Steve Duke is trying to figure out why a Gree ship-of-the-line and a small exploration ship are in a backwater binary system. There is a single planet, Terrestrial in nature, but too close to the blue-white companion of the red giant. It is also tidally locked to the star it orbits, always showing one face to its star. There are no signs of technology, so when the Gree ships fire a salvo of missiles to sterilize the planet, Steve wants to know what’s going on. He diverts the missiles and produces enough fake evidence to convince the Gree ships that their mission is accomplished.

Once the Gree slaves leave, Steve lands with two B’lant crewmen to investigate. Searching the Gree camp, they find the hastily dug grave of a Gree slave and are interrupted by the arrival of a vaguely humanoid creature covered in mud and debris. The three of them go wandering across the world, struggling through dense grass that grows higher than their heads and encountering a variety of enormous insectoids. First, one B’lant goes missing and then the other. Eventually, the answers to the puzzles he’s found are revealed to Steve (through no doing of his own). Will he follow the Gree’s lead and sterilize the planet, or has he found a potential weapon for the war against the Gree?


Steve and one of the B’lant see something strange and disgusting. Art by Nodel

When I saw there was a Gree story in this issue, I made a bet with myself that Steve would go behind enemy lines and infiltrate a Gree base by pretending to be walking wounded. Rarely have I been so glad to lose a bet. This is a darn sight better than the previous two stories in this series, though not as good as the first. However, it could probably have been cut by a third. A lot of the difficult slog through the dense vegetation is, well, a difficult slog for the reader. Also, Steve continues to be little more than a cardboard cut-out of a character. A high two stars.

Summing Up

Returning to the beginning, science fiction is, ostensibly, the literature of tomorrow. (Of course, it’s really about today or, at most, later this afternoon, but I digress.) But as I noted above, we’re seeing a lot of revivals, rehashes and regressive pastiches. Fred Pohl, in particular, seems to be on something of a space opera kick of late. Don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly possible to tell a good, modern sort of story within the framework of space opera. Fred Saberhagen certainly pulls it off with his Berserker stories; John Brunner does it quite often (though not always); Roger Zelazny has turned out some beautiful work in the old planetary romance settings.

Most of the time, though, that’s not what Pohl is serving us. We’re getting stuff that could easily have appeared back before the War. Sometimes it seems like a problem story in the good, old Campbellian style is the most modern thing we can hope for. And now we’re going to be saddled with the great-granddaddy of them all for months (and don’t be fooled by that “Part 1 of 3” in the table of contents; a contact at Galaxy Publishing says to expect more like 5). Judging from the comments in the letter col, lots of readers have been eagerly awaiting this Doc Smith novel ever since Fred announced it a year or so ago. Maybe it’s a fit of nostalgia. After all, they say the Golden Age of science fiction is 12. But it’s a sad day when a professional baseball team is more forward-thinking that one of the leading science fiction magazines.


Van Vogt and Schmitz seems like an… odd pairing

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