It's not often that news of the next stage in the Space Race is eclipsed by an even bigger story. Yet that's exactly what happened this tumultuous week, a handful of days so crazy that we halted publication ("STOP THE PRESSES!") to keep up with events.
It all started with "Kosmos 47", launched just after midnight (San Diego time) on October 6. While the Soviets were typically close-lipped about its purpose, from its orbital path, it was suspected that the 24 hour flight was actually an uncrewed test of a new type of Soviet spacecraft.
Sure enough, just six days later, Voskhod ("Sunrise") #1 took off. On board were three cosmonauts: Commander Vladimir Mikahilovich Komarov, civilian scientist Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, and civilian physician Boris Borisovich Yegorov.
This is huge news — both the American Mercury and Soviet Vostok space programs ended more than a year ago. Those spacecraft only fit one person. Since then, the United States has been hard at work on both its three-person Apollo lunar craft and its intermediate two-seat Gemini ship. Although Gemini has already flown once, the first crewed flight won't happen until early next year.
And here are the Soviets, already throwing up a three person spaceship! Could they be closer to a Moon mission than we thought?
On their eighth orbit, Voskhod's cosmonauts passed over the United States and radioed, "From aboard the spaceship, Voskhod, we convey our best wishes to the industrious American people. We wish the people of the United States peace and happiness."
Interestingly, a second radio exchange was heard afterwards, during orbit sixteen: the three cosmonauts requested permission to extend the mission beyond 24 hours. The request was denied, and the flight ended just one day after it had begun.
Why is this strange? Well, one of the stated goals of the mission was "Extended medio-biological investigations in conditions of a long flight." And while 24 hours is a long flight by American standards (that of Gordo Cooper in Faith 7 was about a day and a half), the Soviets have been flying day-long and longer missions since Gherman Titov's flight in 1961. Did something go wrong with the spaceship?
It turns out the problem was on the ground. Even as the three cosmonauts were making history in space, the Presidium was holding a vote of no confidence, citing Khruschev's age and health as reasons for his dismissal. Leonid Brezhnev was elevated to Secretary of the Communist Party and Andrei Kosygin was named Premier. When the space travelers landed, they were whisked to Moscow where they must have been quite surprised to meet the new leadership!
Still, regardless of who is wearing the crown behind the Iron Curtain, there is no question that Voskhod was a tremendous accomplishment. The question now is: What will they follow it up with?
Beep Beep, says America
Though perhaps not as impressive to some, the United States maintains the lead in automated space science. Just this month, we launched the two latest Explorer satellites, 21 and 22. And while those numbers seem a lot lower than what the Soviet "Kosmos" series has gotten up to, we have to remember that Kosmos conceals a wide variety of satellites, most of which have never resulted in a scientific paper. They have probably snapped a great many photos of Midwest missile bases, though.
In contrast, the Explorer program is just one of many devoted to returning scientific data from the heavens. Explorer 21, launched on October 4 (seven years after Sputnik) is the second of its type. Also known as Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP) B, its job is the same as that of Explorer 18, launched in last year — to measure the magnetic fields, cosmic rays, solar wind, and charged particles far from the Earth. This helps us understand the physics of the solar system, and it lets us map the electromagnetic "terrain" of the space between Earth and the Moon. The IMPs are blazing a trail for Apollo, making sure it's safe for people out there.
Unfortunately, the third stage on IMP-B's Thor Delta launch booster fizzled, and instead of soaring 160,000 miles from the Earth, Explorer 21 barely gets to 60,000. This is within the hellish Van Allen radiation belts, so even though Explorer 21's nine instruments are performing perfectly, the data being returned tells nothing about the universe beyond Earth's magnetic system.
However, Explorer 22, launched October 10, is doing just fine. It's the last of NASA's first phase of ionospheric explorers, measuring the electron density in the upper atmosphere. Before your eyes glaze, that just means it sees how electrically charged the air is in the layer that reflects radio waves. Such experiments help us better understand how the Sun affects our broadcasts — and allows us to make plans for unusual space weather events.
The satellite, also known as Beacon Satellite B ("A" failed to orbit on March 29) is also the first of NASA's geodetic satellites, measuring the shape of the Earth with tremendous precision. What's neat about Explorer 22 is that the spacecraft is actually quite unsophisticated, just three radio beacons and a laser reflector. More noteworthy are the 80 tracking stations run by 50 scientific groups in 32 countries. These provide a worldwide web, collecting navigational data on an unprecedented scale.
And since it's a civilian probe, we'll probably even share the information with the Communists. You tell me who's winning the Space Race…
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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?
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
It’s a cliche that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What can one say about those who don’t learn even from what they see around them? At the University of California at Berkeley, a city within a city in which many thousands of people study, work, and in many cases live, the administration recently decided it will strictly enforce rules prohibiting political advocacy and speech, appearances by political candidates, and recruitment and fundraising by student organizations at a heavily-travelled area (an intersection of the city’s main street!) where such activities were routinely conducted.
Let’s pause for station identification. This is 1964. All over the United States, people are standing up for the rights and freedom of individuals, including political rights, most notably the right to vote. Most of them are Negroes, but you’d think people in responsible positions would realize that a few white people (as apparently are most of Berkeley’s students) might get some funny ideas too—like the ideas of direct action and civil disobedience that they have been seeing on TV, and in some cases in person, for several years.
You’d also think they would be aware that a significant number of their own students and some faculty members just got back from the Freedom Summer activities in the segregated South, where they lived daily with the risk of physical assault and even death, and are unlikely to be too fearful of university administrators.
So on October 1, the campus police arrested a guy named Jack Weinberg—one of those who went south this past summer—who was sitting at an information table for the Congress of Racial Equality and refused to show his identification. A crowd formed around the police car, preventing it from moving, and the car became a speaker’s podium for a crowd said to have swelled to three thousand people. This went on for 32 hours until the university agreed not to press charges against Weinberg, and also agreed to . . . what else? . . . form a committee! This is to be a student/faculty/administration committee to discuss “all aspects of political behavior on campus and its control, and to make recommendations to the administration.”
What next? Nobody knows. But one thing seems to be clear: increasingly, infringement on the rights that politically active Americans have come to expect to exercise will be challenged using the tools we all see on TV every week from the civil rights movement. Authority is no longer its own justification, and those in positions of power, some of whom seem to look to Louis XVI as their role model, will need to change their approach to survive. As that folksinger put it—I forget his name, the one with the frizzy hair and nasal voice—“you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.”
The Issue at Hand
by Alex Schomburg
More prosaically—back to science fiction. The November 1964 Amazing is distinguished by being the second consecutive issue with a cover depicting a guy in a flying chair, calling to mind the observation of the Hon. Jimmy Walker, erstwhile Mayor of New York City, before fleeing the country to avoid a corruption prosecution: “Never follow a banjo act with another banjo act.” Alex Schomburg’s rather static and solemn depiction of the device contrasts amusingly with Virgil Finlay’s interior illustration, which attempts to imbue the same gadget with all the energy and drama that the cover picture lacks. Can we say Apollonian versus Dionysian? I thought not. Forget I mentioned it.
Rider in the Sky, by Raymond F. Jones
by Virgil Finlay
The story itself, Raymond F. Jones’s long novelet Rider in the Sky, is unfortunately pretty inane, a hardware opera that reads as if it had been dumbed down for prime-time TV. In the near future, private enterprise is starting to get into the act in space, and Space Products, Inc., has developed the Moon Hopper, essentially a rocket-propelled chair in which a space-suited person can sit and fly over the lunar surface, untroubled by the quantities of fine dust covering it. But how to market this device?
The Space Products boys (usage highly intentional) decide on a publicity stunt—they’ll get somebody to fly the Moon Hopper from Earth orbit to the moon. Who? They’ll ask for volunteers from within the company! They get one—Sam Burnham, a company accountant and secret space buff, who knows he doesn’t have the right stuff but has indulged his fantasies to the point of installing a centrifuge and an imitation space capsule in his basement.
Sam’s wife Edna, who spends her copious spare time supporting the cause of the orphans of Afghanistan, is appalled, and leverages her Afghan-symp connections to start a national movement to keep Sam Earthbound. This, and Edna, are presented in a spirit of condescending sexual oppression of the sort one finds in, say, True: The Man’s Magazine. I forget if the author refers to “the little woman,” and I’m not going back to look, but that’s the attitude.
After much machination, with the President getting into the act, Sam goes, and his trip takes an unexpected turn, plot mechanics unwind reasonably cleverly, and he and the story are brought to a soft landing. But the treatment of women, and the smarmy faux-folksy style in which a lot of the story is told, make it difficult to appreciate the admittedly limited virtues of the story. Two stars, barely.
John Brunner’s two-part serial Enigma from Tantalus concludes in this issue. While it’s not the pretentious mess that his previous effort The Bridge to Azrael was, Brunner has not regained the form of (as I keep saying) his sequence of smart and well turned novellas in the UK magazines.
Here, humans have discovered Tantalus, a planet inhabited by a singular intelligent life-form with separate units linked telepathically and capable of being molded into a variety of forms and functions. The crisis that drives the plot is that the Tantalan is believed to have made a fake human (presumably disposing of the real one) and dispatched it on a spaceship to Earth; we can’t let it loose on our planet! (There is an acknowledgement along the way that the Tantalan appears to be studying humanity just as humanity is studying it.)
So, there’s a bunch of people confined in a small space, and we must learn which is the alien! This is not exactly an original plot, but Brunner plays it more in the style of a country-house mystery than that of its distinguished and horrific predecessor, Campbell’s Who Goes There?, spiced up by the fact that the passengers are as eccentric a bunch of freaks and neurotics as one could wish for.
Brunner manages the latter parts of the plot capably and trickily enough, but overall the story has two sore-thumb-level problems. One is that by far the most interesting part is the discovery and opening of communication with the Tantalan, all of which happens off-stage—in fact, before the story opens—and we learn about it only in fragments. In that sense the story is much too short.
In another sense, it’s too long. The other big problem is that here as in The Bridge to Azrael, Brunner wants to wrestle with Big Thinks, in this case chiefly that technological development and affluence have left the run of humanity with a sense of helplessness and lack of purpose. But his attempts to integrate this notion into the story are perfunctory, or worse; for example, he invokes it to explain the manipulative and nymphomaniacal female journalist who is confined in the spaceship and chewing the furniture. (This is a conspicuous sour note from a writer whose prior work is notable for strong and relatively cliche-free female characters.) So this exercise in speculative social psychology in the end contributes nothing to the story but verbiage.
Another problem, at least to my mind, is that when something comes up that the machines can’t handle in the ordinary course, Earth is essentially governed by a tiny elite called the “Powers of Earth” (a particularly arrogant and irascible specimen of which conducts the inquiry of the spaceship passengers). These “Powers” apparently exercise unchecked authority based on their extraordinary powers of deducing correct conclusions from limited information.
This seems to me a sort of magical thinking, no better than (not much different from, in fact) the recurring notion in another magazine that the future will be dominated by a psionic elite, and about as plausible and useful for thinking about the future as the depiction by Edmond Hamilton and others of galactic empires ruled by hereditary nobles with pompous titles.
One might ask if this criticism is too big a demand to make of popular fiction in newsstand magazines, but Brunner invites it by posing the questions himself. I don’t want to be hard on the guy for essaying too much, but his ambition is outrunning the format he is writing in, and he will have to find better ways to integrate them, or move on to a different kind of writing. Anyway, three stars for a nice but flawed try.
Norman Spinrad displays his own brand of ambition with Your Name Shall Be . . . Darkness, about an Army psychiatrist captured and subjected to sophisticated brainwashing in the Korean War. He is repatriated, seemingly intact, but . . . . This is essentially The Manchurian Candidate as applied social psychology, and pretty clever, though done in an overly bombastic style for my taste. Still, it’s effective: three stars verging on four.
The Seminarian, by Jack Sharkey
by Virgil Finlay
And, last of the fiction, Jack Sharkey . . . is Jack Sharkey, with The Seminarian, about a guy, the son of missionaries, reared on a South Sea island without significant technology who comes to the States to conduct his own missionary work. It’s a tribute to Sharkey’s superficial skills that his facility distracts one from the story’s complete implausibility. Two stars. Sure you don’t want to go into advertising, Jack?
The Lying Stones of Dr. Beringer, by Robert Silverberg
by Virgil Finlay
There’s a new byline on this month’s non-fiction: Robert Silverberg (also now the regular book reviewer) contributes The Lying Stones of Dr. Beringer, apparently the first of a series—it’s labelled “Scientific Hoaxes #1.” It’s about a 16th-Century German scholar who was taken in by a large aggregation of fake fossils, an interesting story in itself (especially in the hands of Silverberg, a much more capable writer than the usual suspect Ben Bova) and one which contributed to a shift in understanding of what fossils actually are. Three stars.
Summing Up
So, business as usual at Amazing: a couple of nice tries, one dreary failure, one lighter-than-air piece of trivia, plus a better article than usual. Steady as she goes.
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Grim and uncertain times can seemingly serve as interesting creative fuel. As the world becomes embroiled further and further in the mounting crisis between Cuba and the US, Hollywood has scheduled a list of releases this year that look both critically and comically at current world affairs. This month the much-plagued movie Fail Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet and featuring a star studded cast of actors, was released. Boy, is this one a rollercoaster.
Based on the 1962 novel of the same name (initially released as a serial for the Saturday Evening Post) by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail Safe covers the topical issue of mutually assured destruction. It is supposed to be a deterrent to war — it's also the inevitable conclusion when our technology and policy fail us.
Picture this scenario: an unknown aircraft enters US air space and triggers preparations for a possible enemy attack, US bombers are sent to their holding (fail-safe) points on the Soviet borders. Everyone of importance is called in (select members of congress, the President, Air Force command and political advisors), but when Strategic Air Command in Washington learns that the craft is merely a commercial vessel off course, the situation is deescalated and the surveillance system within the Control Room is reset.
But an error causes an attack order to be sent to a group of bombers at their fail-safe point. Unaware of the error and gravely realizing the enormity of what an attack order means, the bombers nevertheless begin flying towards Moscow with the intention of razing it to the ground with their 40 megaton payloads. Back at Command, the error is spotted; all attempts are made to contact the bombers and call them back, but it's too late.
If this all sounds familiar then you have either seen Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (or read the book that inspired that film – "Red Alert" (1958) by Peter George aka Peter Bryant), or you, like me, just saw the premiere of Fail Safe. Both films are produced by Columbia Pictures, and initially both films were scheduled to be released in 1964 around the same date! The logic of this is baffling, and understandably it ruffled some feathers. The inside scoop is that Kubrick put a great deal of pressure on Columbia Pictures in order to have his film released at the beginning of the year decently spaced from the other.
Predictably, the eerily similar plots of Wheeler and Burdick's story compared to George's story resulted in a very public lawsuit – Kubrick and George vs Wheeler and Burdick, McGraw-Hill, Curtis Publishing Company, and Entertainment Corporation of America. The suit, initiated by George and Kubrick, claimed that Wheeler and Burdick lifted significant plot points from plaintiff Peter George's book. Evidently the matter was settled privately, as the American public is now able to see Fail Safe in many major theaters.
Initial Impressions
Despite their glaring story parallels, Fail Safe is a different animal entirely from Dr. Strangelove. It's hard to describe the experience of watching this film. The violence of the opening scene, wherein a veteran bomber pilot finds himself both observer and victim at a bullfight, sets the audience up with a baseline anxiety that grows and wanes, but never dissipates. The plot doesn't introduce the error (in this movie, caused by a machine rather than a person) until over 20 minutes into the movie. Prior to that we see haunting scenes that manage to capture intense raw emotions and family moments instrumental to defining our surprisingly complex and fascinating characters.
Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, 1964
The suspense as the disaster gets wildly out of control builds relentlessly. For the audience, stuck in their seats with the knowledge that this is all very relevant to our country's current situation, there's an accompanying sense of angry futility. It's a hard truth that the general public (in the theater and on the screen) is blind to the national procedures set in place, and ultimately powerless to influence the decisions being made by the ranks of command. During the film's two and a half hour runtime this fury grew intense. By the end of the film I was actually teary eyed with a kind of writhing rage in my gut. It was especially fueled by the unbearably unfair price the Soviet and American civilian populations pay. Millions of people in both countries die minutes apart, or more accurately, are murdered. All for a technical error.
The Blame Game
The issue of blame and responsibility for a crime against humanity like the deployment of nuclear weapons is central to the plot in Fail Safe. As the cast discuss their options for the impending nuclear strike, the issue of how it could have happened in the first place is intensely debated by the characters. There are numerous people who keep saying that blame can't be assigned because the whole situation is an accident. No human hand sent the mission to the bombers streaking towards Moscow. A reset error caused the order to be delivered. It was always a possibility that the machines could malfunction. It's a risk of new technology that they could fail. As such everyone can be reasonably absolved of guilt. Absolving oneself of guilt and responsibility is a natural gut reaction in everyone when they are charged with making a mistake. But a crime against humanity? Of this magnitude? Someone has to take responsibility for that.
Even though it is explained earlier that he has no direct oversight of the checks and fail safes set in place to prevent such a tech error, the U. S. President (Henry Fonda) feels that the blame must lie with those at the highest peak of authority, and the actions he takes to address the situation reflect this. He verbally underlines this point in his angry statement near the end of the film to the Soviet premier that the blame for the dead lies with both men. Both men wield the destructive force of 20 megaton bombs as part of the unspoken detente of mutually assured destruction. Their use is ultimately the responsibility of the men in power. The President implores his Soviet counterpart, and the generals and senior officials on both sides, that they all must learn from this disaster to make sure it doesn't happen again. We don't hear what the Soviets have to say to this, and are left to wonder if they feel the same way about the shared responsibility and guilt.
But can people overcome the trap technology sets for us? Early in the film we see two WWII-veteran Air Force pilots playing pool and bemoaning the studiousness and "impersonal" attitudes of the new recruits grimly reading technical manuals at the tables next to them. Their conversation foreshadows the attitudes of many other characters. This film does an extremely good job of linking the fear of technology and the heavy responsibility of those who "control" it. Nearly all of the cast express, or hold firm to, the sentiment that technology is pulling people away from one another and will ultimately replace humanity in the resolution (and creation) of conflicts.
Another example of assigning blame to technology is in the Control Room when Congressman Raskob (Sorrell Booke) is given a tour of the new tech and an update on the emergency. He is disgusted and angry that a technical failure caused the orders to be sent, describing it as as humanity losing control of its inventions.
The scene revealing his feelings on the matter is very well executed. Congressman Raskob has just been shown how American satellites can monitor submarine movements and can zoom in nearly down to street level! He's also made aware that foreign surveillance is occurring within an alarmingly close proximity to the US shoreline. What disturbs him even more than all of this highly evolved (and very plausible) surveillance technology is that no one knows who is overseeing it. When he asks who double and triple checks the fail safes set up to monitor the machines, he is given different answers simultaneously: "The President" and "No one". That is profoundly disturbing, and Raskob knows it. He replies, "The only thing that everyone can agree on is that no one's responsible".
Final Thoughts
While Fail Safe offers a horrifyingly plausible solution to address the catastrophe shown in the film, neither the movie nor the best-selling book that the movie is based on offer any answers on how such a catastrophe could be avoided. Per the film, such an attack is the ultimate avalanche of events. It is the inevitable collapse of a shaky, hastily built structure rigged with cheap materials and patched with quick-fixes. Is it already too late to stop something like this from happening? Fail Safe asks this question, but suggests that there is no answer.
This weekend, I attended a small gathering of SF fans in San Diego. I'd been invited to give a talk on the first season of Doctor Who, a new science fiction show currently playing across the Atlantic in the UK. While I've never actually seen any episodes (it doesn't air here, of course), thanks to the wonderful summaries of Jessica Holmes, and various promotional pictures and script transcripts I obtained, I was able to do a reasonable job of summarizing the Doctor's first year of adventures.
It appeared I wasn't the only one at this gathering who was familiar with Doctor Who — some enterprising fan had mocked up a full-size Dalek, one of the aliens featured on the show. It even had a little engine in it! Either that or the rope used to pull it along the floor was well-camouflaged…
What I absolutely did not expect was a surprise appearance from none other than Verity Lambert, herself — she is the youngest and only woman producer for the BBC, and she runs the production of Doctor Who.
Does her presence in the States mean that her show will debut soon on American airwaves? Stranger things have happened — after all, Danger Man (Secret Agent) made the jump in 1961, not to mention Supercar and Fireball XL5.
Fingers crossed!
The Issue at Hand
In the quiet spaces of the day, I pulled out my copy of the latest issue of IF, which clearly was supposed to have an October cover date, but thanks to problems with the printer, went out with one for November. While this latest edition didn't have moments quite as stunning as those that transpired at the fan gathering, it was still worthy entertainment.
We start on the baked desert city of Tamboula in the Free Republic of Algeria. It is the early 21st Century, and this Mahgreb city is a latter-day Casablanca where intrigue abounds by night, and by day, warring Moroccans and Algerians drink together in an intoxicated armistice. Enter Brigadier John Bravais, a secret agent posing as a journalist, sent to get the inside story on the North African conflict. At first, the story reads like an Earth-bound Retief tale, with a smart-allecky agent quipping his way out of the hearts of the local authorities.
But in the middle of a battle-torn wasteland, John encounters something most horrifying — a wolf-headed, human-handed alien, fearsome and supremely powerful, appears and kills an Algerian officer with his mind, proceeding to surgically remove and store his brain.
by Ed Emshwiller
The Brigadier is able to kill the alien, but when he returns to Tamboula to alert the authorities, he finds that the aliens are everywhere, in human guise, and with (apparently) android servants. Now Bravais must make it back to the United States before he is captured…but who will he find when he gets there?
Keith Laumer is a facile action writer, and once he settles in, this piece is engaging. The problem is, Bravais is a virtual cipher — his background, his personality, his motivations. The setting is a mere thumbnail (unlike, say, the future Africa of Mack Reynolds). And Laumer struggles with the bugaboo all writers (including me!) face when writing the first person viewpoint: excessive use of sentences starting with "I".
It may well be that this is a chopped down version, and when this two part serial be novelized, we'll get some expansion. As is, Hounds is a decent adventure but will not be one of Laumer's enduring classics.
Three stars.
The Perfect People, by Simon Tully
Thirty years to finish a doctoral thesis? It's possible, especially when the alien race you're studying remains stubbornly enigmatic. The "symetroids" spend their day strolling and eating, making perfect circuits of their sea-side area over the course of several months. They don't converse or use tools, yet their investigator is certain their is a pattern to their movements, a code to their sentience that he just needs a little more time to crack. Sometimes perfection is perfectly impenetrable.
Sadly, while this tale by neophyte Tully shows promise, its end does not pay off the beginning.
A high two stars.
The Ultimate Racer, by Gary Wright
by Ed Emshwiller
Newcomer Gary Wright's first work appeared in IF nearly two years ago. Captain of the Kali was an interesting tale of naval combat on an alien world. Wright's second work is more down to Earth, literally.
In Racer, it is the 1990s, and auto racing has become truly "auto" — due to the lethality of the sport, humans have been banned from the driver seat, and cars are remote controlled or self-driving. Among the sleek IBM-GMs and Volgas and Lotuses, one aging duo insists on racing their vintage 1980 Ferrarri. But on the eve of the big race, one of the car's solenoids goes kaput, making telemetered driving impossible.
If you've read the classic Matheson story, Steel, then you'll recognize where this is going. It gets there vividly and with great affection for the sport, but it also takes too a bit too long to reach the finish line.
Three stars.
The Diogenes Planet, by L. J. Stecher, Jr
How can a space merchant captain make a living if he's compelled to be 100% honest? It all hinges on what truths he decides to tell…
If this shaggy dog tale is not one for the ages, there is certainly nothing unpleasant about it. A good three stars.
Assassin & Son, by Thomas M. Disch
There's been much discussion here about how newcomer Tom Disch ranges from superb to, well, disappointingly less superb than he can be. Rest easy — this is one of the good ones.
Around the far sun of Sepharad lies a hot world inhabited by the blob-like and telepathic Sephradim. These seven-gendered aliens possess a particular racial quirk: when one is murdered, the killer augments their own powers with that of the victim. For this reason, murder is specifically and rigorously outlawed.
By other Sephradim.
And so, a busy import business of human assassins has built up. Highly esteemed and ritualized, the assassin tradition is a proud one, passed on from father to son. But what role can a second-born have in such a system? It's all a matter of opportunity.
Disch spins a beautiful tapestry here, creating truly alien extraterrestrials, and defining a unique culture that is as compelling as that of Frank Herbert's Dune World, developed with far fewer words. My only complaint is that the novelette reads like the first few chapters of a book. While being left wanting is usually a good sign, there is far too much left to be said!
So far as I know, Fred Pohl is the only editor who contributes significant amounts of his own material to his magazines. Far from being a self-aggrandizing enterprise, the issues in which his stuff appears are generally the better for it.
This concluding novelette features the last days of the man who gave humanity the stars, spending his fortune and life to fund 26 slower-than-light generation ships, only to see the development of FTL drives before any of the slowboats make planetfall. What place can this superseded man have in history?
While Pohl never turns in a bad piece, there's not a great deal to this story. This is a shame because the premise is fantastic, and I'd love to see a novel that expands on this theme. Imagine generations of humans living and dying in their tiny mobile world, and once they reach their destination, it's already fully inhabited. I know there have been stories that touch on the subject, but I don't think any have made it the central premise.
Add to that the superfluous bits about spacers grafting their consciousnesses to chimpanzees while their bodies remain in suspended animation, and the piece feels both undeveloped and misfocused.
But not bad. Three stars.
Things to Come
Between meeting Ms. Lambert and exploring the wealth of worlds offered in this month's IF, October has started with a bang. I can't wait to see what wonders the coming weeks have to offer!
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I’m fascinated by supersonic aircraft design, so the end of September gave me plenty to get excited about with the first test flights of some of the West’s most advanced military aircraft. On September 21 in the US, the North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie flew for the first time. This prototype has to be one of the most gorgeous aircraft ever designed: with its delta wing and needle nose, it looks like it has flown off the cover of a science fiction magazine! It reminds me a lot of the prototype designs for the Anglo-French Concorde on which the British aircraft industry is pinning its hopes for future aviation industry dominance.
A model of the Concorde prototype design at the Farnborough Airshow in 1962. Delta wings are clearly in fashion for supersonic aircraft
XB-70: Floating on Air
The Valkyrie was designed to be a high-altitude Mach 3 strategic bomber, although the operational B-70 version was cancelled back in 1961 and the aircraft will now be used to test new supersonic aviation technologies. One of the heaviest aircraft in the world, according to Flight magazine, the XB-70 is constructed mostly of stainless steel, sandwiched honeycomb panels, and titanium. Like the Concorde, the Valkyrie boasts a droop-snoot, or lowerable nose, that allows the pilots to view the ground during its nose-high take-off and landing.
The final design drawing for the B-70 bomber, for which the Valkyrie was intended to be the prototype
What I find particularly interesting about the XB-70 is that it uses the technique of compression lift to improve the overall lift of the aircraft and increase its directional stability at supersonic speeds. Only discovered in the 1950s, the compression lift effect is generated by a shock wave that is created when air strikes the sharp leading edge of the central engine air intake splitter plate below the wing, behind which are six General Electric YJ93-GE-3 turbojet engines. This effect is strengthened by the downward folding wingtips that help to trap the shock wave under the wings. Yes, the XB-70 actually has hinged wingtips that tilt down as far as 65 degrees!
The XB-70 Valkyrie ready for its first test flight. Note the hinged wingtips are in the horizontal position for take-off
The Valkyrie’s maiden test flight saw it hop between the manufacturing facility at Palmdale, in California, and Edwards Air Force Base. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though, as one engine had to be shut down shortly after take-off and an undercarriage malfunction warning meant that the flight was flown with the undercarriage down as a precaution. This limited the flight to a speed of 390 mph, which was about half of what had been planned and only a fraction of the XB-70’s 2,000mph maximum speed. Additionally, during landing the rear wheels of the port side main gear locked, causing two tyres to rupture and start a fire. Despite these teething problems I’m looking forward to future test flights of this amazing aircraft—the next one is due in a couple of weeks, so maybe I’ll write more about it next month.
As the Valkyrie lifts off we get a good view of the air intake splitter that generates the shockwave for the compression lift effect. Its six engines are housed behind the air intake
TSR-2: A Cross Between a Bomber and a Missile
Oddly enough, while Britain’s latest RAF prototype is also delta-winged and powered by two Olympus 320 engines, similar to those that will be used on the Concorde, it resembles the Concorde far less than the Valkyrie, though it still looks sleek and deadly! The TSR-2—the name is derived from its role as a “tactical strike and reconnaissance” bomber— took to the skies for a 15-minute test flight on September 27 at the Ministry of Aviation's Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down. The test flight looked to be quite successful, though I’ve heard on the WRE grapevine that the aircraft actually had many problems and was only marginally ready for a test flight.
TSR-2 undergoing an engine test before its first flight. The aircraft was painted 'anti-flash white' to reflect some of the thermal radiation from a nuclear explosion and protect it and the crew
Developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), the TSR-2 is designed to make its attack run at ground-level, under the control of terrain-following radar. It’s a ‘short take-off and landing’ vehicle that can carry conventional or nuclear weapons and is capable of flying above Mach 2 at 40,000 ft or around Mach 1 during low-level bombing runs. This versatility places the aircraft at the intersection of the capabilities of the manned bomber and the long-range missile. The TSR-2 is similar to the Valkyrie in that it has downturned wingtips, fixed at an angle of 30 degrees, to enhance its stability in high speed flight. However, as its test flight showed, those wing tips generate trailing white vortices, which might make the TSR-2 less than inconspicuous during an attack run!
On a ground attack run, the TSR-2 will be advertising its position with its smoking exhaust and white wing vortices
The TSR-2’s development has been fraught with controversy and more than once threatened with cancellation. Some commentators are calling this test flight the current British Government’s last political act before the upcoming elections in Britain, and I guess only the future will tell whether the TSR-2 goes on to become operational, or whether the next Government will finally cancel the plane and buy a replacement from America instead.
The YF-12A at Edwards Air Force Base before its first public test flight
YF-12A: Fast, Powerful and Just a Bit Mysterious
Another US Air Force prototype has been the most recent test flight to catch my attention, with the Lockheed YF-12A unveiled to the world at a press conference at Edwards Air Force Base on September 30. Claimed to be "the world's fastest military aircraft" (though perhaps the XB-70 would beg to differ), the YF-12A is a prototype interceptor capable of reaching 2,000 miles per hour and an altitude of over 80,000 feet. With its long, sleek fuselage and huge engine nacelles mounted on either side of the body (carrying the two Pratt & Whitney J58 turbojets that power it), the YF-12A is another design that looks like something out of a science fiction film, but it certainly conveys an impression of high speed and I suspect it will be setting new speed and altitude records before too long.
The pressure suits worn by the YF-12A crew don't look much different from an astronaut's spacesuit. It really helps to show how high this bird can fly!
Made mostly of titanium, to handle the heat generated by its high speeds, the YF-12 is painted dead black, to help radiate the heat from its skin. It carries a crew of two: a pilot and a fire control officer, to operate the air-to-air missile system, which includes a powerful radar and four Hughes AIM-47A Falcon air-to-air missiles carried in chine bays within the fuselage. Unlike the Valkyrie and the TSR-2, it uses a skid landing system, rather than a more conventional undercarriage. There isn’t a lot of detail available yet about the YF-12A, and rumour has it that it is the ‘public version’ of an aircraft that is still top secret, but I certainly hope to see more of it in the future.
(Top) A view of the YF-12A showing the twin crew positions (Bottom) The AIM-47 air-to-air missile that forms the YF-12's armament
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Voter registration drives are sweeping across the South. Tensions are running high: some people want everyone to have a voice in the government, and others want to restrict voting rights. Mississippi has recently gained thousands of new voters, and the conservative establishment in Louisiana is nervous.
Three members of COFO explain the registration process and his voting rights to an 81-year-old man in Mississippi. Photo credit: Ebony, September 1964.
Fighting Against Equality
Although this year has had several advances for civil rights and equality, not everyone is willing to share their freedom. Between the 24th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act, many formerly disenfranchised people now have the right to vote—and some communities are fighting back against that.
Louisiana's Tangipahoa Parish has decided the standard voting registration process is too easy. The parish fears that if it loses the ability to literally just refuse to allow black people to register, they might actually vote. The new test, which "may be given to anyone who cannot prove a fifth grade education," is guaranteed to block voting rights at the whim of the administrator.
The previous test was available across the state but administered selectively. Registration offices mostly required black citizens complete it, but it was occasionally used for some whites without much income or education. It involved a statement of identity and moral qualifications, followed by a short multiple-choice test.
The moral declaration involved criminal history (most misdemeanors disqualify a person from voting for five years) and personal life questions: "Common law" marriages or an illegitimate child were five-year disqualifiers. Women had to declare they had not given birth to an illegitimate child; men only needed to declare that they had not "acknowledged" themselves as the father of an illegitimate child.
1963 Voting Application in Louisiana
The test asked questions about the Constitution and government, and covered facts like the required age of the President and the limits on Congressional powers to regulate commerce. It asked for details that Civics classes often cover, but that any adult might not recall readily.
How often do we need to consider who would preside over a Presidential impeachment trial?
Although it asks about some obscure facts, the test itself, and even the application form, don't seem particularly onerous. What they hide is a long history of excluding black voters; many parishes in Louisiana have not registered a single black voter this century. Some required that new voters must be personally identified by two registered voters, even if they have a driver's license or military ID card. If no local white voters agreed to "verify" the identity of a black person, they are neatly barred from the vote.
A History of Discrimination
Recent legal changes threaten that entrenched racism. The new Civil Rights Act bars literacy tests as requirements to vote–except for people who haven't completed the sixth grade. Hence the new test, which "may be given to anyone who cannot prove a fifth grade education."
Note the "may." Registration officials can skip the test for anyone they think is qualified to vote: that is to say, wealthy or well-educated white people or friends of the registrar. Of course, they cannot give the test to anyone who can "prove" a fifth grade education, but the law establishes no standards for "proof."
Educational Differences
Before Brown v. Board of Education ten years ago, most areas in the South had segregated schools, and there were fewer non-white schools. Black children had to walk much farther than white children, and the schools often lacked the amenities of white schools, like heating in the winter, or enough books for every student, or a curriculum that covered advanced topics like "algebra" or "literature." Some of the many problems with black schools in the south were described years ago in Charles Johnson's Growing Up in the Black Belt, which discusses, among other topics, the difficulties of getting an education while working on a farm.
The schools themselves are better now, and will be better in the future without segregation, but their legacy continues. Today's adults include those who attended Depression-era schools that operated under a scant fraction of the money received by white schools.
One-room Negro school in Veazy, Georgia, in 1941. These students are now in their late 20s to late 30s. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Delano, Jack, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, October 1941
Many who did get grade-school educations did not complete high school, because they needed jobs as soon as they were able to work. While the law only requires a 6th-grade education, how many schools give out certificates of completion of 6th grade? And how many adults keep that certificate for decades? Even if they did receive one, and kept it, nothing guarantees the voting registrar will accept it. The local official may decide, "That document looks like a forgery. I don't recognize the name of that school, the date is unclear, and I can't read the signature of the principal. You'll have to take the literacy test."
The Unpassable Test
This new test is literally unpassable. Several questions have more than one potential answer, allowing the administrator to declare the test a failure no matter what is answered. It consists of 30 questions that must be answered entirely correctly in 10 minutes—and a single wrong answer disqualifies a person from voting.
The average reading speed is 200 words per minute; the full test has about 650 words. Most people will waste over a third of their time just reading the questions. They then have, on average, 13.5 seconds to answer each question.
It looks simple enough at the start. The instructions say "Do what you are told to do in each statement, nothing more, nothing less." That seems simple—until you consider how someone could interpret it.
1. Draw a line around the number or letter of this sentence.
Any reasonable person would circle the "1." An unreasonable person, like a registrar trying to find an excuse to bar someone from voting, might claim the answer is incorrect if the line around the "1" also included the dot after the number, as that was not part of the instructions. A very unreasonable person might mark it as a failure if the words "the number or letter" were not circled.
2. Draw a line under the last word of this line.
Normally, we'd assume the correct answer is to underline the final word, "line." Someone looking to disqualify an answer might insist the underline belongs under "word"—the last "word" of that line. Or they might decide the phrase "the last word" needs the underline.
Nothing in the law prevents irrational interpretations.
There is no answer key with the "correct" version. The administrator decides whether an answer is using the "right" interpretation, and appealing that judgment requires access to the courts. A would-be voter might be able to file a legal claim, but that won't help in time to vote in the upcoming election.
6. In the space below, draw three circles, one inside (engulfed by) the other.
Which of these answers is correct?
Guessing wrong will cost you your ability to vote.
9. Draw a line through the two letters below that come last in the alphabet.
Z V B D N K I P H S T Y C
Does that mean "draw a line through Z and another line through Y?" Or does it mean, "draw a single line through Z, the intermediate letters, and Y?" Or does it mean, "draw a curving line through Z, running over or under the remaining letters and going through Y?" Remember the instructions: Do nothing more or less than what you are told to do.
Guessing wrong means you can't vote this year.
Multiple Interpretations
As the test progresses, the instructions become increasingly opaque and subject to interpretation. Biased officials can use these ambiguities to disqualify potential voters.
20. Spell backwards, forwards.
Does that mean, "spell the word backwards as it appears normally," or "spell the word 'forwards' as 'sdrawrof'?"
21. Print the word "vote" upside down but in correct order.
Does that mean printing the word as ǝʇoʌ, so it looks correct if you turn the page 180°, or ʌoʇǝ, so the letters are in the normal correct order but are upside down? Note that writing "Ǝ┴OΛ" may disqualify you; the original used lower-case letters only.
24. Print a word that looks the same whether it is printed forwards or backwards.
Is that a palindromic word like "civic" or a mirror-image word like "bid?" A word like "MOM" qualifies as both, but the registrar might decide that's a name and not a normal word, or that words in all capitals don't count.
27. Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here.
Is that asking for the single word "right" or the entire phrase "right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here"? Or the partial phrase, "right from the left to the right?"
Incomprehensible Questions
And then there are questions that are just incomprehensible:
28. Divide a vertical line in two equal parts by bisecting it with a curved horizontal line that is straight at the point of bisection of the vertical.
Everyone knows how important geometry is when you're trying to make a sensible, well-informed vote. Note the impossibility of a "curved… line" that is "straight at the point of bisection." The administrator might also use a ruler to decide if the vertical line has two "equal" parts.
29. Write every other word in the first line and print every third word in the same line, but capitalize the fifth word that you write.
Better hope you saved time on some of the early questions, because this one is going to take more than 13 seconds to complete. See that switch from "write" to "print?" Apparently, voting in Louisiana requires both cursive and print skills. Did you print the answer to the question 27? NO VOTING FOR YOU.
Finally, we come to the pièce de résistance, the ultimate question for barring undesirables from exercising their right to vote:
30. Draw five circles that have one common interlocking part.
If the instructions said to just "Draw five circles," I'm not sure there's space for that.
This question is about half an inch above the bottom of the page. A biased registrar can find many ways to mark the answer wrong, no matter what the would-be voter has drawn in the space:
First, by declaring that the answer must have only one common interlocking part. The registrar may demand that no two circles connect other than at that part—a physical impossibility that would disqualify anyone.
Second, by declaring that the submitted drawing does not consist of true circles.
Third, by saying the resulting image is too small to see, or the interlocking part is not clearly a part of all five circles.
Fourth, if the drawing touches the words, or the applicant erases a mistake, the registrar may claim that he or she did "more than what was asked."
Fifth, if the drawing is done on the back of the page where there is more space, the registrar can insist the answer isn't in the correct place. He may decide the applicant left the answer blank. If, to avoid that, the applicant wrote, "answer on back," that may count as "more than what was asked"
Racism in Action
I've mentioned under half of the questions on the test. Some of the remaining are more clear-cut than these, but even one wrong answer disqualifies a person. This test is not designed to test whether someone can read well enough to cast a ballot. It's not designed to test someone's general literacy, or understanding of civics. It's not even designed to require black voters to have a better education than is required for white people. It's designed for one purpose: to prevent black people from voting. It forces them to undergo an unpassable test administered with subjective bias.
This is exactly the kind of discrimination the Civil Rights Act was designed to prevent. If the Civil Rights Act can't stop this, we need a new law that does. Every adult should have the right to vote!
(Are you registered?)
Activists in Mississippi protest literacy tests.
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by Gideon Marcus
Close to Home
Time was, science fiction meant space adventure. As far back as Burroughs, trips to Venus and Mars were commonplace, and by the '50s, authors routinely took us to the stars.
But while each week sees a new satellite launched toward the heavens, tremendous advances are taking place here on Earth, too. In just the last week, the news has been filled with some stunning achievements in the field of travel.
In the Air
For instance, the YF-12A interceptor, a Mach 3+ interceptor capable of flying at 100,000 feet, was just publicly unveiled. It's a beautiful, wicked-looking machine, and unlike the X-15 rocketplane, it's about to be an operational part of the Air Force's inventory.
With planes like the F-12, it's no wonder that this Mach 3 bomber, the B-70 Valkyrie, has been restricted to just two prototypes — fast as it is, it's not fast enough to evade modern interceptors! Still, it's a beautiful bird, and I think engineers will get useful data from flying it — if for nothing else, lessons to be learned for the upcoming Concorde trans-Atlantic passenger jet!
On Land
The new "Shinkansen" train, linking the cities of Tokyo and Osaka, may not be jet-propelled; nevertheless, the speed with which it whizzes across the Japanese countryside is certainly Jet Age. Now, one can travel between Japan's two principal cities in less than three hours.
I can't wait for Governor Brown to build one of these babies between Los Angeles and San Francisco!
At Sea
Operation Sea Orbit is coming to an end: the three nuclear-powered ships, CVAN Enterprise, CGN Long Beach, and DLGN Bainbridge circled the Earth without refueling, the first global showing of the flag since Teddy Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet".
Between the Navy's nuclear ships, the Air Force's atomic space drives, and the proliferation of nuclear power plants around the county, the latter 20th Century will definitely be the Age of the Atom!
And on Paper
With all this big news of Earthbound traveling, it's perhaps no surprise that Analog, the most read science fiction magazine has most of the stories of its October 1964 issue set on our planet.
by Robert Swanson
Inconstant Moon, by Joseph H. Jackson
Or, in the case of the science article, the Earth's closest neighbor. It has been speculated for some time that there may be some kind of vulcanism going on under the dead-seeming crust of the Moon. In support of that are the occasional observations by astronomers of new craters, of colored puffs of smoke, and other oddities.
There is something of a breathless quality to Jackson's piece, and the fact that it appears in Campbell's Analog makes it more suspect. In any event, it sure would have been nice if there were color pictures of these phenomena instead of the black and whites included in the article.
Three meteorites.
Sweet Dreams, Sweet Princes (Part 1 of 3), by Mack Reynolds
Author Reynolds is no stranger to the Eastern Bloc, having extensively traveled through it in the '50s (as well as many other parts of the world). It's no surprise, then, that his stories set in the nearish future, in which the Soviet Union has reached parity with the West, smack of plausibility if not inevitability.
Mack first projected the future with his African series starring Black American Homer Crawford, who goes to the continent to unify its northern portions. It's a flawed pair of books, but the political scene is well developed.
The subsequent series starring Joe Mauser, in which everyone is on the dole and corporate disputes are resolved by division-level mercenary engagements, is better. It may well be in the same universe, just further along in time.
The background is that the North America has evolved into a stratified society, employing "People's Capitalism" wherein all get a basic income and a supply of tranquilizers and television entertainment. Maybe a quarter of the populace is employed. Behind the Iron Curtain, the "Sov-World" has developed similarly, though the external trappings remain Marxist-Leninist.
Between them lie Common Europe, led by the ambitious French under The Gaulle, and the "Neut World", the underdeveloped fourth corner of the power square.
by Robert Swanson
Unlike the previous stories in this universe, we get a new protagonist, Etruscan Studies professor Denny Land, of the "Middle Middle" class. His enthusiasm for researching ancient combats gets him embroiled in the new gladiatorial games, which to his great surprise, he ends up winning. But when he tries to go back to teaching, he finds that his superior, a member of the 1% "Upper" caste, resents Land's fame and sends him on indefinite leave.
This leaves Land ripe to be recruited by the American government as a spy, providing cover for a mission to Spain to turn, kidnap, or eliminate a French professor whose recent invention could break the decades-long balance of power of the early 21st Century.
There is something compelling yet mechanical about Reynolds' writing — it always makes you want to turn the page, but it is never flashy or inspiring. His world building is fascinating, however.
I think, in the end, it merits four stars. I suspect the latter parts will fall into the standard three star zone, but we'll see.
Do you remember that sense of trepidation when you first got on Ike's superhighway system? The panic you felt when you realized you had to navigate four lanes of traffic to get around?
Frank Herbert offers up this minor piece in which the freeway system has become something like the jet-speed expressways of Rick Raphael's Code Three universe. The problem at hand is that people are getting on, panicking, and deciding it's easier to resettle at the other end of the country than to risk the nerve racking trip home.
Two cars.
Flying Fish, by John T. Phillifent
by John Schoenherr
On a distant planet (this is the one off-planet story), humanity meets an alien race that tells us we are limited and incapable of advancing to their lofty level. This being an Analog story, of course it's the alien that's wrong — and limited, to boot — and anyway, if humanity has limits, those only make us better.
It's not a great story, and I rolled my eyes at the pivotal character, Captain Beefcake, being infinitely selfless and flawless (as proven mathematically by the protagonist!) Still, it's not poorly written, and I was about to give it three stars until I wrote the above and convinced myself out of it.
Two ubermenschen.
Professional Dilemma, by Leonard Lockhard
by Leo Summers
Lockhard (really attorney Thedore L. Thomas) has penned some interesting stories of the intersection of patent law and science fiction. This one is of the same subject matter but not the same quality — it rambles, it's not really SF, and it's conclusion is a ho hum.
Two trademarks.
Situation Unbearable, by Herbert Pembroke
by Michael Arndt
Our last story, by a brand-new author, begins with the premise of Brian Aldiss' recent novel, Greybeard. To wit, humanity's birth rate has declined to almost nothing, and nobody seems to know why. Well, almost nobody, but the one geneticist who might have a clue seems to have gone catatonic after encountering some horrific truth.
Can he be snapped out of it before it's too late?
This one takes a long time to get going, and the ending is a bit silly (the story is presented as a mystery, but the embedded hints aren't strong enough — did any of you guess what was going on?) I think Pembroke has the makings of a decent thriller writer, but he whiffed on this one.
Two baby bottles.
Summing up
All told, this was not a stellar issue of Analog, clocking in at just 2.6 stars. I don't think it has anything to do with where the stories took place, though — this is just becoming a tired mag whose heyday was two decades ago. Still, I am interested to see where the Reynolds goes.
As for the other mags, Science Fantasy was the clear winner, garnering an impress 3.5 stars with its first issue under new management. Worlds of Tomorrow was also worthy, scoring 3.1 stars.
Everything else was pretty dismal. Amazing is tentatively a 2.7 (jury remaining out on the Brunner serial), Fantasy and Science Fiction got 2.7 stars, Galaxy was an unusually low 2.6, as was IF (also a Pohl mag), and Fantastic finished at 2.4.
Women writers got extremely short shrift. We only saw a 6% participation; "Partners in Wonder" indeed.
As dreary as those numbers are, most magazines had at least one piece to recommend them, often their longest. You could take all the better than average stuff from this month's crop and fill two magazines. Thin ones.
Which gives me hope for next month, on or off the planet. Come space travel with me?
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by Victoria Lucas
Life in the Big City
You'll be glad to know I've evolved a routine (haha). Weekdays: walk to 633 Battery after taking J streetcar to Market and Sansome, bus up Sansome, reading book. (I'm on Moby Dick right now.) Back same but bus goes down Battery Street to Market. Catch streetcar back to the end of Church at 30th where it turns around in front of my apartment.
Saturdays: walk to parks, sometimes all the way to North Beach. If I have any money I might drive to and shop at the Safeway at Market and 7th Street. If it's nearly Friday payday sometimes all I have left is spaghetti and margarine. Saturday nights usually a date (if it's with dinner I don't usually eat during the day). I very occasionally drive somewhere like Berkeley or San Mateo or Santa Cruz if I have money for gas and/or a show or concert. I wonder when I'm going to get a raise to a whole dollar an hour.
Sunday: mornings I pick up the Sunday Chronicle, a heavy load. I read the funnies first, then the pink section. The pink section is the entertainment section, and I eagerly devour it, looking for stuff I want to do–especially free stuff. This last weekend I found something both wonderful and free and on my usual weekend route, at the Civic Center.
A patron of the Arts
I learned they have these Arts Festivals in Civic Center Plaza in the fall. In fact, sometimes musicians play their instruments in echoing spaces under the eaves or in the lobbies of some of the Civic Center buildings, so I usually stop here on my weekend itinerary through the City.
Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco
This time the Plaza was my destination, shown here with City Hall, the building with the dome bisecting the Plaza's green areas. City Hall faces Van Ness Avenue (not visible at the bottom, a major north-south street), and the Plaza takes up two city blocks, just as City Hall does. I learned that it was the San Francisco Tape Music Center that furnished the Marantz speakers that enlivened the gathering from both ends of the Plaza. This year the Arts Festival was held on September 25 through 27. You'll notice on the program below that a misprint had September 26 as Friday, when it should have been September 25.
Friday it began with folk dancing and a "Dancer's Workshop" but at 8 pm The San Francisco Tape Music Center revved up its speakers and regaled us with contemporary music. Oh, what bliss! Then from 9-10 were experimental films, starting with Bruce Baillie. But since I was alone (and the Tenderloin is right there), I couldn't stay, so I walked to Market Street and paid my 15 cents for the J streetcar back to my apartment. As I walked away I heard the first notes of the music accompanying Baillie's "To Parsifal," and knew I wouldn't be sorry I left. I hate Wagner.
Steve Reich, with San Francisco Mime Troupe
Saturday I wasn't really interested in the folk dancing so after a leisurely breakfast and walk I arrived at the Plaza in time for the San Francisco Mime Troupe's production of Moliere's "Tartuffe," directed by R. G. Davis and with music by Steve Reich, who is sometimes featured at the Tape Music Center. Somebody told me that the Saul Landau listed in the program as responsible for "Lyrics" makes films. They cranked up those Marantzes again. Dance and poetry and dance again, and a puppet show by the Lilliputian Theater.
Lilliputian Theater puppet
Finally, at 8 pm more Tape Music Center. The Marantzes danced. Again the first film was by Bruce Baillie, and that's great, but once again I had to leave early. On Sunday more dance, more puppets, El Troupo de Mimo (as the Mime Troupe likes to call itself) performed "Tartuffe" again. I hear they performed one of my favorite plays last year; I wish I could have seen it: Jarry's Ubu Roi.
San Francisco Mime Troupe in Ubu Roi
Come on Down
After more dance the Tape Music Center was back on Sunday at 6 and only till 7, since Monday was a workday. It was still summer here, and the evenings were cool and breezes carried the smell of food cooking and being served from the carts and tents on the Plaza. People were everywhere. It was a delightful night, and I really, really hope they do this again next year–especially the Mime Troupe and the Tape Music Center. However, the Mime Troupe performs in the parks, and I'll be seeing them, and the Tape Music Center is on Divisadero right on a bus route. I'll be hearing them again soon. You should come and see them along with San Francisco's other sights. It's a happening City, and I love it!
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by Mark Yon
Scenes from England
Hello again!
Well, this is a pleasant, if unexpected, surprise. I have been getting used to writing about New Worlds magazine every other month.
However, whilst looking at the racks in my local newsagent the other day, to my surprise there was a copy of Science Fantasy, so I bought it. It is the first I’ve seen in a long while, and certainly the first under its new editorialship by Kyril Bonfiglioli, so I am very interested to see what it is like.
Note: Picture is not actually of the author…
I am hoping that this increased visibility is a good sign – an improvement in noticeability can only mean more potential sales. Let’s hope New Worlds can follow. I mentioned in my last article that there was a rumour about the circulation of New Worlds. It seems that readership is up, and that the print run is now nearly double what it was under Carnell. That is wonderful news, although I am aware that New Worlds not only needs to get those numbers of people reading, but also keep them.
Whilst not quite as much as its older companion, it looks like Science Fantasy has also increased its sales.
More on that in a minute.
What else has happened since we last met? Well, the rumoured General Election was announced on 14th September, to no one’s real surprise. The currently governing Conservative Party, having being in power for 13 years or so, seem fairly confident about their chances of returning. Personally, though, I don’t know. The youngsters that I know of all seem to be enthused about the Labour Party under Harold Wilson, claiming that now is the time for change. With what’s been happening socially, and the empowerment of young men and women, Wilson might just stand a chance.
Sierra Exif JPEG
In terms of music, there’s been some change. My favourite track of last month, You Really Got Me by The Kinks actually got to Number One for two weeks, which shows that it isn’t just me who likes it. Currently the saccharine pop of Herman’s Hermits is at the top of charts with I’m Into Something Good. Much more radio-friendly perhaps, but it shows how varied our music is at the moment.
Poster from my local Odeon cinema.
But my biggest news is that I’ve managed to see the latest James Bond, the one the Traveller mentioned last week in his ongoing news ticker. Named Goldfinger, and based on Ian Fleming’s book, of course, I think it’s the best Bond film so far. There’s clearly been a lot of money spent on gadgets and special effects, but most importantly Sean Connery seems to be settling in nicely to the lead role. Gert Frobe makes an admirable bad-guy, although his henchman known as 'Odd Job' is more memorable, for reasons I won't spoil here. Good to see ex-Avenger Honor Blackman in a film (rather than television) as well. There has to be more of these, judging by what I saw. Great stuff.
The Issue At Hand
Well, this is a classier cover than the one on New Worlds, although there’s not much of the ‘Fantasy’ about it. Looks like an ancient alfresco classical painting, which I am sure is deliberate. The two red dots for nipples made me laugh, though.
The editorial is an interesting one. This Science Fantasy editorial from Kyril Bonfiglioni comes across as more straightforward than the Moorcock New Worlds editorials, and combines humour with a tad bit of grumpiness. It’s also rather defensive in its choices, here defending Rudyard Kipling as a Science Fiction writer to beat H G Wells had he continued to write more. However, the editor’s put-down of a disgruntled reader in New York is quite amusing. All in all it’s a great introduction to the issue.
So we begin with something that I understand is not typical of Science Fantasy, in that it is the first of a three-parter. This is something common in New Worlds, but judging by the comments by the editor, less so here.
The Blue Monkeys is a story that dips into the well of ideas that is ancient Grecian myths. In this place giants exist, as do many of the mythological creatures we accept as stories today. It’s a nice set up.
It’s really an alternate story of the Minotaur, through the eyes of Thea and Icarus, two young elf-like children of the Cretan prince Aeacus. They encounter the boorish Ajax, who tries to make moves on the young sixteen year old Thea. Unsurprisingly, Thea and Icarus try to escape and in doing so are rescued by the Minotaur. The twist in the story is that the Minotaur’s reputation is more fearsome than the reality.
If you like tales where the emphasis is on telling a story, I think you’ll like this one. Think of it as a more adult version of the myths and legends of Ancient Greece. It reads very smoothly, and I was engrossed until the point where it ended. I look forward to the next part in the next issue. A great start to the story and the issue. 4 out of 5.
Period of Gestation, by Thom Keyes
And then we have a change of gear, to an odd science-fiction story that wouldn’t be out of place in New Worlds. Imagine the consequences of unending travel with a group of other men for sixteen years. This tale shows us the result. Frankly it's not pretty, although the editor prefers to refer to it in his Editorial as 'controversial'. Mad delusions, visions of deity and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are mixed with orgies of chocolate and male pregnancy. Period of Gestation tries to combine humour and satire but becomes too absurd for my tastes. It’s certainly memorable but didn’t really work for me. 3 out of 5.
Anita is the first of two stories by this author in this issue.
I’m usually suspicious when we get two stories by the same author in one issue. New Worlds does this a lot – it published two Brian Aldiss stories in the June 1964 issue, for example. But I can’t help feeling that surely if the stories are that good it makes sense to spread them out over a number of issues?
Having said that, this first one is pretty good. It is the story of a young girl’s moral awakening as she experiences a wider world. Anita is a young and rather lonely witch whose experience of normal mortals is limited. When her Granny insists that Anita go out of the house to see more of the world and practice her magic, Anita encounters cars, tarmacked roads and makes new friends. Despite warnings from her Granny, Anita becomes friends with a girl named Ruth and her Romany lover Jem. It does not end well, for when Jem leaves Ruth she commits suicide. In a rather Fritz Leiber-style twist, Anita finds herself in the care of an animated zombie.
Anita is a nicely developed character – an innocent who wants to do well, yet who is also lonely and wants to make friends, even if they are human. On the downside, Granny’s strangled language, meant to represent a local dialect, is a bit irritating, but overall Anita’s a nice enough story that brings to light the complications that could be created if the world of magic coexisted with the more mundane Human world. 4 out of 5.
Dummy Run, by Colin Hume
A writer new to me. Another attempt to write a humorous science fiction tale, one where Percy Winkley, a mild-mannered ventriloquist, single-handedly halts a Martian invasion with the use of his ventriloquist’s dummy. Like most of these stories, I find, it’s a minor story that doesn’t always work for me, one that is supposed to amuse but really made me groan. Although it is better than some of the similar stories I’ve read in New Worlds, this is not worth comparing with similar works by more skilled humourists such as Brian Aldiss, Robert Sheckley or John Sladek. 3 out of 5.
Easy as A.B.C., by Rudyard Kipling
I must admit that I’m usually wary of reprints, even when they are good. On a practical level they tend to be for reasons of financial expediency rather than literary merit in my experience, or in a literary sense are old-fashioned and dated.
However, this story, first published in 1912, is worthy of a read as an early proto-sf story from an author not usually remembered for his genre work. The Aerial Board of Control (A.B.C.) is “a semi-elected, semi-nominated body of a few-score persons” who control “The Planet”.
It’s the story of how a global government deals with a global crisis – in this case, when North Illinois takes itself out of the system, causing communication breakdowns and other sorts of chaos. A crack team of A.B.C. operatives are sent to find out why and, if necessary, bring North Illinois back in line.
The issue seems to be that a group of dissidents wish to have more democracy and hold public meetings, which are in defiance of the relatively benign rules of The A.B.C. because invasion of privacy – which these demands impose upon – is seen as a capital offense.
The team realise that action has to be taken quickly in order to quell a rapidly escalating problem. Their solution is to use a new weapon that makes those who hear it temporarily blind and deaf on the populace of Chicago. The dissidents are then rounded up and taken to the World Capital of London, where they are put on display for the entertainment of the masses.
Kyril says in his Editorial that “Kipling was far ahead of his time as a science fiction writer”, and As Easy As A.B.C. shows some interesting if controversial ideas – even today. The story raises the issue of what right an authoritative power has in taking actions to defend the views of the masses, even when such views are different to our own.
It’s not too difficult to see this as a parallel version of the British Empire throwing its considerable weight around. Readers may consider this to be either an acceptable consequence of being ruled by a benign World Council or regard it with horror as the inevitable consequence of accruing and maintaining control. The ending reminded me of the show-trials at the end of the Second World War, or even the more recent McCarthy trials in the USA, and not in a good way.
Some readers may dislike the use of terms such as “Nigger” and characters being referred to derogatorily as “Wandering Jews”, which are a product of their time but sit uneasily with a more contemporary readership. But there are some interesting ideas here that make you think, even when it is not a total success. For all of its issues I can see why Kyril thinks it worth bringing to our attention again.
3 out of 5.
Symbiote, by George Rigg
Another writer new to me. In the blurb George is described as “an Oxford don whose specialism is medieval literature.” However, those expecting an Arthurian romance will be surprised, for instead this is a very short story of the awakening of a form whose purpose for existence appears only to be around ‘the Creature’ – a human alcoholic with delusions. It is very short, verbose and minor in importance, but perhaps a welcome relief to counter the denser tales before it.
3 out of 5.
Escapism, by Keith Roberts
The second of the two stories by this author in this issue. Escapism is a story of what happens when an out-of-the-way, dilapidated little picture house is hired to check the rushes of a movie being made about the ancient battle of Sedgemoor. Nothing too unusual there – except that the movie is so realistic that the audience feels like it is there, with surround sound.
Perhaps my favourite story of the issue. There’s humour which works and characters I really liked.
5 out of 5.
Love Feast, by Johnny Byrne
And yet another writer new to me, but one who I gather is quite well known and popular in British genre circles. Love Feast is a weird little short-short about a creature offering itself up to be eaten by another. Odd – which may be the point, but not a favourite for me. 2 out of 5.
Notice: no book review section or letters page (which is why the Editor used a letter in his editorial this month, I guess): that’s your lot. Unlike New Worlds, in Science Fantasy it’s all about the fiction within, which again makes a refreshing change.
Summing up
I’m pleased I got a hold of this issue. Like Moorcock in New Worlds, Bonfiglioli is clearly determined to make his mark on the magazine. The two magazines are definitely different, but not entirely to the exclusion of the other.
I suppose that if New Worlds is the British equivalent of Analog, then Science Fantasy must be the British equivalent of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction – something that should amuse fellow Traveller Gideon, as I gather from his recent reports that he’s not too keen on F&SF at the moment! But the comparison seems apt to me.
Out of the two, I think that Science Fantasy has broader appeal but is more conservative than New Worlds. Yes, it is trying to break new ground – there’s a very interesting comment made by Kyril about Conan-esque sword and sorcery in this issue, for example – but it’s not as ‘out there’ as New Worlds.
This may not necessarily be a bad thing. I wasn’t expecting to say this, but out of the two most recent issues of the magazines the revelation for me is that I think Science Fantasy is a stronger, or at least more enjoyable, issue. Or at least it may appeal to a wider readership. If sales have increased, I think I can see why.
In short, I am impressed, and I hope that my ability to get issues of this magazine will continue. There are three stories here I loved (the two Keith Roberts’ and Thomas Burnett Swann’s reimaging of Greek myths) and the rest are not a disaster. I’ll have to look at a subscription, like I do for New Worlds, perhaps. The next issue will be out at the end of November.
However, I should be back to a new issue of New Worlds next month. Until next time…
[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]
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![[October 2, 1964] Terrestrial Adventures (October 1964 <i>Analog</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/641002cover-672x372.jpg)
![[September 30, 1964] San Francisco Arts Festival (Marantz Rocks the Plaza)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/mimetroupeubu.jpg)
![[September 28, 1964] Revelation (<i>Science Fantasy</i>, September-October 1964)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Science-Fantasy-Sept-Oct-1964-672x372.jpg)
