Conventions/Performances

[March 27, 1961] What a Wonder! (WonderCon)

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(from The LA Science Fiction Society (1939))

Comic book lovers, science fiction aficionados, and history buffs all share some characteristics, no matter how disparate their interests may seem on the surface: they are passionate about their pidgin, they plumb deeply into the lore of their fields, and they are all just a bit off-center from the rest of "normal" society.

Let's face it–it's 1961, and conformity is still the rule of the day.  We're expected to wear suits and hats (though our new President seems to be a trendsetter in the "no hats" arena).  We're supposed to abandon the frivoloties of youth and settle down to hard work and raising a family.  Heaven forbid our interests should stray outside the socially acceptable pasttimes of sports, religion, politics, and cocktail parties.

But for those of us who refuse to "grow up", we still want to belong somewhere.  We don't want to go it alone; we seek out others of our ilk.  The weird ones.  The creative ones.

The Fans.

So we form clubs, some associated with centers of learning, others with geographic districts.  We create fan circles that put out fanzines.  We form readers' groups to share our self-penned works.

And…we hold conventions.

These are generally smallish affairs compared to their business-oriented cousins, with attendance running into the hundreds.  But for the fan who normally has a local community of just a half-dozen fellows (and perhaps many more as pen pals), going to a convention is like a pilgrimage to Mecca.  One meets people with completely different experiences, different perspectives.  There is the opportunity to get news from far and wide on exciting new projects, both fan and professional.  And the carousing is second to none, both in the heights of enthusiasm and creativity.

Take a look at my newly developed roll of shots from "WonderCon", a sizeable affair held last weekend in Los Angeles.  These are some dedicated fans, some fabulous costumes, and some terrific times!

First off, a few attendees who came in street clothes:

A few inspired by the pulps of yesteryear:

Some fresh from the pages of the comics (the new character, Supergirl, appears to have an unusually red skirt…)

A pair of Snow Whites, one traditional, and one in 40s chic:

Speaking of the 40s, check out these spot-on duds–go Airborne!

And their most hated foe (this one made me double-take, but I understand it's a minor character from an Atlas comics ish):

The Crown Princess, Anasatasia, last of the Romanovs:

Some great costumes I can't quite identify (the Germans may just have been lost and wandered in):

The Sweep, from the Mary Poppins childrens' book series:

Some cartoons come to life–Betty Boop and Fred Flinstsone (the latter is quite new, the 1st season not having yet ended!)

The inimitable Amy Spaulding–her art is amazing:

And, of course, The Traveler:

With Professor Elliot:

And making Archie cry:

That's it for this time.  I loved seeing all of my friends and fans again, and I hope you'll stay tuned for the review of this month's (the April 1961) Fantasy and Science Fiction!  There are some excellent stories in there, three of them by woman authors–a new record!

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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 24, 1961] The Second Sex in SF

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1961.  The year that an Irishman named Kennedy assumed the highest office in the land.  The year in which some 17 African nations celebrated their first birthday.  The air smells of cigarette smoke, heads are covered with hats, and men run politics, industry, and much of popular culture.

In a field (and world) dominated by men, it is easy to assume that science fiction is as closed to women as the local Elks Lodge.  Who are the stars of the genre?  Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Sheckley; these are household names.  But if there is anything I have discovered in my 11 years as an avid science fiction fan (following another 20 of casual interest), it is that there is a slew of excellent woman authors who have produced a body of high quality work.  In fact, per my notes, women write just one ninth of the science fiction stories published, but a full fourth of the best works. 

For this reason, I've compiled a list of female science fiction writers active in this, the second year of the 1960s.  These authors are just the tip of the vanguard.  They are blazing a trail for women to one day share equally in the limelight…and the Hugos!

Here they are, in alphabetical order:

Pauline Ashwell: This young British author is unusual in that her works are confined exclusively (so far as I can tell) to the usually rather stag Analog, the most conservative and widely distributed of the digests.  Her Unwillingly to School, and its recent sequel, The Lost Kafoozalum, were both Hugo-nominees.  Deservedly so, as they are both unique and a lot of fun.  They also feature a creature about as rare as the female author: the female protagonist!  Ashwell also wrote the off-the-wall alien/human friendship story, Big Sword, under the transparent pseudonym, Paul Ash.  More, please!

Leigh Brackett: A Californian, Brackett was a staple of the pulp era, writing a myriad of short stories and novels all the way through the middle of the last decade.  For some reason, she seems to have fallen off the genre radar in the last few years, but I understand she's making a living at Hollywood and television screenwriting.  I am chagrined to report that I've not read a single one of her stories, and I worry that I'd find them dated.  I'd be happy to be wrong.  Recommendations?

Marion Zimmer Bradley: Young Bradley has been writing for at least a decade, but her works have tended to appear in the magazines to which I don't have subscriptions, with the notable exception of The Wind People, which appeared in IF at the end of Damon Knight's short-lived tenure as its editor.  She's just come out with her first book, The Door through Space, which is sitting on my "To Read" shelf.  She's a bit of an odd duck, having recently founded her own occult religion, the Aquarian Order of the Restoration, filled with trances, discovery of past lives, and clairvoyance.  I guess if L. Ron Hubbard can do it…

Rosel George Brown: I'm on firmer ground with Ms. Brown, an author whom I have watched with avid interest since she first appeared in Galaxy in 1958.  Her stories hinted at a great talent, and her stories had something to recommend them, even if they were not perfect successes.  Her talent flowered with the excellent Step IV, which appeared in Amazing, and her recent Of all possible worlds was even better.  An unabashedly feminine, inarguably terrific writer; I can't wait to read what she pens next.

Miriam Allen Deford: One of the eldest (ahem…most seasoned!) of the woman authors, Ms. Deford has been writing since the 1920s, though she did not enter our genre in a big way until Fantasy and Science Fiction inaugurated in 1949.  Since then, she has turned out a steady stream of stories.  Their common elements are her slightly quaint style, her versatility (writing horror, mystery, and "straight" sf with equal facility), and her consistency.  She is solid, if not brilliant, and generally a welcome addition to any magazine's table of contents.

Carol Emshwiller: Say the name "Emshwiller" and you probably first think of the illustrator, Ed Emshwiller, whose drawings have appeared in hundreds (if not thousands) of magazines.  But Carol Emshwiller, who married into that improbable surname, has also appeared frequently in scientifiction magazines.  I am once again embarrassed to confess that I've only read one of her stories thus far (this is what comes of only having time to read three digests a month; curse my need for a day job!) Perhaps one of my readers can tell me if A Day at the Beach was representative of her work; I recall enjoying it.  In fact, while I called it forgettable, I still remember it two years later, so I must have been wrong!

—

I'm going to pause at this point because the list is actually quite lengthy, and I think it merits presentation in multiple parts.  I apologize for the scantiness of my knowledge in places; until one invents a comprehensive Encyclopedia for science fiction works, whereby one can retrieve information about, and stories by, any given author, any one person's viewpoint will be limited.  I do hope I've whetted your appetite, however, and that you will seek out these authors' work.

See you in a couple of days!

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[March 21, 1961] Marching as to Peace

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[As promised, here is the first of Rosemary Benton's regular articles for Galactic Journey.  Science ficton is about progress, and not just of the nuts and bolts kind.  Sociological progress is fertile ground for a myriad of stories.  I can easily imagine an intergalactic version of the new development Ms.  Benton writes about below…(the Editor)]

Salutations everyone!  On March 1st our president made good on a proposed project from back in 1960 which we, especially the young, hoped against hope would come to fruition.  The Peace Corps, a volunteer organization tasked with providing technical assistance and fostering cultural exchange abroad, is now a reality.  Granted, it is only on a trial basis, but the enthusiasm that the very concept has generated has been momentous. 

Sharron Perry is one such prospective volunteer I had the pleasure to meet when visiting the campus for a prospective job offer at the university library.  A succinct and highly motivated lady, she told me all about this revolutionary new federal program that was started just earlier this month.  As a conscientious objector and active member of her university's organization, Americans Committed to World Responsibility, Sharron is a graduating senior who seems to vibrate with the energy that embodies her age group.  She was nice enough to share with me the following letter which she hopes will galvanize other young people at her school, the University of Michigan, to join her on this new adventure. 

Perhaps she will motivate you, as well:

3/20/1961

To the current students, upcoming graduates and alumni,

I hope that you read this opinion piece with a desire for a sense of purpose in your life–a sense of dignity, respect and compassion for your fellow man.  As the school year draws to a close and our paths take us outside of the walls of our alma mater, I find that I am cornered in a difficult position not unknown to our generation.  To survive and flourish by the principles of goodwill and hard work, but at the same time to serve our country, our people, and live for the betterment of the world.  As the next generation of Americans – the next line of teachers, doctors, and civil engineers – it is our honor bound duty and privilege to serve our country and fellow man. 

But to serve and protect through the military is no longer the only honorable path, and it is no longer only a man's prerogative.  Wouldn't it be better to have our men serve their turn of duty through a less destructive, more diplomatic means that will encourage societies throughout the third world to turn away from the Soviets? Women of America, wouldn't it be better to offer much needed assistance abroad while traveling the world? With Janet G. Travell holding the position of physician to the president, the first woman to hold this station, shouldn't we strive to break even more boundaries? Americans of all races, shouldn't we support a federal organization which will not segregate and discriminate against our heritages? Our newly elected president challenged us University of Michigan students on October 14, 1960 to imagine such a global service, and now in March 1961 he has given us the opportunity to put the same enthusiasm we had for the idea into practice.  It is up to our generation to rise to this challenge.  As President Kennedy said at 2 AM in front of the University of Wisconsin Union, "On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete."

The philosopher William James wrote in his essay The Moral Equivalent of War, that "the gilded youths" should hold a responsibility to serve in order for them "to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas".  As we leave behind the safety of student life, heads full of new and exciting ideas, we too must go out and come back to our native land with a better understanding of the challenges that will be posed to America in the coming decade.  To be better Americans we must know the world.  "Unless you comprehend the nature of what is being asked of you, this country can't possibly move through the next 10 years in a period of relative strength."

As a conscientious objector I will be wearing my black arm band this May at my class' graduation.  As a woman I will wear the black arm band because I intend to rise to President Kennedy's challenge, and peacefully fight against the perception that America can only fight through the CIA.  We students graduating in 1961 are very lucky to have been offered an honorable alternative to the draft.  Us students lucky enough to have spent our educational lives in a school as progressive as the University of Michigan, with our study abroad program and our campus organizations like Americans Committed to World Responsibility, now must act upon our belief in sustainable peace.  It is not merely a choice to volunteer for the Peace Corps, but an obligation of our generation.


The letter and its writer are fictional, but nevertheless representative.

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Magazine/Anthology

[March 18, 1961] Bad Luck of the Non-Irish (April 1961 Analog)

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!  It's a banner year for Irishmen, particularly with one having reached the top spot in the country, if not the world.  And did you know that the phrase, "Luck of the Irish," actually referred to the knack of Irish immigrants and Americans of Irish descent for becoming wealthy in the Silver and Gold Rushes of the last century?  Though the term was often used derisively by folks who thought the fortune was ill-earned.

My luck with Analog, deserved or not, ran out this month.  With the exception of the opening serial installment, The Fisherman, by Cliff Simak (which I have not yet read but look forward to), the April 1961 Analog has been singularly unimpressive.

One wonders if John Campbell deliberately alternates good issues with bad ones—I'd think he'd be better served by ensuring each magazine had at least one worthy tale!  Perhaps he plum ran out.

Take J.F. Bone's brief A Prize for Edie, for example.  A trio of teeth-gnashing members of the Nobel Prize committee agonize over giving the honor to a computer.  Disappointingly silly, and, as seems to be a theme this issue, it misses the opportunity to make a deeper point.  Two stars.

Lloyd Biggle, Jr's Still, Small Voice had some promise: A Cultural Service agent is sent to an alien world to succeed where the Interplanetary Relations Bureau had failed, namely, to convert a centuries-old absolute monarchy into a democracy.  In particular, I appreciated how the aliens were depicted as an artistic race, and that music was the key to progress.  But the thing is sloppily written with a number of duplicated phrases, the alien race is utterly human, and the story a bit too condescending in tone.  The first betrays too light an editorial touch, and the others spotlight a lack of editorial discrimination.  Two stars.

Interestingly enough, John Campbell's nonfiction piece is the most engaging part of the issue.  Normally, the stuff he writes himself is dreadful; he often shills for one kind of junk science or another.  This time, he's back to his hobby of photography, but on an interesting tangent.  He showcases a new kind of light source, an electroluminescent panel that looks for all the world like a thick sheet of paper.  Pretty neat stuff—I could see it becoming a feature of future science fiction stories.  Three stars.

Back to the dreary stories, Pandora's Planet, by Chris Anvil (whose best work always appears outside of Analog), is another "Earthmen are just plain better at everything than everyone else" story.  In this case, some fuzzy humanoids can't seem to win a war to subjugate a planet's native race without the help of some plucky, original Terrans.  The point of the piece seems to be that unorthodox war is just as valid as "real" war, and stuffy rigidity will only lead to failure.  That's fine so far as it goes, but the canny Terran tactics aren't that innovative, and the stodginess of the fuzzies is insufficiently explored.  Two stars.

That leaves us with Next Door, Next World by lesser magazine perennial, Robert Donald Locke (often writing under the pseudonym, Roger Arcot).  The premise is great: A hyperdrive makes travel to the stars a matter of weeks rather than millennia, but with the side effect that one never returns to quite the same time track one left.  The execution is lousy, however, with plenty of insipid dialogue, stupid characters, and lots of padding.  Again, the impression I got was that Campbell was in a hurry and took what he could get without requesting revision.  And it's yet another piece with a beginning along the lines of, "Clint Hugearms stood near his trusty spaceship, tanned and sturdy features marking him as the protagonist of the story."  I'm starting to think Campbell inserts these openings into all of his submissions.  Two stars.

I apologize to my readers who want only to hear about the good stuff; however, by jingo, if I have to read the drek, you have to read about it!  Perhaps the Simak will yet knock my socks off.  It is not uncommon that a given Astounding's stories are bad, but its serial is good (e.g. The High Crusade and Deathworld, for instance).

I've a surprise for my readers—guest columnist Rosemary Benton will be writing the next article, and she's graciously agreed to contribute one piece per month!  Like you, I will eagerly look forward to what she has to offer.

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Book

[March 15, 1961] Damaged Colossus (Blish's Titans' Daughter)

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Less than a generation ago, Adolf Hitler made eugenics–the selective breeding of humans for desired traits–a dirty word.  But what if a race of bona-fide supermen were created through the direct manipulation of DNA and presented as a fait accompli?  What would be the moral ramifications, and how would the "normals" react?  James Blish's attempts to tackle these questions in his new book, Titans' Daughter.

From the cover, you might gather that Daughter is the story of Sena, one of the eight-foot tall, super-intelligent test tube creations of the brilliant Dr. Frederick R. Hyatt.  It is, but only tangentially.  Rather, it is really the account of Maurice St. George, the "best-adjusted" of the mutants, known as "tetras" for their tetraploidal genetic make-up (having four pairs of chromosomes instead of two like "normal" diploid people). 

Resentful of the unrestrained acrimony and discrimination the tetras endure at the hands of the diploids, he secretly plots a rebellion.  By furtively training a tetra army in the guise of training them in a new, giants-only football league, and through the creation of reactionless drives converted into deadly beams, St. George creates a powerful fifth column.  A lone spark would ignite a powder keg of interracial war: the murder of Dr. Hyatt.  Sena's role is a minor one–as one of the few tetra females, St. George has tapped her to be the mother of a new generation of giants, with or without her consent!

Daughter is an uneven book in a lot of ways.  Half of it originally appeared almost a decade ago as the novella, Beanstalk; I can only imagine that the prior story contained all of the basic plot, and that the novel simply provides expansion.  Otherwise, it would be incomprehensible.

Regardless of subsequent embellishments, Daughter is fundamentally an old story, and it feels dated.  Society in the book's early 21st Century feels just like the early '50s with the addition of the friction created by the tetras.  The viewpoint is third-person omniscient, and we shift characters frequently and jarringly.  While Blish occasionally offers up a clever turn of phrase, he also litters the text with overlong and awkward scientific exposition.  The science itself is dodgy.  Basically, the thing reads like a serial from a lesser digest (which, spiritually, it is).  This is a shame because the subject matter is fascinating, even if Blish just scratches the surface, and there are moments of genuine quality. 

For instance, the references to the previous mini-rebellion, the Pasadena incident that left two dozen tetras immolated alive in their cross-shaped compound.  Or the excellent court scene in which a brilliant attorney provides a stirring defense for the tetra falsely accused of Dr. Hyatt's killing.  Or the scenes in which we get glimpses of the two-way resentment and mistrust between the two tribes of humanity, ancient and newborn.  It is tantalizing to think what might have been if Sturgeon or Henderson had made a more nuanced pass at the issue–or even a completely present-day Blish, using his current, superior skills to try again from scratch.

Instead, Daughter is somewhat engaging but ultimately unfulfilling pulp that pendulums from super-science to action-adventure.  I look forward to someone someday taking Daughter's theme and doing it right.

Three stars.

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Magazine/Anthology

[March 12, 1961] Mirror Images (April 1961 Galaxy, second half)

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Last time, my theme was "more of the same," pointing out that Galaxy is keeping its content as consistent as possible, at the expense of taking any great risks.  It is ironic that, as I pound the keys of my typewriter, my radio is playing a new version of "Apache."  This bossanova version by a Danish cat, name of Jörgen Ingmann, is fair, but I like the British one better, the one compellingly performed by The Shadows. 

You are, of course, here to find out if the rest of the April 1961 Galaxy follows the trend set by the first half.  The answer is "yes."  It's a good issue, but not a great one.

Let's start with the next story, I can do Anything by J.T. McIntosh.  I know I have readers who aren't particularly fond of him, but I find he usually turns in a good show.  So it is with this story, about a man exiled to a miserable mining world for the crime of being a bit more than human.  His power is an unsettling one; I'm glad to see it employed solely for good.  A gritty piece with depth.  Four stars.

Homey Atmosphere is a cute tale about the virtues and difficulties inherent in employing sentient computers in one's starships.  Daniel Galouye is another author on whom I often find opinion divided.  I generally fall on the side of liking him.  This story has an ending you might suspect before it occurs, but that doesn't make it a bad one.  Four stars.

All the People is a strangely unwhimsical and straightforward piece by R.A. Lafferty about a man who knows everyone on Earth despite never having met most of them.  The story gets a quarter star for mentioning my (obscure) home town of El Centro, California, and it loses a quarter star for spoiling the ending a page early with a telling illustration.  Three stars.

I don't know Roger Dee very well.  In fact, I've never reviewed any one his stories in this column, and though my notes suggest I've encountered him before, none of his creations stuck in my mind.  I suppose, then, it should come as no surprise that his The Feeling similarly failed to impress.  The notion that astronauts should feel an overwhelming sense of homesickness immediately upon leaving their home planet is not justified by any scientific research, and while, as the spacemen's ship approaches Mars, the story careens near an exciting resolution, Dee adroitly manages to avoid it.  Two stars.

But then there's Ted Sturgeon, who can write three-star stories in his sleep (and probably does, to pay the bills).  Tandy's Story reads like a Serling preamble to an episode of The Twilight Zone and features two poignant themes.  The first is a Sturgeon perennial: the symbiotic merger of minds with a result decidedly greater than the sum of the parts involved.  The other is a human perennial: the unease at watching one's children grow up far too fast… 

A very good story, but it doesn't tread any new ground for Sturgeon or Galaxy.  Thus, just four stars.

On the plus side, we have a 3.5-star issue, and only one below-average entry in the bunch.  In the minus column (paradoxically) are the good stories, none of which are outstanding.  That said, I do like the fellows they've now got doing the art.  I say if you're going to include pictures in your literary magazine, make them good ones.

Give me a couple of days for next entry—I'm making my way through James Blish's Titan's Daughter.  It's not bad, so far, though it feels a little dated, which makes sense given that the first half of the novel was written as the novella, Beanstalk, nine years ago.

Stay tuned!

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Science / Space Race

[Mar. 10, 1961] Dog and Puppy Show (Sputnik 9)

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We are definitely not far away from a person in space.  The Soviets launched another of their five-ton spaceships into orbit.  We're calling it Sputnik 9; who knows what they call it?  On board was just one dog this time, name of Chernushka, who was recovered successfully after an unknown number of orbits.  It is pretty clear that the vessel that carried Chernushka is the equivalent of our Mercury capsule, and once the Russians have gotten the bugs out of the ship, you can bet there will be a human at the controls.

This is not to say that the American program is standing still—one of our astronauts may go up on a suborbital jaunt as early as next month.  But the Atlas booster, the big one that can put a man in orbit, won't be ready until the end of the year, at the earliest. 

By the way, if you're wondering how the two dogs who went up in Sputnik 5, Strelka and Belka, are doing, you'll be happy to know that they are alive and well.  Strelka's given birth to a litter of six!  Anyone want to adopt a space puppy?

Meanwhile, closer to home (but not that much closer), NASA sent its X-15 spaceplane on its fastest flight yet.  I explained not too long ago that the X-15 has got a new engine, one designed to propel it to unprecedented heights and speeds. 

Sure enough, the powerful XLR99 engine pushed the spaceplane and pilot Major Bob White to a height of 77,000 feet and a record speed of 2,650 mph (Mach 4.43).  That was nearly 400 mph faster than White had managed using the weaker XLR11 engines—and he didn't even open the throttle wide open!

"I felt no sensation of speed except for the explosive thrust when I first lighted the engine.  That was about double the acceleration of the smaller engine used in earlier flights," White said after the flight had made the Major the fastest man alive. 

While the X-15 will never propel itself to orbit (at least, not without some kind of booster-assisted help, plans for which have been drafted), it will fly as fast as Mach 6 and up to 300,000 feet.  At that height, the sky is black and the limb of the Earth is round; one could argue that it's close enough to Space to count as Space by any measure that matters.

Stay tuned for the rest of this month's Galaxy!

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Magazine/Anthology

[March 8, 1961] Bland for Adventure (April 1961 Galaxy, 1st half)

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As we speak, my nephew, David, is on the S.S. Israel bound for Haifa, Israel.  It's the last leg of a long trip that began with a plane ride from Los Angeles to New York, continued with a six-day sea cruise across the Atlantic to Gibraltar, and which currently sees the youth making a brief landing in the Greek port of Piraeus.  He's about to begin a year (or two) in Israel on a kibbutz.  An exciting adventure, to be sure, though I will miss our discussions on current science fiction, even if his tastes were, understandably, a little less refined than mine. 

So I hope, dear readers, that you will make up for his absence by sending me even more of your lovely comments!

Of course, you can hardly prepare your posts until I've reviewed this month's set of magazines.  First on the pile, as usual, is the double-large issue of Galaxy, the biggest of the science fiction magazines with 196 pages packed with some of the biggest names in the field. 

But is bigger always better?  Not necessarily.  In fact, Galaxy seems to be where editor H.L. Gold stuffs his "safe" stories, the ones by famous folks that tend not to offend, but also won't knock your socks off.

So it is with the April 1961 Galaxy, starting with the novella, Planeteer, the latest from newcomer Fred Saberhagen.  It starts brilliantly, featuring an interstellar contact team from Earth attempting to establish relations with an aboriginal alien race.  Two points impressed me within the first few pages: the belt-pouch sized computer (how handy would that be?) and the breakfast described as, "synthetic ham, and a scrambled substance not preceded or followed by chickens."

The race, however, is disappointingly human; the tale is a fairly typical conundrum/solution story.  On the other hand, the alien king does show some refreshing intelligence—no easy White God tactics for the Planeteers!  Three stars.

Fritz Leiber offers up Kreativity for Kats, an adorable tale of a feline with the blood of an artiste.  Now, any story that features cats is sure to be a cute one (with the notable, creepy exception of The Mind Thing…) It's not science fiction at all, not even fantasy, but I read it with a grin on my face.  Four stars.

Galaxy's science fact column, For Your Information, by German rocket scientist Willy Ley, continues to be entertaining.  This bi-month's article is on the Gegenschein, that mysterious counterpoint to the Zodiacal Light.  There's also a fun aside about the annexation of Patagonia by a bewildered German professor as well as silly bit on Seven League Boots.  Three stars.

Last up for the first half of the book is James Stamer's Scent Makes a Difference, which answers the question on everyone's mind: What if you could meet all the alternate yous—the ones who took different paths in life?  Would you learn from all of your possible mistakes?  Or would you merely commit the biggest blunder of all?  I didn't quite understand the ending (or perhaps I overthought it).  Three stars.

That's that for now.  Read up, drop me a line, and I'll have the second half in a few days!

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Book

[March 5, 1961] A Host to Murder (Fredric Brown's The Mind Thing)

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There are many kinds of books.  There are important books, the kind that will be remembered and discussed for decades to come, like Harper Lee's recent To Kill a Mockingbird.  There are progressive books that skirt the edge of convention, like Ted Sturgeon's Venus Plus X. 

And then there are the just plain good reads, neither subtle nor ingenious, but worthy nonetheless–like Fredric Brown's latest novel, The Mind Thing.

"The Mind Thing" is an alien, member of a race of parasitic telepaths.  Immobile on any but the lighest gravity planets, they take over the minds of suitable hosts, which then become their arms and legs.  A Mind Thing can only control one creature at a time, and control lasts until the death of that creature…or of the Mind Thing.  Thus, Mind Things have developed an acutely callous attitude toward the death of their hosts; it is merely a necessary step to move onto another.

These aliens have also perfected the art of transmitting their kind across vast gulfs of space.  This mode of travel is primarily employed for expansion of the Mind Thing domain, but it is also used to exile criminals to faraway planets.  Those banished offenders have a slim chance of finding themselves on an inhabitable world, but those that do, and manage to create the mechanism required to return them home, are hailed as heroes.

For they have discovered yet another world for the Mind Things to control.

In The Mind Thing, an alien felon is dispatched to Earth, specifically the fictional town of Bartlesville in rural Wilcox county.  At once deadly dangerous and highly vulnerable, the Mind Thing engages in a series of possessions, followed by suicides, of animals and people toward achieving its ultimate goal–escape from the planet.

The killer's greatest foe, and also its most desirable prize, is the brilliant, vacationing Professor Ralph S. Staunton of M.I.T.  Staunton quickly becomes aware that something strange is afoot, but it takes some time for him to fully deduce the horror behind the mystery.  Will he solve it in time?

The Mind Thing is an engaging, quick read.  The story has that pleasant earthy realism that I associate with Cliff Simak's work.  I don't know where Fredric Brown grew up, but his depiction of the backwoods area near Lake Michigan rings true.  The Mind Thing is told both from the alien's and several humans' point of view, something that I'd expected to be a little heavy-handed, but Brown makes it work.  All of the characters are nicely realized, each one's story being practically a self-contained vignette.  Sadly, we often come to know a character just long enough to see them die at the hand of the Mind Thing.  Of course, the best drawn characters are the novel's heroes: Doc Staunton (described as one of the scientists who worked on Explorer 6; he's clearly fictional–no one from MIT worked on that probe) and the intrepid Miss Talley, teacher and stenographer, who works with the doctor in the latter half of the book.  Their relationship is an excellent one, particularly by the end.

Fredric Brown is a veteran of the pulp era, and he's produced consistently for the last two decades.  That goes a long way toward explaining the unadorned yet effective prose in The Mind Thing.  It's not art.  It's not flowery.  Nevertheless, Brown grips the reader from the very beginning to the last words of the eminently satisfying ending.  Brown is a fellow who knows how to tell a yarn–a disturbing, thrilling yarn. 

Four stars.

(Note: I must give warning to my more sensitive readers: There is a lot of death in this book.  The Mind Thing, in the course of its operations, coldly murders a myriad of animals (including far too many cats) and people.  It kills without sadism, cruelty, or remorse.  The depiction is never overdone, but nor is the impact minimized.  It's gruesome–but also integral to the story.)

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Conventions/Performances, Magazine/Anthology

[March 2, 1961] Presenting… and Concluding (ConDor and March 1961 IF)

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At ConDor, a local gathering of science fiction fans, my wife and I led a panel on the state of the genre, particularly how our s-f digests are doing.  Their boom began in 1949 and peaked in 1953, when there were nearly 40 in publication.  That number is down to less than 10, and many are (as usual) predicting the end of the fun. 

While it is true that the volume of production is down, I argued that the quality is up…or at least evolving.  I used Galaxy's sister magazine IF as an example.  IF pays its writers less than Galaxy, and it is a sort of training ground for new blood.  Fred Pohl, the magazine's shadow editor, also prints more unusual stories there.  As a result, the magazine's quality is highly variable, but the peaks tend to be interesting.

Sadly, this month's IF is chock full of valleys.  You win some, you lose some.  Still, for the sake of completeness, here's my review; as always, your mileage may vary!

IF has a tradition of leading the magazine with its best stories, but IOU, by Edward Wellen, is an exception.  The premise is promising: it's about a future in which people can buy custom experiences, to be lived out upon dying to simulate the appearance of going to Heaven.  It's dull as dirt, however, and I ended up skimming the last 10 pages or so.  That automatically makes it a one-star story.  Perhaps you can tell me what I'm missing.

Then there's Jim Harmon's February Strawberries.  When a man brings his wife (most of the way) back to life, is it a technological horror or a paranoid delusion?  Macabre and second-rate, it reads like an inferior episode of The Twilight Zone.  Two stars.

Minotaur, by Gordy Dickson, is pretty effective.  A one-man scout ship happens upon a ghost cruiser in the vastness of space.  Its crew is missing, as is its cargo of zoological specimens.  I liked the spooky atmosphere, and I'm a sucker for spaceship stories, but the end is a little pat.  Three stars.

Sylvia Jacobs is back, but her second IF effort isn't much better than her first.  Strike that.  Young Man from Elsewhen, about a crippled, bitter old man, and the deal he makes with a time traveling dandy, is very well written; it's just that there are no twists or turns from Point A to Point B.  Two stars.

The first tale from Julian F. Grow, The Fastest Gun Dead, is a good one.  Westerns are still popular on the airwaves, and this story, featuring a sawbones, an unsavory shopkeeper, and an alien supergun, shows that the milieu has legs in our genre, too.  Gun is also marred by a too-cute ending, but I think Grow has a real shot at growing into a fine author.  Three stars.

Max Williams' The Seeder, is almost too short, and certainly too hackneyed to describe.  R.A. Lafferty's pleasantly whimsical In the Garden, about a starship crew that stumbles upon the second Garden of Eden, almost garnered four stars…until the last line.  Le sigh.

The issue closes with The Well of the Deep Wish by Lloyd Biggle Jr.  It is the best of the bunch, a thoughtful piece showing us the world of television production in a post-apocalyptic, subterranean future.  Three stars.

Thus, the March 1961 IF meters in at a disappointing 2.25 stars.  This explains why it took me so long to get through it!

Crunching the numbers on the Star-o-Meter 2000, we have a surprising winner for March 1961: Analog!  F&SF was just a sliver behind, however, and both were head and shoulders over IF.  All told, there were 21 stories, two of which were written by women, one of those being my favorite of the month: Zenna Henderson's Return. 

Stay tuned for a new batch of magazines, a new Frederic Brown novel, and a whole lot more…and a hearty wave to a few new fan friends that I met over the weekend: David Gerrold, John and Bjo Trimble, and Dorothy Fontana.

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction