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Magazine, Science / Space Race

[October 20, 1963] Science Experiments (November 1963 F&SF and a space update)

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by Gideon Marcus

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a special, extra-large Fifth Anniversary edition of the Galactic Journey. 

Five years ago tomorrow, I created the Journey to detail the day-by-day adventures of a science fiction magazine fan who just happened to also be a space journalist.  In the passage of five circuits around the sun, the scope of this project has expanded tremendously to cover books, movies, tv shows, comics, politics, music, fashion, and more.  The Journey has grown from a solo project to a staff of twenty spanning the globe.  Two years ago, we won the Rod Serling Award, and this year, we were nominated for the Hugo.

Imagine where we'll be in another half-decade!

Nevertheless, as we look back to our humble beginnings, it is appropriate that the topics I have slated for discussion today are ones we have covered sine 1958, namely the space race and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Ticking back from Midnight

Earlier this month, President Kennedy signed the Senate-ratified Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, outlawing American and Soviet above-ground nuclear tests.  No longer shall we detonate atomic blasts in the sky just to see the pretty glow and tinge our TANG with strontium-90.

It's an exciting first step toward controlling the nuclear genie, but the question now becomes, 'How do we enforce the ban?'  A way had to be developed to tell if the other side had tested a bomb without telling us.

Enter the two 'Vela-Hotel' satellites.  Launched on October 18, 1963, they have detectors sensitive enough to pick up the flash of radiation associated with a nuclear blast.  Moreover, these probes will do scientific duty while they enforce the peace, studying X-rays, gamma-rays, neutrons, and charged particles as they pass through interplanetary space, measuring the bow shock, the sheath, and the tail of Earth's magnetic field.  A series of six launches is planned.

Mapping the Magnetosphere

Though the energetic electrons and protons that swirl around the Earth barely weigh 150 pounds total, they carry the tremendous electric and magnetic charges that encircle our globe, protecting us from the endless solar wind of radiation.  One of the great scientific uses of satellites is the mapping of these magnetic fields to better understand the mechanism of their creation and their interaction with the sun's own fields.

Along with the two Vela-Hotels, a five-pound hitchhiker was launched specifically to measure the intensity of charged particles in the magnetosphere using an omni-directional radiation detector.

This new probe in some ways continues the mission of Explorer 14, which began to die in August of this year.  It's still running, but it has lost the ability to modulate its transmissions, rendering scientific data as an incomprehensible babble.  Nevertheless, the doughty satellite collected 6500 hours of data and mapped enough of Earth's magnetosphere to give it a definitive shape.  We now know that, in addition to the compressed bow shock where our planet's field meets that of the sun, there is a long tail in Earth's shadow in the shape of a pointed arch.  Explorer 14 also determined that Earth's field gradually shifts from the traditional north pole/south pole dumbell shape to a simple radial (round, equally distributed) field with distance from the planet.  Finally, Explorer 14 confirmed the tentative discovery reported by Explorer 6 that the charged particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field make a current of electricity ringing the Earth clockwise around its equator.

Pretty neat stuff!

Experiments in Literary SF

On the ground, the stable of authors in Editor Avram Davidson's pay has embarked on their own series of experiments in the form of the November 1963 F&SF.  Some were more successful than others, but none were failures (inasmuch as any experiment can be a failure…):

A Rose for Ecclesiastes, by Roger Zelazny

The once-proud civilization of Mars is a desiccated shell, a treasure trove of dusty tomes and ancient rites amidst tended by the last vestiges of the race.  What hidden wisdom lies behind the sacred temple walls of the Red Planet?  Polyglot and somewhat precious Mr. Gallinger is dispatched from Earth to find out.  Along the way, he learns the secret the Martian people have been carefully guarding, at profound cost to his soul.

This is a hard piece to judge.  On the one hand, it's very clearly an experiment at literary sf, the kind that Sturgeon and Dick have produced to tremendous effect many times in their careers. I greatly admire people who can write the stuff — I'm currently knee deep in my first attempt, so I understand the difficulty involved.  Zelazny almost pulls it off, but he's just not yet seasoned enough an author for the feat.  The story comes off as too affected to be entirely effective.

Moreover, there really is no excuse these days for Mars to be depicted as Earthlike nor its inhabitants entirely human.  That's not science fiction.  It's laziness. 

Three stars.

Mama, by Philip Winsor

Did you ever read the story where it turns out babies retain the memories of their past life for a while after reincarnation?  Apparently, Winsor has too, or Mama is a stunning case of convergent evolution.  Maybe I'm just remembering this tale from a past life.  Three stars.

Welcome Stranger, by Isaac Asimov

I just nonfiction articles on two axes: 1) How entertaining is it to read, and 2) Did I learn anything?  This particular piece is on Xenon, in particular; noble gasses, more broadly; and molecular bonds, in general.  My ignorance of chemistry is profound, so the fact that Dr. A was able to teach me about all of these topics and leave me with a desire to learn more is remarkable.  Four stars.

Wings of Song, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

When the last musical instrument has been lost, and even the wood to repair it is a forgotten memory, will song die as well?  This moving piece by sf-writer/musicologist Biggle is hardly plausible, but as a cautionary tale, it's thoroughly haunting.  Four stars.

Winged Victory, by S. Dorman

The sole woman-penned piece in the book (the "S." stands for "Sonya"), Victory involves a confirmed bachelor and the lady who hen-pecks him into submission.  It's a weird tale whose message is literally that the dating game is for the birds.  Just long enough to make its point; three stars.

Eight O'Clock in the Morning, by Ray Nelson

[So impressed was I by this tale that I read it aloud to my family one night.  The Young Traveler insisted on writing her own review — who am I to argue?]


by Lorelei Marcus

A man named Nada awakes to find the world's been overtaken by aliens that control every aspect of human life. These "Fascinators" lead us, own us, are among us, and so Nada finds it his duty to try and save us. A thrilling story to read, it has you on the edge of your seat questioning his every move. Is this really the savior of humanity, or some crazed serial killer? The story is woven with expert writing that gives the main character a lack of doubt (only we have doubts), and a quick pace. A thoroughly enjoyable and insightful short story, it won't take more than ten minutes of your time to read, and the ending might surprise you.  Five stars.

The Eyes of Phorkos, by L. E. Jones


by Gideon Marcus

Lastly, we have the tragic story of James Carew, an English dilettante who plunges into archaeology to compensate for the unhappiness stemming from his fantastically ugliness.  On a small island in the Aegean, he discovers that at least one of the legends of Perseus was based wholly in fact.  This find makes Carew heir to the powers of one of Greek Mythology's most terrifying monsters, and we all know the effect of power (particularly the absolute kind) on a character.

Written in a quaint style, it begins better than it ends, but it's never unrewarding reading.  Three stars.

As you can see, not only was the content of this issue experimental in nature, but so was the format.  Where F&SF normally has the most stories per issue of the SF digests, tending toward vignettes over longer pieces, the November issue had two full novellas and a handful of shorter stories.  This makeup is closer to that of, say, Analog.

The cover is also something of a departure, marking pulp era illustrator Hannes Bok's return to SF after a long hiatus.

All in all, I'd judge this issue a successful effort, certainly more challenging and rewarding than much of the stuff that comes out these days.  On the other hand, there's virtually no science in these pages, which is somewhat worrisome for a magazine whose title would suggest otherwise.

I'd be interested to know what you think.

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Magazine

[October 18, 1963] Points of View (December 1963 Worlds of Tomorrow)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Philosophers have long debated the nature of reality.  Are things what they seem to be, or do our senses deceive us?  Do you and I perceive the world in the same way, and is there any way to know?  Although there will never be a final answer to such questions, speculation about these matters can lead to intriguing works of fiction.  The latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow features many stories dealing with different perceptions of the universe: biased, distorted, ambiguous.

The Trouble with Truth, by Julian F. Grow

In the middle of the next century, Earth is united under a government run by computer.  News is restricted to the listing of confirmed data, with no human-interest stories allowed.  The narrator works for the world news agency.  His job is to prevent advertisers from planting misleading articles, and to ensure that only verifiable facts are presented in the media.  This leads to conflict with his fiancée, who runs a small monthly publication (barely tolerated by the authorities) which is not so restricted in its contents.  One of the odd things about this society is that marriage is not the same as matrimony.  The two main characters have gone through the first, but not the latter.  Another notable fact is that the woman is pregnant, and the couple will be able to choose the sex of their unborn child.  When a little girl and her father report a strange happening to the news agency, it leads to a change in the way the ruling computer views reality.

This story reminds me of Ray Bradbury in the way it promotes the importance of imagination over cold, hard facts.  The world it creates is an interesting one, but many of the futuristic details are irrelevant to the plot.  There's also a lot of expository dialogue.  How you feel about the ending, which makes use of a very famous essay from the past, depends on your tolerance for sentimentality.  It exceeded mine.  Two stars.

The Creature Inside, by Jack Sharkey

This is the newest entry in the author's Contact series, previously published in Galaxy, in which the protagonist's consciousness enters the bodies of aliens.  In this adventure, he has a very different assignment.  A man is placed in a room that allows him to experience his fantasies as if they were real.  The room also has a device that can manufacture whatever he wants from any raw material.  The intent is to treat the man's inferiority complex.  Unfortunately, he actually suffers from delusions of grandeur.  The problem is to get him out of his imaginary world, where he would be able to survive indefinitely.  The hero enters the room, where he encounters various illusions, as well as dangers that are all too real.

Although nothing very surprising happens, the hallucinations are vividly described and the story holds the reader's interest.  The protagonist learns something about his own desires, adding a nice touch of characterization to an otherwise unmemorable hero.  Three stars.

The God-Plllnk, by Jerome Bixby

Two alien beings witness a strange object land on Phobos.  They assume it is a god, because it resembles a gigantic version of themselves.  They presume that the creatures emerging from it are similar to the parasites that plague their own bodies.  Unfortunate consequences follow.

This is a brief story about what can happen when events are misinterpreted.  The outcome is predictable.  The author's use of unpronounceable alien words doesn't help.  Two stars.

Goodlife, by Fred Saberhagen

This is a sequel to Fortress Ship, which recently appeared in the pages of If.  Three people survive an attack on their spaceship by a gigantic warship known as a berserker.  One is near death from his injuries.  The computer brain of the berserker orders them to come aboard so it can study humans.  They agree, desperately hoping for an opportunity to destroy the relentless machine.  Living alone on the berserker is a man, conceived from cells taken from human prisoners.  He has never known anything but a life of slavery, with severe punishment for failure to obey the berserker.  At first, he is terrified by the arrival of other people.  The berserker commands him to co-operate with them, knowing it has already deactivated the bomb they brought with them.  What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse game, with the humans learning something new about the origin of the berserkers.

This is a suspenseful tale, with a great deal of insight into the psychology of the berserker's slave.  His distorted view of humanity provides much pathos.  The journey through the interior of the enormous machine is awe-inspiring.  The ending is sudden, but otherwise satisfying.  Four stars.

Science and Science Fiction: Who Borrows What?, by Michael Girsdansky

This is an informal article, which makes the obvious point that SF writers are inspired by the discoveries of science, and vice versa.  It wanders all over the place, from legends of Atlantis to Project Ozma.  The most interesting detail, discussed in a single paragraph, is the fact that MIT students were required to design products for an imaginary alien species.  Two stars.

Far Avanal, by J. T. McIntosh

For reasons not entirely clear, the population of future Earth consists of three times as many men as women.  This leads to a society in which women pick their husbands as they please, and many men go without wives.  The protagonist loses his intended to another man, an event that is all too common.  He receives an offer to journey to a colony planet, where the sexes are evenly matched.  The drawback is that he will have to travel through space in suspended animation while decades go by.  If he decides to return to Earth, an option he insists upon when he accepts the offer, he will be an anachronism, half a century out of date.  Things don't turn out as expected, and he must change his assumptions about his new world and the people who inhabit it.

I have mixed feelings about this story.  The premise is contrived, but the author presents the consequences of it in a convincing way.  Although some of the women are selfish and vain, another is by far the most intelligent, competent, and sympathetic character in the piece.  At the start, the main character is suspicious to the point of paranoia; he eventually learns to overcome his distorted view of others.  This touch of psychological depth makes the story worth reading.  Three stars.

The Great Slow Kings, by Roger Zelazny

Two aliens rule over their planet as monarchs, although their only subject is a robot.  The sole remaining members of their species, they think, speak, and act extremely slowly.  A single conversation lasts for centuries.  They decide to send the robot on a spaceship in order to bring back members of another species as subjects.  The relative swiftness of their captives leads to complications.  The way in which the aliens have a completely different view of time than their new subjects, possibly supposed to be human beings, made this a droll little story.  Three stars.

When You Giffle . . ., by L. J. Stecher, Jr.

This is the third tall tale from the captain of the starship Delta Crucis, previously seen transporting an elephant, then a cargo of valuable plants.  In his wildest adventure yet, he winds up lost, in an unknown part of space.  Two little boys, calmly swimming in the vacuum between the stars, help him find his way, as well as enabling him to carry a whale that is much too big to fit inside his spaceship.  The children, with their god-like telekinetic abilities, may be intended as a parody of the kind of psionic supermen found in Analog.  In any case, this is a silly story, providing only broad comedy.  Two stars.

All We Marsmen (Part 3 of 3), by Philip K. Dick

The latest work from an author who recently won the Hugo for his novel, The Man in the High Castle concludes.  This installment falls somewhere between the realistic narrative style of the first third and the jarring surrealism of the middle portion.  A meeting between a schizophrenic repairman and an avaricious head of the Martian water union, which was previewed in multiple, distorted ways in Part Two, takes place.  The repairman has no memory of it at all.  The union leader vows to take revenge on the repairman, whom he believes failed and betrayed him.  Following the advice of his Martian servant, he sets out on a pilgrimage with an autistic boy to a sacred site of the natives.  His goal is to use the boy's ability to perceive and manipulate time to change the past, so he can claim ownership of a seemingly worthless piece of land, which will be valuable in times to come.  The boy has a terrifying vision of his future as an old man, trapped in a nursing home, most of his body missing, kept barely alive by machines.  The novel returns to its opening scene, as the union leader relives his first encounter with the repairman, and the characters meet their fates.

The climax of this complex, difficult novel is dramatic.  The ambiguous nature of reality, shown through the union leader's mental journey through time, is vividly portrayed.  Readers who have been patient with its downbeat mood will be pleased with a touch of hope at the end.  The characters have the complicated personalities of real people.  (Even the union leader, who is definitely the novel's villain, is sometimes sympathetic.) I recommend reading all three parts together.  Waiting two months between installments weakens the impact of the circular structure of the plot.  (If it is published in book form, perhaps the title will be changed to something more appropriate.) Four stars.

As these stories show, science fiction can help us appreciate the way that others might see reality.  Perhaps, by looking through the eyes (or other sense organs) of different people (or other lifeforms) through the pages of our favorite magazines, we may come to have a empathy for those with other viewpoints, to be more tolerant of beliefs that don't match our own. 




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Magazine

[October 12, 1963] WHIPLASH (the November 1963 Amazing)

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by John Boston

In all the excitement last month about August’s civil rights march, I forgot to mention the other big news that has reached from Washington all the way to small town Kentucky.  On the first day of school, my home room teacher, sad expression on her face, informed the class that because of the Supreme Court’s decision, issued after the end of the last school year, barring official religious exercises in public schools , we would no longer be able to have prayer and Bible reading at the beginning of each school day.  

What a relief!  But I kept a straight face and eyes front and was thankful that the authorities here decided just to obey the law.  I gather in some places, mostly farther south, the peasants are out with torches and pitchforks. Anyway, one down. Fortunately, we only have to say the Pledge of Allegiance in assemblies every month or two, rather than every school day as is the case in some places.  So it’s a relatively minor annoyance. What a blessing this modern Supreme Court has been. It makes all the right people angry.

The November Amazing doesn’t make me angry, just bored, at least to begin.  It is dominated by Savage Pellucidar, a long novelet by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fourth and last in a series of which the first three appeared in Amazing in 1942.  This one has been sitting in Burroughs’s safe for two decades, says Sam Moskowitz’s brief introduction. (ERB died in 1950.)

The story is set in Burroughs’s version of the hollow Earth, with land and oceans and a sun in the middle, in which various characters traverse the land- and sea-scapes mostly looking for each other, fending off several varieties of dangerous wildlife (reptilian and mammalian alike) and other perils, as the author cuts from plot line to plot line to maximize the suspense that can be wrung from this rather tired material.  The obvious question: is why wasn’t this story published along with the others? One might guess that it was rejected—or perhaps Burroughs lacked the temerity even to submit it.

There is certainly evidence here that the author had grown a bit tired of the whole enterprise and had difficulty taking it seriously.  One of the characters, a feisty young woman named O-aa, nearly falls to her death after escaping the fangs of a clutch of baby pterodactyls, saving herself by grabbing a vine: “ ‘Whe-e-oo!’ breathed O-aa.”  Burroughs would have been pushing 70 when he wrote this. I gather his once impressive rate of production had slowed pretty drastically by the early 1940s. Maybe he was just too old and tired by then to produce even at his previous level of conviction, and had just enough discernment left to toss this in the safe and forget about it—unlike his heirs.  One yawning star.

Or maybe I am just a cranky voice in the wilderness, or far out to sea.  I see the Editorial celebrating the “astounding revitalization of Edgar Rice Burroughs,” and on the facing page a full-page ad for the new Canaveral Press editions of Burroughs—11 volumes published, eight more coming shortly, including one with the four Amazing novelets of which this one is the last.  Catch the wave! Thanks but no thanks. Humbug for me, shaken not stirred.

So, what’s left to salvage here?  There are three longish short stories, starting with Harry Harrison’s Down to Earth, which begins as an earnest near-space hardware opera, and continues with the astronauts returning from Moon orbit to an Earth—specifically, a Texas—in which the Nazis are in the end stages of conquering the world, though the beleaguered Americans quickly snatch the bewildered astronauts away from the invaders.  A superannuated Albert Einstein appears, stealing the show and providing a solipsistic handwaving explanation. Matters speed to a predictably unpredicted conclusion. Most writers would have stretched this material at least to Ace Double length; Harrison crams it into a very fast-moving short story, and good for him. There’s nothing especially original here, but four stars for audacious presentation.

Philip K. Dick contributes his second story in two months, What'll We Do with Ragland Park?, which despite its title is not about urban planning, but is a sequel to last month’s Stand-By.  Maximilian Fischer is still President, and he’s thrown the news clown Jim Briskin in jail.  Communications magnate Sebastian Hada is scheming from his stronghold (“demesne” as the author calls it) near John Day, Oregon, to spring Briskin so Briskin can revitalize Hada’s failing network.  To the same end, he recruits Ragland Park, a folksinger, whose songs tend to come true, and uses Park’s compositional talent for his own ends before realizing how dangerous it is.

There’s plenty else going on, such as Hada’s consultations with his psychoanalyst, Dr. Yasumi, who speaks in cliched semi-broken English (“Pretty sad that big-time operator like Mr. S. Hada falling apart under stress.”), and the unexplained fact that Hada has eight wives, one of whom is psychotic and is brought back from her residence on Io on 24 hours’ notice by the President to try to assassinate Hada.  There are also things inexplicably not going on, like the alien invasion fleet which is mentioned in passing but doesn’t seem to be doing anything, or maybe the characters just don’t care. By any rational standard, this is a terrible story: loose, rambling, and arbitrary, in sharp contrast to Harrison’s tightly written and constructed story, or for that matter Dick’s own Hugo-winning The Man in the High Castle.  But Dick’s woolly satirical ramblings are still clever and entertaining, like Stand-By more comparable to a stand-up routine than what we usually think of as a story. Three stars.

Almost-new author Piers Anthony—one prior story, in Fantastic a few months ago—is present with Quinquepedalian, which is just what it sounds like: a story about an extraterrestrial animal with five feet.  Monumentally large animal, very large feet, with which it is trying to stomp the space-faring protagonist to death, not without reason. And it seems to be intelligent. How to communicate that it is pursuing a fellow sophont, and persuade it to let bygones be bygones? This one is for anyone who says there are no new ideas in SF, for certain values of “idea.”  Four stars for ingenuity and a different kind of audacity than Harrison’s.


   
Ben Bova, whom I am beginning to think of as the 60-cycle hum of Amazing, has the obligatory science article, The Weather in Space, pointing out that the vacuum of space is no such thing; there’s matter there (though not much by our standards), plenty of energy at least this close to a star, plasma (i.e., ionized gas), the solar wind, solar flares, etc.  This is accompanied by perhaps the most inapposite Virgil Finlay illustration yet for this series of articles. This piece is more interesting than most to my taste, or maybe just better suited to my degree of ignorance; I found it edifying, though Bova remains a moderately dull writer. Three stars.

Well, that was bracing.  What’s the cliche? The night is darkest just before the dawn?  Something like that, anyway. From the doldrums of ERB to three pretty decent short stories, in nothing flat and 130 pages.   But I could do without the whiplash.

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TV

[October 10, 1963] The Outer Limits of television — a first look

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by Natalie Devitt

Does television really need another science fiction anthology series? This is a question I wrestled with not too long ago, back when I heard that ABC had announced their plans to air a new anthology titled The Outer Limits on Monday nights. Sure, I will happily watch just about anything. But does the average person have the time to devote to the show, especially after having watched anything from Science Fiction Theatre to The Twilight Zone? Would The Outer Limits offer anything new, or just simply rework the same stories that we have been watching on other programs for years? On a mission to answer these questions and to save your precious time, I went to The Outer Limits once a week for its first month. Here is what I found:

The Galaxy Being, by Leslie Stevens

The show began with a pretty strong introduction. I was immediately interested as the narrator intoned:

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.”

But shortly after the episode started going, I found myself somewhat disappointed. The Galaxy Being is a great example of an interesting idea that is hurt by execution. It features a radio station engineer named Allan, played by Gidget actor Cliff Robertson, who frequently conducts his own experiments at work. Allan makes contact with a being from out of this world called the Galaxy Being.

Allan is intrigued by the Galaxy Being, but is unable to communicate with the alien for too long, due to his wife urging him to attend an event with her. So he leaves the station in the care of a trusted colleague for what he plans to only be an hour with explicit instructions not to alter the controls unless it be an absolute emergency. When Allan is unable to make it back to the station in time (of course), the disc jockey manning the controls increases the transmission, accidentally teleporting the alien to Earth. Once on Earth, the alien receives a less than warm welcome by a number of very frightened humans.

Allan is portrayed as something of a mad scientist, sacrificing his marriage in the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is that the script fails to really establish a strong relationship between him and his wife. As a result, it’s hard to care about Allan’s deteriorating romantic relationship as it is being impacted by the time he spends conducting his research at the station, and it’s hard to understand how his wife could convince him to hand over the radio controls to someone else the night the Galaxy Being is unleashed on the town.

While I did not find the Galaxy Being to be very visually appealing with his fish eyes, I must admit that he is certainly unique and that the technology used to create him is unlike anything I have ever seen before. So, that is worth noting. But unfortunately, there is the sequence where the Galaxy Being is shown causing all kinds of chaos in Allan’s home town once he is teleported to Earth.

Lights flicker and the wind suddenly starts howling, while the alien wanders through the streets at night. He breaks things, sends people screaming, women faint. I must admit as things went on, I found it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief. The episode suddenly changed tone, and the whole episode started to feel like something straight out of a movie by American International Pictures.

Overall, The Galaxy Being was entertaining, but some elements made it hard to take it seriously as it went on. The whole thing made me wonder what kind of long-tern potential The Outer Limits has. In any case, I give The Galaxy Being two and a half stars.

The One Hundred Days of the Dragon, by Allan Balter and Robert Mintz

The One Hundred Days of the Dragon is a story about a government which may or may not be China's replacing a presidential candidate with a spy right before he is elected into office. The spy has all kinds of plans to take over the United States government, and while all of that sounds interesting, believe me when I write that you have to see the episode to believe it. It is like The Manchurian Candidate’s crazy distant relative.

The Hundred Days of the of the Dragon is more of a thriller, and the script a little more far-fetched, than I had anticipated. All in all, it was well-shot with decent acting, including the work of actor Sidney Blackmer. The musical score, while a little overdone, was effective, and would not be out of place on a Martin Denny record. My big gripe with the episode is that I am confused about the tone that the series is trying to strike with its audience this week. For that reason, I give the episode two and a half stars.

The Architects of Fear, by Meyer Dolinsky

In an attempt to bring together mankind, a group of overly-optimistic scientists devise a plan to create a threat so great that people from all walks of life will have no choice but to unite together — a hoaxed extraterrestrial invasion. The plan involves one of their men undergoing a number of procedures to be transformed into a hideous alien. Robert Culp plays Allen, the man selected at random for the role, who sacrifices everything in his life, including a wonderful marriage and an unborn baby, to try to make people see beyond their differences.

This was the episode that I was waiting for all month long, infinitely more compelling than anything else shown on The Outer Limits thus far. The character development in this episode is vastly superior than in the previous episodes; the relationship between Allen and his wife is one of the story’s greatest strengths. By understanding their bond, the viewer understands exactly what Allen is sacrificing by undergoing experiments and presenting himself as a serious potential threat to humans.

Everything was beautifully shot and dramatically lit with dark shadows, which only helped to accentuate the drama and create a strong sense of atmosphere. So did the point of view shot from Allen’s perspective when he transitions and things begin to look more blurry.  The expressionistic approach to the scene could not have been more effective.

Also, the alien that Allen transformed into is quite frightening and rather detailed. The special effects makeup on Allan during his transitions from human into alien are fairly realistic. All in all, the episode is a good balance of both heart and brain. I give it four and a half stars.

The Man with the Power, by Jerome Ross

The Man with the Power stars British actor Donald Pleasence as a college professor trapped in a meaningless job and a loveless marriage with an overbearing wife. Out of a desire to create some kind of purpose to  his life, he decides against his wife and his employer’s wishes to participate in a scientific study in which an object is implanted into his head, which causes him to develop telekinetic powers. The catch is that his new power seems to be affected by his emotions, and years of built up anger and resentment make his telekinetic abilities increasingly difficult to control.

Despite being fairly well-acted by Donald Pleasence, The Man with the Power failed to offer up anything new. In fact, the script seemed a little too much like Forbidden Planet with the whole emphasis on the man with an inability to control his id. And since the story provided no new material or perspectives, it was fairly predictable. I give The Man with the Power two and a half stars.

The Outer Limits may have the power to control transmission, but can the show keep viewers tuning in week after week? The verdict is still out. The show seems to be much more rooted in science fiction than most other anthology shows in recent years, which is a distinguishing point, but the batting average will probably have to improve: this month only gave me one fantastic, one somewhat entertaining and two otherwise okay episodes.

Guess I’ll just have to tune in next month to give you much more definitive answers to the questions that I posed at the beginning of this article. I hope you will join me next month for another a trip into The Outer Limits.



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Magazine

[October 8, 1963] The Big Lemon (November 1963 IF)

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by Gideon Marcus

New York.  Gateway to America.  Home of Broadway, the Empire State Building, Times Square, etc. etc.

Big deal.

This week, my wife and I took a United 707 from LAX to Newark for a mini-vacation.  A good friend of ours, whom we met in fandom, lives in Morristown, New Jersey.  We stayed in bucolic west New Jersey for a couple of lovely days before hopping the train into Town.  You see, I'd never really been to the Big Apple, and my wife had enjoyed the last couple of times.  Plus, there was a little convention going on at the time to serve as an anchor.  What the hell.

Hell and anchor are right.  Lemme tell you, bub — two nights in mid-town, with the bums, the horns, and the smoke, will sour anyone on the place.  Maybe the folks here are inured to this constant assault on all of the senses, but for a country boy like me, it warn't no fun.  The con was a crummy, disorganized mess, too.

All right.  I can see you natives getting your fur up.  To your credit, there were some interesting-looking shows on the Great White Way, and my last meal on the island involved some of the tastiest pizza I've ever had, and we managed to meet a clutch of truly excellent people in Manhattan.  But we're happy to be back in quiet ol' Morristown for our last day, and ever-so-glad to be heading home tonight.

The experience is not unlike the one I had reading this month's IF Science Fiction.  It had a few bright spots, but otherwise was a tough slog.  I understand that IF was the low rent sister to Galaxy, offering a bare cent and a half per word and getting what it paid for.  When Fred Pohl took over the mag in 1961, he raised the rates for new stories and closed the deal on a bunch of previously rejected bargain stuff to fill the cracks.  This issue appears to be made up entirely of the chaff.

The Governor of Glave, by Keith Laumer

Laumer's Retief series is getting long in the tooth.  There are only so many stories of a diplomat/super-spy (spy/super-diplomat?) we need.  This one was especially tired: the rabble coup the eggheads running a planet dependent on skilled engineers to keep the terraforming plants running.  Decent plot but horrible execution.  Hint to Laumer — if Retief doesn't feel any need to worry, neither does the reader.  Two stars.

The Second-Class Citizen, by Damon Knight

A hand-less dolphin trying to make it in a human world is truly a fish out of water.  But what happens when the roles reverse?  Damon Knight has returned to fiction writing after a long stint translating European works and doing book reviews.  That he's chosen the friendly bottlenose as his subject shouldn't surprise given the success of the recent movie, Flipper (not to mention Clarke's novel, People of the Sea.  This particular tale had promise, but it ends too quickly and ham-fistedly.  I look forward to better tales from Knight and about dolphins.  Three stars.

Muck Man, by Fremont Dodge

Here's a neat concept.  After a century of interstellar exploration, humanity has found a dozen inhabitable planets, but none of them are carbon-copies of the Earth.  Survival on any of them requires physical modification to deal with the immense gravities or impurities in the atmosphere or dangerous predators.  Thus, people who settle these alien worlds become, themselves, aliens.  It's very refreshing to find a depiction of a universe that isn't filled with perfectly suitable worlds.

This particular tale involves a fellow who is framed for the theft of a Slider egg, a coruscant treasure found only on Jordan's Planet.  Not only is one difficult to obtain, as they are vigorously defended by the fearsome Slider beasts, but they also have a limited lifespan.  Asa Graybar was working on a way to keep them alive indefinitely; thus, a put-up job by the Director of Operations of the primary distributor of Slider eggs, who wants to preserve their scarcity and value. 

Rather than cool his heels for five years in a conventional prison, Graybar elects to serve a one-year hitch on Jordan's Planet as a Muck Man — a human modified to be a powerful frog-like being.  Muck Men are well suited for digging Slider eggs and thriving in the swampy environs.  Graybar hopes to use his tenure on the mud planet to continue his research and, perhaps, clear his name.  Unfortunately for him, the guy who framed him also comes to Jordan's Planet to ensure Graybar doesn't finish his sentence.

It's a good, vivid story, and it even has a competent female character (heiress to the Slider egg distributor company).  However, it's about a third too short, perhaps cut for length like Panshin's Down to the Worlds of Men a few issues back.  Moreover, I'm getting tired of there being room for just one woman in any tale, and she only in a position of importance due to breeding.  Can't women make it to the top on their own merit?  Three stars and hoping for more next time.

Long Day in Court, by Jonathan Brand

This is the first story from "Brand," a university employee operating under a pseudonym.  It's an interstellar court of law story, consciously aping the not-at-all futuristic Perry Mason series.  The puzzler case of the day: when is beating your spouse both the crime and the punishment?

It's about as amusing as it sounds, though at least it's in English.  Two stars.

Glop, Goosh and Gilgamesh, by Theodore Sturgeon

Mr. "90% of everything is crap" proves that the rule applies to its inventor as well as the rest of us mortals.  This piece on asphalt is readable, but the guy is phoning in his non-fiction.  Get back to fiction, Ted!  Two stars.

The Reefs of Space (Part 3 of 3), by Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl

The first part of this three-part serial introduced us to Steve Ryland, a physicist condemned to life imprisonment for subversive acts against the oppressively harmonious world-state run by a giant computer, The Machine.  Ryeland is asked to recreate the reactionless space drive and find the legendary Reefs of Space, free-floating inhabitable structures far beyond the orbit of Pluto.  The hope is that this will allow Earth's authorities to find Ron Donderevo, the one terran ever to escape the Machine's regime.

Part Two was almost a standalone tale, chronicling Ryeland's exile to and attempt to escape Heaven, where convicts are doped up and allowed to live a pleasant life — as their organs are harvested one by one until the host can't sustain life anymore.  Ryeland fails in the end, but is rescued by Donna Creery, daughter of The Planner, the one person on the planet with authority to change the Machine's programming. 

She and Steve escape to the Reefs of Space on the back of the seal-like "starchild," a beast that can travel across light years of vacuum without adverse effects.  In their new home, with the aid of the exiled Donderevo, they must prepare to face down dangers both indigenous and Earth-born

Reefs of Space is an odd duck.  It's a pair of pulpish book-ends around a virtually unassociated novella.  I suspect Parts 1 and 3 were written by Jack Williamson, whose bibliography goes back to the 20s, and Part 2 was done by Fred Pohl.  Certainly, the fascinatingly horrific aspects of it feel very Pohlian.  In any event, whereas Part 1 barely merited three stars and Part 2 was a surprisingly decent four-star episode, Part 3 is a muddled mess that ends on an abrupt and unsatisfactory note.  Plus, of course, it has the mandatory sole female whose high position is earned solely from having had a well-placed father.

Two stars for this section, three stars for the whole story.

A Better Mousetrap, by John Brunner

Last up, a piece from the often (but sadly, not always) excellent Britisher, John Brunner.  Hostile aliens have seeded the solar system with asteroid-sized clusters of precious metals that turn out to be ship-destroyers.  A very talky piece, as dull as it is nonsensical.  Two stars.

***

I won't denigrate this issue too much; IF has always been of widely variable quality, and the good issues make up for the lousy ones.  Still, if ever there was an issue to miss, this is it.

You're welcome.

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TV

[October 6, 1963] Birth of a genre (the Japanese cartoon, Astro Boy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Up in the sky!  It's a bird.. it's a plane… it's Superman… no.  it's…

ASTRO BOY!

If you've tuned into NBC on Saturday mornings, you may already have caught sight of the world's newest superhero.  Astro Boy, a robotic child with rocket jets, has already charmed grown-ups and kids alike.  But where did this strange new cartoon come from, why does it seem slightly off-kilter, and what is the provenance of those clearly foreign names in the credits?

The birth of Astro Boy

The story begins in Japan immediately after the war's end within the pages of a comic book.  While comic strips had been known in the country for nearly a century, it was the American occupation and the subsequent exposure to western-style comics that really made them popular in the island nation.  One of the most famous of the Japanese comic artists is Osamu Tezuka, who created the character that would one day be known as Astro Boy in 1952.  Called "Mighty Atom," he has appeared in weekly comic anthologies ever since.

As these comics ("manga" in Japanese) increased in popularity, a number of attempts were made to translate them into other media.  Live-action movies were made for many strips including Uncle Alien, Ironman #28 (no relation to the Iron Man of Marvel comics), and, of course, Mighty Atom.  They were all pretty crude affairs, calling to mind the movie serials of the 1930s.

Astro Boy arrives on television

Surprisingly, it was not until this year that manga began to come out on TV in cartoon form (I'd have thought that would have been a more natural evolution, but perhaps live action is easier to produce.) Japan has flirted with animation before, notably the movie Alakazam the Great, which came out a couple of years ago.  But Japanese cartoons are now flourishing in an unprecedented fashion.  I know of at least three animated series that debuted this year, and there are probably more.

The first and perhaps most anticipated one was Mighty Atom, which debuted in January.  By the time my family and I visited Japan in June, the story was well underway, but I managed to catch a rerun of the first episode, and thus became acquainted with the origin story:

It is the late 1990s, and the world is significantly more advanced, technologically.  Flying cars, space ships, and sentient robots are common.  Episode One opens up on Tobio, a teenaged boy cheerfully driving down the street in his air car.  A large truck suddenly looms into the lane and a collision ensues.  The accident is fatal, and his father, Dr. Tenma of the National Science Institute, carries the body away, sobbing.  That night, he resolves to cast a new Tobio from steel, to create the most advanced robot the world has ever known.

It takes a year, but the result is a metal boy, powerful and brilliant.  At first, the robot is the apple of his creator's eye.  But as the years pass, an increasingly erratic Dr. Tenma grows disenchanted with his invention, which is unable to grow into a man.  He sells Tobio to a robot circus master, who throws dubs the boy "Mighty Atom" and throws him into the ring against Golem, an enormous robotic opponent.  Despite the size disadvantage, Atom dispatches Golem with ease, thrilling the audience.  He refuses to deal a death blow to his opponent, however, and the cruel master locks Atom up and refuses to give him more energy.

During his confinement, Atom discovers a group of discarded robots, their power levels virtually exhausted.  These are former performers of whom the master has tired.  Touched by their plight, Atom offers them some of his own limited reserves of energy to make them mobile again.

That night, a dangerous performance involving fire goes awry, and the circus structure bursts into flames.  Atom springs into action, enlisting his robotic friends to save the human attendees.  He even personally saves his master, who has been trapped under a pile of collapsed timber.

In hospital the next day, Dr. Ochanomizu, Dr. Tenma's successor, entreats the circus master to release Atom into the custody of the Institute, where he will be properly treated.  Atom's master refuses, scoffing at the idea that he should be grateful to a robot who, after all, was only doing his duty.  Whereupon Ochanomizu turns on the television, which carries news of a "Robot Human Rights Act," bestowing full rights upon the robotic underclass.  The master must give Atom up or be guilty of human trafficking.  In tears, the fellow relents.

So begins Tobio's adventures with the Institute under the name, Mighty Atom.  Over the course of the next three episodes, he aids the police in the capture of a renegade robot, leads an expedition to Mars, and is shanghaied to Arabia by an evil archaeologist cum treasure hunter. 

That's the plot in broad strokes.  But it's the execution of the show that's so interesting.  The animation is weird, surreal and sparse, more akin to Felix the Cat than Hanna-Barbera, or even Mighty Mouse.  It's a genuinely funny show, with lots of sight gags and adorably outre character designs. 

What truly got me was the social commentary.  In every outing, Mighty Atom faces intolerance and discrimination.  When a robot goes amok and becomes a criminal, Mighty Atom is blamed; his heroic actions in the first episode are not enough to clear even him of the suspicion leveled against robot-kind.  In Episode 3, Atom's XO is so incensed at having to work for a robot that he tries multiple times to kill him! (and yet, the goodhearted robot can't help but forgive him).  And in the fourth episode, the villains have no qualms with enslaving the robot boy.  I can't imagine an American children's show so directly taking on the touchy topics of slavery and bigotry even though they are perhaps more relevant to our current situation than Japan's (not that Japan is absent of prejudice problems — ask the Koreans who live there).

Astro Boy's American debut

And yet, that's exactly what's happening.  Starting this September, Mighty Atom debuted on American television under the name of "Astro Boy!"

How has the show fared in its journey across the sea?  Not too badly, actually.  If you, like me, went to Worldcon, then you got to see the first show weeks before anyone else, and the general consensus there was that it made for fine viewing.  The dubbing is competent, although it tries a little too hard to match voices to mouth movements (the Japanese are more carefree about such things, putting emphasis instead on acting).  The Japanese version was very spare with its narration, preferring to let the visuals speak for themselves; the American narrator is relentless and ubiquitous.

But every scene is there, and all the lines are translated.  It is the same show. 

How remarkable is that?  We live in an age where television now crosses both seas, and we Americans can enjoy British and Japanese productions less than a year after their premiere in their countries of origin.  Perhaps next year, we'll be seeing the cartoon versions of Eight Man and Ironman #28, which began in Japan last month, on American television.

Who knows?  Someday, Japan's animated creations may end up more popular here than anywhere else!  Make Mine Mighty!

1963, anime, astro boy, mighty atom, osamu tezuka, japan, gideon marcus, television

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Book

[October 4, 1963] A Story Turned Inside Out—the movie of Burning Court

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by Victoria Lucas

Now here's a word you don't see every day:  "evert." It's used in biology or surgery to mean turning something inside out.  

That's what the movie by director Julien Duvivier, “inspired by John Dickson Carr's novel, The Burning Court,” did to the book.   

No one ever accused Carr of being less than ingenious, and the movie is ingenious too,  changing the topography of the book so thoroughly that it can only be compared to peeling off a glove by starting at the arms and pulling it back over the fingers.
 
If you read my review of the book (and radio program) you might remember that I asked, "Can a detective story have elements of the supernatural?  Can a mystery also be horror fiction?" The answer, for the movie, is still "yes," but instead of being a horror tale that shadows, overtakes, and finally transforms a detective story as in the book, it is a detective story that dispels the supernatural elements and turns the whole thing back into a murder mystery ending in a police inspector's office.
 
What is a 'burning court'?   It was a secret group that met to try those accused of criminal acts; the guilty were punished by burning.  
 
The relevance of the burning court is briefly described in a scrolling text near the beginning of the film:   an ancestor of Marie d'Aubray, a main character in the book and film, was "burnt at the stake" for witchcraft and poisoning "after having had her head cut off."   After declaring that d'Aubray cursed her betrayer and his descendants, the scroll ends with "The following tells the story of that curse."
 

 
This is a truly international film made with French and Austrian actors and both French and Italian production companies, on location in Hesse, Germany, based on a novel written by an American writer who lived in England for much of his life and adopted the British style of detective novels, instead of the French style evident in the movie.  The French style of murder mysteries includes the disclosure of whodunnit early in the narrative, and that is what happens in the movie.
 
Instead of opening as the novel does in a Philadelphia commuter train, which makes succeeding elements of horror that much more unexpected, the movie is set in a stereotypical venue of horror films, a castle in the Black Forest.
 

The castle setting
 
The characters are altered to fit the new locale and also to fit the new topography by Duvivier and scenarist Charles Spaak.  Instead of Edward Stevens, the plodding neighbor of the Despard family (the Desgrezs in the movie) and husband of the less restrained Marie D'Aubray, there is the writer Michel Boissand.  D'Aubray's name and her position as the descendant (or ?) of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, a famous poisoner, does not change. Her character develops during the film (not the novel), and Nurse Corbett (Schneider in the movie) reveals her true self more and more throughout the film, again different from the book.  Whereas Stevens is an editor at a Philadelphia publishing company, Boissand is a freelance writer come to interview Desgrez, who was already dead at the beginning of the novel, there named Miles Despard. Desgrez's two nephews remain, and remain at odds, but the niece is eliminated. So is the writer Gaudan Cross, who provided the first element of horror in the book, with only a few bits of his contributions given to Boissand.  Cross also provides the second body in the book, which in the film changes sex and manner of death.
 

Marie D'Aubray
 
The changed nature of Stevens/Boissand/Cross is handy because Boissand can do exposition in the film that would be more awkward for other characters, although D'Aubray's distress, the curiosity of the elder Desgrez, and a doctor with a revoked license (Partington in the novel, Hermann in the movie) provide excuses for revealing some things about the relationship of D'Aubray's and Desgrez's ancestors.  
 
Further signs of “eversion”: although certain elements of horror were added (a ride through and setting in the Black Forest, to start with), others were subtracted.   For instance, the story of the housekeeper about seeing a woman in 17th-century costume give Desgrez his poisoned drink and then disappear through a wall is kept and made a plot element, the most horrific part of the description in the book was discarded:  "The idea was that the woman's neck might not have been completely fastened on." A mysterious silver cup and a dead cat are also cut from the narrative.
 
The changes make sense if, whereas the novel is a detective story shot through with elements of horror, the movie is a horror tale shot through with elements of a detective story.  Once the movie scene is set for horror, it is increasingly degraded into an ordinary murder mystery, while the book added elements of the supernatural. But at the very end of both the book and the movie, a little stroke of horror enters to leave a question in the mind, just as, whether removing or donning gloves, the fingertips are the last to touch the gloves.  At the end of the movie, it is a most ordinary character, a police inspector, who adds his own element of gothic horror.
 

Police Inspector with Skull
 
There are some interesting cultural features of the movie versus the novel.  One is the fact that Partington, a friend of Mark's, is clearly identified in the book as a doctor who has been driven from his practice by having performed an abortion.  In the movie Dr. Hermann (a friend of Mathias Desgrez) says that he took pity on a young pregnant girl who would have otherwise drowned herself. This narrative is clearly meant to show the doctor in a more favorable light, but it also avoids the word "abortion," the procedure, and the social/religious controversy over it.  The former doctor does requite himself better in the movie than in the book, though with a German accent and a preference for psychoanalysis.
 

Dr. Hermann  
 
And then there is Mark's brother Ogden Despard/Stephane Desgrez.  In the book Ogden is a brooding, sardonic presence who is beaten up by Mark.  In the movie Stephane (a unisex name) is a more sympathetic character; and he gives signs of being a homosexual.  A masked ball occupies most characters the night of the first murder, providing some alibis. Stephane attends the ball in a dress that he also uses with a mask to gain admittance to his uncle's unwilling presence to ask for money.   He is practically disowned by his uncle, who dislikes him, and in the movie Marc refers to "the life you've been leading" as the reason for the dislike.
 

Marc, Stephane, and Lucie  
 
A strangely modern feature of the new topography is the body of Nadja Tiller, who plays Nurse Schneider in the film.  She is an Austrian celebrity whose increased role is congruent with her stardom. As is usual with female film stars, Tiller is a beautiful young woman, and the film shows her off to an extent one doesn't expect in a horror film (unless a monster is about to eat or kidnap her).  Marc's relationship with her in the movie (not the book) provides opportunities to see her in her underwear.
 

Nurse Schneider  
 
Other bizarre features that show up in the movie but not in the novel:  the funeral for the elder Desgrez, which he has decreed should be in the great hall of his castle (actually Castle Hohenbuchau in Hessen, Germany), with an open coffin and a sextet, which apparently (the instrumentation is too full for a small group) plays a Strauss waltz for everyone to dance.  A band playing Sousa follows the funeral procession to the mausoleum, through the gate of which Mathias is later seen seated on a chair.
 

Mrs. Henderson, Marc, Stephane, and Mathias laid out
 
Stephane's impatience with Boissand's speed in front of him, while he himself drives a customer's Porsche on a narrow, winding mountain road, is a bit of strange character revelation of Boissand's odd sense of humor, D'Aubray's passivity, and Stephane's over-the-top personality.
 
The roles of both D'Aubray and Dr. Hermann are much enhanced in the movie, and much changed.  The change is typified by a scene in which Dr. Hermann points out to D'Aubray after Desgrez's death that this time (under the curse), here she is alive and Desgrez is dead instead of the other way around, when her ancestor was executed.  D'Aubray is quite upset by this, says, "Why do you hurt me?" and runs away, emphasizing the difference between the D'Aubray of the book (self-assured, mostly uninvolved, coming into her own at the end) and the timid, pale woman of the movie who is subordinate to her husband and relies on Dr. Hermann to help her.
 

A view of a courtyard in the Schloss
 
Like the book, though, the movie defies classification.  Director Duvivier is best known for "Pepe le Moko," which came out in 1937, the same year as Carr's novel.  For both of them, that year was the heyday of their work. I repeat the recommendation I have seen before and made in my review of the book: don't see the movie first because it may spoil the much more detailed and structured book for you.  I would give both the movie and the book 4 out of 5 for ingenuity and hope you find an opportunity to enjoy them.
 




 

 

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Magazine

[October 2, 1963] Worse than it looks (October 1963 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

[We've just updated KGJ for the Fall.  Check out our line-up of new hits!]

Life is a series of cycles: The seasons change; people are born, have children, die, and their children do the same; the government takes its pound of flesh every April.  And every month, I slog through an increasingly tall pile of science fiction books.  Like the Hydra of Greek legend, any conquest I make is fleeting, for there is always a new set to review.

Of course, my labor is not generally an unpleasant one.  When I get my hands on an exciting new book or a magazine dense with worthy selections, life is grand.  On the other hand, when the reading gets difficult, that's its own kind of hell, particularly when the reading involves magazines.  I can drop an unpromising book without much twinging of conscience, but I am committed to reviewing every issue of every American SFF magazine.  That can be rough.

To wit, the October 1963 Analog is a tedious slog.  While I give many of the individual pieces passable "3-star" ratings, most barely cross that threshold of acceptability, and taken together, they make a kind of mind-numbing sludge.  Aren't you glad I read this issue for you?

The Geodetic Satellite, by Marvin C. Whiting

The first entry in the magazine is the non-fiction article, and it (thankfully) doesn't involve psi or perpetual motion.

Whiting presents a the history of and need for geodesy.  It turns out that geodesy, the science of measuring Earth's exact shape, is essential for navigation — whether nautical, aerial, or ballistic.  Satellites allow measurements of incredibly high accuracy, well beyond any military requirement, which means they're almost good enough for scientists.  A competent, if not scintillating account.  Three stars.

Where I Wasn't Going (Part 1 of 2), by Walt Richmond and Leigh Richmond

A full half of the issue is taken up with the first half of a two-month serial, and thus the trouble starts.  The Richmonds were apparently never taught the old maxim: "Show, don't tell."  Either that, or the message got garbled in transmission.  In any event, while Going is ostensibly about the goings-on in a space station several decades from now, it's really a series of expositional pages that don't even have the virtue of being entertaining. 

I gave up about a quarter of the way in.  It's a pity given the beautiful illustrations Schoenherr produced for the story.  One star.

War Games, by Chris Anvil

About a century ago, the Prussian army invented the wargame, a simulation of battle that afforded a modicum of training for officers without any of that messy fighting business.  In 1954, Charles Roberts invented the board wargame — a commercial product that does much the same thing, though more cheaply and simplistically.

Anvil posits that we will soon have computerized wargames of incredible detail and flexibility.  So good will be these new games that they will replace war as a method of resolving conflicts.

The timing for this piece could not have been better given that I just completed a game of the wargame, Stalingrad.  One has to wonder if Anvil is a fellow counter-pusher.  In any event, while the plot is nothing special, the depiction of the wargame is marvelous, and I find I must give Wargames a four-star rating.  Call it bias.

The Three-Cornered Wheel, by Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson is capable of the most sublime novels as well as the most offensive dreck.  Wheel falls somewhere in-between, a little toward the lower end of his range.  It's a puzzle piece: how can a shipwrecked vessel transport a spare engine across a thousand miles of rough terrain when the planet's inhabitants find the wheel to be taboo? 

Unfortunately, the answer is given away right in the title.  The story is uninspired, for the most part, but there are some nifty bits like when young cadet, David Falkayn, hits upon the solution to his problem while being attacked by natives — a nice juxtaposition of action and cogitating.  I'll charitably give the yarn three stars though, in truth, it's right on the border of two.

A World by the Tale by Seaton McKettrig

Last up, we meet Earth's first interstellar traveler, a fellow who is given the opportunity to spend a year in Galactic society as a zookeeper for exported terran beasties.  His book about his exploits becomes a bestseller throughout the Milky Way, thus providing Earth's first real trade good.

McKettrig (really Randall Garrett in disguise) offers up a reasonably entertaining story, but it's a bit too glib, and the part where the author fails to understand that even a quarter of a percent commission on his book sales will make him a wealthy person indeed, given the size of his market, is implausible.  Three stars.

Running these numbers through my personal IBM computer, I come up with a 2.7 star rating, which feels too high.  It reminds me of the joke about how to compute "wind chill" — if you feel colder than what you're thermometer reports, fudge the chill factor until it looks right.  Anyway, 2.7 is the worst score of the month, being shared by Amazing (interestingly, fellow Traveler John Boston seemed to like his magazine more than the score would seem to warrant).  The normally remarkable Fantastic only garnered 2.9 stars.  Galaxy got 3.1, F&SF earned 3.3, and British mag New Worlds led the pack with an unusually high score of 3.4.

Women wrote 2.5 of the 29 fiction pieces, a slightly worse average than normal.  There was also a paucity of stand-out stories, though Victoria Silverwolf's glowing recommendation of Ballard's The Screen Game warrants attention.

And now it's October, and I have to do this all over again!  Wish me luck…

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Magazine

[September 27, 1963] Beatles, Birds and Brunner (New Worlds, October 1963)

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by Mark Yon

Hello again. September means that we get to Autumn, which is perhaps my favourite time of the year. The nights are getting colder and darker and the lure of a warm home with a good book or magazine grows ever more favorable.

Outside the house (when I do venture outside!) those mop-top-lets, The Beatles, are still taking the pop music world by storm. They are on tour in Britain and filling their venues as they go. Their latest recording is an EP of their hits so far –  From Me to You, Please Please Me and Love Me Do, with a B-side track, Thank You Girl.

Even though this is really a re-release, “by popular demand,” as they say, like all their other releases I suspect that this one will go to the top of the British pop charts. Their upbeat energy and enthusiasm is quite infectious.

Movie-wise, I have been to see Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, which finally got to Britain this month. I thought it was good. There are some chilling scenes in the movie, although on the whole I felt that it’s more of a slow burn of a movie than Psycho ever was. The creepiest thing, that I realised after seeing the film, was that there is no reason given for the bird’s unusual behaviour. It just happens, which means that it could happen to you or me: anytime, anywhere.

Perhaps the most exciting news to me is the announcement made by Mr. Kennedy a couple of days ago that there should be a joint Soviet-US mission to the Moon. Being a positively minded sort of chap, I’m thinking, “Wouldn’t that be a wonderful development?” I find it hard to imagine that such a positive comment for exploration could be made less than a year after the Cuban Crisis. I guess the opposite view is that the US government may be worried about how much progress the Russians seem to be making?

On science-fictional matters, last month I did say that I would pass comment on the Hugo Awards. It sounds like it was a good time with the Good Doctor Asimov in charge of proceedings. I’ll mention him again later.

My Hugo predictions were, as I rather expected, a little off.  I was disappointed, though not surprised, that the novel The Man in the High Castle won, though I have yet to actually read it myself. Well done also to Galaxy and Mr. Jack Vance for The Dragon Masters which I was pleased with. It was one of my favourite novellas last year. I was very surprised on there being “No Award” for Dramatic Presentation. Was The Twilight Zone, my prediction for winning, really that bad?

I’ll try again next year.

Right – to this month’s New Worlds.

After a couple of variable, though stronger issues, this month we seem to be back to our usual standard.

s.x, s-f and c_________p, by Mr. G.H. Doherty

No, that title’s not a misprint- that’s how it’s written. This month’s Guest Editor is someone unknown to me. However, the matter he discusses is a topical one – how does and should science fiction tackle sex in its fiction? There is a long history of the topic in s-f  being avoided or ignored, partly because the fiction has grown up from the pulps and partly because its typical matters of science and technology do not lend themselves easily to the issue.

Mr. Doherty’s Editorial is part Convention Report and part-thought-experiment, in that the issue was raised by a presentation from Mr. Harry Harrison at this year’s BSFA Convention. What was meant to be a slightly humorous talk ended up as something more serious. There’s some very interesting comments made by the participants and this leads Mr. Doherty to conclude that if the genre is to make progress then it needs a more grown-up attitude. It’s not quite a return to the ranty tirades of old Editorials, but it is more anecdotal than analytical.   

To the lower-cased-titled stories! (Yes, it’s still annoying.)

man-hunt , by Mr. John Rackham

This month’s Rackham story is more traditional than his recent “X-person” stories, a Galactic Police detective tale that wouldn’t be that amiss from the 1940’s pulps. Combining a man-hunt adventure with a healthy dose of Galactic Empire order, it is a story of a competent cop who meets and is tested by senior management. It is good fun. There’s a bit of ruminating about the characteristics you need to be a person with great powers and responsibility, and how sometimes meeting your heroes is not always a good thing, but nothing really new here. 3 out of 5.

breakdown , by Ms. Hilary Bailey

This story is written by – gasp – a woman! It is good to see a change in this male-dominated magazine. A sign of the times, perhaps. It’s not really a coincidence, though. Ms. Bailey is a friend of Mr. Michael Moorcock, which might explain the connection. As a social-science story, it is OK. The characters visit Neurodram Park, a place where visitors can watch others placed there for cathartic therapy by the Welfare State. This story is really about the voyeuristic attractiveness of watching other’s lives (I’m sure television scratches the same itch) and the need for people to let off steam. Shows us that perhaps we’ve not come that far from Bedlam Asylum of the 1800’s, where members of the public could watch patients. As stories based around an idea go, its OK. It made me think of the dystopian tales that Mr. J. G. Ballard does well, but without the cutting bite of his prose.  3 out of 5.

forty years on , by E. R. James

A time travel story of sorts, although really it is the sort of time travel tale typified by stories like Mr. H. G. Wells’ The Sleeper Wakes. Space miner Greg Dormer finds himself waking from cryogenic sleep forty years on than he expected to be. Seen by some as a hero, with his own Fan Club, in hospital he discovers that he is actually a suspect being investigated for the destruction of his original spaceship and the loss of the rest of the crew. This is a solid enough tale of wish-fulfilment and space piracy. It reads well enough, though the motive for the crime at the end I found a little unconvincing. 3 out of 5.

project 13013 , by Mr. Bill Spencer

Last seen in the July 1963 edition of New Worlds, with The Nothing, Mr. Spencer’s story this month is a run-of-the-mill laboratory tale. This time the drug being trialled is an attempt to achieve life longevity, with (surprise surprise!) its testing having unfortunate side effects. Ho-hum. 3 out of 5.

yutsy brown , by Mr. Pino Puggioni

Here’s something we haven’t seen for a while in New Worlds: a reprint, from a story first published in the author’s native Italian in August of this year. It is clearly part of Mr. Carnell’s commitment to publishing s-f beyond the traditional British and US markets. Others might say, uncharitably, that it is a money-saving effort. Nevertheless, the story is a jaunty tale of the eponymous author of the future meeting one of his harshest literary critics – a publishing machine!  yutsy brown is entertaining and not-too-serious, which brought a certain degree of lighter relief to the issue. At the same time it also raises the sobering point that literary criticism is entirely subjective, something I must always bear in mind! In the end it was one of the issue’s stronger stories for me, which, considering my usual low opinion of ‘funny stories’, was a surprise. I must be mellowing. 4 out of 5.

To Conquer Chaos (Part 3 of 3), by Mr. John Brunner.

In the final third part of this serial we find things pretty much tied up. Much of this portion is about the joining-up of the two halves of the plot, when Idle Conrad and Jervis Yanderman meet Nestermay and her grandfather inside the dome of the barrenland. The purpose of the dome is revealed, as is the cause of Conrad’s visions.  The general feel is that the story’s a little unbalanced, with a lot being revealed through information-dump in the last few pages. Much of the dialogue goes along the lines of “I don’t know why, you’ll just have to trust me,” which is rather depressingly convenient. Nevertheless, the novel’s been worth a read and it is still one of the most memorable serials of late. It shows what you can get when you get work from an experienced writer.  4 out of 5.

book reviews , by Mr Leslie Flood.

Most highly recommended this month is Mr. Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, which I guess should not be a surprise judging by the comments from your side of the Atlantic. Plaudits also for Mr. Brian Aldiss’s “qualitatively erratic and erotic” The Airs of Earth but Mr. Frederik Pohl’s “failed experiment” The Expert Dreamers is less successful. Worst of all, Mr. Derek Ingrey’s Pig on a Lead is reviewed as “the strangest and most sickeningly desolate (novel), both physically and spiritually” read recently by Mr. Flood. A reason to rush out to your nearest bookshop if ever you needed one.

Personally, I really want a copy of Mr. Isaac Asimov’s anthology of The Hugo Winners, all the novelette and short story winners from Mr. Walter M. Miller’s The Darfsteller in 1955 to Mr. Poul Anderson’s The Longest Voyage in 1961. I have read most of them already, but it is great value.

***

In summary, I’m pleased that this was a fairly solid issue of New Worlds this month. The serial was good, and the reprint of a non-English story has given life to an issue that otherwise would be a little mundane, even with an editorial that discusses the ever-controversial issue of sex in s-f.

Until next month.




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Book

[September 25, 1963] The Old School (Margaret St. Clair's Sign of the Labrys)

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by Gideon Marcus

Just ten years after the coming of a virulent yeast-based plague, nine tenths of the world's human population and much of its wildlife is gone.  What's left of humanity survives on vast stores of canned food and spends its time burying the dead and still dying.  The disease has altered our race physically and psychologically, rendering us unable to stand each other's company for a great length of time.  Only the plum-uniformed agents of the FBY make any attempt to impose order on this shambling parody of society.

Enter Sam Sewell, an unprepossessing soul who dwells in the upper levels of a vast set of subterranean shelters designed to house the American leadership in the event of war — now, it is a decaying home to thousands, offering rude shelter and sustenance.  One day, an FBY man calls on Sam, desperate to know the whereabouts of the mysterious and beautiful Despoina, who may have the cure not just for the lingering plague but for the social maladjustment it has wrought. 

This triggers Sam's descent into labyrinthine shelter complex, each successive level containing encounters more dangerous and weird than the last: mad scientists, herds of white rats, and countless blind alleys filled with technological and human detritus.  Underneath this monument to the old world lies evidence of a world older still, one that preserves the ancient pagan teachings of Wicca first promulgated at the mosaiced halls of Minos.  In his journey through the maze, Sam finds himself not just seeking out Despoina, high priestess of the Wiccans, but also his forgotten Wiccan identity that is the key to humanity's revival.

Author Margaret St. Clair is one of the titans of SFF.  Under both her name and the pen name, Idris Seabright, she has enriched several magazines and publishing houses for two decades.  Her work is powerfully and uniquely written, never quite striking familiar chords.  Sign of the Labrys, St. Clair's latest, displays her talents in full.  She perfectly captures Sam's initial disaffection with spare, detached prose.  Later, as Sam first explores the labyrinth and suffers from an unknown fever, St. Clair conveys with dreamlike prose the protagonist's loosed hold on reality.  The settings the author created, both the moribund world above ground and the fascinating den of mysteries beneath, are vividly drawn.

But about halfway through, the car begins to wobble on its rails.  The skein that holds the book together is woven from Wicca, a modern-day myth cobbled in the last decade from various sources by Englishman, Gerald Gardner.  It features nature worship, a god and goddess pair, and it claims the ill-fated witches of the 17th century as earlier practitioners.  In Labrys, Wicca's adherents gain all sorts of superpowers, from clairvoyance to invisibility.  I don't know if St. Clair personally buys into this old/new religion, but given Wicca's recent surge in popularity, I wouldn't be surprised if Labrys isn't intended as a kind of introduction to the creed. 

Some may find the mythology at the heart of Labrys refreshing and delightful, quite different from the wells fantasy generally draws from.  I found it a distraction, particularly by the end.  After all, this book was billed as science fiction, and the first half of it gives no indication that it is anything but.  The latter half is so larded with occult magic as well as superscience like anti-gravity and matter transmission that it becomes a comic book.  A very well-written comic book.

And to be fair, one is told what they're going to get right on the back of the novel:

Wow.

Now, that's some awfully sexist language, and it has caused justified outrage.  On the other hand, I can almost understand (if not excuse) its provenance.  Sign of the Labrys is a weird, woo-woo book, and whomever wrote the blurb was clearly trying to make lemonade from the lemons.  I haven't seen this ridiculous tack used to advertise any of the other woman-penned stories this year, so I feel safe in concluding that this cover is (thankfully) not typical.

Copy-writing blunders aside, I did enjoy this book from cover to cover.  As a showcase of St. Clair's ability to turn a compelling phrase, Sign of the Labrys is as good as any of her works.  Had I known what I was getting into, I might well have been less off-put by the book's ultimate direction.  Maybe.  The fact remains that the novel isn't science fiction, despite its trappings and its billing.  Moreover, any book that suggests that humanity is doomed, and that only one cult has the key to its salvation, is going to turn me off — whether it be Sign of the Labrys, Dianetics, or the New Testament.

Three and a half stars.

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