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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 9, 1964] Shall We Gather At The River? (January 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

You Only Live Twice


Cover art by Richard Chopping

I trust that the spirit of the late Ian Fleming will forgive me for stealing the title of the last James Bond novel to be published during his lifetime. (Rumor has it that at least one more may be published posthumously.) Those evocative four words bring to mind the notion of life after death.

Since the dawn of consciousness, human beings have pondered the possibility of an afterlife. From reincarnation to oblivion, from Paradise to Gehenna, countless visions of an existence after death have filled the imaginations of poets, prophets, and philosophers.

But what about science fiction writers?

Few SF stories dealing with the subject come to mind. There are, of course, many tales of fantasy about survival beyond the grave, often comic versions of Heaven or terrifying visits to Hell. Science fiction, with its disdain for mysticism (despite a weakness for pseudo-scientific premises that are just as fantastic) generally ignores the question.


This 1962 novel is a rare exception.

It is remarkable, then, that almost half of the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow consists of a novella with a large cast of characters who have all died and been resurrected, without the need for a supernatural explanation.


Cover art by George Schelling.

Wanted: Dead or Alive

In fact, a few of the other pieces in the magazine feature characters who may have died, and who may have come back to life, although these are more ambiguous than the lead story.

Day of the Great Shout, by Philip Jose Farmer


Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

A man who knows he died finds himself alive, nude, hairless, in a young and healthy body, floating in empty space, surrounded on all sides by countless others in his condition. After falling through the void and having a dream about an encounter with God, he wakes up on a new world.

(The author never gives this planet a name. The fact that the stars are different, along with other details, make it clear that it's not Earth. For convenience, let's call it Riverworld, based on the most notable physical feature of the place.)

All around him are other naked, bald people, mostly in a state of panic. One can't blame them, since this afterlife doesn't resemble anything they imagined. When they calm down a bit, it becomes clear that they are now in the valley of a wide river, surrounded on both sides by impassible mountains. A curious device, obviously making use of extremely advanced technology, provides them with food, and even luxury items such as tobacco and lipstick.


A fellow who has an unfortunate encounter with the device proves that it's possible to die a second time.

By this time, we find out that our protagonist is the famous Victorian adventurer Richard Francis Burton. It might be a good idea to list the other characters who play major roles during his adventures on Riverworld.

Dramatis Personae, in order of appearance:

Monat Grrautuft, an alien who died on Earth during the Twenty-First Century.

Kazzintuitruuaabemss, an ape-man who died sometime during the dawn of humanity. Fortunately for the reader, he'll be called just Kazz for the rest of the story.


Kazz in battle.

Peter Frigate, a writer born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1918. If that sounds familiar, that's because his time and place of birth are identical with the author's. Given that he has the same initials, it's clear that's he meant as a fictionalized self-portrait. He died during the same incident that led to the death of the alien.

Alice Pleasance Hargreaves, the woman who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland.

Lev Ruach, a man who also died at the same time as Frigate and the alien. (It turns out that a grave misunderstanding between aliens and Earthlings led to both being wiped out. The main reason for this apocalyptic incident, I think, is so the author doesn't have to deal with people from the far future. Everyone who has ever died on Earth is now alive on Riverworld, so limiting the timescale from prehistory to the Twenty-First Century makes his job a little less daunting than it might be.)

Gwenafra, a seven-year-old girl who died in ancient Gaul. We find out later that children who died before the age of five are somewhere else, not specified.

These are just the good guys. After some time passes, given the nature of humanity, war and slavery develop on Riverworld. Burton and his companions battle the forces of the infamous Nazi leader Hermann Goering and Tullios Hostilios, a legendary king of Rome, long before it became a Republic and then an Empire.

After this violent conflict, our heroes find out that a man is not what he seems to be, and we learn something about the origin and purpose of Riverworld.


The discovery involves the ability of Kazz to see things that the others can't detect.

The premise is a fascinating one, and Farmer develops the setting in convincing detail. There's plenty of action, and a generous number of science fiction concepts to hold the reader's interest. My only complaint is that the story is open-ended, with Burton ready to continue exploring Riverworld. I suspect that a sequel or two is in the works, perhaps leading to a full novel.

An anticipatory four stars.

Field Weapons Tomorrow, by Joseph Wesley

The first of two nonfiction articles in this issue imagines what the equipment used by an ordinary foot soldier of the near future might be like. Sensitive radar detects enemies, and small missiles of various kinds serve to identify and destroy targets. The author makes use of a couple of fictional characters to demonstrate the technology, enlivening a rather dry subject.

An interested three stars.

Retreat Syndrome, by Philip K. Dick


Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Starts with a guy stopped for speeding in his futuristic vehicle. This mundane beginning soon turns weird as the fellow moves his hand through the dashboard of his one-wheeled car as if it weren't there. We're firmly in the territory that the author explored in previous works; what is reality?

Flashing back reveals that the man remembers killing his wife with a laser gun when she threatened to reveal plans for a revolution against Earth by colonists on Ganymede. His psychiatrist advises a visit to the woman, who is apparently alive and well on Earth.


Did this happen or not?

The guy thinks he's been brainwashed, and that he's not on Earth at all, but still on Ganymede. A mind-altering drug may be involved.

The truth is a little more complicated than that. The fellow winds up committing what promises to be an endless cycle of attempted murders that might not be real.

Touches of what Simone de Beavuoir might call (sexual) 'oppression' make reading an otherwise intriguing story uncomfortable. We're told that the woman intended to betray the revolution out of petty spite and female bitterness. Another direct quote from the protagonist:

Like all women she was motivated by personal vanity and wounded pride.

That's a pretty wide-sweeping indictment of half the human race, even if we accept the fact that the main character isn't in his right mind. Trying to ignore this unpleasant part of the story, I found it to be compelling, with one of the author's more accessible plots.

A slightly offended four stars.

The Pani Planet, by R. A. Lafferty


Illustration by Norman Nodel.

The commander of a military expedition on an alien planet dies. The only native inhabitant who bothers to speak to the humans offers to fix the broken man. Rejecting this as ridiculous, the new leader buries the dead officer, who treated the aliens decently, and initiates a new, harsher policy. You won't be surprised to find out that the deceased commander returns to life. Of course, not all is what it seems to be.

Typical for the author, this story combines whimsy with tragedy. There's comedy in the broken English of the alien, and the tale ends with a joke, but there's also torture and death. The details of the plot are gimmicky, but it's worth reading.

An ambiguous three stars.

Stella and the Moons of Mars, by Robert S. Richardson

Our second nonfiction article rehashes material that appeared in the December 1963 issue of the magazine. Once again, we go over the remarkable fact that Jonathan Swift seems to have predicted that Mars would prove to have two moons, long before they were discovered, in his satiric classic Gulliver's Travels. After talking about the history of the sighting of the satellites, and discussing their known and speculative properties, the article half-seriously suggests that Swift might have seen them through a telescope and slyly announced the fact in the pages of his book. At least the author is honest enough to admit that this hypothesis is impossible, given the limitations of telescopes in Swift's time. We learn a little about the moons of Mars, but the rest is old hat.

An overly familiar two stars.

The Dead Ones, by Sydney van Scyoc

Once again we have death and revival, of a sort. A man is horribly injured in an industrial accident, and is presumed to be near death. Not much later, he turns up perfectly fine. His son-in-law smells something fishy, and finds out the truth about the mysterious health care system of this future world. There's a twist ending you may see coming.

This story features some of the most implausible happenings I've ever read. First of all, you have to believe that one secretive company controls all health care. Secondly, you have to accept that nobody minds the fact that they experience loss of memory during routine physical exams. Thirdly, you have to presume that the hero is the only person who has ever questioned the fact that many people approach death from disease or injury, yet are completely healed right away in some unseen manner.

A skeptical two stars.

Manfire, by Theodore L. Thomas


Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

The bizarre, and probably imaginary, phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion becomes a worldwide plague in the near future. (The author calls it pyrophilia, but that seems like a very misleading term. The victims of this horrible death certainly don't love it!) Governments make use of all possible resources in an attempt to solve the problem.

Off to secure the remains of a victim.

The United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare contacts an eccentric, reclusive genius to see if he can help.


Our hero.


A victim.

The fellow investigates things in his own way, eventually setting up a team of experts to work on the mystery from a strictly theoretical viewpoint.


He also makes sure that they have plenty of booze.

Other than some gruesome scenes of people being consumed by flames coming out of their bodies, and investigators collecting the grisly remains for study, there isn't much to this story other than the main character's method of attacking the problem. The point seems to be that throwing a bunch of highly intelligent people in a room and having them come up with speculative hypotheses is superior to the methodical collection of data. I'm not sure I agree with that, since both are important. The explanation for the rise in spontaneous combustion reveals some ingenuity on the part of the author, but is rather anticlimactic.

A disappointed two stars.

Can These Bones Live?

Like people, most stories have a limited lifetime. A lucky few gain something like immortality, reprinted in anthologies that survive when others fade away. The two authors named Philip have a good chance of seeing their creations resurrected from the pages of the magazine, into new bodies in the form of books. The other writers, maybe not as much. Only time can tell, and, like the afterlife, nobody really knows anything about the future.

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Book, Magazine

[November 7, 1964] Landslides and Damp Squibs (December 1964 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

In Your Heart, You Knew He Was Wrong

It's been a month for dramatic political change.  In the Soviet Union, Khruschev was deposed after eight years in power, and the British Labor party came to the fore after thirteen years in the wilderness.  And in the United States, the reactionary politics of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater have been loudly repudiated: Lyndon Johnson has been elected President in the biggest landslide in recent memory.

On his coattails, Democrats have ascended to high offices around the country.  In the Senate, Robert Kennedy beat incumbent Ken Keating for the open New York seat, Joseph D. Tydings trounced incumbent James Glenn Beall in Maryland, and Joseph M. Montoya smashed appointed incumbent Edwin L. Mechem in New Mexico.  Only in California did former hoofer George Murphy win against the Democrat, Pierre Salinger, in something of an upset.  What's next for the Golden State?  Ronald Reagan as Governor?!

And in the House, Democrats picked up a whopping 37 seats.  This means that the party of Jackson and Roosevelt (#2) has not only the White House, but veto-proof control of both houses of Congress.  It's likely that The Great Society will continue unabated through the next two years.

Even in the science fiction world, revolutions are happening.  Avram Davidson is leaving his post at F&SF (thank goodness), and Cele Goldsmith, at the helm of Fantastic and Amazing, has gotten married. 

But with this month's IF, editor Fred Pohl's neglected third daughter, things are not only business as usual, they're a little worse…

The Enemy is Us


by Gray Morrow

When Time Was New, by Robert F. Young

We begin with a tale of time travel.  Howard Carpenter, a native of 2156 A.D. Earth, has gone back to the late Cretaceous in his "Triceratank", designed to fit in with the Mesozoic fauna.  His mission is to find out why there is a modern human skeleton lying in 80 million year old strata.

But once there, he finds two children, Marcy and Skip, who are on the run from kidnappers.  But these kids aren't time travelers — they're actually space travelers from a contemporary (to the far past) Martian civilization!


by Gray Morrow

Thus ensues an adventure whose style and subject matter would make for a fine kiddy comic or Danny Dunn adventure, but which is somewhat jarring for a grown-up mag.  Also, I find it highly improbable that a race of humans identical to those on Earth (specifically, the blonde, blue-eyed kind) would arise on Mars, and 80 million years ago, no less.  A slightly lesser quibble is the appearance of Brontosaurs; they were long extinct by the Cretaceous period. 

And then there's the relationship between the 32 year old Carpenter and the 11 year old, however precocious, Marcy.  It's all very innocent and largely on Marcy's part. I can't say more without spoiling the story, but in the end, we get a situation not unlike the reveal in The Twilight Zone episode, The Fugitive.  I didn't mind it all that much, but some may find it off-putting.

Anyway, I'm sure John Boston would give the story one star, two at best.  But Robert Young, even at his worst, is still a pretty good author, and despite the story's flaws, I did want to know what was coming next.

So, a low three. 

The Coldest Place, by Larry Niven

Niven, a brand new author, takes us to the coldest place in the universe, home to a most unique kind of lifeform.  The kicker, revealing the setting, is interesting, as are the various concepts Niven introduces in the piece.  On the other hand, there's really a bit too many ideas here for the short space allotted, so the story doesn't really go anywhere.

I have a suspicion that, given proper time to develop, this author may be one to watch. 

Three stars.

At the Top of the World, by J. T. McIntosh


by Nodel

Two hundred years after the last war, Gallery 71, deep underground, prepares for Ascension Day.  What awaits them on the surface?  Is there even a sky?  Or all the legends just mythical doubletalk?

It's a good setting for a story, not dissimilar to the author's previous 200 Years to Christmas, but the ending is both a fizzle and a letdown.  Also, I could done with less of the author's unconscious sexism.  No father admirers his daughter's "exquisite curves" and I would have expected a greater role for women in the piece than two teenagers of little consequence.

Another low three.

Pig in a Pokey, by R. A. Lafferty

Lafferty, whose middle name would be whimsy if it didn't start with an A., offers up a duel of wits between a porcine head-collector and the human who would claim the former's asteroid.

Neither foul nor fine (which makes it "fair", I guess), it's over before you know it.

Three stars.

The Hounds of Hell (Part 2 of 2), by Keith Laumer


by Ed Emshwiller

The bulk of the issue is taken up with the conclusion to Keith Laumer's latest novel.  Last time, John Brandeis was on the run from a horde of demonic dog things who assumed human guise and filched human brains.  Brandeis went so far as to have his body highly cyberneticized so that he could fight the hell hounds on an even footing.  With the help of the feeble-minded sailor, Joel, he managed to give them the slip.

But not for long.  Upon arriving in America, Brandeis' worst fears are realized: the aliens have taken over key positions of authority, probably throughout the world.  Worse, when he lures one of them to a remote spot in Colorado, in the hopes of ambushing and interrogating one of the invaders, Brandeis is, in turn, ambushed and killed.

And when he wakes up, it's in the body of a 70 foot tank, waging a war against other brain-run tanks on the Moon!


by Ed Emshwiller

Hounds of Hell has a lot of promising threads.  It could have been an exploration of what it is to be human in an increasingly inhuman body.  The robot tank angle, brilliantly explored in prior stories, could have been developed as a sort of prequel to those pieces.

The problem is, we never learn a damned thing about Brandeis, nor do we really care about the world that the Hell Hounds have taken over.  The only character with any substance is Joel, and he plays a minor role.  In the end, Hounds is a series of action scenes that aren't even up to the author's normally decent standard.

Two stars; two and a half for the book.

The Results

IF used to be Galaxy's experimental twin.  It was a magazine with rawer authors and more outré stories.  Now that Pohl has to spread his material three ways, IF seems to be the dumping ground for the least worthy stuff.

This month, at least, it wasn't worth the 50 cent cover price.  A poor issue to accompany the Christmas subscription renewal drive!

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 5, 1964] The State of the Solar Empire: Perry Rhodan in 1964

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[Don't miss your chance to get your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age. If you like the Journey, you'll love this book (and you'll be helping us out, too!)


by Cora Buhlert

Here in Germany, the Iron Curtain just got a tiny hole, because since November 2, East German pensioners are allowed to visit friends and family in the West. In the first few days, hundreds of elderly people availed themselves of the opportunity to see loved ones they had’t seen in years.

East German pensioners at the Oberbaumbrücker border crossing in Berlin, visiting family, friends and loved ones for the first time in many years.
This elderly lady from East Berlin got to embrace her son for the first time since the Wall was built three years ago.

Nobody is under any illusion that this is anything but a propaganda coup for East German leader Walter Ulbricht. Pensioners are considered more of a burden than an asset to the so-called German Democratic Republic, so the East German state does not mind if they decide to stay in the West. But the many families who are finally reunited do not much care about Ulbricht’s political machinations – they are just happy to see their loved ones again.

Meanwhile on the music front, the West German charts have been dominated by a curious song called "Das kommt vom Rudern, das kommt vom Segeln" (That's from rowing, that's from sailing) by Peter Lauch & die Regenpfeifer, a band which has made its name with mildly risqué novelty songs. Hint, the lyrics are not really about rowing and sailing, but about other physical activities in which adults engage. Personally, I find the song rather silly, but it has clearly hit a nerve, because it was playing all over this year's Freimarkt, the annual autumn fair which has been held in my of my hometown of Bremen since 1035 AD. Yes, you read that correctly. This year was already the 929th Freimarkt.

The Freimarkt has changed a lot in the past 929 years. In fact, it has even changed a lot in the past ten years. The technology of fairground rides is improving steadily and new rides are debuting every year. This year, we even had two space themed rides, the rocketship ride Titan and Sputnik, a spectacular ride where a tilting ring of cars orbits a globe that represents the Earth. Both rides are a lot of fun and probably as close as an ordinary human like me will get to outer space in the foreseeable future.

The "Titan" rockship ride as well as the old standby "Wellenflug", a chain swinger ride and "Round-up" at the Bremer Freimarkt.
The spectacular Sputnik ride, built by Anton Schwarzkopf, at the Bremer Freimarkt.

Checking in on Perry Rhodan

Talking of outer space, it has been more than a year since I last discussed Perry Rhodan, Germany’s most popular science fiction series. So it’s high time to check in on Perry again to see what he’s been doing this past year.

Quite a lot, it turns out. Since the Heftroman issues of Perry Rhodan are published weekly now, the plot moves at a brisk clip. Furthermore, a monthly companion series of so-called Planetenromane (planet novels), 158 page paperback novels, premiered in September. The third issue just came out. Many Heftromane have paperback companion series, but most of them just republish old material, occasionally by literally stapling unsold issues together and adding a new cover. The Planetenromane, on the other hand, offer all-new stories, often side stories, which don't quite fit into the main series.

The cover of the first "planet novel", "Planet of the Mock" by Clark Dalton a.k.a. Walter Ernsting

The lives of Perry Rhodan and his friends remained busy in the regular series as well. Perry Rhodan in particular had to deal with a series of personal losses. First, his Arkonian wife Thora, a mainstay of the series since issue 1, died last year. Next, another character who has been in the series since the very first issue, Perry's friend and brother-in-law, the Arkonian Crest, heroically gave his life in issue 99.

The Arkonian Crest dies in issue 99 of Perry Rhodan

A Universe With Too Few Women

Particularly, the loss of Perry's wife Thora in issue 78 is still keenly felt after more than a year, because Thora was one of the few female characters in the male-heavy Perry Rhodan universe. There are women in the Mutant Corps that Perry Rhodan founded, a female intelligence agent named Fraudy Nicholson who fell in love with her target played an important role in a recent mini plot-arc and there are other women guest characters as well, but Thora was the only consistent female presence in the series.

Of course, Perry Rhodan is immortal and so it is to be expected that he would eventually move on. And indeed, he gradually fell for Akonian scientist Auris von Las-Toór, whom he met in issue 100. Auris also developed feelings for Perry, even though they found themselves on different sides during a conflict with the Akon. And when Auris finally deserted her family and homeworld to be with Perry, she was killed in the ensuing battle in issue 125.

Perry Rhodan and Auris von Las-Toór on the cover of issue 107.

Perry Rhodan's tendency to kill off its few female characters is troubling, especially since half of the cast is immortal. Though it has to be said that quite a few male characters were also built up, sometimes over several issues, only to be unceremoniously killed off. Perry Rhodan fans have taken to calling this practice "voltzen" after writer William Voltz in whose stories this frequently happens.

What Perry Rhodan really needs is some women on its writing staff, which currently is all male. Perry Rhodan co-creator Walter Ernsting a.k.a. Clark Dalton frequently translates stories by female American science fiction authors, so he isn't averse to science fiction written by women at all. So why doesn't he invite some German woman writers to join the Perry Rhodan staff? Plenty of women read Perry Rhodan, so it would only be fair of some of them got to write for the series.

A Family Tragedy

Being related to Perry Rhodan is clearly a risk to your health, as the example of Perry and Thora's estranged son Thomas Cardif shows, for Thomas became increasingly hostile and tried to depose his father. I was not a huge fan of the Thomas Cardif story arc, if only because Cardif's initial motivation is only too understandable. After all, Thomas Cardif was raised in secret, not knowing who his parents were, supposedly for his own safety. And once he learns the truth, Thomas blames Perry Rhodan for his difficult childhood, not entirely without reason. After his first attempted coup, Perry Rhodan orders Thomas Cardif's memories hypnotically wiped (because keeping him in ignorance of his true origin worked so well the first time). As a result, Thomas becomes even angrier when he recovers his memories and goes on a worse rampage than before. He even captures and impersonates his father for a while. Thomas eventually dies of old age, when his cellular activator, the device which grants Perry Rhodan and his close associates immortality, fails.

Thomas Cardif is killed, when his cellular activator explodes in issue 116.

The story of Thomas Cardif is a tragedy, but a preventable one. Furthermore, our hero Perry Rhodan does not come off at all well in this story arc, because his bad parenting decisions were what caused Thomas to go rogue in the first place. Conflicts between a parent generation still steeped in the propaganda of the Third Reich and a younger generation that demands the truth about all the ugly history that was swept under the rug are currently playing out all over Germany, so it is only natural that a series as popular as Perry Rhodan would reflect that conflict. However, the overwhelmingly young readers did not expect that Perry Rhodan of all people would side with the reactionary parent generation.

Thomas Cardif was not the only one who challenged Perry Rhodan's rulership over the Solar Empire. A group calling itself the Upright Democrats was also disenchanted with Perry's policies and tried to assassinate him. Naturally, Perry survived – he is immortal, after all – and had the malcontents exiled to a distant planet, where they tangled with friendly and hostile aliens for several issues.

In fact, Perry Rhodan introduced several new alien species over the course of the last year, such as the invisible Laurins (named after the invisible dwarf king of medieval legend) and the duplicitous Akonians, who are distant ancestors of the generally benevolent Arkonian race, hence the very similar (and confusing) names. Another welcome new addition to the series are the positronic-biological robots, Posbis for short, a cyborg race that lives on planet with one hundred (artificial) suns. The Posbis were initially hostile towards the humanity, but eventually became close allies after Perry Rhodan reprograms their brains.

The Posbis fight the humans on the cover of issue 144.
The planet of the Posbis, orbited by one hundred artificial suns.

No article about Perry Rhodan would be complete without recognizing artist Johnny Bruck, who has created every Perry Rhodan cover as well as all interior illustrations and spaceship schematics to date. His sleek spaceships, futuristic cityscapes, quirky alien creatures such as the fan favourite character Gucky, the mouse beaver, and – when the plot allows – beautiful women have contributed a lot to Perry Rhodan's success. Bruck is a true phenomenon, not just West Germany's best science fiction artist, but one of the best in the world. Unfortunately, his work is little known outside the German speaking world, but I hope that he will eventually receive the international recognition he deserves.

Quo Vadis Perry Rhodan?

Johnny Bruck's covers are one of the few constants in a series that is in a period of transition, as unceremoniously killing off long-term characters such as Thora and Crest shows. The writing team headed by co-creators Clark Dalton and K-H. Scheer has well and truly outrun their initial outline for a series of fifty Heftromane by now. This is also why Perry Rhodan has felt somewhat disjointed of late, focussing on mini-arcs which last for a couple of issues each and sometimes don't include Perry or any of the other main characters at all. It is obvious that the writers are experimenting, introducing new characters and concepts, while looking for a new direction for the series as a whole. In fact, issue No. 166, which came out this week, doesn't feature any of the main characters and introduces yet another new alien race.

The latest alien race introduced in issue 166, rendered in Johnny Bruck's inimmitable style.

The most successful of the newly introduced characters is Atlan, an ancient Arkonian who crash-landed on Earth in prehistoric times and spent millennia asleep in a dome under the ocean, waking every couple of centuries to protect and guide humanity. During his latest awakening, Atlan not only learned that humans had become a spacefaring civilisation in the meantime and even made contact with his own people, he also encountered Perry Rhodan. After some initial misunderstandings, Perry Rhodan and Atlan became close friends – after all, they both share the same goal, to protect humanity.

Perry Rhodan and Atlan fight on the cover of issue 54. But don't worry, it's all a misunderstanding.

Since his introduction in issue 50, the character of Atlan quickly became a fan favourite, to the point that the covers frequently announce "A new Atlan Adventure", even though the series itself is still named Perry Rhodan. The popularity of Atlan is also part of the reason why longterm series mainstays such as Crest and Thora were written out. And indeed, Atlan has pretty much taken over the role as Perry Rhodan's alien best friend that was once filled by Crest. I am not as enamoured with Atlan as many other readers seem to be and also wonder why Perry cannot have more than one Arkonian friend. But the character of Atlan is clearly here to stay and has become an intrinsic part of the series, as Perry Rhodan searches for a new direction that will take it to issue 200 and beyond.

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Book, Magazine

[October 30, 1964] The Deadly Barrier (November 1964 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

Trapped on the wrong side

In the 1940s, the sound barrier was as mighty a wall as the Maginot line.  Planes approaching Mach One lost control of their wings, heat built up and melted vital components — the demon living in this wall refused to let any pass.

It wasn't until 1947, when Captain Chuck Yeager took to the skies in his rocket-propelled X-1, that the barrier was first breached.

Our genre has its own deadly wall. If left unpierced, it leaves a reader like those poor, challenging planes and pilots of yore: broken and dispirited. It is the Three Star barrier, the divide between fine and feh — and this month, five of the six science fiction magazines that came out in the English-speaking world failed to break through it.

Sure, some issues made brave attempts.  Both New Worlds and IF came right to the edge, the latter with some memorable stories, and the former maintaining bog-standard mediocrity down the line. 

But timidity breaks no records.  Playing it safe pierces no barriers.

Cele Goldsmith's mags, Amazing and Fantastic, both fell well short of the mark, managing only 2.6 stars.  Perhaps if she'd lassoed the best parts of both of this month's issues together, she might have managed a breach.

And the less said about the struggling Fantasy and Science Fiction (also 2.6 stars), the better.  Pour one out for a faded glory, folks.

An Analog to failure

That leaves the November 1964 Analog.  Can Campbell's mag, once the undisputed leader of the genre, succeed where all its compatriots have failed?  Read on…


by John Schoenherr

Invasion by Washing Water, by D.R. Barber

But, first, this message.

Are you a British astronomer?  Are you tired of having your photographic negatives eaten by bacteria?  Do you want to know why your shots of celestial bodies get ruined periodically by fuzz and rot?  Well never fear!  D.R. Barber has the answer:

Invaders from Venus.

Yes, Mr. Barber has determined that, when the Earth and Venus are aligned just right, and a major geomagnetic storm is raging, that the conditions are perfect for Venusian microbes to land in England to destroy our film.  Of course, this only seems to happen in England because of vagaries of our atmospheric currents.  And it's impossible for there to be a terrestrial origin for the bugs.  Oh no.

Sigh.  Only in Analog.  One star.

Gunpowder God, by H. Beam Piper


by John Schoenherr

Our first attempt to break the Three Star barrier involves a sideways leap.  Veteran SFictioneer Piper writes of Calvin Morrison, Corporal in the Pennsylvania State Police of Earth — our Earth. Through a freak accident, caused by careless activities of the universe-traveling Paratime authority, Morrison is warped to another Earth.

In this timeline, Indo-Europeans went east instead of west, crossing the Siberian land bridge, and colonizing the Americas.  Come this world's 1964, the eastern seaboard is a patchwork of feudal kingdoms on the brink of a gunpowder revolution.  Calvin Morrison, a Korean war veteran and all-around man of action, is perfectly placed to become a big wheel, the titular "Gunpowder God".  Very soon, he is "Kalvan", organizing the troops of Hostigos against the Nostori Hordes and their tepid allies, the Principality of Sask. 

But the agents of the Level One timeline, sole possessors of the secret of timeline travel, are rushing to stop Kalvan before he gives away Paratime's game…

Piper has basically recycled the plot to L. Sprague de Camp's lovely Lest Darkness Fall, in which a 20th Century man goes back to 6th Century Rome to save it from the Byzantines.  And what Piper does well, he does quite well.  There are fine tactics, good war depictions, the bones of an interesting plot.

But only the bones.  I was expecting a novel; instead I got a short novella.  Everything suffers as a result.  Kalvan is welcomed all too eagerly and learns the local lingo (akin to Greek, it seems) in no time.  His romance with Skylla, a princess who dresses and is treated as a man, is perfunctory — to say nothing of the wasted opportunity to develop such an interesting character!

Plus, there's this weird assumption that Aryans are the catalyst of culture, even though the geography and environment of North America are wildly different from that of Europe — and Europe's technological preeminence was never assured (and largely based on developments in other parts of the world!)

So Gunpowder God skates to the edge of the Three Star barrier but progresses no further.  Strike One.

Gallagher's Glacier, by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond


by Kelly Freas

In the future, corporations have a stranglehold on the solar system's shipping lanes.  One crazy man hatches a plan to install a fusion drive into an ice asteroid and become the first independent trader.  But since the corporations have the monopoly on drive-making equipment, no one can join him in his independence…unless some plucky captain is willing to take his company ship and defect.

Wow.  As written, that sounds like a pretty good yarn!  But when the Richmond's tell it, they give you nothing more than the above paragraph and a lot of padding. 

Glacier barely hits Star Two, much less Three.  And that's Strike Two.

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Princes (Part 2 of 3), by Mack Reynolds


by Robert Swanson

Our third attempt comes with the second installment of Mack Reynold's latest serial.  When last we left Denny Land, erstwhile Professor of Etruscan Studies and now national gladiatorial champion, he was headed to Spain.  His top secret mission: to meet up with Auguste Bazaine, inventor of the anti-anti-missile technology that could destabilize the world, plunging it into atomic fire.  But though he does manage to find Bazaine at a cocktail party, Denny is sapped on the neck, and Bazaine is kidnapped.  The Sov-world, the West-world, and Common Europe all blame each other.

There is only one resolution: trial by combat.  All three regions will send a three-man team into a one-hectare arena.  Whomever comes out alive will be privy to the anti-anti-missile secrets…if Bazaine is ever found.

I find it ironic that the characters spend so much time lambasting the gladiatorial games, the reliance on bread and circuses of the world's idle masses. Yet this series of books is really just an excuse for some riproaring modern fight fiction.  Is this a subtle message?

Less subtle is the writing, which is competent, but not up to what Reynolds can deliver when he tries.  Bette Yardborough, "the girl" on Denny's spy team, gets the worst of it.  To wit, this immortal dialogue:

Bette said softly, "Between your accomplishments as a scholar, and a . . . a man of violence, I would assume you have had little time for women, Dennis Land."

Was she joshing him?  Denny shot a quick scowl at her.  He growled, "I'm no eunuch."

She laughed again, even as she turned away to go below.  "After seeing you dispatch those two trained Security lads, I'm sure you're not, Dennis."

Sweet Dreams is never going to break the Three Star Barrier with this kind of stuff, even if the fighting scenes and the world Reynolds' created are pretty interesting.  And I don't have high hopes for the conclusion next month, either.

Strike Three!  Oh wait.  The umpire has run onto the field and called FOUL BALL.  Apparently, we can't count an unfinished serial.  All right.  Onwards and…someway-wards.

Guttersnipe, by Rick Raphael


by John Schoenherr

Here's an oddly technical story involving sanitation and water workers… OF THE FUTURE!  Their tremendously complex operation is threatened when radioactivity is found seeping into the drinking supply of one of the cities.  After many loving descriptions of apparatus and mechanisms, the source is found and eliminated.

If anyone could have broken the Three Star Barrier, it'd be the fellow who brought us 400 mph cars in the Code Three series.  Sadly, the piece reads like a science article on water reclamation rather than an sf story.

Mind you, I like articles on water reclamation, but I don't buy Analog to read them.

And so, Rafael's piece falls short of the barrier, somewhere beyond the Star Two line. 

Strike Thr… Oh.  Another foul against the line.  Apparently science factish stories don't count either.  Fine.  One more piece to go.

Bill for Delivery, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

About a decade ago, Bob Sheckley wrote a great little story called Milk Run.  It's about the AAA Ace duo trying to form a livestock shipping company.  Each of the animals on board their one transport had its own foibles, and dealing with one species exacerbated things with the others. 

Chris Anvil's piece is much the same plot except less interesting and more saddening.

Another Star Two piece and (looks around for the umpire) STEEEERIIIIIIKE THREEEEE!

You're Out

In the end, I can't imagine Analog's dismal 2.2 star ranking really surprises anyone.  Still, it would have been nice for at least one of this month's mags to break the Three Star Barrier.  I tell you, it's times like these that I wonder about turning in my quill.

On the other hand, if I may mix my metaphors further, no single panning returns a nugget.  The quest for gold is a diligent process that accumulates the stuff grain by grain.  As bad as this month was in aggregate, it still gave us a decent number of good stories. 

And that's why we keep doing this.  Because without us, you'd be stuck slogging through all the dreck.  Now, you can enjoy the gold without dealing with the dross.

You're welcome.  I need a drink…

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Book, Magazine, Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 28, 1964] We Live In Hope (November/December 1964 New Worlds)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

After last month’s surprise visit to Science Fantasy magazine, this month we’re back to the wild and wacky realms of New Worlds, to wit, the November/December 1964 issue.

What has happened since we last met? Well, the biggest change here, as the Traveller has already noticed this month, is that as of the 15th October we have a new British Government. My impression is that the governing Conservative Party were fairly confident about their chances of returning, and so it has been a bit of a shock to them to be ousted, having been in power for 13 years or so. It was close though – Labour won a majority by a mere four seats.

I did have a hunch that it would be the younger vote, eager for change, that would decide it – all of those I spoke to saw the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, as a means of better reflecting their concerns – and so it appears to be. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that Mister Wilson is the youngest Prime Minister we’ve had in over 150 years, at a mere 48 years old.

Me, I blame it on The Beatles.

Harold meeting the Fab Four in March 1964

 

Talking of music, there’s been some change at the top of the charts here. Herman’s Hermits was at the top of charts for two weeks with I’m Into Something Good, but was replaced by the mighty Roy Orbison, singing Oh Pretty Woman for three weeks. It’s a terrifically powerful song, which I much preferred myself.

However, Roy has now been replaced by Sandie Shaw singing (There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me. It’s quite pleasant and seems to be quite popular in part because Ms. Shaw sings her songs barefoot.

At the cinema Goldfinger is still there and doing very well. I’m not surprised. I expect its success to continue for a while yet.

Other than that, the cinematic pickings have been rather slim, although if you like Westerns, you are in for a treat. I’ve counted three at my local Odeon recently – John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn, starring Richard Widmark and one of my favourite actors, James Stewart, was good. There’s also been Invitation to a Gunfighter, with Yul Brynner, who seems to be trading on his popularity in The Magnificent Seven a few years back. Thirdly, more recently there’s been Rio Conchos, starring Richard Boone and Stuart Whitman.

My favourite movie this month has been Fail Safe, which Rose Benton has already reviewed this month – isn’t it good when movies are released here in Britain at nearly the same time as yourselves in the US? I nearly missed it, as the cinemas were full of Goldfinger at the time, but it was a great nail-biting drama.

If I am really unlucky, the next time I speak to you I may have been dragged, kicking and screaming, to see My Fair Lady, which the trailers are telling me is out in a couple of weeks. (I’m not a huge fan of musicals.) I managed to avoid Mary Poppins back in August, but as a result I fear I may have to see this one. Wish me luck.

The Issue At Hand

This month’s cover by Robert Tilley is striking, but to my mind not as well done as the last few month’s covers. We seem to have gone from covers with a triangle shape to covers with circles. I feel that it is a bit of a step-down, to be honest. It is simpler and more basic than last month’s, for example. Interestingly, this change of cover style seems to be deliberate – there’s a comment in this month’s Letters page that suggests so. Nevertheless, it is still better than the bad old days of the last John Carnell issues, so I shouldn’t complain.

The Editorial examines the idea of ‘bad SF’ on radio, television and cinema. It makes some valid points about how SF stories may become bestsellers in prose but then fail to make the most of this in other mediums. However, the Editorial seems to mainly be an excuse to bad-mouth the movie The First Men in the Moon for not sticking to HG Wells’ admittedly superior novel – “insulting the intelligence, sloppily written, poorly acted and directed.” I didn’t think it was that bad, myself, when I saw it back in August – but then it was either see that or Mary Poppins.

To the stories themselves.

The Shores of Death (part 2), by Michael Moorcock

Look how serious they are!

And we’re straight back into editor Mike Moorcock’s serial, an energetic yet dour story which attempts to bring Space Opera up to date in the 1960’s. After the set-up last time we rejoin Clovis Marca of the 30th century, trying to discover the deeper meaning of life on The Bleak Worlds of Antares before he is driven mad or the Solar System dies.

It’s OK but rather depressing. In the end, it’s all a bit Biblical, with Clovis dying then becoming immortal and eventually wandering off into a proverbial desert. Whilst I think I get what Moorcock is trying to do, I struggled to keep reading through the morass of unremitting bleakness. Nearly fifty pages is a long time to be in pain or be miserable. As a result, I’m not sure I’ll remember it long after finishing the magazine. Spending time at the dentist may be more fun – but as the Reader’s Poll later in the issue will suggest, some may like its tone. It’s a far cry from the optimistic SF of the 50’s. 3 out of 5.

Mix-Up, by George Collyn
A new author to me. Mix-Up is a lighter story, much-needed to relieve the despair that may descend after reading The Shores of Death. It’s a one-idea story though, about what happens when matter transmitters mix up the molecules of a young male scientist and an attractive young female film star. It’s quite entertaining, though the conclusion is rather poor and even rather perverse. What can we say when the two decide to marry each other – is it a recognition of a need for understanding between the sexes or does it reflect a secret wish that all we want to do is marry ourselves? Hmm. A fair debut, though. 3 out of 5.

Look… a new magazine! Sounds quite good.

Gamma Positive, by Ernest Hill
Ernest is a returning author, having last appeared in New Worlds in the Carnell era, in January 1964. How long ago that seems!

Really though, this is nothing new, and could be a leftover from the Carnell editorial-ship – another story of the consequences of experimenting with new drugs. In this case the treatment appears to allow time travel, a favourite theme of editor Moorcock, but to me the story is really a thinly disguised attempt to make the point that time seems longer when imbibing narcotics. Dare I say that time just seemed to become longer by reading this story because it seemed to take ages to go nowhere? We’ve been here before. Yawn. 3 out of 5.

Just in case you didn't get the Biblical message! Image by Harrison.

Some Will Be Saved, by Colin R. Fry
Another writer new to me. Unfortunately, this is another story that attempts to dress up Biblical allegory in a science-fictional setting – it seems to be a theme this month. This is a sardonic take on the Garden of Eden – in a modern post-apocalyptic setting. The Biblical references are rather unsubtle – further emphasised by the fact that the two main characters are named Adam and Eve, for example. Points are given for trying to be a little scandalous, being a contemporary rewriting of the story of the Garden of Eden, but sadly it is another tale that, having made the point that the future is bad and that there’s no place for religion in it, doesn’t seem to go anywhere. In the end, it just exudes a depressingly dark sense of irony. 3 out of 5.

The Patch, by Peter Woods
Peter Woods is, as I have said before, Barrington J. Bayley writing as someone else. This time, the novella is one of those that is Science Fantasy – spaceships and atomic missiles mixed up with Kingdoms and Princes set against a civil war and an impending planetary disaster with the arrival of The Patch. It’s perhaps the story I’ve most enjoyed this month, but reads like an inferior form of Jack Vance or Poul Anderson’s work. Some of that dialogue is astoundingly clunky, and this is another story with a dreadful ending. 3 out of 5.

Emissary, by John Hamilton

The emissary being condescending to children.

Another writer new to me. In a grim Northern industrial town a stranger is seen, patting children on the head at a local school (hence the picture above) and making notes on everything else. His origin and purpose are unknown, which creates concern, fear and mistrust in the town’s populace. The point of the story is to discover the stranger’s purpose – is he a force for good or evil? The story does well to create a sense of unease, but by the end it fritters away to nothing substantial.
3 out of 5.

When is a review not a review? When it's an advertisement (I think.)

 

Onto the Book Reviews by Moorcock’s alter-ego, James Colvin.

Notice those book titles… MJM? Could it be "Michael J Moorcock"? Hmm.

The article focuses mainly on publications by Dobson’s Books, one of the first publishers here in the UK to regularly publish SF, with varied results. Eric Frank Russell’s latest, With A Strange Device, is found to be slightly disappointing, but likeable for those ‘in the mood’.

Contrastingly, the reviewer found Robert A Heinlein’s collection The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag more enjoyable than he expected. It is a grudgingly positive review – I get the impression Colvin really didn’t want to like it, but did. Alan E. Nourse’s collection The Counterfeit Man is contrarily summarised as “bad literature but good SF”. Isaac Asimov’s The Martian Way is a collection from an author that the reviewer finds “frustratingly good… in that he is good – but you know he can be even better.”

Of the paperbacks, the publication of Second Foundation, Asimov’s final book in the Foundation Trilogy, is “guaranteed top SF”, Robert Manvell’s The Dreamers is a horror story “better than (Dennis) Wheatley”,  whereas Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is summarised with the statement “Never has such terrible old rubbish appeared between the covers of a book“ and August Derleth’s collection From Other Worlds is “mediocre”.

Even when I don’t agree with his comments, I must admit that I find Moorcock/Colvin’s comments entertaining.

In terms of the Letters, there’s a letter suggesting that the magazine is becoming more literate – something the Editor will no doubt be pleased about – and the fact that the sense of wonder, once important to SF, seems to have departed at the same time. The change in the cover style, as mentioned earlier, is also discussed.

The verdict's in on the last issue…. even if I disagree!

As ever, the reader’s ratings of recent issues make interesting reading. Just to show you how out of touch I clearly am, readers rated the first part of the Moorcock serial top last issue. This suggests that this month’s conclusion may fare equally well, to my bemusement.

Summing up

This issue of New Worlds is OK, but I’m less enamoured than the previous issues of the new ownership. Considering the title of the Editorial, this one is actually a bit bleak and depressing. This issue seems to rely less on Moorcock’s usual team of friends and associates but actually seems worse for it.

Overall, my abiding impression is that this is all a bit so-so. This may be because the repeated themes – drugs, religion – are rather groan-worthy. Whilst we’re not as depressingly poor as the bad-old-days at the end of the Carnell editorialship, I was surprised that this issue was rather mundane, which is amusing considering that two of the stories involve religious themes that would suggest a higher order of things. Cheer up, Mike – things are not as bad as you think!

I should be back to a new issue of Science Fantasy next month. Until next time… have a great Halloween!

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 26, 1964] A revolting set of circumstances (October 1964 Galactoscope #2)

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by Gideon Marcus

If there is one constant to the universe, it is change.  Appropriately, if there is one constant to government, it is that no system lasts forever.  Revolutions have occurred since the dawn of history, motivated by class resentment, public outrage, and plain avarice.  Some are cloaked in nobility, like the American Revolution; others started nobly but ended in darker places, like the French Revolution (whose darker points were recently spotlit on Doctor Who.) Even now, revolts roil the world — from The Congo to Vietnam, Iraq to Zanzibar, people are taking up arms to topple governments. 

It's not surprising, then, that the three books I read for this month's Galactoscope all deal with some kind of revolution.  Does the subject make for good science fiction?  Let's find out!

Star Watchman

Ben Bova is a fairly new phenomenon, his only previous book being The Star Conquerors, which I understand is in the same universe as Star Watchman.  He is probably better known to you as the fellow who writes non-fiction articles for Amazing.  So how's his fiction?

Turns out it's not bad at all.  Watchman is set on an agrarian planet of the Terran Empire known to the humans as Oran VI.  But to the natives (entirely human, curiously), it is the cherished world of Shinar.  Their revolt against the Terran authority has already happened by story's start, and the Shinarians have invited the rapacious, cat-like Komani to help throw off Earth's yoke.  But the Shinarians are about to find out that they have a tiger by the tail.  The Komani plan to subjugate Shinar, and to then rally the disparate cat-people dominions into an alliance that can attack the Terrans head on.

Enter Emile Vorgens, himself a non-Terran humaniform from another Imperial protectorate world.  A freshly minted Star Watchman (the Star Watch is essentially the galactic navy), he has the seemingly impossible task of defusing or defeating the revolution.  At his disposal is a powerful but small flotilla of hovercraft, ranging from "scouts" to "dreadnoughts".  It also turns out that there are Shinarians who are not happy with the current course and might be enlisted as allies.  But it will take all of Vorgens' diplomatic and tactical skills to effect a positive resolution to the crisis.

Per the author's own afterword, "We live today in a world peppered by revolutions, and in this tale I have tried to show some of the complex forces involved in revolution and how rebellion might lead, in the long run, to a growth of freedom and a better world."  Indeed, it is difficult not to look at the Shinarian case through the lens of current crises.  Given the Terran name for the planet, and the French name of the protagonist, my thoughts went to the Algerian movement for independence.  That one obviously did not work out as desired for the empire in question.  Ditto Indochina, whose destiny is still in doubt.

In fact, I struggle to find an example of a revolution that was peaceably ended, but which resulted in a more satisfactory internal situation for the province.  At least, not one that lasted any real length of time.  On the other hand, while the ending of Watchman is sort of a happy one, it is also left ambiguous as to Shinar's fate after the revolt. Bova's politics, while hopeful, are not entirely naive.

But how's the book?  One thing Bova does very well is portray battle and tactics.  His writing is clear, never lurid, and as a wargamer, I was always able to picture the tactics described.  And they seemed reasonable, too!  As for characterization, Emile is a bit like C. S. Forester's Hornblower, wet behind the ears, self-doubting, but game and quite talented.  I liked him, though I couldn't say he's very deep. 

There is, sadly, exactly one female character.  But Altai is a good one, essential to the Shinarian plans, and while there are some implied romantic chemistry between her and Emile, nothing is ever consumated.  I hate it when a woman is included in a story just to be a love interest (and a prize) for the hero. 

In fact, throughout the story, Altai makes it clear she knows that her contributions are less valued among the Shinarians for her being female.  I'd like to think that she will lead a revolt of her own on Shinar: for more respect and recognition of women's rights.  On the other hand, it's not like there are any female soldiers in either the Star Watch or the Terran Marines (which strained my credulity — hell, there was a woman Captain in the U.S. Marines just last week on Gomer Pyle).  So if there is to be a women's revolt on Shinar, it probably won't get much help from the humans.  Oh well.

Anyway, I enjoyed Watchman.  It's not literature for the ages, but it did keep me reading.  Call it three and a half stars.

Ace Double F-289

Demon World

I'm pretty sure I know the genesis for this book: someone approached prolific sf scribbler, Ken Bulmer, at a pub and said (gently weaving), "Hey!  What if there were a story where we were the rats, and aliens were the people?!"

Because that's the premise to Demon's World.  Humans live in warrens, surviving my making daring raids into the larders of the "Demons", beings some hundreds of feet high (square-cube law be damned!) Said Demons are uncannily conventional, with familiar-looking houses, furniture, and technology.  Of course, it takes us a while as readers to get the full view of the alien landscape since it's always viewed through the eyes of diminutive people.

That's the background.  The setting is somewhat interesting.  Humanity has no idea how it got to this world generations before — it only knows that, aside from cats and dogs, it seems to have no kinship to any of the strange creatures on the planet.  Civilization has stratified into hard castes, with the Controllers on top, the Soldiers (who wage wars against other warrens of people) next up, and the Foragers (who get food) along with the Laborers occupying the bottom rungs of society.  Only the Foragers ever encounter the Demons, who are widely believed to be a myth among the denizens of the warrens.

Our protagonist is an amnesiac named Stead, discovered by a squad of Foragers from the polity of Archon.  He is given a Controller's education and then dispatched into the same squad that found him.  This puts him in the unique position of understanding the ruling and under classes.  He also knows for certain that the Demons are real.  It is only a matter of time before Stead decides to lead a double rebellion: Foragers/Laborers against Controllers, and humans against Demons.

Demons World is an odd book, executed in a workmanlike fashion that suggests it was a quick draft (though without the egregious typographical errors that sometime mar Ace productions).  Descriptions of people and items are particularly bland, often repetitive.  We never even understand what it is the humans eat, their food invariably referred to as "food".  You'd think that in a story where half the scenes involve getting sustenance, there would be a bit more emphasis on the sensuous.

Women fare better in the Bulmer than the Bova.  The capable doctor, Della, is Stead's ward in Archon, and two members of the squad are women.  However, despite Bulmer's preference for unadorned writing, you can bet we always known how attractive the women are and in what ways.  Moreover, women in Demon World are still somewhat second-class citizens, treated like "girls" despite participating somewhat equally in society.

Unlike with Watchman, I found reading Demon's World something of a chore.  Two and a half stars for this one.

I Want the Stars

Ah, but flip F-289 over, and we're in an entirely different world.

Tom Purdom is quite new to the writing scene.  Over the past few years, he has been published in several of the sf mags, with stories ranging in quality from two to four stars.

Now, his first novel is out, and it's something of a revolution in and of itself.

Hundreds of years from now, after several near brushes with atomic extinction, humanity has reached the stars.  Not just the nearby stars but the entire galaxy is open to our hyperspace drives.  But we do not expand to conquer; Purdom subscribes to Arthur C. Clarke's notion that our species will never expand to space until we make peace with ourselves.  Consistent with that, all of the other starfaring races are also peaceful beings.  War is a concept confined to the planet-bound races. 

With the exception of the telepathic, xenophobic Horta.  On a planet 60,000 light years from Earth, they are in the last stages of subjugating the amphibian Sordini.  And there to witness, perhaps even stop the event, are five humans: three women and two men.  Raised in Terran tradition, they have never known want or strife.  Yet they are restless, impelled by some inner desire they cannot name. 

Combat with the Horta causes the death of the woman who planned the expedition.  The rest, scarred by her passing, and the rigors of combat with psionic aliens, numbly continue their tour of the galaxy.  They are looking for some key that will allow them to confront, perhaps defeat, the Horta before they pose a threat to the peace of the galaxy.

One possibility lies with a mysterious race called the Borg.  Aliens from another galaxy, they have made it their mission to enlighten the warlike races still lacking space travel.  They welcome representatives from any world to a sort of university planetoid, where they are given a decades-long course in history and philosophy whose end result is yet unknown to any of the students.

Our viewpoint humans enroll in the school, but long before their courses are complete, conflict breaks out on the planetoid.  This, of course, is inevitable — most of the student races are pre-starfaring, and many are jealous of the technologies the starfarers possess.  The arrival of the humans creates the catalyst for a bloody fight, a civil conflict that the Borg do nothing to stop.  The Terrans demand to know the Borg's true intentions: are they really cosmic benefactors, or are they sowing the seeds of galactic strife?  The answer, one way or another, promises to overturn the order of civilization.

What a fascinating book this is, by turns riproaring adventure, interesting philosophical rumination, and portrayal of an unique and plausible future for humanity.  Per the author's foreword,

"I like adventure stories when it's well done…but I think…that means above all it has to be believable.  For one thing, if the characters are future people, then they should be different from present day people.  And their social customs and politics should be different, too.  I can't believe in–which means I can't enjoy–space adventures in which the characters all seem to be people just like Twentieth Century Americans from a society just like Twentieth Century America…"

You will not find contemporary people in this story — the headstrong protagonist Jenorden, gentle Veneleo, haunted Theleo, resourceful Elinee, they are at once relatable yet different.  There is no distinction or inequality between men and women, and there is a strong suggestion of polyamory amongst the crew (or at least flexible relationships without jealousy).  Purdom lays out the motivations of his characters, and then lets the story flow from those precepts rather than conventional, modern-day ones.

It's not a perfect story.  Purdom is not as good at depicting battle as Bova.  The novel's parts don't tie together in a perfect through-line (although, to be fair, neither does life!) And the ending is a little abrupt — I understand it had to be cut from 50,000 to 40,000 words in the 11th hour. 

Still, I Want the Stars is a true science fiction novel, one of my favorites of the year.  What an accomplishment for the first time out!

Four stars.

Tallying the Score

Though the Bulmer is too minor and conventional a piece for recommendation, both Star Watchman and I Want the Stars show that science fiction affords a fresh look at old topics.  Indeed, per Purdom, "just by telling an exciting story, I think I've ended up saying more about nuclear weapons, love, death, the meaning of life, and what it is to be human, than if I had sat down and tried to write about all those things."

Sounds like the crashing of the British "new wave" on American shores.  Leave it to the youngsters to lead a revolution in our genre!

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 24, 1964] Nothing Lasts Forever (November 1964 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

This Too Shall Pass

There is an ancient fable of Persian origin, retold many times over the centuries, about a monarch who asked the wisest sages in the realm for a statement that could apply to all possible situations. The answer, of course, is the title of this piece.

It is impossible to deny the ephemeral nature of all Earthly things, even if we speculate that the universe may be eternal. (The truth of that is still a matter of scientific debate, as to whether the cosmos will expand forever, or eventually collapse into itself.)

Evidence for the temporary nature of politics, for example, came with the unexpected fall of Nikita Khrushchev from power in the Soviet Union, as discussed by our host in detail.


Americans were caught by surprise, it seems.

Obviously, the most common evidence for the fragility of humanity is the universality of death. To mention just one recent example, Herbert Hoover passed away this month, at a more advanced age than any other former President of the United States.


Let him be remembered for his extraordinary work providing supplies of food to millions of starving Europeans during and after World War One, rather than his failure to deal with the Great Depression.

In a less sober way, the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first to be held in Asia, came to an end as well, with a memorable closing ceremony in the Tokyo setting.


Why summer games in October? To avoid the heat and typhoon season.

Few things are as short-lived as popular music, as shown by the fact that two songs reached the Number One position on the American charts this month. First came Oh, Pretty Woman, a tribute to feminine beauty by singer and guitarist Roy Orbison.


I'm used to seeing him with dark glasses.

This was quickly replaced by the nonsensically titled Do Wah Diddy Diddy by the British group Manfred Mann.


Confusingly, the name of the band is the same as the name of the keyboard player.

In Search of Eternal Life

Fittingly, the two lead stories in the latest issue of Fantastic deal with futile attempts to escape the ravages of time.


Cover art by George Schelling

The Knocking in the Castle, by Henry Slesar


Interior illustrations also by Schelling

We begin with a chilling tale set in modern Italy. A widow attends a party, during which the host suggests an excursion to a nearby castle, said to be haunted. The woman reluctantly goes along, only to scream in fear when a knocking emerges from within the dungeon. A flashback reveals the reason for her horror at the sound.

In the United States, she married a man whose ancestors built the castle. Once a year he goes back to the family estate, where his sister lives year-round, rarely emerging from seclusion. We soon discover that the man is well over two hundred years old, despite his youthful appearance. He returns to the castle for an annual dose of the liquid which keeps the siblings from aging.


The magical elixir, a few drops of which drives back the Grim Reaper.

A violent quarrel breaks out between brother and sister when the man wishes to share the potion with his bride. Driven to extreme measures, the sister hides the key to the chamber holding the supply of liquid in a particularly macabre way.


Extreme measures, indeed.

What follows is a grim account of the man's desperate attempt to find the key before time runs out. It all leads up to the frightening conclusion, explaining the woman's terrified scream.

I found myself imagining this story as one of those Italian Gothic horror movies that make their way to the USA in badly dubbed and edited form. That's one reason I enjoyed it, to be honest. I pictured Barbara Steele, veteran of such films, in the role of the mysterious sister. I could see the gloomy interior of the castle in glorious black-and-white, and hear the spooky violin music on the soundtrack.

From a fan of Shock Theater and Famous Monsters of Filmland, a very subjective four stars.

Elixir for the Emperor, by John Brunner


Illustrated by Virgil Finlay

Our second account of a quest for eternal life also takes place in Italy, but goes back thousands of years to the days of the Roman Empire. A general and a senator plot against the life of a popular emperor. Their subtle plan involves offering a large reward for an effective elixir of immortality, convincing the emperor that it really works, thanks to the deceptive aid of the ruler's trusted slave, and substituting poison.

Complicating matters is an old man, saved from death in the arena by the emperor's mercy. In gratitude, he manages to create a genuine potion granting endless life, but is too late to prevent the emperor from being murdered. He hatches his own plot against those who slew his savior.

This is mostly a story of palace intrigue and vengeance, with just a touch of fantasy. The ancient setting is convincing, and there's a bit of philosophical musing at the end. It's very readable, if not particularly memorable, and not quite up to the author's usual high standard.

A middle-of-the-road three stars.

The Man Who Found Proteus, by Robert Rohrer

The gods of mythology, with some exceptions, enjoy the freedom from death sought by the protagonists of the first two stories. This comic romp features the god Proteus, famous for being able to change into any shape.

A grizzled prospector encounters the deity, first as a moving rock, then in the form of a talking mule, and later as a series of letters appearing on the ground, allowing the god to announce his desires in writing. His wants are simple enough; he's eternally hungry, ready to devour anything the prospector can provide. As you might imagine, things don't work out well for the old sourdough.

For the most part, this is a silly comedy, more notable for a certain amount of imagination than for belly laughs.

A slightly amused two stars.

Seed of Eloraspon (Part 2 of 2), by Manly Banister


Illustrations by Schelling again

The hero of this thud-and-blunder yarn may not be immortal, but it sure seems that way some times. As you may recall from last month, he set out to find the ancient city of the long-vanished, technologically advanced inhabitants of an alien world, accompanied by a warrior princess, an enemy turned friend, and a fellow Earthling. After many battles with the wicked Tharn, and a strange encounter with their mysterious rulers, the Bronze Men, they were about to be killed by huge flying monsters.

The author cheats as badly as any old movie serial, by setting up a cliffhanger from which there seems no escape, and then offering a disappointing way out. It seems that the hero, because he's got the advanced mental powers of what the story calls a magnanthropus, is able to communicate with the creatures. It seems that they're on his side, and want him to fulfill his quest. (There's a weird explanation that the flying beasts, along with other beings on this world, are the incarnation of emotions. That seemed really goofy to me.)


A typical battle. I like the use of the circle.

After getting out of that scrape without any effort, our quartet of adventurers fight the Tharn, get captured, escape, and so on. Eventually the hero discovers the secret of the Bronze Men, which will come as no surprise to anybody who has ever read any science fiction, and triumphs over all challenges. This pretty much just involves pulling a lever, which is pretty anticlimactic.


A defeated Bronze Man, although it sure looks more like a stone statue to me.

I got the feeling that the author really rushed through this half of the story. Things move at a breakneck pace, but without much purpose or meaning. The whole thing just sort of fizzles out at the end, leaving the reader exhausted and unsatisfied.

A disappointed one star.

Hell, by Robert Rohrer

(The Table of Contents credits the story to somebody named Howard Lyon. As best as I can figure out, this is a pseudonym meant to disguise the fact that the author has two pieces in the same issue. Rohrer and Lyon, get it? The Table of Contents also lists the author of The Man Who Found Proteus as Robert H. Rohrer instead of plain Robert Rohrer, so I guess there was some confusion around the editorial offices.)

A man finds himself, as the simple title implies, in the infernal regions. He passes some damned souls lying immobile on a beach under a cloudy sky, then takes a ride across the water with a demonic boatman assumed to be Charon. The fellow has no fear of eternal punishment, because he feels ready to face any psychological torment Hell might provide. As you expect, his attitude turns out to be badly mistaken. In a way, he faces the worst kind of immortality, if only in a spiritual sense.

The ending of this brief tale is not surprising. I never did figure out what the point of the motionless bodies on the beach was supposed to be. The story is decently written, but there's not much to it.

A confused two stars.

The Mermaid and the Archer, by Barry P. Miller


Illustration by Robert Adragna

The title characters in this romantic fantasy are two department store manikins, unable to move but conscious and able to communicate through a kind of telepathy. They were crafted by a master puppet-maker, whose affection for his creations gave them life. A violent storm threatens their physical existence, but a painter is able to preserve their love in his art.

This gentle, bittersweet fable suggests a kind of immortality in the works of gifted artists. Written in a introspective, poetic style, it is sure to touch the reader's emotions.

A sentimental four stars.

Daughter of the Clan, by Wilton G. Beggs

A teenage girl, who was adopted as an infant, experiences a gnawing, unsatisfied hunger. An attempted rape leads to the discovery of her true nature, and she meets others of her kind. A particular kind of immortality is implied.

Despite a certain moody intensity in the author's style, this is a simple, predictable tale, which ends just when it starts to get more interesting. Like the lead story, it attempts to produce old-fashioned chills, but not as effectively.

An unsatisfied two stars.

From Here to Eternity

Although none of the stories in this issue are likely to win undying fame, a couple of them should remain in the reader's memory for quite some time, if not forever. It makes me wonder how long copies of the magazine are likely to exist; if not in paper form, maybe on microfilm or some other medium. Whether anybody will be reading this issue in the distant future is an unanswerable question. Let's just be grateful we can enjoy the best of it here and now.

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Magazine

[October 20, 1964] The Struggle (November 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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[Have you gotten your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963)? It's got some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age, many of the stories first appearing in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!)


by Gideon Marcus

The Good Fight

1964 has been a year of struggle.  The struggle to integrate our nation, the struggle against disorder in the cities, titanic power struggles in the U.S., the U.K. and now the U.S.S.R.  The struggle to hold on to South Vietnam, to preserve Congo as a whole nation.  The struggle of folk, rock, Motown, country, and surf against the inexorable British invasion.

So it's no wonder that this month's Fantasy and Science Fiction makes struggle the central component of so many of its stories.  This magazine is wont to have "All Star Issues" — this one is an "All Theme Issue":


by Ed Emshwiller

The Issues at Hand

Greenplace, by Tom Purdom

Purdom, who just wrote the excellent I want the Stars (review coming in the next Galactoscope), depicts a 21st Century in which immortality has created a stranglehold on politics.  Canny machine bosses can hold on to power indefinitely.  Nicholson is a man who would break this power, loading himself up on psychically enhancing drugs and personally investigating "Greenplace", a stronghold neighborhood of the 8th Congressional District.  There, he encounters resistance, violence, and a secret…

Remarkable for its melange of interesting ideas and surreal execution, it's a little too consciously weird for true effectiveness.  Three stars.

After Everything, What? by Dick Moore

Two thousand years ago, genetic supermen ruled the galaxy.  They weren't dictators; rather, they were created by humans to be the best that humanity could be (that's what the story says — I'm not endorsing eugenics).  After a century of dominance, they all died out.

It's a well-written piece, but the conclusion is obvious from the beginning: the ubermenschen struggled against boredom…and lost.

Three stars.

Treat, by Walter H. Kerr

It used to be that, on Halloween, people would wear scary masks so that when they encountered bonafide spooks on their day of free reign, they would be mistaken for compatriots.  Nowadays, the shoe is on the other foot — spooks can only freely walk the Earth on Oct. 31 since everyone mistakes their frightening faces for masks.

Cute?  Three stars.

Breakthrough, by Jack Sharkey

Here, the struggle is Man vs. Machine.  A chess-playing computer betrays its sentience by developing a sense of humor.  So its creator, tormented with feelings of inferiority, shoots the machine dead.

Sharkey can be good.  More often he can be bad.  Here, Sharkey is about as bad as he ever gets.

One star.

Dark Conception, by Louis J. A. Adams

When the Savior comes again, will it be in the form of another virgin birth?  And what happens when the new Mary happens to be Black?

This is the first piece of the issue that has some of the old F&SF power, but the ending doesn't pack a lot of punch since the conclusion is telegraphed, and the author doesn't do much with it.

Three stars for this missed opportunity of a tale.

One Man's Dream, by Sydney Van Scyoc

Against age, all mortals struggle in vain.  A Mr. Rybik has himself "tanked" in life-sustaining fluids in the hopes of purchasing a few more years.  But not for himself — he wants to preserve the other personality who lives in his head, the pulp adventurer called Anderson.  This Anderson is more real to him than even his wife or his kids, entertaining, sustaining, allowing Rybik to enjoy a life of vicarious excitement.

But when Rybik's money runs out, he finds that no one in the real world wants to pony up dough to save a crazy dreamer who neglected his family.  Can Anderson save him now?

Well crafted, it engages while it lasts, and then sort of fades away.  Like Anderson.

Three stars.

The New Encyclopaedist – III, by Stephen Becker

Another of these faux articles written for an encyclopaedia, copyright 2100 A.D.  This one details a latter day crusade against immorality by a McCarthy parody.  Mostly a bore, though there is one genuinely funny line.

Two stars.

Where Do You Live, Queen Esther? by Avram Davidson

Esther is a Creole house-servant.  Her struggle is with her employer, Eleanor Raidy, who treats her poorly.  In typically overwritten fashion, the author details Esther's revenge.  Only Avram can make seven pages feel like 20.

I understand Davidson is quitting the editorship of F&SF to devote more time to his writing.  If this is the kind of stuff we can look forward to, he might consider an altogether different career.  And it's a reprint, no less!

Two stars.

The Black of Night, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A's article for the month details the struggle to answer Olbers' paradox: if the universe be infinite, and stars evenly distributed, why isn't the night sky as bright as the day's?

As one might guess, the issue is with the postulates.  Neither are correct, as we now know.  Asimov does his usual fine job explaining things for the layman.

Four stars.

On the House, by R. C. FitzPatrick

In the earlier story, Dark Conception, the husband of the pregnant Mary confronts Mary's doctor.  Both husband and doctor are Black, but the husband considers the doctor a "Tom" and won't be satisfied with mere equality:

"I don' want what you want, man.  I want what they got and for them to be like me now.  I want to lead me a lynch mob and hang someone who looks at one of our girls.  I want to rend me some of my land to one of them and let them get one payment behind.  I want them to try to send they kids to our school.  I want 'em to give me back myself like I was before, when I didn't hurt so bad that I better off dead."

Fitzpatrick's On the House is a deal with the Devil story, but the protagonist is a Black woman, and all she wants is to change places with "one of them". 

It's another piece that would do a lot better with development beyond the punchline, but I at least appreciate the variation on the theme.

Three stars.

Portrait of the Artist, by Harry Harrison

If there is going to be one struggle that defines the modern age, it's the struggle to reconcile automation with personal dignity.  Harrison, in this piece, shows the mental devastation that happens when even such an imagination-laden field as comic artistry can be done by a machine. 

It was pretty good up to the end where (if you'll pardon the unintentional pun, given how the story ends), Harrison fails to stick the landing.

Three stars.

Hag, by Russell F. Letson, Jr.

Is a witch's pox effective against modern vaccination?

Another pleasant (if forgettable) prose poem.

Three stars.

Oversight, by Richard Olin

Wacky doctor wins his struggle against aging by infusing his cells with planaria (flatworm) DNA.  It has unintended consequences.

Another story with an obvious ending — and this one doesn't make biological sense. 

Olin's last (and first) story was better.  Two stars.

The Third Coordinate, by Adam Smith

We end with the struggle to reach the stars.  The concept is novel: humanity has invented a teleporter, but while direction can be controlled, distance cannot.  What its operators need is three known destinations, coordinates that can be used to calibrate the device so that accurate ranging can be done.

Great idea.  Very poor execution.  Nothing happens for the first 20 pages but some of the clunkiest exposition and character development I've read in a while.  And there's no tension in the end, either.  Pilot succeeds, end of story.

Two stars, and a hope that the theme gets picked up by someone with more chops.

Summing Up

As it turns out, the biggest struggle this month was finishing the damned magazine.  Conflict is vital to any story, but it's only one component.  Execution and development matter, too.  Even Davidson's story intros have lapsed into badness.  I'm looking forward to the editor's departure from F&SF; any change has to be an improvement, right?

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Book

[October 18, 1964] Out in Space and Down to Earth (October's Galactoscope #1)

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There were quite a lot of books to catch up on this month, but two of them stood out for their quality.  As a result, they're going to get full-length treatments, and the other books we read will be dealt with later.  So please enjoy these exciting offerings, reviewed by two of the Journey's finest writers…


by Victoria Silverwolf

No Man on Earth, by Walter Moudy


Cover art by Richard Powers

Mister Moudy, Mysterious Missourian

Here's a writer who is completely new to me. In fact, after doing a little research, I believe that he is new to all readers. As far as I can tell, this is his first published work of fiction.

Beyond that interesting fact, I have been able to discover very little about the author. He comes from the Show Me state; he's an attorney; and his middle name is Frank. The book is dedicated to his wife, Marguerite.

In a way, it's a good thing to approach a novel without any preconceptions about the person who wrote it. We predict that certain elements will appear in a work by Heinlein or Bradbury. I have no idea what to expect from Walter Frank Moudy, so I hope I can provide an objective look at this fledgling effort.

Child of Violence

If you were to tear off the covers of this book — not that I suggest actually doing such a horrible thing — and hand it to me without the blurbs that appear on front and back, it would take me quite a while to figure out that it's a science fiction novel. The first few chapters make it seem like a backwoods fantasy, something like a darker version of the stories of the wandering balladeer John, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for some time now. (They can also be found in the collection Who Fears the Devil?, published last year by Arkham House, if you can find a copy of this limited edition, and are willing to shell out four bucks.)


Cover art by Lee Brown Coye

The novel begins with a young woman about to give birth. Her painful memories tell us that she was raped by a man she thinks is a witch. Everything about the setting, and the woman's dialect, suggests that this takes place in a primitive settlement in the mountains. (At first I thought it was Appalachia, but later details make it clear that we're in the Ozarks.)

The villagers wait for the child to be born, intending to kill it as a unnatural monster. The woman's brother, and the local midwife, who has secrets of her own, manage to save the baby's life. The newborn boy seems to be perfectly normal, but he learns to speak by the age of six months, and grows into a super-intelligent preteen with strange powers. Both loved and hated by his mother, he runs away from home after she makes a feeble, tearful attempt to end his life.

Escape From the Reservation

We get our first hint that the novel is set in the future when we find out that the First World War took place a century and a half ago. What makes this even stranger is the fact that the mother believes it was the last war that ever took place. At this point, I wondered if the villagers were so isolated they knew nothing about recent history. That didn't make sense, because there's a school nearby with plenty of books. Was this some kind of alternate time line? The truth turned out to be quite different.

In fact, the villagers live in a reservation, separate from the rest of the USA in the late 21st Century, and are deliberately kept ignorant about the modern world around them. The midwife is actually an observer, studying their culture. The boy is the only resident ever to make his way out of the reservation, thanks to his superhuman intelligence. He manages to survive, and even thrive, in this strange new world, eventually becoming enormously wealthy, due to his ability to create highly advanced inventions.

Searching the Galaxy for a Father

The young man uses all his acquired money and power to build the world's first faster-than-light spaceship. This technology threatens to upset the balance of power, which could lead to Armageddon. (In this future world, there was a limited atomic war. After this disaster, both sides of the Cold War worked together to make sure that neither gained any advantage over the other. The FTL drive could destroy this uneasy peace.)

The protagonist wants to explore the cosmos, determined to find the humanoid alien who impregnated his mother. In order to ensure that he does not return the spaceship to Earth and reveal its secrets to either power, he is accompanied by a female Russian cosmonaut and a male American astronaut, each keeping watch over the other. Acting on the orders of the President of the United States, a Federal law official is also along for the ride. His mission is to ensure that the spaceship does not return at all, even if it means killing the young man, of whom he has grown very fond.

What follows is a series of encounters with several different alien species, mostly very similar to human beings. After many adventures, the main character eventually tracks down his father, leading to the dramatic conclusion.

A Very Mixed Bag

This is an unusual science fiction novel, not quite like anything else I've ever read. In addition to reminding me of Wellman, as I've mentioned, it also brought to mind traces of Philip K. Dick, A. E. van Vogt, and Theodore Sturgeon. That's a quartet of very different writers, and I'm probably greatly misleading you by mentioning their names.

The book consists of many highly varied sections, told from several points of view. One particularly interesting chapter consists of multiple first person narratives, relating how different alien societies, from primitive to advanced, react to the human visitors.

Despite its frequent changes of mood, the author manages to make the novel into a coherent whole. (One chapter, late in the book, can only be described as a bedroom farce. Even this lighthearted interlude turns out to be relevant to later events.)

The complex plot always kept my interest. The characters, for the most part, are fully developed and win the reader's empathy. (The fate of one character, whom I have not even mentioned, comes as a real shock, about halfway through the book.)

The story has a fair amount of sexual content, particularly for a paperback science fiction novel. This, by itself, shouldn't bother mature readers, but one scene repelled me. Without giving anything away, let's just say that it reminded me of the late Ian Fleming's James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me, which contains this statement from the female narrator.

All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.


Cover art by Richard Chopping, for what is generally considered to be the worst Bond novel

Like this quote, the scene in question made my skin crawl, particularly after the author effectively conveyed the young woman's horror of being raped at the very start of the story. Readers are also likely to find the end of the novel disturbing, in a similar way.

Despite my serious concerns about the book's treatment of sexual violence, overall I thought it was a good novel, particularly for a first effort.

Four stars.


by Cora Buhlert

Davy by Edgar Pangborn

Edgar Pangborn

Edgar Pangborn has been writing science fiction under his own name for thirteen years at this point and was apparently writing under other names before that. However, none of his stories have been translated into German and the availability of English language science fiction magazines is spotty at best. Therefore, I had never encountered Pangborn's work before, when I came across his latest novel Davy in my local import bookstore.

Davy by Edgar Pangborn

Davy does not look like a typical science fiction novel. It's a hardback, for starters, with a plain cover enlivened only by a drawing of a man's hand holding a French horn. However, the cover is completely appropriate, because Davy is not your typical science fiction novel. Besides, a French horn plays an important part in the story.

Davy is set approximately three hundred years after a nuclear war, followed by various natural disasters, wiped out most of North America and threw what remained back into the dark ages. The North Eastern US has been reduced to small fiefdoms and walled towns besieged by mutated beasts that roam the wilderness. The Holy Murcan Church rules over all, hoarding forbidden knowledge from the "Old Time" and keeping the population in ignorance. Though the reader will have to infer this for themselves, because Davy takes the form of a memoir written by the titular character, with occasional footnotes and asides from Davy's wife Nickie and good friend Dion.

Coming of Age in the Post-Apocalypse

In a rambling and roundabout way, Davy tells us that he was born in brothel, which is why he has no last name, raised in an orphanage and eventually sold as a bond servant to an innkeeper. Though he has little formal education, Davy is intelligent. By his early teens, he begins to question church doctrine, though he wisely keeps his doubts to himself, as heretics are mercilessly executed. Davy dreams of running away and eventually does, after the stealing the French horn seen on the cover from a "mue" – a mutant Davy had befriended in defiance of church doctrine – accidentally killing a city guard and losing his virginity to Emmia, the innkeeper's daughter.

We get a blow by blow account of the latter event. As a matter of fact, Davy talks quite a lot about his sexual adventures, which frequently involve wrestling his partners into submission. Davy certainly gives a lot more room to sexual matters than is common even in the fairly liberal science fiction genre. Readers who are uncomfortable with such scenes may want to skip this novel.

After his escape, Davy falls in with a group of deserters from one of the many skirmishes between the various fiefdoms, finds his father and eventually joins a troupe of travelling entertainers named Rumley's Ramblers, where his self-taught horn playing skills come in handy. After his father's death, Davy sets out on his own and meets Nickie, the love of his life, who is not just an aristocratic lady posing as a man, but also puts him touch with a secret underground society of heretics who try to preserve "Old Time" knowledge. Via Nickie, Davy meets her cousin Dion, monarch of the nation of Nuin (which roughly corresponds to modern day Massachusetts). Both Nickie and Dion and much of the Nuin aristocracy are casually described as black, while Davy himself is white and redhaired, racial prejudice having thankfully died out along with the pre-apocalyptic world.

Together, Dion, Nickie and Davy try to introduce reforms and break the stranglehold of the church. They lose and are driven out of the country. A ship takes them and a few followers to the Azores, where they settle down and build a utopian colony. The memoir is written during Davy's time aboard the ship. The novel ends with Davy planning to sail to Europe, after Nicky has died in childbirth, giving birth to a mutated baby that did not survive either.

A Unique Narrator

Davy's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, for it is Davy's first person narration with all its charming idiosyncrasies that makes what could have been a standard post-apocalyptic yarn come to life. However, Davy is also given to digressions and if he decides to interrupt the ongoing story to talk about a storm at sea, the difficulties of making reading glasses without "Old Time" tools or to give us an overview of the various fiefdoms of his home region and their major cities, all of which bear the corrupted names of cities in the North Eastern US (which is probably more interesting to someone actually from the region, whereas I found myself constantly referring to a Rand McNally road atlas, trying to figure out what the names might stand for), the reader has no choice but to follow along. Many of Davy's digressions are fascinating, others are just dull. Furthermore, Davy also tends to skip over parts of his life – for example, he mentions taking part in a war to expel pirates from Cape Cod, but we never see this undoubtedly exciting episode.

Not Your Typical Science Fiction Novel

The Long Tomorrow by Leigh BrackettThe Chrysalids by John Wyndham

In the past fifteen years, nuclear war and its aftermath have become both a timely and popular subject for science fiction, resulting in such varied works as A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett, "That Only a Mother" by Judith Merril, On the Beach by Nevil Shute, Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank or The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Davy shares some DNA with these works and borrows the post-apocalyptic theocracy trying to suppress knowledge from The Long Tomorrow and The Chrysalids and the state-sanctioned murder of mutants from "That Only a Mother" and again, The Chrysalids, while the tale of a young man from humble origins making his way in the world is reminiscent of the various juveniles of Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton. But in spite of superficial similarities with other works, Davy is its own thing, a science fiction novel that doesn't feel very science fictional.

Tom Jones movie posterThe Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

At heart, Davy is a Bildungsroman, reminiscent of such 18th century novels as The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne and The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding as well as last year's successful film adaptation thereof. If we are looking for a modern day literary comparison, Davy is far closer to John Barth's 1960 novel The Sot-Feed Factor (and indeed Pangborn tuckerises Barth as an author of forbidden texts from the "Old Time") than to anything found in the pages of Analog, even if parts of Davy appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in February and March 1962.

A highly enjoyable picaresque adventure in a post-apocalyptic New England.

Four and a half stars.

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TV

[October 14, 1964] Back in Session? (The Outer Limits, Season 2, Episodes 1-4)

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by Natalie Devitt

The second season of The Outer Limits is now underway! As someone who is pretty devoted to her favorite shows, I anticipated the return of the science fiction anthology show with excitement. But something seems different. Could it be the result of the departure of producer Joseph Stefano, who contributed his creative vision and a number of scripts? Maybe changes in the show’s budget, time slot or its music? Read on, and tell me if you share my concern.

Soldier, by Harlan Ellison

Broken Arrow (1956-58)’s Michael Ansara plays Qarlo, a futuristic soldier who is unexpectedly teleported to the present day while in the middle of a conflict. Wandering the streets armed and dressed in plate armor with a space helmet, it does not take long before he ends up in a psychiatric hospital. There, one of the men assigned to Qarlo’s case is philologist Tom Kagan, played by Lloyd Nolan of 1957’s film adaptation of Peyton Place. Kagan tries to understand Qarlo’s language in order to interview him.

Unaware of Qarlo’s origins, Kagan soon realizes that the strange man has heightened senses and knows about things that scientists predict will occur in 1800 years. Additionally, the philologist determines that Qarlo did not come from another country, but another time. Qarlo simply views other living beings as either enemies or not enemies, and that “he doesn’t understand hate, or love, or compassion.” Kagan figures that this is because Qarlo “is really a Soldier. There is nothing about him that is not a Soldier. He is the perfect, ultimate infantry man. I don’t think he knows anything else.”

Even after taking all of this into consideration, Kagan vows “that given enough time, I’ll establish absolute communication“ with Qarlo. He thinks that one month should do the trick. Kagan requests that Qarlo be released into his care and he is reluctantly granted permission. Despite any initial reservations by his superiors and his loved ones, Kagan’s adorable family welcomes Qarlo into their home with open arms. Fascinated by their guest, the Kagan children are forbidden to tell their friends about Qarlo. But despite Kagan’s best efforts to keep his guest a secret, it does not take long for an enemy from Qarlo’s time to locate him.

Soldier certainly gets the month and the season off to a great start. While not quite the show’s finest hour, it certainly is one of the better entries. Gone is the man in the alien costume I have come to expect from the series. The sequences showing Qarlo in the future are beautifully filmed on impressive sets, and the special effects are effective. The makeup and costumes are not quite as not as strong as other aspects of the episode, but fine for a weekly program. The writing is exceptionally strong and provided by Harlan Ellison, author of the short story “Soldier from Tomorrow”, which served as a basis for episode. All of the actors deliver convincing performances. Overall, I give Soldier fours stars for an imaginative and well-crafted hour of television programming.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart, by Dan Ullman

In Cold Hands, Warm Heart, William Shatner (The Twilight Zone‘s Nick of Time and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet) is the charismatic Colonel Jeff Barton, who has just arrived home after becoming the first man to travel to Venus. Not long after being back, he is promoted and begins preparing for his next assignment, Project Vulcan, which will send him on a journey to Mars.

In the role of Jeff’s adoring wife, Ann, is Geraldine Brooks, making her second appearance on The Outer Limits after last season’s The Architects of Fear. Ann notices that Jeff has not been himself since his return. Whether he’s chugging scorching hot coffee or barricading himself in the local steam room, he just cannot seem to stay warm.

Jeff’s wife is not the only person to notice that something is off. After seeking medical attention, Jeff learns that his body temperature is only 91 degrees and he is told, “the whole chemistry of your body is changing.“ Soon, the skin on his hands begins to change, so much so that he eventually starts developing webbing between his fingers. Blood test reveals that “his blood isn’t human” and is actually impossible to classify because it does not seem to match any animal known to man. But what is perhaps most traumatic for Jeff is that he is haunted by terrifying visions of an extraterrestrial he encountered while in space.

This installment of the series was a bit of a disappointment, especially after watching Soldier just the week before. It does, however, deliver some unexpected laughs with a rather over-the-top performance by William Shatner and one goofy-looking alien, complete with glowing eyes, scales and long, flowing locks of hair. Special effects are not nearly as impressive as the show's vastly superior season premiere.

Brooks’ performance gives the episode a much needed boost. I know I often complain about romantic subplots, but I think the bond between Jeff and Ann is the episode’s greatest strength. On the topic of the episode’s writing, it is a little frustrating that it is never really explained what is really wrong with Jeff. I was waiting for some sort of payoff at the end, but the story lacks a satisfying conclusion. Taking all of these factors into consideration, two stars is all I can offer to Cold Hands, Warm Heart.

Behold, Eck!, by John Mantley

Veteran actor Peter Lind Hayes (The 5000 Fingers of Doctor T (1953)) plays Doctor James Stone, who arrives at work one morning to find that someone has ransacked his lab. To get a better look at things, he puts on a pair of special glasses that he designed from meteoric quartz. He discovers a two-dimensional creature, Eck, that can only be seen while wearing the glasses. The being attacks Stone, stealing his glasses. Eck also takes a list of the names of Doctor Stone’s clients who own matching pairs. Now, Doctor Stone is in a race against time to track down the patients before Eck gets to them. The only problem is that nobody believes Doctor Stone. Even his own brother thinks he is sick.

Behold, Eck! is pretty slow moving. It probably does not help matters that I hear the actors talking about action, but I do not see much. The episode tries to balance some serious and more light-hearted moments, though not very successfully. Most performances are adequate, but the real problem here is the writing. To make matters worse, a lot of things mentioned by characters just do not make much sense. One thing the episode has going for it is the sequence where Eck sparkles like a Christmas tree following an accident that made it luminous. Maybe if you do not give the episode too much thought, it works as pure escapism, but I am leaning towards two stars for Behold, Eck!.

Expanding Human, by Francis Cockrell

When someone breaks into a university lab, the authorities arrive on the scene, where they determine that someone has ripped the lab’s door off its hinges using only their bare hands. Inside the lab, they discover the body of a university night watchman. Upon further inspection of the lab, it is noted that “consciousness expanding“ drugs are missing. The same drugs that were recently being used for experiments that became part of a scandal that tarnished the university‘s reputation, resulting in threats to the school’s funding.

Those incidents are followed by more seemingly unexplainable events locally, all of which involve someone with incredible strength and/or advanced intelligence. It is not long before all signs point to one man in particular, Professor Roy Clinton, played by former child star Skip Homeier. The only problem is he has no memory of any involvement. Turns out, Clinton has been conducting some experiments of his own, using the drugs that he has been stealing from the university. Partaking of the substances not only improve his consciousness, but also his strength due to the fact that he transforms into a nearly indestructible monster.

This update of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , filled with references to Timothy Leary, has potential that it never really fulfills. It does not help that the episode feels a little padded to add time. One thing it has going for it is that Canadian actor James Doohan (The Twilight Zone‘s Valley of the Shadow) is quite convincing in his role as Lieutenant Branch. Skip Homeier, on the other hand, is believable in his role as Clinton, until he transforms into the creature with gigantic cheekbones and ridges on the sides of his forehead, then things begin to fall apart very quickly. Though, I do have to give Expanding Human some credit for attempting to tackle such timely subject matter, so it earns just two and half stars.

As you can see, after the first episode, there was a sudden drop in the show’s quality. To recap things briefly, this past month only gave us one memorable episode, Soldier. Cold Hands, Warm Heart was a letdown, Behold, Eck! was downright ridiculous, but Expanding Human had its moments. I consider myself a loyal viewer; is it premature to worry about the direction The Outer Limits seems to be headed?

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