Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 12, 1969] Heavy on the Bitters (Star Trek: Turnabout Intruder)

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by Janice L. Newman

The mood was bittersweet as we gathered to watch the final episode of Star Trek. It also held a hint of trepidation: would we get another instant classic, like All Our Yesterdays, or another disappointment, like the string of episodes before it?

As it turned out, the final episode of Star Trek, probably the last new one that will ever be aired, was compelling, well-acted, well-paced, well-directed…and disappointing for an entirely different reason.

The episode opens with Kirk encountering a former lover, a woman by the name of Janice Lester (not to be confused with Janice Rand, his former yeoman). Lester is ill, having received a dose of unknown radiation, and Kirk stays at her bedside to discuss their shared past, which was rife with emotional upheaval. Then Lester utters a sentence that gave every one of the watchers pause: “Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair.”

This, on the face of it, makes no sense. I will discuss why later in this piece.

Kirk agrees with her that, “No, it isn’t.” When he turns away from Lester for a moment, she sits up and remotely triggers an alien machine which causes their “souls” to be switched. Kirk’s mind is now in Lester’s body, and vice-versa.

The plot that then unfolds is simple: Kirk must try to convince his crew that he is himself, despite being in Lester’s body, while Lester must convince them that “Janice Lester” is dangerously insane and that she is Captain Kirk. Lester is hampered by the fact that she is emotionally unstable, to put it mildly, and clearly unfit to be a starship captain. Spock uses Vulcan telepathy early on and believes Kirk, and the rest of the crew slowly come to support him as well, despite no medical tests showing anything off about Kirk (this is another implausible point—surely brain scans, psychological tests, or gauges of emotional stability should have shown that something was different.)

I have to give both Shatner and Sandra Smith, who played Janice Lester, credit here. Shatner does a good job playing someone not himself, particularly with body language (small touches like primly sitting with his knees together in the captain’s chair, for example). Smith also does an excellent Kirk impression. It's clear she studied his mannerisms before the role, and the tight, narrow-eyed, watchful look she has throughout definitely evokes him.

Eventually, apparently with the help of Spock’s telepathy, Kirk is able to force a reverse mind-transfer. Lester breaks down, and Kirk ends the episode with a mournful, “Her life could have been as rich as any woman's, if only. If only.”

There are a couple of ways to interpret this story. You could, as we tried to do, simply say that Lester sees sexism where it none exists, blaming an outdated concept for why she couldn’t get promoted rather than her own mental and emotional instability. Unfortunately, this is undercut by Kirk’s agreeing with her statement that, “It’s not fair,” and Kirk’s own final words that her life could have been as rich as “any woman’s”.

On the other hand, taking it at face value seems wildly counter both to previous episodes and to current (present-day) trends. “Number One” from The Menagerie was a woman, and even acting captain of the Enterprise back in Pike’s day, years before Kirk was put in charge. Perhaps there hasn’t been a female starship captain yet (there are only 13 Enterprise-class ships, per Tomorrow is Yesterday) but you don’t make someone First Officer if there’s no avenue for them to eventually become a captain. And in “our world”, two world leaders are women: Golda Meir became the Prime Minister of Israel just two months ago, while Indira Gandhi has been Prime Minister of India since 1966! In every other way, the “Federation” has been shown to be an organization freer of prejudice than our own time. Race hatred is a thing of the past, so much so that the very idea causes revulsion in Day of the Dove and helps Kirk realize that they are being controlled. Yet we are to believe that this same future somehow bars women from holding certain positions of power?

Perhaps…yes. The ugly truth is, no matter how we spin it, those lines on the face of them say to female viewers, “Stay in your role. You are allowed to do certain things, but not everything a man can do. To want more is madness.” This, from a show that made so many women into science fiction fans, and for which female fans have fought so hard and created so much support, is doubly insulting.

In summing up, I can’t put it better than a friend who goes by Greenygal, who has had thoughtful and interesting commentary on a previous episode as well:

Do I prefer to think that all the dialogue of women's limitations and hating womanhood and "as rich as any woman's if only" is just about Janice Lester's own issues and not institutional and societal sexism in the Star Trek universe? Sure, of course. Are those lines perfectly innocent? No. Do they hurt? Yes.

Bittersweet indeed. Four stars, despite the script, because the production and acting were just that good.

Despite Itself

by Lorelei Marcus

While it's true that the episode sets out to send an egregious message about female incompetence in the realm of leadership, I think the result is quite the opposite. In the world of literature there is an emphasis on showing rather than telling the audience any information that needs to be conveyed. Not only is presenting a concept visually rather than verbally more engaging and complex, but also more impactful because of our dependence on sight as our number one sense of reality. We may not believe everything we hear, but we almost always believe what we see. Perhaps that is why I was so moved to see a woman unquestionably in the captain's role, with no epithets to belittle her importance.

The person on screen may be the soul of a man trapped inside a woman's body, but what we hear and see is a woman's voice and a woman's face speaking with the same determined spirit of Captain Kirk, receiving the same respect from the male first officers as any leader of the Enterprise. She is not a "beautiful" Captain, or an "ice cold" Captain, or even a "woman" Captain. She is simply, The Captain, a person with a role beyond her appearance.

Before this episode I had not realized the extent of the limited portrayals of women in television. I had heard the first season of The Avengers was remarkable because the co-star role had been written for a man, but ended up being cast as a woman, and the characterizations were excellent because of it. I never saw this first season for myself though, and when I tuned in later several seasons in, it was to a new female co-star relegated only to being the seductress, beauty, and potential romantic interest for the lead.

Nearly everywhere, women characters are written differently than men, and severely restricted in the roles they can play in a story. Even in the lauded Is There in Truth No Beauty?, the female guest star is primarily interacted with on the basis of her beauty and her ultimate destiny is to fall in love, despite her being a talented ambassador and telepath. Female characters, no matter how intelligent, or complex, or interesting, will always be confined by the expectations of the characters around them and the audience. The first thing noticed about them will always be appearance, and unless they're meant to be the villain, they will always end up in some sort of romantic scenario, because that is the way it is. But Turnabout Intruder made me realize that it's not the way it has to be.

No one calls Janice's body “beautiful”. No one tries to court her. Once the first officers understand her authority, they never question her intent or her orders. And thanks to brilliant acting and slow pacing, there were moments when I forgot that she was meant to be Kirk at all, and simply believed a woman was the Captain of the Enterprise. In much the same way that seeing Uhura on the bridge for the first time was world changing, seeing Janice sit confidently in the captain's chair, or at least the witness chair, which is much like it, was inspiring. She is a symbol that makes me believe that even I could become a starship captain someday.

I can only hope that this is one of many examples to come. Television is a reflection of our larger society. If women of the silver screen can break free from the bonds of limited expectation, then so can those of society. For the positive role model, and a good viewing experience, I give the episode four stars.

Painfully Familiar

by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

"Your world of starship captains does not admit women."

That one line hit like a phaser to the back. It was just one of the many times I had a strong, visceral reaction to lines and moments in this episode, vacillating wildly between recognition and revulsion.

It is a hard thing, to hear true words spoken by a villain. Dr. Lester has to be a villain, because she hurts Kirk, and then gloats about it. She killed her team, has never moved past her and Kirk's young connection at Starfleet Academy, and declares that she never loved him but instead loved "the life he led," his "power."

This poisons the powerful truth telling of her words.

Watching Dr. Lester-in-Kirk’s body back up when the officer in orange is menacing her-in-his-body, was so recognizable, so clear an experience known to many of the women and perhaps fewer of the men watching. Likewise, when Dr. Lester-in-Kirk stands over the young communications officer and hollers at her, that too, is painfully recognizable. That she-as-he treats Spock with the same overbearing arrogance is just another reminder how tenuous a protection gender is to anyone deviating even a blue eye shadow’s swipe away from the straight and narrow.

After that dominance-driven performance on the bridge, with all its uncomfortable complexity, we are back to the same sexist clichés that too many people explicitly and implicitly trot out to force women out of so many leadership roles: "hysteria" and "emotional instability" and "erratic mental attitudes." This too is a danger of science fiction, taking cruel characterizations that rarely if ever entirely encompass a real, living human being, but on screen can flow out to fill the edges of a full character, leaving no complex internality to explore or expose.

These characterizations perfectly match what we see on screen, and what we see other women believe about Dr. Lester on screen. I was particularly disappointed by Nurse Chapel's easy agreement that the woman in front of her was insane, with no one but a strange man's say-so. Chain of command means passing little to this crew when it suits the plot, but in this instance it turns Nurse Chapel into a tool as if she has no other purpose or will but to obey.

Setting aside the male chauvinism that made my skin crawl and neck itch throughout the entire episode, if we treat Dr. Lester as a whole person, desperate for a chance to engage in leadership, it is fascinating to see what an incredibly bright woman, kept outside of the power structures that she still chooses to serve, sees as the motions and emotions of power. Though Bones's recitation of Dr. Lester-in-Kirk's body's mental changes is one correct summary, there are other aspects to highlight.

Dr. Lester-in-Kirk thinks that leaders—or perhaps just Captain James T. Kirk—has power by virtue of his title and rank, his smirking glad-handing relationships with his staff, his willingness to bully and raise his voice, his knowledge of and position within the legal and hierarchical systems of Starfleet, and when in a moment of extreme danger to Dr. Lester-in-Kirk's masquerade, his willingness to use violence. Yes, Bones was horrified to see Dr. Lester-in-Kirk hit Kirk-in-Lester. And yes, and Spock brought it up chidingly later. But one slapped Dr. Lester-in-Kirk in irons, threw him in solitary, or drugged him with sedatives because he'd laid hands on a nearly-naked, nearly-dying ill colleague (I would have wished for the actor's sake that the director would have tried for one more take of that scene, perhaps one where her half her bottom wasn't visible when she was lifted by the crew).

This vision of brute-force leadership is both cruel and perhaps one most of us have seen in our own lives or that of our country.

But then I swing back to recognition during the interrogation by Spock and the trial, not from the actions of Dr. Lester or Captain Kirk, but by Spock. Spock's argument and method of discovery are both deeply, traditionally feminine: in a system designed by human men, his forms of evidence are not accepted, the reality of his perceptions are not honored as evidence in their systems of justice, and his entire position is mocked and undermined, from the smirking guards to the giggle of the young communications officer we saw Captain Kirk dominate over earlier.

And yet, in the best of feminine traditions, Commander Spock persists. He insists on hearing Kirk-in-Dr. Lester. He believes his own mind, his own way of knowing things, is valuable, and while he is disappointed not to have it confirmed by the methods and sources acceptable to Starfleet tribunals, he does not waver and does not drift from his convictions.

"Her intense hatred of her own womanhood," is Captain Kirk-in-Dr. Lester's summary of why he dumped her. And that is one way of viewing her. But a fuller version of her, one made less glassy and plastic by the world of our own viewers, has the potential to be more Beatrice than Cruella de Vil.

Beatrice cries out in Act IV, Scene I of Much Ado About Nothing, after the young rake Claudio has ruined the life of Beatrice's even younger cousin Hero:

Beatrice: You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

Benedick: Is Claudio thine enemy?

Beatrice: Is he not approved in the height a villain, that
hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O
that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they
come to take hands; and then, with public
accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,
—O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart
in the market-place.

That fantasy of Beatrice's is so much more violent and explicit than anything Dr. Lester-in-Kirk ever says, ever does: eat his heart in the marketplace.

Wow.

While Dr. Lester first simply aims to have Kirk warehoused on a strange planet, a cruel and earthbound life for a starship captain that provides some deep irony, it is not as explicitly violent as it could have been.

It is nearly as cruel as having her colleague take ownership over Dr. Lester when she finally loses, her body and life given to him because he promised to "take care of her."

That was a final, deeply disturbing moment in an episode that gave me such a strong and impenetrable mix of feelings, I found myself wishing for a Vulcan mind-meld to sort them all out with me.

I was however heartened by the final lines. "Her life could have been as rich as any woman's, if only … if only."

One read is, "’if only’ she had surrendered earlier in her life to a gender role of vastly limited scope and ambition." But it just as likely could have been, "’if only’ she had lived in a more enlightened time, when her leadership yearnings were treated with respect, honed, corrected, and empowered so she could become the powerful, effective starship captain she so clearly wanted to become."

Three stars.

Love and Ambition


by Joe Reid

If the woman I loved were so jealous of her ex-boyfriend that she pretended to be him to take everything he had accomplished, could I still love her? My answer is a resounding NO! However, in this week’s episode of Star Trek, titled “The Turnabout Intruder,” we meet a man who would answer yes: Dr. Arthur Coleman. I have rarely seen anyone, woman or man, as committed as Dr. Coleman was to Dr. Janice Lester.

We meet both doctors on the planet Camus II. The Enterprise arrives in response to a distress call from the planet. There, we find an infirmed Dr. Lester under the care of Dr. Coleman, the last two surviving members of a research party. Kirk recognizes his former girlfriend and speaks kindly of her. Then, as signs of life appear elsewhere, the crew and Dr. Coleman leave to assist, hoping to find another survivor. Kirk is left alone with Dr. Lester. In the ensuing silence, Lester springs her trap, using an alien machine to swap bodies with Kirk. Lester now inhabits the healthy body of Captain Kirk, while Kirk lies struggling, trapped in Lester’s weakened body. What follows is a secretive cat and mouse game as Lester, in Kirk’s body, tries to eliminate the man trapped in hers, all while avoiding the suspicious gazes of the Enterprise crew and later matching wits against a fully recovered Kirk in female form. Through it all, Dr. Lester could fully rely on Dr. Coleman, who would do almost anything for her.

In this episode, Coleman proved his incredible loyalty to Lester. As someone who had not fared well in his career, Coleman and Lester appear to be kindred spirits, with her feeling held back herself due to her sex. Lester apparently concocted her plan upon discovering the alien mind transfer machine that lured Kirk, her former mate and the man who had achieved all the accolades she felt she deserved, to Camus II. In carrying out this scheme, Lester eliminated the other members of the research party. Through it all, Coleman stood by her side. He himself refused to kill anyone, allowing Lester to pursue her intent. Even when Lester, in Kirk’s body, gave Coleman senior medical authority on the Enterprise and asked him to murder the new Janice Lester. Bloodying his own hands was the only line he would not cross for her. Coleman’s devotion to Lester proved to be heartfelt. At the climax of the episode, the mind switch was reversed. Kirk and Lester being once again in their own bodies, left Lester insane with grief and devastated. It was here where Coleman professed his love for Lester and vowed to care for her going forward.

Coleman’s love for Lester was unquestionable, his loyalty steadfast. This raised the question in my mind of what Coleman would have done had Lester remained a man. Would his love for Lester find expression if she were in a man’s body? Perhaps he hadn’t thought things through, or perhaps it wouldn’t have been an issue for them. We saw, during one of their private moments, how Lester related to Coleman in a feminine manner as she touched his shoulder, attempting to coerce him into killing for her.

In the end, Coleman got exactly what he wanted. He was given permission to love and care for the woman he would go to almost any length for. Arthur Coleman proved more valuable to Lester than all she had hoped to gain in Kirk’s skin. Although her ambition for power failed her his love didn’t.

Overall, “Turnabout Intruder” was very well acted, with heavily nuanced performances by Mr. Shatner and Ms. Smith. Kirk delivered subtle femininity, softness, and female exacerbation convincingly. Lester grew more stoic and strategic as the story reached its climax. For its complex character dynamics and fine acting I’m willing to say this is among the better episodes of Star Trek.

Four stars

The End?

by Trini Stewart

After finishing "Turnabout Intruder", I’m inclined to reflect on Star Trek as a whole. I can’t help but acknowledge that my expectations for the episode are largely influenced by the loss of the beloved series. My first instinct is to be let down by the episode as a finale, since I hold the series so dear and the final episode had a fairly weak delivery as far as the intended message goes. What we got was an antagonist who, despite her compelling acting, I didn’t quite resonate with, even as a woman who regularly faces systematic sexism in a male-dominated work environment. While I found that Dr. Janice Lester’s challenges are inherently relatable and frustrating, her excessively drastic, vengeful means of getting her way made it more difficult to connect with her or understand her exact desires.

Nevertheless, instances of imperfect composition from Star Trek have never been enough for me to write off an episode or feel this kind of complete malaise about one as a result. There were enough ingredients for an enjoyable Trek episode in this one; there was convincing character work from everyone on the Enterprise, good teamwork from the close-knit crew to determine what was best for the well-being of the ship, plenty of Spock being the competent knock-out he ought to be, and an ending that avoids a high-stakes threat for a crew member. Regardless of whether I could relate to her, I was still intrigued by the consequences of Dr. Lester's futuristic and unconventional solution to systemic sexism, and I was curious about what exactly prevents women from being in leadership positions like being a starship Captain in the future.

Maybe what was more disappointing to me than the actual content was that there was a lot of lost hope for something more profound: a grand episode that needn't be perfect or anything, but at least answered some long-standing questions or gave hints of where the crew would be after we could no longer join them. There’s so much in this universe left to discover and explore, and many more discussions to be had with other fans. Not only that, but there is plenty of content I have yet to see from seasons one and two—I realize that my experience of the series is incomplete in more ways than one, and feeling robbed by the series’ cancellation doesn’t help.

Like thousands (millions?) of others, I fell in love with this show for its characters, its sense of adventure in uncharted territory, and the community that has grown around it, and I am simply not ready for all of that magic to end. "Turnabout Intruder" turned out to be a good episode overall, and a decent one to end the series on, all things considered. I’ll be looking forward to the reruns and continuing to celebrate Star Trek with so many others who treasure it, too.

3.5 stars.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 10, 1969] Points West and Above (July 1969 Galaxy)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

The Orient

Thanks to centuries of tradition, we tend to think of the Far East as…well…east!  But for us, going to Japan means a 12-hour flight west—literally into tomorrow, as we cross the International Date Line to do it. 

This week marked the beginning of our fourteenth trip to Japan.  How things have changed since we first went back in 1948, when flying via Northwest Orient meant an entire day of travel with multiple stops.  Travel these days is practically instantaneous by comparison.

We were even able to hop on a same-day domestic flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, which is where I'm writing this.  I've been able to develop my first roll of color film, the results of which I am happy to share:

The Alient

The latest issue of Galaxy is, like this month's IF, the first under the helm of Ejler Jakobsson, and it's also a month late.  Will it be more interesting than the rather dull IF?  Well, it's certainly different.  After all, the lead piece is one I would have expected to appear in Analog.  Why wouldn't Campbell want the sequel to the incredibly popular and presumably lucrative Dune.  Dunno… but here it is:


by Dan Adkins

Dune Messiah (Part 1 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by Jack Gaughan

And so we return to Arrakis, the Dune planet, the only source of the spice melange, which gives the power of prophecy, allows the navigators of the Guild to ply the hyperspace lanes, and is the only currency of note in the Empire.

Last time, Paul Atreides, son of the murdered Duke of Arrakis, had seized his destiny as the kwizatz haderach, leading his army of desert Fremen against the Padisha Emperor in a coup that placed the young general in charge of a galactic domain.

It is now twelve years later, and disparate factions are plotting to overthrow Paul, who has become a figurehead in an interstellar Jihad.  The plotters include the Bene Geneserit, the sisterhood that manipulated Paul and his sister, Aria's, genetic destiny; the navigators' Guild, and Irulan, wife of Paul, and daughter of the cruel Baron Harkonnen, who wrested Arrakis from Paul's father. 

We know there's a plot because it is the subject of an endless scene at the beginning of the serial installment.  And because Paul then discusses the plot at length with his companins at an endless meeting of state in the latter part of the serial.  The plot involves predestination, an heir for Paul (his true love, the Fremen Chani, is being kept secretly sterile by Irulan, who wants to beat the child), and the reincarnated form of Duncan Idaho, one of Paul's comrades in the last book.

There.  Now you don't actually have to read this chapter, which is all for the best, as it's as deadly dull and motionless as the worst parts of Dune.  At least the viewpoints don't change every five sentences.

Two stars so far.

Full Commitment, by Robert S. Martin

Senator Clint is on an investigative junket to Burma, where America is in an endless war against… the Capitalists?  What happened to the Communists?  And why do all the soldiers parrot the exact same line when explaining why they're there to fight?

Brainwashing, obviously…which is how Clint is ultimately disposed of.

A pointless story, poorly done.  One star.

The City That Was the World, by James Blish


by Dan Adkins

James Blish tells the story of a man who makes Howard Hughes look like a piker.  John Hillary Dane is a man with vision…or perhaps visions is more appropriate.  First, he builds an enormous pair of telescopes four miles high in the Andes.  Then he erects a mile-high skyscraper in Denver, the mile-high city.  While the reason for the former is never really explained (other than the obvious reasons—the seeing is much better above the majority of the atmosphere), the purpose of the immense building is the point of the story.

I don't really want to spoil things, so I'll just say that the tale deals with time travel, Malthusian overpopulation, and the value (or lack thereof) of friendship.  It's a good story, although few of the elements are really plausible.

Four stars (and the best piece in the issue).

For Your Information: Eugen Sanger and the Rocket-Propelled Airplane, by Willy Ley

Willy Ley's article is on Eugen Saenger, the Austrian cum German rocket scientists perhaps best known for his design of the America Bomber—a rocket-plane that would fly high enough to skip on the upper atmosphere until it reached New York.  There's a lot of good information that probably can't easily be found elsewhere, since Ley relies on at least one personal source.  That said, it's kind of a dull piece.

Three stars.

A Brief History of the Revolution, by David Lunde and James Sallis

In a piece that might well have come out in Fantasy and Science Fiction (or maybe the old Galaxy sister mag, Beyond), we have a young couple hounded by their animate furniture until they are effectively evicted.  The cause of all this appears to be the wife's desire to have a child.

Not very good.  Two stars.

The Kinsolving's Planet Irregulars, by A. Bertram Chandler


by Reese

Last up is the latest journey of Commodore John Grimes, the famed skipper of the Galactic Rim.  In a direct sequel to The Rim Gods, Grimes and his First Mate (though likely not his first mate) Sonya head back to Kinsolving’s Planet.  You may recall from the last story (or the review thereof) that the team Grimes escorted tried to exploit some time-space weakness to psionically summon Jehovah.  Instead, they incarnated the Olympian pantheon.

This time, their efforts throw Grimes into a fantasy land populated exclusively by fictional characters, from a certain Baker Street detective to larger-than-life but real people like Oedipus and Achilles.  Things get really weird when Grimes starts to question his own reality…

I always enjoy Chandler's Rim stories, but this one is just a bit too cute.  It also looks like the author is tired of the Grimes series and would love to end it…if only the money weren't good.

Three stars.

Things that came and things to come

And that's that.  Quality-wise, a thoroughly unremarkable issue.  Indeed, the only real bit of note is how many of the stories seem to be in the wrong magazine.  I confess I am kind of looking forward to the post-Pohl era.  I want to see how things change for this venerable magazine.

Of course, I also know to be careful what I wish for…

(and stay tuned for more updates from Japan!)




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[June 8th, 1969] Dissension In The Ranks (Doctor Who: The War Games [Parts 5-7])

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By Jessica Holmes

When I said this serial was long, I wasn’t exaggerating. We’re getting closer to the end—but we’re not there yet.

Let’s check up on how the Doctor and company are getting on in “The War Games.”

ID: The Doctor (right, dark haired middle-aged white male, baggy suit), talking to the Science Chief (middle-aged white male, balding, wearing lab coat and visor with cross shaped eye holes). Seated in front of them with his head in a metal vise is Carstairs (30s-ish white make in WW1-era British sergeant's uniform)

In Case You Missed It

We last left the TARDIS team scattered, the Doctor on his own in the sprawling futuristic central command, Jamie with the Resistance in the 1860s, and Zoe about to be shot as a spy for the Kaiser. Suffice to say, I’m having a lot more fun than they are.

Fortunately for Zoe, she’s more valuable alive than dead, so while the Security Chief hauls her in for questioning, the Science Chief takes Carstairs for more thorough reprogramming. And he has an eager audience of one: the Doctor, who the Science Chief hasn’t yet realised isn’t meant to be here.

As for Jamie, he manages to persuade the Resistance not to kill their prisoner Von Weich, and also reveals to them their puppet-masters’ true means of communicating with central command and moving troops from zone to zone; not tunnels, as they had assumed, but the big green (or so he says) travelling box that's bigger on the inside. It turns out later that it's called a SIDRAT (pronounced 'side-rat'). Funny acronyms on a postcard, please.

The Doctor takes the opportunity to rescue Carstairs when the Science Chief de-programs him in preparation for proper reprogramming, and the pair of them strap him into his own machine before running off to find Zoe. Zoe’s a little the worse-for-wear following her interrogation at the hands of the Security Chief and his truth-seeking visor/bizarre binoculars. On the one hand, the Security Chief now knows about the Doctor and the TARDIS. On the other, he made the mistake of showing Zoe images of all the Resistance leaders—along with their names and their respective time-zones. Thanks to Zoe’s perfect memory, they now have the information they need to start finding these separate pockets of resistance and bringing them together.

ID: The Security Chief (back to camera, smart suit, wearing an elongated visor) interrogating Zoe (seated, white brunette girl approx. late teens). There is a stripey background.

They’d better get a move on, because the War Chief is already dispatching guards via SIDRAT to the American Civil War Zone to investigate the disturbance there— and they’ve already killed Harper, the soldier who came to Jamie and Lady Jennifer's rescue earlier. Pity. I hoped he was going to stick around for at least a little while longer. Survival rates of Doctor Who side characters are already pretty low. Looks like they drop to zero if you’re not white.

The other members of the Resistance manage to overpower the guards, however, and Jamie takes a ride back to the base in the SIDRAT, accompanied by his Resistance allies (save one who gets held back from the adventure to keep Von Weich company. That one happens to be played by David Troughton.  The surname is not a coincidence. What's the opposite of favouritism?)

Fortunately for the Science Chief, the Security Chief finds him before he gets his brains too badly scrambled, but the Security Chief is too suspicious of the War Chief’s true motives to report the incident to him. It turns out that the War Chief and War Lord are not from this world; unlike him and his cohorts, their people have the secret of time-and-space travel. If the Doctor has this secret too, thinks the Security Chief, perhaps his overlords are bringing in more of their own people to sabotage the experiment.

Well, their technology does seem similar. Same function, familiar design, and SIDRAT is literally just TARDIS backwards. But the Security Chief called them 'Time Lords', and I don’t know about you but the Doctor does not strike me as terribly lordly.

ID: The Doctor and Zoe, both in stolen British WW1 army uniforms.

Jamie and the Resistance get a rather frosty reception when the SIDRAT arrives at central command, stunned by a barrage of ray-gun fire. The guards drag him and his allies off to the reprocessing room for examination, and the Doctor heads to the neighbouring room to attempt a rescue from the other side.

Finding that Jamie has never been through the reconditioning process, the Science Chief sends him to the Security Chief for interrogation. Taking advantage of the distraction, the Doctor and Carstairs break into the reconditioning room through a wall panel, quickly overpowering the Science Chief and his guard.

It’s not long before they’ve also rescued Jamie (while the Security and War Chiefs are running round like headless chickens searching for them), and with some handy disguises they all pile into the SIDRAT, the Doctor managing to make it work with surprising ease. Sending Zoe on ahead with the Resistance, he hangs back with Jamie and Carstairs to steal the reprocessing machine.

The SIDRAT arrives back at the barn not a moment too soon, because Von Weich is trying to hypnotise his way out of captivity. His guard manages to fight off his control, however, and shoots him dead.

ID: The Doctor tapping at a control panel while Jamie (20s white male, wearing British military cap) looks on apprehensively.

Meanwhile, the Doctor nicks the processing machine, and it looks like he’s about to make a clean getaway when his stolen SIDRAT grinds to a halt. The pod is impregnable, just like the TARDIS, but what happens if the dimensions inside suddenly match the dimensions outside? It becomes rather snug, that’s what. And with the War Chief outside pushing the dimensional control dial down even further, it won’t be long before the trio are pressed to a pulp.

With no choice but to surrender, the Doctor emerges from the SIDRAT, only to drop a gas grenade from his stolen WWI gear a moment later. While the security guards are reeling, he rushes to the control panel, stealing the navigation circuit rods and restoring the inner dimensions of the vehicle. Just to be safe, he snaps off the lever for good measure, and absconds with the SIDRAT.

Unable to track him while the SIDRAT is still moving, the War Chief prepares for the arrival of the War Lord (Philip Madoc). This man is rather a different beast to the War Chief. He’s quieter, surprisingly soft spoken until he gets angry, and there’s no doubt that this is the most dangerous man on the planet right now. And he is very, very tired of the War and Security Chiefs’ bickering.

The War Lord (left, middle-aged white male, receding hairline, glasses, dark turtleneck) standing around a large map built into a table, with the War Chief (middle, middle-aged white male, dark hair) and the Security Chief (right, middle aged white male, glasses, balding). There are security guards in the background.

On board the SIDRAT, they’re no clearer on where they’re heading, least of all the Doctor. No matter the specific model of Space-Time machine, one thing is guaranteed: the Doctor is a lousy driver.

Landing in the Roman zone, the Doctor, Jamie and Carstairs have to make a hasty break for the time zone barrier, lest they end up on the wrong end of a centurion’s spear.

They aren’t really any better off for stepping into 1917, with General Smythe immediately ordering his gunners to fire on them. Fortunately, they aren’t pinned down for long before Zoe arrives with a small band of Resistance troops. However, more troops arrive to arrest the Doctor, bringing him and his friends back to the chateau, where Smythe sentences him to death…again.

Once again they get about as far as tying him to the post when a surprise attack scuppers the execution, this time coming from the Resistance. Smythe gets himself killed while attempting to escape, and the Resistance secure the chateau.

Wishing to avoid spoiling his little experiment by using his elite security forces, or destroying the valuable equipment at the chateau by simply bombing it off the map, the War Lord orders the local forces (British and Prussians and Frenchmen, oh my!) to assault the chateau on all sides.

The Doctor using the reprogramming device on a French soldier with Jamie's assistance.

With the attackers closing in, the Doctor has an idea. Finding a control device for the local time zone barrier in Smythe’s quarters, with Zoe’s help he’s able to create a new barrier encircling the chateau. The Resistance can come and go as they please, but the programmed soldiers outside will find themselves unable to approach. A single soldier managed to get into the chateau before the barrier went up, and the Doctor is quickly able to deprogram him with the processing machine. It's encouraging to see that it works, but deprogramming every single one of the untold thousands of soldiers throughout the zones will take until doomsday. Until the Doctor gets his hands on some more equipment, this will have to do.

Unfortunately it’s not certain that he’s going to get that chance. Now isolated from the zone outside, there’s nothing stopping the War Lord sending a SIDRAT of his own security forces. And so the Doctor falls into the hands of the War Lord.

The War Lord, looking thoughtful.

A WHAT Lord?

Well, well, well. Things are really getting interesting. This War Lord seems to be an entirely new kind of enemy, with a power level beyond any we’ve yet seen, save for perhaps the Great Intelligence or the Toymaker. The strong implication that he and the Doctor may be of the same world is a tantalising one.

Time Lords: quite a grandiose name for an alien race, don’t you think? Are they just too pompous for their own good or is that a title with actual meaning? It’s hard to imagine this Doctor as any kind of lord—though I think I could see it with his previous incarnation. It’s an interesting notion, but I hope we’re not going to spoil all sense of mystery about the Doctor. That’s part of the fun.

I’m happy to report that astonishingly for a serial of such length, the pacing still works. It’s a really fun ride with no signs of slowing down. We’ve not seen much of the War Lord yet, but he’s very promising so far. Philip Madoc’s presence on-screen is magnetic. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when he comes face to face with the Doctor.

Final Thoughts

It’s a funny thing, simultaneously being eager for the conclusion of a story, yet at the same time wishing it didn’t have to end. I’ve grown very fond of this incarnation of the Doctor, and it’s strange to think that the next time I sit down at the typewriter to hammer out my thoughts on his escapades, it will be the last. Of course, the Doctor himself will keep on going (for however long the BBC sees fit), but not as the funny little chap with the recorder. I could wax lyrical about him— but I will save that for next time.

Still, no point grousing about it. The wheel of history keeps on turning, and so does Doctor Who.




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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 6, 1969] Blue Skies (July 1969 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Samuel Johnson described second marriages as the triumph of hope over experience.  It is tempting to say something similar about changes of editor at Amazing.  But that impulse is at least postponed by the upbeat mien of this July issue.


by Johnny Bruck

That sky is about as blue as any I've seen on a magazine cover, and more importantly, the cover goes some way to answer the cry for a good cover by Johnny Bruck, whose hackneyed spaceships and guys with guns have become so tiresome on recent issues.  This one is a bit cartoonish, but at least it’s clever and amusing—a spaceport scene with some impressive-looking spacecraft, but the people on the ground have eyes only for the bright yellow futuristic automobile, with huge tailfins, a transparent dome over the passenger compartment, and whitewall tires.  Oh, it has side fins too.  Maybe it flies.

The magazine’s contents also lean in a promising direction.  Almost half of the magazine (70 of 144 pages, excluding the front and back covers) is devoted to the first part of Robert Silverberg’s serialized novel Up the Line.  It’s rare for magazines to give that big a chunk of available space to a serial installment, but it makes sense in a bimonthly magazine. As a side benefit, it leaves less room for the reprints, which take up only 27 pages.  The book review column is back, with substantial reviews by William Atheling, Jr. (James Blish) and editor White.  The letter column is here again, and the promised fanzine review column has now appeared, nine pages worth, by John D. Berry.  White’s editorial says that the fan feature in Fantastic will be reprints of selected fanzine articles.  The guest editorials in Amazing will be gone—the editorial spot’s going to be his. It all gives a sense of an energetic editor getting a quick start at implementing his desires.

A more dubious innovation is the new typeface.  Multiple typefaces are nothing new at Amazing, but Silverberg’s serial, Leon Stover’s article, and the book and fanzine reviews and letter column are set in a tiny typeface that challenges my ill-made eyes (see the glasses in my photo?).  Microscopic type for things like letter columns is an old tradition—just check your copies of the Hugo Gernsback Amazing if the silverfish haven’t gotten to them—but for this much of the magazine it spells headache for me and I suspect many others.

Up the Line (Part 1 of 2), by Robert Silverberg

The biggest deal in this issue is of course Robert Silverberg’s serialized novel Up the Line.  Silverberg, formerly a capable journeyman magazine-filler, has in recent years become a much more powerful and original writer. In just the past two years he has produced four novels that put him in a different league entirely than did his earlier work: Thorns, To Open the Sky, Hawksbill Station, and The Masks of Time, with several more out or on the way this year. 


by Dan Adkins

Per my practice, I will hold off reviewing and rating Up the Line until it is finished.  But a quick peek reveals that it is a time travel story, told in the first person by a young man at loose ends who joins the Time Couriers—not the Time Police, the Couriers’ nemesis—and that it is a considerable departure from the relatively serious recent works mentioned above.  Parts of it suggest that the author wrote with the stage in mind.  The vaudeville stage, that is.  E.g., as the protagonist explains to his new friend the Time Courier why he abandoned his budding career as law clerk to a Judge Mattachine:

“My uncle is Justice Elliott of the U.S. Higher Supreme Court.  He thought I ought to get into a decent line of work.”

“You don’t have to go to law school to be a law clerk?”

“Not any more,” I explained.  “The machines do all the data retrieval, anyway.  The clerks are just courtiers.  They congratulate the judge on his brilliance, procure for him, submit to him, and so forth.  I stuck it out for eight days and podded out.”

“You have troubles,” Sam said sagely.

“Yes.  I’ve got a simultaneous attack of restlessness, weltschmerz, tax liens, and unfocused ambition.”

“Want to try for tertiary syphilis?” Helen asked.

“Not just now.”

So Mr. Silverberg appears to be having a good time.  Reading a little further confirms that he also seems to be trying to offend everyone in sight, which may explain why this new novel by a fast-rising author is appearing in the field’s lowest-paying magazine, rather than in the more stately mansions of Pohl, Ferman, or JWC, Jr.  In any case, I look forward to completing these scabrous revels.

Only Yesterday, by Ted White

Editor White’s Only Yesterday is a more somber time travel story, in which the ill-at-ease protagonist Bob approaches a young woman as she gets off a train, asks if he can walk with her, says he’s a friend of a friend (she suggestibly supplies the friend’s name, and he agrees), and she invites him in for refreshments and to meet the family.  He hits it off with her and her brothers and her parents, and offers to tell her fortune—a futuristic vision which turns into nightmarish war.  She’s shocked and disturbed, and he quickly says he was making it up, offers a more palatable vision, and beats a hasty retreat.  Revelation of who he is and why he’s there follows.  It’s smoothly written and well visualized, but the ease with which Bob inserts himself into the family setting is too implausible to overlook.  Still, nice try, very readable, three stars. 

Hue and Cry, by Bob Shaw

Bob Shaw’s Hue and Cry is about as far as one can get from his very well received Light of Other Days.  It's a cartoonish story in which a spaceship full of humans lands among sentient carnivorous reptilians who think of them only as food, scheme to eat them all, and are thwarted with a silly gimmick.  Two stars, generously.

Poison Pen, by Milton Lesser

The reprints in this issue are a mostly malodorous batch from the doldrums of the mid-1950s.  The best that can be said for them is that they don’t take up much space.

Milton Lesser’s Poison Pen (from Amazing, December 1955) is a silly botch of a story.  For thirty years, humanity has been under the thumb of the extraterrestrial Masters.  Now they’ve left, and people are dancing in the streets.  The main thing we know about the Masters is that they made people keep diaries and read from them in neighborhood gatherings, and that practice continues.  Why?  Dr. Trillis says it’s because the Masters taught everyone “from the cradle” to be compulsive exhibitionists (how?) so they could control people, “and the older generation either had to go along with it or feel left out.” So people ought to stop with the diaries and the readings, he says.  But they don’t.  Worse, they start stealing other people’s diaries and making fake entries in them—false confessions of having been “co-operationists.” Executions begin.  Our hero helps Dr. Trillis escape and they wind up in a settlement of people “who somehow haven’t been contaminated,” in New Jersey.


by Paul Orban

If the description sounds sketchy and incoherent, that’s because the story is.  It’s an insult to the readers, pretty clearly dashed off without a thought of anything but a quick check.  One star.

No Place to Go, by Henry Slesar


by Erwin Schroeder

Henry Slesar’s No Place to Go (Amazing, July 1958), by contrast, is at least a competent piece of yard goods.  A crack team of astronauts goes to the Moon, takes a look outside, and sees Earth blow up, leaving them alive but stranded. Shortly, some of the astronauts are blowing up too.  But wait—April fool!  It was all a test!  They were drugged with a hypnotic chemical, visions planted in their heads while they slept!  The captain then tells the guy who didn’t blow up that he’s now second in command, and he’ll be going to Mars.  It's cliches wrapped around a gimmick, but unlike Lesser’s story, it doesn’t reek of contempt for the readership.  Three stars, generously.

Note that in our crude rating system, what I’ve just described as “cliches wrapped around a gimmick” gets the same grade as White’s much more capable effort.  Just remember that there’s a lot of space between 3.0 and 3.9.

Puzzle in Yellow, by Randall Garrett


by Leo R. Summers

Randall Garrett’s Puzzle in Yellow (Amazing, November 1956) is a trivial gimmick story on that ever-popular theme, the Stupid Alien.  Extra-terrestrial Ghevil is scoping out Earth for invasion and pillage by the “hordes of Archeron.” He wants to check out an isolated military installation, so he finds a remote building with big walls and turrets, and figures he’s found what he’s looking for.  He kills the first person he sees emerge from the building, and disguises himself in the man’s uniform.  He tries to enter and is shot dead.  Take a wild guess what the installation he tried to enter actually is. The yellow of the title, by the way, refers to Ghevil’s blood.  Two stars, barely.

The Pendant Spectator, by Leon E. Stover

Leon Stover’s “Science of Man” article this month is The Pendant Spectator, a phrase he got from Samuel Johnson’s novel Rasselas, which means, more or less, someone with a view from a height.  “Spaceship Earth” is also invoked.  Stover seems to have abandoned his project of educating us all about anthropology.  Here we have a protracted editorial on the necessity for humanity to get its act together and get right with the biosphere, limiting population, developing energy sources (i.e., the sun) that will neither pollute the atmosphere like fuel combustion nor overheat the place like nuclear power, engaging in international cooperation, accepting a degree of coercive regulation in these and other causes, etc.  It’s hard to argue with any of it, but it’s also hard to imagine that the SF readership is who needs to hear it, so it seems a bit pointless.  This series seems about ready to die a natural death.  Two stars.

Summing Up

So the harbingers seem to be blowing in the right direction, even if the actual fiction contents, possibly excepting Silverberg, are not much changed from the recent norm.  “Looking good” would be premature, but “looking like it might look good” would fit.  Or—as I’ve said more times than I can count about this magazine—promising.




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Magazine

[June 4, 1969] Death and Dating (January–June 1969 Playboy)

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by Erica Frank

I'm back to review more issues of Playboy, and I'm still not looking at the pictures. Well. I have looked, in passing. But I am honestly not reading the magazine for the pictures, because as pleasant as some of them are, they get monotonous. They are all very pretty young women, but there is a sameness to them; they are all young, all slender, all devoid of anything that would make them stand out in a crowd, were they wearing clothing suitable for office work or shopping. So I am not here for the unclad ladies, who always have faintly mysterious smiles but look like they've been told to look sexy rather than happy.

Playboy cover - March 1969. A smiling blonde woman flies a kite shaped like the Playboy bunny.
Playboy's March 1969 cover–the only one in this set where the woman looks like she's having fun.

I am here because it's widely known in the science fiction industry that Playboy has much higher rates than any of the officially-science-fiction magazines, and that means they sometimes publish gems that bypass the other magazines. However, to find those gems, I have to wade through a lot of stories that are maybe science fiction, perhaps, if you squint, and some that are apparently what the mainstream public thinks science fiction should be.

Incident in the Streets of the City by Robert Coover (January)
A man is hit by a truck and lies in the street, dying, while the people around him talk. I kept waiting for the plot to kick in. And then, since I was told this might be in the "SF" category, I kept looking for those elements. That might be "he doesn't immediately die, despite taking some very fatal-seeming injuries."

The discussions around him are compelling, but nothing happens here. There's a tragedy and everyone seems to be ignoring it. That may be the point of the story. It was engaging without being interesting, a fascinating blend I'd like to avoid in the future. Two stars.

The Schematic Man by Frederik Pohl (January)
Half of this two-page story is explaining what a computer does; the rest is a man attempting to create a complete and accurate mathematical model of himself. And while computer capacity has indeed gotten large, I have my doubts that even the most advanced super-computer could hold the full details of an adult human's memories, beliefs, and thought processes, along with all the biological data about him.

Our protagonist, Bederkind, discovers his own memories and skills are fading as he places more data about himself into the computer, until he is not certain if "he" is the original man or a model in a computer's storage banks. Two stars–the writing is deft enough, but I found myself quite indifferent to Bederkind's fate.

Whispers in Bedlam by Irwin Shaw (February)

This novella stars Hugo, a football player, who starts to go deaf in one ear. This is a problem that can lose him his job, so he goes to see a specialist surgeon. Soon he can hear the other linebacker just fine. And then he can hear the opposing team's quarterback in the huddle. And then he starts to be able to understand their code. And then he starts to be able to hear thoughts, both on the field and off.

He has the best season of his career – goes from a moderately talented but not-bright player, to the best guy on the team: He intercepts passes; he is never fooled by a fake handoff; he knows which direction the quarterback will break. He gets involved with gambling–he knows what cards the other guys have–and picks up a couple of girlfriends on the side, since he can hear which women are interested.

Then it turns a bit dark: the team owner notices he's staying out late and running with a bad crowd, which will bring bad publicity to the team if the papers get word of it. His plane has a delayed landing, and he's the only passenger who knows the crew thought they were going to crash. His girlfriend tells him she has a headache and can't see him tonight–and as he's leaving, he hears her laughing brightly to someone else. He attends church and hears the utter hypocrisy of the preacher. Hugo's amazing new gift is turning into a curse, and it's making him miserable.

The resolution was somewhat predictable but nicely done. Three stars.

Next—the Planets by Arthur C. Clarke (March)
This article is about the impending certainty of exploration of the other planets in our solar system. It begins with a discussion of the costs: "the energy cost of transferring a man from the surface of the Earth to that of Mars is less than $20." (He admits the machinery is notably more expensive.) Clarke points out that Jupiter, not Earth, is the obvious place to look for life and variety in our solar system.

This is hopeful and enthusiastic; it assumes space travel will roughly follow the trajectory of airplanes: First, the public claims that it's impossible, followed by test cases and grudging admittance that it could be done (but isn't worth the cost and effort), followed by a rush of technological advancement and commercial activity as everyone insists they were always in favor of it.

Clarke seems to miss a key point in his analogies, though. We knew air travel was possible: Birds do it all the time. We knew it was possible to fly across the ocean, possible to use wings to travel from one city to another distant city. We didn't know it was possible for humans using machinery, but we knew it could be done.

The article ends with, "The Earth is, indeed, our cradle, which we are about to leave. And the Solar System will be our kindergarten."  But there are no birds traveling from here to Mars. Waving past the technological difficulties means assuming an awful lot of facts not in evidence.

The overview of details about the Solar System, plus a warning against assuming our current information is entirely accurate, are well done. The blithe assumption that we'll soon be setting up scientific bases on Mars or even Jupiter are pure hype, but still an enjoyable read. Three stars.

A Man's Home Is His Castle by Ron Goulart (March)
This story is set in the near future of 1973. A man inherits a magical, computerized, sentient house from his uncle. His girlfriend does not like the house, which does things like "turn her into a statue to keep her from leaving." He is, we are supposed to gather, extremely in love with her. You can tell by the way he describes her.

She was tall, with a smooth tan and long gentle blonde hair. Her breasts had an upright, angry look under the blue chambray of her shirt.

I have no idea what angry-looking breasts are supposed to look like, especially under a chambray shirt, which should hide most of the appearance of breasts other than their general size.

A collage of a gilded house with a man's legs with wings at the ankles; the house has a a lady's legs coming out the front windows; from the side door near the back, an arm holds a banjo. Behind the house is a rainbow and blue sky with fluffy clouds.
I do love the artwork that accompanies some of the stories, even when it doesn't seem to connect well to the story itself. Maybe especially then. I tried to figure out who the artist is, but all we have is that little stylized "ap" in the bottom corner.

He complains to the house: "You're supposed to be a triumph of science and sorcery and you can't even keep the girl I love from running off to join an electronic musicians' group."

The house keeps suggesting bribing her instead of casting spells to change her personality, but he declines. Eventually, while he is out of town at a meeting, the girlfriend and house negotiate their relationship.

I wanted to give this four stars–it's a pleasant read, with an interesting conclusion. But the characters are flat and the sorcery is almost boring, and there are also the "angry breasts" to consider. Three stars.

Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?
This is a picture-heavy behind-the-scenes look at an upcoming movie. The title is an obvious reference to Hieronymous Bosch, the 15th century surrealist painter.

Excerpt from the Heironymous Bosch painting Haywain, showing three nude people and several animal people/creatures.
While Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights gets more attention, there are also some pretty strange things going on in The Haywain, as you can see.

Hieronymous Merkin, the protagonist, divides his attentions between several ladies: Mercy Humppe, Polyester Poontang, and Trampolena Whambang, among others. Director Anthony Newley, who is also the star actor, insists that he "wanted to make a really erotic romantic movie" as opposed to the current trend of movies that are "blatantly sexual without being either sensuous or romantic."

A nude man walks on a dance painted with a zodiac; two clockwork men are also on the floor.
While this scene is intriguing, I gather it may be the closest the movie gets to recognizable science fiction themes.

Pitched as a "zany erotobiography" (I believe that's suppose to be a faux biography of the protagonist, rather than a direct reflection on the star/director/producer's life history), the movie covers Merkin's life from adolescence to present-day. He is haunted by The Presence of Death and a shady character named Good Time Eddie Filth, who appears in a puff of lavender smoke and encourages his lechery.

A man and a woman are in bed together; she is topless and smiling as he cups her breast with one hand and stares happily down at her tits.
This is Hieronymus and a woman labeled "a frisky extra." At least they both look like they're having fun.

The movie is scheduled to open next summer; it also features Joan Collins and Milton Berle. I haven't decided if I'm interested in seeing it–it doesn't seem to have nearly as much science fiction content as Barbarella–but I must admit my attention has been piqued. Three stars for this pictorial article.

Death's Door by Robert McNear (March)
I do not care for sports stories, and I do not care for ghost stories, and this is both. A reporter visits a small island off the coast of Wisconsin, where the Big Game is happening for the first time since 1947, when tragedy struck the winning team. I had to push myself to finish it–not because it's poorly written at all, but because it was quite obviously a ghost story about a sports team, so it's about ⅓ spooky ambiance and ⅓ sports fan chatter and the remaining plot is buried in bits and pieces between those.

I'm glad I kept reading. I could tell something was going on, and I was avidly trying to put the pieces together, and I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. It is not a happy ending, but it does nicely wrap up all the loose ends and odd questions raised during his investigations.

Four stars if you enjoy sports or ghosts or both; three if you don't.

Prey by Richard Matheson (April)
The setup for this is too obvious: 33-year-old Amelia is caught between her overbearing mother and her sullen boyfriend. She always spends Friday evenings with her mom–but this Friday is her boyfriend's birthday, and she bought him a present, a "genuine Zuni fetish doll" rumored to contain the spirit of a killer. He's a collector of anthropological artifacts, and this one is unique. It even includes a gold chain meant to keep the spirit trapped inside the doll.

Three Zuni Kachina doll images from the 1894 anthropology book 'Dolls of the Tusayan Indians' by Jesse Walter Fewkes.
Actual Zuni kachina dolls are icons of beneficent spirits that are treated with respect, not fear; they look nothing like the one described in the story.

Amelia's mother is annoyed that she's thinking of skipping their movie night. Her boyfriend is annoyed that she is letting her mom interfere with their relationship. You can see where this is going: Will she send the killer after her acrimonious mother or her petulant boyfriend?

Turns out the killer is not that easily controlled, and Amelia is soon fighting for her life. But the tale does have a few twists left; I was surprised more than once at how it played out. The story is well-written; the characters are more silhouettes than people, but they are believable silhouettes; the plot contains unexpected twists without innovation. Three stars.

The Chimeras by Arthur Koestler (May)
I'm discovering that the more actually science-fictional the story, the more likely it is to be a dud. A man visits a psychotherapist because he is obsessed with the dangers of chimeras. In an interesting twist, we discover that chimeras are a new mutation spreading through humanity. The patient insists he is the only one to see the dangers clearly; that everyone else is infected with chimerism and has a blind spot about them. The doctor wants to cure his delusion; the patient wants to gain this blind spot so he can be less anxious.

I suppose it's intended to be a surprise that the patient is correct, that a horde of chimeras are rampaging destructively down the street while the doctor insists it is a peaceful Scout's Love Brigade march. It fails to be surprising, and the conclusion is pointless. Two stars.

Downwind from Gettysburg by Ray Bradbury (June)
Playboy has a knack for finding science fiction stories where the fantastic elements have no connection to the core problem or its solution. In this, a scientist-historian who is avidly devoted to President Lincoln creates a robot version of him to honor his memory, and a jealous, pathetic man named Booth shoots the robot. Nobody believes robot-Lincoln is a person, but we are led to understand that the creation was a singular process; repairs may be difficult or impossible.

The bulk of the story is about why Phipps is obsessed with Lincoln and why Booth feels compelled to destroy him (it). The short version: Phipps is a Lincoln fan; Booth is what we might charitably called "a piece of work," the kind of man who cannot see someone else happy without wanting to break whatever brings them joy. 

Both the crisis and its aftermath seemed muted–a momentary turbulence in the characters' lives. A nice enough story, but it did not strike me as memorable. Three stars.

A Life in the Day of by Frank M. Robinson (June)
Jeff is a popular fellow, the life of the party, famous for his photo on the front cover of the Times, facing off against the cops with his STUDENTS FOR FREEDOM sign. Jeff thinks anyone over 25 is a drag and a bore, and he flirts with a probably-17-year-old pretty girl and quotes activist "wisdom" to win her affection.

Psychedelic art - two colorful images of a young man's face.
Gene Szafran's art is certainly colorful. I'd certainly be willing to hang out with a fellow who looks like this–but alas, this is only an artistic rendition of the protagonist.

Jeff is an egotistical ass, rude to anyone he thinks is not cool enough to be in his presence and firmly convinced that he's always going to be the center of attention. He gets stoned and digs the music and tries to ignore Ann, the drunk woman who tells him he won't be able to keep up with the new trends forever.

At two A.M., Jeff hears the door buzzer and he does not want it opened – but someone does, and suddenly… a crowd from outside presses in, and he doesn't know anyone anymore. The party swirls around him and ignores him; he is no longer the exotic hippie in the toga but the weirdly-dressed guy wearing a bedsheet. He looks out the window and the storefronts are all changing signs; he doesn't know the street anymore. He has, as Ann warned him, lost his connection to the younger generation. Two years, she said, and apparently his time is up.

I enjoyed this, possibly because I can enjoy reading about a drunken stoned college party even if the story basically goes nowhere. Jeff is a jerk and it's rather gratifying to see him lose his place as a minor celebrity. However, the fantastic element in this story is easy to excuse as "he was stoned" rather than anything supernatural happening.

Three stars if you like hippies; two if you don't.

Conclusion: Much of a Muchness
Playboy's stories, like Playboy's naked girls, have a certain uniformity that sometimes borders on tedium. They are all well-written, skillfully crafted by people with strong vocabularies and a good command of metaphor and description. And they all serve to validate the viewpoints of moderately-wealthy libertarian white men who think women are properly either ornaments or servants.

The stories are often "an interesting interlude, with an odd twist" – no progression of character, no puzzles to be solved, no change in the people or the world, just a growing awareness of "Oh, I guess this is how things are."

Each story, on its own, is reasonably interesting and well-made. As a set, they grow boring, and they show the biases of the editors who put the issues together.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 2, 1969] The ever-whirling wheel (July 1969 IF)

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by David Levinson

A change is gonna come

Regular readers of Galactic Journey or of SF magazines in general may have noticed that neither Galaxy nor IF published last month. With a bit of detective work, I’ve put together what happened.

The clues are on the masthead. Editor Fred Pohl is now listed as Editor Emeritus, while the editor is Ejler Jakobsson. The publisher is no longer Robert M. Guinn, but Arnold E. Abramson, and Galaxy Publishing has been replaced by Universal Publishing. (That last worried me for a moment, but I quickly remembered that Amazing and Fantastic are put out by Ultimate Publishing under Sol Cohen.)

There’s also an editorial from Fred, talking about the changes. Most importantly, he’s stepping back to focus more on writing. That and the fact that he’s sticking around to look over the new editor’s shoulder (Fred’s words) for a while suggests his departure is voluntary and doesn’t suggest any misgivings about the new ownership on his part. Plus, we should be getting new stuff from him more often.

Who is Ejler Jakobsson? He had a few horror stories back in the late 30s, cowritten with his wife Edith, but if his name sounds familiar, it’s most likely because he was the editor for the revival of Super Science Stories from 1949-1951. Coincidentally, that magazine had been edited by Fred Pohl before it was shut down by wartime paper shortages.

What changes can we expect? Fred prefers to let us see them as they happen, but the promo for next month hints at some. IF is getting a book review column by Lester del Rey. That may or may not mean the end of his “If… and When” column. We’re also getting a twelve part series by Willy Ley, “The Story of Our Earth.” That might suggest some changes over at Galaxy.

Of course, the biggest question is what sort of stories Jakobsson will buy. It will be a while before we get a good feel for that, since there’s bound to be a backlog of stories selected by Pohl. It took several months for the Fermans over at Fantasy and Science Fiction to change the course set by Avram Davidson, but Ted White has wrestled Amazing and Fantastic into a new direction almost immediately. We’ll see, but we should have a good idea by the time we start the new decade.

A bang or a whimper?

Since this is the last issue under Fred Pohl’s leadership, it’s fair to ask what sort of note he goes out on. Will he put out a strong issue, go out on a high note and remind us why this magazine has won three straight Hugos? Or will it be utterly awful and make us glad he’s gone? Not to ruin the suspense, but the July issue is really just another typical, middle-of-the-road example. There’s some good stuff and some not so good. Let’s start with the cover.

Art credited only as couresy of Three Lions, Inc. but actually by German artist Johnny Bruck.

You may recall that the last issue had a similar uncredited cover that Robert Bloch apparently used for his story Groovyland. Once again we have a Johnny Bruck cover, originally for Perry Rhodan #102, which an American author has used for inspiration. This time Keith Laumer has come up with a story much more clearly based on the art than Bloch’s was. I’m not keen on this trend, though it’s slightly better than what they do over at Amazing and Fantastic.

Here’s the original art by Johnny Bruck.

The Towns Must Roll (Part 1 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

Long-time readers of Mack Reynolds’s work will be familiar with his stories of People’s Capitalism. That appears to be giving way to what he calls the Meritocracy. The biggest difference so far is the replacement of every citizen’s ten shares of Inalienable Basic with a Negative Income Tax.

In Mack’s latest novel, the NIT enables people to pick up and move to places anywhere in the world where the cost of living is lower. They often gather in rolling towns that consist of mobile homes that make the fanciest Airstream trailer look like a pup tent. Our protagonist is Bat Hardin, a man of mixed race who provides police services to a town on its way to South America. After crossing into Mexico, the town encounters unexpected hostility from the locals, including credible threats of extreme violence. Meanwhile, Bat’s authority in the town is being threatened by an extremely racist, newer resident. To be concluded.

Bat has been kidnapped to deliver a message: Gringos go home. Art by Gaughan

This is typical Reynolds of the better sort. He’s not just rehashing the same tired plot points, and while there’s the usual lectures on history and economics, they’re reasonably concise and to the point. Mack is quicker to point out the flaws in the system, but also subtler than usual. As a man who thinks he has no future in the Meritocracy because an Army test rated his IQ as 93, Bat is an interesting character, though he seems much brighter than that; we’ll see if whether that will be relevant to the plot or just Reynolds not being able to write someone of low average intelligence. Plus, we’ve got a tense situation. I look forward to seeing how this all plays out.

A solid three stars.

On the Dead Star, by Jack L. Austin

An explorer aboard a one-man scout, with only the ship’s computer intelligence for company, discovers an impossible structure on the surface of a Black Dwarf.

This month’s new author gets off to a good start. The writing was sound and the situation intriguing. Unfortunately, Austin loses his way. The story just goes on too long; it could easily have been half the length. As is often the case in such tales, the conclusion winds up being rushed. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, but the whole thing wraps up in a couple of paragraphs, with the action taking place off-screen. It could be better, but Austin is only 20 and has room to grow. I’ll give him a chance.

A low three stars.

Autohuman 14, by Bruce McAllister

This story of policeman Grabe Massel is hard to summarize without giving away the big mid-point revelation (though you’ll probably see it coming). Let’s just say he has a very close relationship with his car.

There’s probably a really good story to be told with this set-up, but I’m not sure this is it. There’s some excellent writing here, particularly the use of engine noise, but it also feels like there’s a barrier that dulls the impact of the narrative on the reader. Still, it may be the best thing McAllister has written. He may finally be getting close to a breakthrough.

Three stars.

Spork Conquers Civilization, by Perry Chapdelaine

Tarzan… er, Spork is back. This time he and the Ayor travel to a human-occupied planet and deal with an evil dictator. Along with the mix of A.E. van Vogt and Edgar Rice Burroughs that the previous stories have offered, this one has a large dollop of Doc Smith. There’s probably more to come, since Spork appears to be Lord Greystoke… er, a lost prince, but I’m not looking forward to seeing any of it.

Barely three stars.

Spork and an Ayor. Art by Reese

Authorgraphs: An Interview with Robert Bloch

In this month’s interview, Robert Bloch talks about discovering science fiction, learning his trade with the Milwaukee Fictioneers, particularly Stanley Weinbaum, and making ends meet during the Depression. I would have liked a few words about his relationship with H.P. Lovecraft, but it’s a good interview overall.

Three stars.

Portrait by Gaughan

The Half Man, by Keith Laumer

Long cut off from the rest of humanity, the planet Meries is being considered for reintegration into the human community. At some point in the past, the people and domestic animals of the planet became acquatic through genetic manipulation. Part of the team assessing the planet is Gon, the son of an itinerant trader and a local woman. Gon was raised on Earth and is having trouble making contact with the locals. He finally does so on the last day of the mission.

Gon has an encounter with a descendant of Earth dogs gone wild. Art by Barr

Keith Laumer tends to write stories that are either meant as humorous satire or two-fisted Competent Man adventures. Once in a while, though, he writes something deep and thoughtful. This is one of those rare occasions, despite the fact that it was written based on art created for another story in another language. Actually, it’s probably weaker for using that Johnny Bruck cover as the climax of the story. Still, it’s one of Laumer’s better pieces.

A high three stars.

A Day for Dying, by Charles Nuetzel

Charles Travers is arrested on false charges of treason and condemned to participate in the Tele-Games. His odds of survival are practically nil.

Nuetzel is unknown to me, but he’s apparently sold a few stories to a minor publisher and the semi-pro zine Spaceway. This story is fine, but nothing special. There’s a sting in the tail, but it doesn’t bite as hard as I think Nuetzel wanted it to.

Three stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

How common is life in the universe? That’s a question that has had many answers over the years. Del Rey looks at those answers and how they’ve changed, along with the experiments and scientific findings that have caused those changes.

Four stars.

Where the Beast Runs, by Dean R. Koontz

Three hunters go after a creature that has killed several other groups just as experienced as they are. One of them will also have to confront a traumatic experience from his childhood.

The beast reflects Andy’s trauma back at him. Art by Adkins

With a few changes, this could have been a straight adventure set in Africa or South America. Like Bruce McAllister, Koontz shows a lot of promise, but never quite crosses the threshhold to being really good. He keeps getting close and does so here, but doesn’t quite get there.

Three stars.

Summing up

There it is. The last IF that is fully Fred Pohl’s. There’s nothing spectacularly good, but nothing spectacularly bad. As for the future under Ejler Jakobsson, we’ll have to wait and see. I’ll miss If… and When if it gets dropped for another book column. There’s also no letter column this month, but that might be to make space for some longer pieces as well as be an artifact of Pohl’s departure from the big chair. We are getting a new issue of Worlds of Fantasy in a few months. Let’s just hope that for IF and Galaxy all this, to paraphrase President Kennedy, symbolizes a beginning as well as an end, “signifying renewal as well as change.”

A sign of the changes to come. At least the Chapdelaine doesn’t look like more Spork.




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Conventions/Performances, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 31, 1969] When eras collide (June 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Huzzah!

It's hard to believe it was just six years ago that the Renaissance Pleasure Faire started in the suburbs of Los Angeles:

"Counterculture" didn't even have a name yet (I think we were calling it "contraculture"), but already, there were folks weary of the modern age, casting their eyes back to a simpler time.  You know, when there were far more things that could kill you, and much fewer opportunities to escape drudgery…

Anyway, I reported on our last foray into the past a couple of years ago.  These days, the back-to-then movement is stronger than ever, with the Society for Creative Anachronism exploding (do they have a thousand members now?) and Renaissance Faires catching on.  They are a good fit for the Pagans and hippies and folks looking for an escape.

We're not immune to the lure.  Here are some scenes from this month's event:










You may recognize the fellow in blue

What really makes the Faire such a delight is the attention to detail.  Everywhere you go, there are actors and actress really playing a part, making the whole thing an exercise in living history.  Of course, as my "character" styles himself a member of the Habsburg clan, you can bet I razzed the Queen when she paraded by with her foppish retinue.

Nevertheless, I hope the Faire retains its purity, prioritizing the spirit of the event rather than descending into a kind of cynical capitalism.  Though, I suppose, that's what the original faires were all about…

Alas!

Speaking of cynical capitalism, I feel that Analog editor stays on the job these days just for a paycheck (and a podium for his irrascible editorials—which he then compiles and sells in book form!) While the latest issue isn't terrible, it certainly doesn't scrape the heights it achieved "back in the day."


by Leo Summers

Artifact, by J. B. Clarke

The name of J. B. Clarke is unknown to me.  Perhaps he's Arthur Clarke's little brother (sister?) His writing isn't bad, nor even is the premise, but the execution of this first tale of his…


by Leo Summers

A beach ball-sized orb appears in interplanetary space.  When an Earth spaceship tries to pick it up, it zips away at faster-than-light speeds a couple of times, as if to demonstrate that it can, and then becomes docile.  After it is picked up, the humans assessing the artifact determine that it was deliberately sent to jump-start our technology.  But was the rationale benevolent or otherwise?

This would have been a great story had not Clarke explained from the very beginning that the scheme was a plot by the evil Imperium to instigate a diplomatic incident a la the Nazis asserting a Polish attack against the Germans on September 1, 1939.  This would give the rapacious aliens legal precedent to annex our planet.  Moreover, we learn that an agent of the "Web", the galactic federation of which the Imperium constitutes a small portion, is already on Earth, guiding our assessment of the artifact.

As a result, there's no tension.  We know everything will turn out fine.  Indeed, it's a strangely un-Campbellian story in that humans aren't the smart ones in the end.  But because there are no decisions to be made, no suspense to the outcome, the story falls flat.

Two stars.

Zozzl, by Jackson Burrows


by Leo Summers

This one gets closer to the mark.  It stars a big game hunter whose quarry is a telepathic beast.  The creature's natural defense is to access your fears and throw pursuers into a nightmare world, repelling them.  It's a neat concept, and Burrows (another name with which I am unacquainted), renders the dream sequences quite effectively.

While we learn a bit about our hero's past and motivations, he never really has to solve any puzzles to win his prize.  He just wins in the end.  There needs to be more.

Still, I really dug the idea, and there's definitely potential for Jackson.  Three stars.

Dramatic Mission, by Anne McCaffrey


by Leo Summers

Here's the latest installment of the The Ship Who.  This series stars Helva, a profoundly disabled woman who, at a young age, was turned into a cybernetic brain for a starship.  Together with a series of "brawns", the human component of the ship's crew, she has been on all kinds of adventures.

In this story, we learn that brain-ships can earn their independence (paying off the debt of their construction) and fly without brawns, and that many vessels strive for this status.  But Helva prefers to ride with company—indeed, she insists on it.

Well, her wish is granted.  Short-listed for a priority mission to Beta Corvi, Helva is tasked to transport a troupe of actors to a gas giant in that system, where they will perform Romeo and Juliet for a bunch of alien jellyfish in exchange for an important chemical process.

The problem is the drama that unfolds before the drama: Solar Prane, the star, is dying from chronic use of a memory-enhancing drug.  His nurse is deeply in love with him.  His co-star and ex-lover is jealous and stubbornly insists on sabotaging the production.  It is up to Helva to be the grown-up in the room and save the day.

There is so much to like about this story, so many neat, unique things about the setting and characters, that it's a shame McCaffrey can't help getting in her own way.  She loves writing waspish, unlikeable characters, and her penchant for including casual, off-putting violence reminds me of what I don't like about Marion Zimmer Bradley.

This is one of those pieces I'd like to see redone by someone more talented and sensitive.  Zenna Henderson, maybe, if I wanted to see the soft tones enhanced, or Rosel George Brown (RIP) if I wanted something a little lighter and funnier.

Three stars.

The Nitrocellulose Doormat, by Christopher Anvil


by Peter Skirmat

The planet of Terex has turned into a death trap for the terran Space Force.  Invited in to deal with an insurgency problem, a combination of religious proscriptions against advanced technology and a flourishing black market that loots what munitions are allowed in, the human troops are not only made into sitting ducks but laughing stocks.

Enter a canny colonel of the Interstellar Corps, whose bright idea is to suffuse all incoming logistics with explosives so that, when they are stolen, they explode.  Deterrent and humiliation, all in one.

It may seem that I've given away the plot…and I have.  It's given away fairly early on, and the rest of the story is simply an explication of the plan's success.

I should have liked the story less than I did, but it reads pretty well.  Three stars.

The Ghoul Squad, by Harry Harrison


by Leo Summers

A rural sheriff digs in his heels at the notion of government agencies harvesting the organs of newly dead victims of traffic accidents in his jurisdiction.  He sticks to his principles even at the cost of his own life, decades later.

This story doesn't say anything Niven hasn't said (much) better in The Organleggers, The Jigsaw Man, and A Gift from Earth.

Two stars.

Jackal's Meal, by Gordon R. Dickson


by Leo Summers

The human sphere of stars has begun to brush against the part of the galaxy claimed by the loosely knit Morah, aliens with a talent for profound modification of bodies, internally and externally.  In the middle of sensitive negotiations between the two empires over a contested bit of space, a bipedal creature runs amok at the space dock.  It is impossible to determine if the being is a Morah made to look like a human or a human made to look like a Morah.  Ultimately, the fate of the two empires rests on this hapless person.

Easily the best story in the issue, both interesting and well written, though it still rates no more than four stars.

Give me the past

Short story SF appears to be on the decline in general, with only four magazines out this month.  Of them, Fantasy and Science Fiction was by far the best, garnering 3.4 stars, but Fantastic and New Worlds both barely made three stars, and Mark, who covers the last mag, has been grumbling about all the newfangled, outré stuff.

As a result, you could fill just one digest-sized magazine with all the good stuff that came out this month.  In other statistical news, women produced just 8% of all the new fiction this month.

It's enough to make you long for the (romanticized) good ol' days…but who knows what the future holds?




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Comics, Science / Space Race

[May 28, 1969], The Big One Before the Big One (Apollo-10)

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by Kaye Dee

May has been an exciting month for space exploration, with two Soviet space probes arriving at Venus and Apollo-10 safely returning just days ago from its epic lunar voyage, which has constituted a full-dress rehearsal for the first manned Moon landing.

A philatelic cover referring to Apollo-10 as "the Big One before the BIG One"! (Meaning Apollo-11, of course)

The Bridesmaid, not the Bride
Before Apollo-10 lifted off on its big mission as NASA’s final test flight ahead of the planned landing of Apollo-11 in July, for a while there was the possibility that the landing attempt might actually be made on this flight, to ensure that American astronauts reached the Moon before any Soviet cosmonauts!

I’m told by my friends at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, that there was considerable discussion within NASA about accelerating the lunar landing programme. As early as February, even before the launch of Apollo-9, there were suggestions that, if the Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module (LM) was successful, Apollo-10 might go for the first manned lunar landing. George Mueller, Head of NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight (left), supported this approach. He may not look it, but Dr. Mueller has been described as someone who “always shoots from both hips”, and he strongly pushed for the Apollo-10 landing scenario.

However, a dress rehearsal mission had been planned since June 1967, and the consensus was that the programme was not quite ready to safely achieve a landing with Apollo-10, with more work needed on different docking techniques, as well as more experience with communications and tracking capabilities at lunar distances.

There were concerns that not enough is known about the effect on planned lunar orbit manoeuvres of the Mascons (gravity peaks caused by heavy material under the lunar surface) discovered by Apollo-8. In addition, the lunar landing computer software wasn’t quite ready, and the LM allocated to the Apollo-10 mission was one that had been planned for use in an Earth orbit flight test. Since it was heavier than a LM intended for a lunar landing, its greater weight might have caused problems lifting off the lunar surface.

LM-4 being prepared for the Apollo-10 mission at Kennedy Space Centre

Thus, on 26 March, with the Saturn-V for its mission already on the launchpad, senior NASA officials finally announced that Apollo-10 would remain the bridesmaid and not become the bride, performing the final full-dress rehearsal for a Moon landing with Apollo-11, rather than itself attempting the historic first lunar touchdown. “With the exception of the actual landing of the Lunar Module on the lunar surface, the mission planned is the same as for the [Apollo-11] lunar mission”, NASA’s announcement of the decision said.

Dr. Paine (right) with Mr. Robert Gilruth, Director of the Manned Spacecraft Centre, celebrating the safe return of Apollo-10

Perhaps Dr. Thomas O. Paine, only confirmed as NASA's third Administrator on 20 March – and a Democrat in the Republican Nixon Administration, which has yet to demonstrate strong enthusiasm for continuing the spaceflight programme of the previous Administration – preferred to err on the side of caution, rather than take another bold gamble like Apollo-8 at such a late stage in the Moon landing programme.

Seasoned Crew
Whether Apollo-10 remained the lunar landing dress rehearsal, or if it had become the first mission to land on the Moon, its crew were well-qualified for either mission scenario, as seasoned veterans of Gemini spaceflights.

Mission Commander Colonel Thomas Stafford previously flew as Pilot of the Gemini-VI mission, and then as Commander of Gemini-IX. On the latter flight, his Pilot was Commander Eugene “Gene” Cernan, assigned as LM Pilot for Apollo-10. The third member of the Apollo-10 crew, Command Module (CM) Pilot Commander John Young, made his first spaceflight as Pilot of Gemini-III, before becoming Commander of Gemini-X. I think NASA would have been hard-pressed to assemble a more experienced crew for this crucial flight.

A Mission Patch with Mission Heritage
North American Rockwell artist Allen Stevens, who has previously collaborated with the crews to design the mission patches for Apollo-1 , 7, and 9, apparently wanted to break away from the circular shape used for so many previous missions. He initially offered the Apollo-10 crew some concepts based on polygonal patch shapes, but these did not appeal.

Instead, US Navy officers Cernan and Young primarily developed the patch, which Stevens then illustrated. Their concept drew heavily on the design of Stafford and Cernan’s Gemini-IX mission patch, especially using the shape of a shield.

Astronaut Cernan has said that the mission patch was based on the mechanics and goals of the mission, and this is exemplified in the dominance of the spacecraft and the mission number represented by a large Roman numeral in the middle of the design.

The final version of the Apollo-10 patch depicts the CM circling the Moon as the LM makes its low pass over the surface, with the Earth in the background. The three-dimensional rendering of the Roman ‘X’ gives the impression that it is sitting on the Moon, its prominence in the illustration indicating the mission’s significance in furthering the Apollo programme. The crew names appear around the rim of the shield.

A Mascot Namesake
With two spacecraft operating independently around the Moon, the CM and LM would need their own individual callsigns, as was the case with Apollo-9. For their historic mission, the Apollo-10 crew looked to the popular “Peanuts” comic strip, injecting a light-hearted note into a critical mission by designating the Command Module “Charlie Brown” and the Lunar Module “Snoopy”. It seems that NASA executives were once again unhappy with the crew’s choice of names, being particularly concerned about the perception of the hapless Charlie Brown as a born loser.

But the two characters, particularly Snoopy, have been associated with spaceflight since last year, when the lovable beagle was adopted as the mascot for NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Awareness programme. This safety campaign, begun in 1963, focuses on encouraging the workforce constructing spacecraft and equipment for NASA to remember that astronaut lives, and mission success, depend upon the quality and reliability of their work: a message that has taken on new meaning and urgency following the Apollo-1 fire. Snoopy, with his daring imaginary adventures (as a World War 1 flying ace, Olympic skater and other action roles), seemed an ideal choice for a mascot to raise morale and increase visibility for the renewed effort.

In 1968, with the permission and participation of “Peanuts” creator Charles Schultz, Snoopy became not only the mascot for this programme, but the symbol of its special achievement award, the “Silver Snoopy”. The award recognises individuals within the NASA workforce and contractors who have made valuable contributions to safety and mission assurance. Recipients receive a silver lapel pin which depicts a spacesuited Snoopy doing his famous “happy dance”.

A batch of Silver Snoopy pins was carried to the Moon on Apollo-8, and each award pin is presented to its recipient by an astronaut. As a person can only be honoured once with a Silver Snoopy award, it has already become a highly-coveted form of recognition.

Snoopy-ing Around
In March this year, Snoopy beat the Apollo-11 crew to a Moon landing in his comic strip fantasies, but he and Charlie Brown are turning up in many guises across the space agency, frequently featuring on motivational posters.

Small models of the boy and his dauntless dog are found in the Apollo spacecraft simulator area, where the astronauts spend much of their time in training. The astronauts have also taken to calling their communications headgear “Snoopy caps”, because of their resemblance to the flying helmet Snoopy wears in his daydreams of battling the Red Baron. The black-and-white design of the caps also recalls Snoopy's white head and black ears. Toy models of Charlie Brown and astronaut Snoopy also graced the consoles in Mission Control while Apollo-10 was in flight.

In an interview in April, Col. Stafford explained why the astronauts adopted the Snoopy and Charlie Brown callsigns. “Since we're going to the Moon to find all these facts and kind of snoop around, we decided that the Lunar Module is going to be called Snoopy. Snoopy is a comic character that’s a favourite, I know, of many people in the United States and around the world, and to go with it, we'll call the Command Module Charlie Brown”. In the same interview Commander Cernan also referenced the Silver Snoopy as a reason for the name choice, saying “Snoopy is a sort of champion of the space programme, anyway”.



Getting Ready
Despite not landing on the Moon, Apollo-10 was still going to be a big mission, with its flight plan closely following that of Apollo-11. To enable detailed photography of the designated Apollo-11 landing site at the Sun angle planned for the July mission, the launch was postponed from 16 to 17 May. In March, it was delayed again to 18 May, to allow for a better view of the backup landing site. An extra day in lunar orbit was also added to the mission to provide time for additional testing of the LM’s systems and photography of possible future Apollo landing sites.

Col. Stafford and Commander Cernan training for their flight in the LM simulator

The Apollo-10 crew’s intensive mission training schedule saw them putting in five hours of formal training for every hour of their mission’s eight-day duration. This included more than 300 hours each in the CM or LM simulators, and centrifuge training to prepare for the high-acceleration conditions they would endure during re-entry.

An accidental fuel spillage from the first stage of the Saturn V at the end of April fortunately caused no damage, and countdown preparations went ahead as planned, with no major delays. On 14 May, the astronauts received their final lunar topography briefing from scientist-astronaut, geologist Dr. Harrison Schmidt, and were pronounced fit and ready for lunar flight in their final medical checks. Everything was ready for the full-dress rehearsal of a manned lunar landing!

Mission Commander Stafford pats a giant Snoopy plush toy for luck, as the crew walk out to the Astronaut Transfer Van. Snoopy is being held by Cernan's secretary, Jamye Flowers

Lift Off!
Due to mission scheduling requirements, Apollo-10 was slated to lift off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Centre, the first Apollo mission to use that pad. (LC 39A, used for Apollo-8 and 9 is being used for Apollo-11, whose Saturn V vehicle was rolled out to the pad just a few days before the Apollo-10 launch). Firing Room 3, at Kennedy Space Centre’s Launch Control Centre was also used for the first time on Apollo-10’s launch.

Mission Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton and other NASA officials in Firing Room-3 during Apollo 10's pre-flight preparations

Apollo-10 lifted off exactly on time at 16.49 GMT on 18 May. Although pogo effects gave the astronauts something of a rough ride into orbit, this fortunately had no impact on the mission. However, during Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) burn, shuddering vibrations caused by the S-IVB stage pressure relief valves blurred the astronauts’ vision, to the point that they feared that the mission might have to be aborted. Fortunately, after five minutes the burn ended satisfactorily, with Apollo-10 safely on the way to the Moon.



The TLI burn occurred about 100 miles above outback Queensland, witnessed on the ground by thousands of people thanks to perfect observing conditions. A local official in the town of Cloncurry gave an interview to NBC News, which I understand was broadcast live in the US, describing what they saw: “The veil surrounding the relatively large white spot of the rocket’s rear end could best be described as resembling a mercury vapor street light seen through thick fog, although it was of a tenuous nature.”

I've not yet seen a picture of the Apollo TLI burn from Queensland, but this photo of the Apollo-8 TLI burn above Hawaii will give some idea of the amazing sight seen by many in remote Queensland towns

Coming to You in Living Colour
The Apollo-10 Westinghouse colour television camera and its custom-made viewing monitor for onboard use in the CM

Apollo 10 has seen the first use of a compact colour television camera, developed by Westinghouse. Installed in the CM, the camera was first used to show mission controllers in Houston the complex transposition, docking, and extraction manoeuvre performed by CM Pilot John Young, to extract the LM from the S-IVB stage, attaching it to the nose of the Command Module for the journey to the Moon.

Soon after the special LM extraction transmission, the first public broadcast on the way to the Moon treated the audience to live colour vistas of the Earth from 25,000 miles away in a thirteen-minute show.



This was followed, before the crew's first sleep period, with a 24-minute TV transmission, that began with views from 36,300 nautical miles in space, showing the Earth floating in the black void of the cosmos. The scene moved LM Pilot Cernan to say: "It's just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. It's unbelievable…it's just incredible".

The camera was then turned inside the the CM showing the astronauts themselves. Capcom Bruce McCandless commented, “It’s really great. The colours are fantastic.”

Images of the Apollo-10 crew captured during one of the broadcasts from the CM. Stafford (top), Cernan (middle), Young (bottom)

The Apollo-10 crew must have thought their colour camera was a great new toy, as they treated Earth audiences to nineteen colour television transmissions, totalling 5 hours 52 minutes across the entire mission. In one of the early broadcasts, the crew displayed colour illustrations of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, produced by a NASA illustrator, which I understand were intended as colour calibration checks.



During another broadcast on the way to the Moon, Astronauts Stafford and Young were shown side by side, with Young upside down to demonstrate the weightless environment. Col. Stafford, using just a light touch, moved his CM pilot up and down, as Young joked “I do everything he tells me.”

Monitors in Mission Control show the Stafford-Young broadcast from the CM demonstrating the weightless environment

The first broadcast after Trans-Earth Injection was initially received in Australia and distributed to the local television networks (albeit in black and white, since we don't yet have colour television), prior to transmission back to the United States and on to the rest of the world. This functioned as a test for the systems that have been put in place to handle Australia's potential role as the prime receiver for Apollo-11's lunar surface transmissions.

Amusingly, the normally laconic Cernan and Stafford gushed like schoolboys on an outing, clearly excited to be floating in weightlessness, on their way to the Moon. Speaking of which, it was just shortly before this flight that NASA determined what was causing some astronauts to get "space sick" during missions. It wasn't a cold or food-related; it was weightlessness, itself, affecting the inner ear adversely.


Eating Out
Food for the astronauts is being continually improved, and new items were added to the menu on this mission, such as small sandwiches with real bread, and ham, chicken and tuna salad. I've heard that this expanded menu was a real boost to the crew's morale as they travelled to the Moon – although looking at pictures of some space foods, I'm not so sure that they are appetising, even if they are nutritious.



(above) Some of the new menu items available to the Apollo-10 crew. (below) I'm not so sure about the new dehydrated chicken salad!



Another innovation for Apollo-10 has been the introduction of the "wet pack" or "spoon bowl" packaging, allowing the astronauts to eat many meals with a spoon! To reduce the risk of food floating away and becoming a nuisance and potential hazard to electronic equipment, the spoon-eatable wet pack food is mixed with just enough water to make it sticky, so that it clings to the inside of the container and sticks on the spoon.

(above) A spoon-bowl container with a beef and vegetable meal. It looks a lot more enjoyable to eat than that chicken salad

Unfortunately, some food on Apollo-10 was not so morale-boosting, as Col. Stafford apparently put too much chlorine in the drinking water used to rehydrate the meals, making the dehydrated foods taste strange.

Cruising Along
The astronauts had a relatively light workload on the way to the Moon, with only one slight course correction to place Apollo-10 on the trajectory Apollo-11 is expected to take. The only real problem they encountered was that the mylar cover of the CM’s hatch pulled loose, spreading shreds of fibreglass insulation into the docking tunnel, CM and LM.

Photograph of the Earth from 100,000 miles, showing parts of Africa, Europe and the Middle East

About 62 hours after launch, Apollo-10 crossed into the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence, passing about 10 hours later into the darkness of the lunar shadow. Just on 76 hours into the mission, Apollo-10 passed behind the Moon, with the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn occurring out of radio contact with the Earth. Fortunately, this manoeuvre experienced no issues and Apollo-10, now safely in lunar orbit, emerged from the behind the Moon to begin the real work of the mission. “You can tell the world that we have arrived,” Col. Stafford announced.

The Real Work Begins
Almost as soon as they were back in contact with the Earth, the crew began describing the lunar terrain they were flying over, with Commander Cernan saying, “It might sound corny, but the view is really out of this world.” Within the first couple of hours at the Moon, after circularising their orbit at approximately 60 nautical miles above the Moon, the crew began planned observations of lunar surface landmarks. This included photographing three of the proposed Apollo-11 landing sites (which the astronauts would also photograph at a lower altitude from LM Snoopy), as well as many craters and other surface features.

(top) A view of the prime Apollo-11 landing site. (bottom) Crater Necho on the far side of the Moon

For their first telecast from lunar orbit, the Apollo-10 crew described the lunar terrain speeding below them, which included the approach to the Apollo-11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquillity. I could only see this broadcast in black and white, but I understand that for viewers in the US and other parts of the world, the colour and quality of the television images was quite breathtaking: these stills made available to me by the Australian NASA representative certainly suggest that!

(top) Colour view of craters Messier and Messier-A (bottom) Crater Maskelyne

Waking Up Snoopy
When Commander Cernan opened Snoopy’s hatch for the first time, to be engulfed in fibreglass particles from the earlier damage to the CM hatch, bits got into his hair and eyebrows. Col. Stafford helped remove some of these particles, remarking that the LM Pilot “looked like he just came out of a chicken coop”. Though the astronauts used a vacuum cleaner to remove as much of the fibreglass particles as possible, tiny flecks annoyingly continued to circulate in the spacecraft, making the astronauts itch. They got into the air conditioning system and had to be constantly scraped from the CM’s filter screens for the rest of the mission.

Despite the fibreglass nuisance, Cernan partially activated the LM, conducted communications checks, and prepared the vehicle for its test flight. “I’m personally very happy with the fellow”, the LM Pilot later reported to Mission Control, saying in reference to the next day’s flight “We’ll take him out for a walk and let him stretch his legs in the morning.”

A spectacular Earthrise image captured during Apollo-10's first orbit of the Moon

Taking Snoopy for a Walk
Apollo-10’s first full day in lunar orbit was going to be its busiest, with the critical eight-hour sequence of manoeuvres in lunar orbit to simulate all aspects of Apollo-11 mission operations except the landing itself. Stafford and Cernan transferred to Snoopy, while Young remained in Charlie Brown. Despite some issues with the docking tunnel, Mission Control assured the astronauts that it was safe to undock, and the two craft separated while they were out of contact behind the Moon.

Returning to contact with Earth, Commander Young made a visual inspection of the LM and then fired the CM’s thrusters to separate from Snoopy. With a GO from Mission Control, Snoopy commenced its Descent Orbit Insertion burn while on the lunar farside, to lower itself to about 50,000 feet. This critical manoeuvre took place behind the Moon, so that the low point of its orbit would be reached on the nearside near the Apollo-11 landing area in the Sea of Tranquillity. As they looped back around to the nearside of the Moon, Cernan reported to Capcom Charles Duke, “We is down among them, Charlie,” referring to their low altitude over the lunar landscape.

A low-altitude view of the Apollo-11 prime landing site, focussed towards the upper right of the image

Snoopy successfully tested the landing radar, a particularly critical test in advance of the actual landing mission, as the crew maintained a running commentary describing the landscape below them, including all the landmarks leading up to the planned Apollo 11 landing site. This was followed by a firing of the LM’s Descent Propulsion System to set up the right orbital geometry for a simulated liftoff from the Moon during the next orbit.

Crisis averted
As Snoopy’s crew prepared to separate the LM’s ascent stage from the lower stage, the vehicle began to gyrate and tumble out of control, causing Cernan to utter a shocked expletive that was broadcast live, bringing some complaints about his language (though I think his outburst was perfectly understandable in the circumstances).

Col. Stafford quickly discarded the descent stage and fought to manually regain control of the LM, suspecting a thruster stuck firing.  Fortunately, after about eight seconds Snoopy was brought back under control and the Ascent Stage, was able to safely climb to orbit, mimicking the orbital insertion manoeuvre after launch from the lunar surface that Apollo-11 would have to conduct.

For a tense hour, it looked as if the Apollo-11 mission was in jeopardy. If the ascent stage always subjected its crew to "wild gyrations" upon firing, that was a problem that had to be solved, and pronto. Fortunately, the actual cause of the problem was determined quickly: it seems that a switch controlling the mode of the abort guidance system, a sort of back-up computer, has been left on, conflicting with the main guidance computer. That issue is easily resolved with a better checklist!

Blue Moon
There are rumours that NASA deliberately did not load Snoopy with enough propellant to safely land on the Moon and return to orbit, in order to dissuade Stafford and Cernan from unofficially attempting the first lunar landing. However, I’m told that, since Snoopy was overall too heavy to attempt a safe return from the lunar surface, the ascent stage was loaded with the equivalent quantity of propellant that it would have had remaining if it had lifted off from the lunar surface and reached the altitude at which the Apollo-10 ascent stage was fired.

After coasting for about an hour, Snoopy performed manoeuvres to bring it close to Charlie Brown, while the two craft were behind the Moon. Just after they returned to contact with the Earth, Commander Young completed the CM-LM docking, with Stafford joking that “Snoopy and Charlie Brown are hugging each other.” During its independent flight of 8 hours 10 minutes, Snoopy met all planned objectives for the Lunar Module flight tests.

The scene in Mission Control as the LM and CM are safely docked together

With all the astronauts safely back in the CM, Snoopy was cut free from Charlie Brown. To prevent any further contact between the two spacecraft, Snoopy’s ascent engine was automatically fired to fuel depletion, sending it safely out of lunar orbit and into an orbit around the Sun. LM Pilot Cernan said sadly, “I feel sort of bad about that, because he’s a pretty nice guy; he treated us pretty well today.”

On Their Way Home
During their final day in lunar orbit, the Apollo-10 crew took stereo images of the Apollo-11 landing site, gave another 24-minute colour TV broadcast, and prepared the spacecraft for its critical Trans Earth Injection manoeuvre, that would send the CM out of lunar orbit and on its way back to Earth. Just as with Apollo-8, this critical engine firing occurred while the spacecraft was behind the Moon and out of radio communications with Earth.

With extra fuel left over from the lunar activities, Apollo-10 burnt it off to accelerate the spacecraft back to Earth, the return trajectory taking only 42 hours rather than the normal 56. By the time it reached re-entry, the CM was travelling at 24,791 mph relative to Earth on re-entry, making the crew of Apollo 10 the fastest humans in history!

During their relatively lazy return to Earth, the Apollo-10 astronauts indulged themselves with the first shave in space. Using safety razors, a thick shaving gel and a wet cloth to wipe away gel and whiskers, the crew displayed freshly shaven visages during their final broadcast from space.

Eight days after launch (with a mission elapsed time of 192:03:23), Apollo-10 splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on 26 May, about 400 nautical miles east of American Samoa and just a couple of miles from the recovery ship USS Princeton. The carrier crew witnessed the spectacular sight of the Service Module streaking across the pre-dawn sky in a blazing fireball as it burned up, followed by the Command Module silhouetted against the brightening sky under its three big parachutes.

When the astronauts, waiting in their “rubber-ducky” to be retrieved, looked up at the recovery helicopter hovering above they saw “Hello there Charlie Brown” written across the underside of the fuselage!

After taking a congratulatory phone call from President Richard Nixon, the crew were flown to Pago Pago and then on to Ellington Air Force Base near Houston, where they are now undergoing medical checks, debriefing and, of course, re-union with their families.

Apollo-10 has completed an epic voyage that has in many ways surpassed even Apollo-8. Its completion of a successful full-dress rehearsal, means that nothing now stands in the way of the first manned landing taking place in July 1969, with Apollo-11 – that will be the BIG one, to stand on the shoulders of this big test-flight mission. I can't wait!

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[May 26, 1969] Cornelius Overload! New Worlds, June 1969

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

The continuing voyage of the new-new-new New Worlds continues apace. (Apologies – I’m still recovering from being told that it looks like the BBC are finally – finally! – going to show Star Trek over here starting in the Summer!)

Anyway, on to this month’s issue. 
A black and white drawing of Jerry Cornelius, staring at the reader. Black skin, white hair, black clothing, red background, , with a blue background. The head is facing towards the reader in the middle of the page.
Cover by Mal Dean

Well, that’s better!! After the succession of frankly dull covers with faces on, this is a breath of fresh air – scarily dark, vivid, startling – never has Jerry Cornelius looked more frightening. Should get casual readers interested!

Lead-In by The Publishers

The fact that we have two stories of Jerry Cornelius this month is heralded by the Lead-In, as it should.

A Cure for Cancer (Part 4 of 4) by Michael Moorcock
IMAGE: We have a black person facing a group of inviduals in the story- a bishop, a woman holding a gun, a naked woman, a woman in a catsuit, an officious looking male and a question mark.Drawing by Mal Dean

As we reach the end of the story things begin to make some sense, although to some extent the point of the story is to be confusing, I think!

It is still non-linear, almost dadaist in its narrative structure. This is a story less about plot and more about the little vignettes, scattered across different times and different universes. At times the contradictory nature of these elements add to the confusion.

Keeping it simple, Jerry manages to retrieve the gizmo he has been chasing over the last three parts and we now know that it is important because it allows the user to control multiple universes and see all the alternatives at once. As a result, characters we thought had gone now reappear – Bishop Beesley, Jerry’s brother Frank, Mitzi, and most important to Jerry, his sister Catherine.

The Cure for Cancer is perhaps most important for being an indicator of the times. It is the sort of story I think you need to read with Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?, or the Beatles’ White Album playing in the background – both artists have been mentioned in the narrative. Its thoughts on race, war (deliberately satirising Vietnam) and sexual freedom are indicative of being made for an angry, disillusioned and, perhaps most of all, young readership. 4 out of 5.

Three Events of the Same View by John G. Chapman

Another one of those anti-religious stories New Worlds likes. In the first part, Pope Honorius is imprisoned in a castle by the cardinals after declaring there is no God. In the second, a domestic scene involving a garden shed and a request to store cadavers there before an Undertakers Convention. In the third, the view is from a Commandant in a concentration camp. Nice prose, but if there’s a connection, I couldn’t see it. 3 out of 5.

Playback by Granville Hawkins

An un-named narrator uses illegal equipment to play back a recording of sex. It unfolds that the recording is of his wife, who with their children has been killed in a destroyed London by the moralistic "Calvs". As a final act of defiance, our narrator shows the unlawful recording to the public by projecting it onto a chapel wall. It doesn’t end well. An odd yet memorable story, well written, graphically depicting a dystopian future – rather like Orwell’s 1984 meets the Night of the Long Knives, with racist hangings, castrations and sex. 3 out of 5.

Babel by Alan Burns

PHOTO: Two images, split horizontally. The top half shows owls. The bottom half has two people running from left to right across the picture. One is a man dressed as a cowboy, the other a woman dressed in a black catsuit. Drawing by Mal Dean

An author on his debut here. This is a story that has paragraphs, each a different story. In other words, this is Ballard-type pastiche, which could be good, but this is filled with such stream of consciousness nonsense that it feels like a bad hallucinogenic drug trip. For example: “Men are opening the Moon. Streams of wheels have springs of space.” 2 out of 5.

Between the Tracks by Ron Pagett and Tom Veich

A story with the same events repeated over and over, but slightly different each time. Most begin with a ‘boy’ travelling along ‘the tracks’ but things are not what they seem. Allegorical tale, with nods to Bradbury’s Martian stories, I noticed. Nicely done, but I’m not sure I ‘got it’. 3 out of 5.

Spoor by Alan Passes

PHOTO: An black and white photo of ripples in water, possibly a lake. Photograph by Gabi Nasemann

A story about a man searching for Jayne in a Royal Park. Along the way a number of people around him are suddenly eaten by dangerous animals – a lion, an alligator. At the end he finds Jayne fornicating with a gorilla. I get the impression that all this is meant to be funny (“Me Tarzan, you Jane”, perhaps?), but I just found it unpleasant and meaningless. Another dream-state tale. 2 out of 5.

Flower Gathering by Langdon Jones

IMAGE: A picture of the page, showing pretty patterns of text that say THE GARLANDS OF LOVE WEAVE FOR US.
Langdon Jones’s latest piece, text written out in pretty patterns (which is rapidly becoming a prose-thing that I hate) to say THE GARLANDS OF LOVE WEAVE FOR US – or is that WEAVE FOR US THE GARLANDS OF LOVE? I guess this is an attempt to give prose a new form, but for me pretty meaningless. 1 out of 5.

Sub-Entropic Evening by Graham Charnock

IMAGE: A photograph of a man with curly hair playing a guitar whose face is obscured by a gas mask. Photograph by Gabi Nasemann

We’re back in Graham’s CRIM-world for this one. (The first was in New Worlds in November 1968, the last in the March issue three months ago.) This is a story where nothing is what it seems, another set of descriptions written as if the people are in a drug-induced, dream-like state. Jones, Dragon, Velma, and Cat live near an Arena where people seen as enemies of the state are routinely incinerated, and there’s a music concert played by musicians which can cause blindness and death in some sort of suicide pact. It’s all vivid but odd and rather unpleasant. Not a place I’d want to live in, but I guess that is the point. 3 out of 5.

The Fermament Theorem by Brian W Aldiss

A black and white drawing of four figures walking to the foreground, emerging from a desert island. The person in front is carrying a head on a pole.Drawing by Mal Dean

In which Brian Aldiss takes up the mantle to write a Jerry Cornelius story. Earlier in the year Mike Moorcock did say that the sharing of the Jerry Cornelius character was about to happen. Is it any good? It is such a confused mess of satire, social commentary and sex that readers will either think of it as a work of genius or be horrified by the unstructured elements claiming to be a story.

IMAGE: A black and white image drawn in a circle of an old man waving a white flag that has been shot in the head.Drawing by Mal Dean

I enjoyed it, even if I’m not sure I understood it all. There’s a story in there about the origin of the solar system being allied to the Moon and sex, comments on popularism and culture, not to mention lots of obscure references to people such as astronomer and science fiction writer Fred Hoyle, the Archbishop of Canterbury and author Robert Graves. In summary, Aldiss manages to take the key characteristics of a JC story – fluid sexuality, references to culture, fashion and society – and turn them into a satirical commentary – I think. What I found most interesting was that although Cornelius barely appears in the story, Aldiss has managed to write a Jerry Cornelius story in Moorcock’s style. It doesn’t feel out of place in the Jerry Cornelius series, although lighter in tone than A Cure for Cancer. I’ll give it 4 out of 5, although I accept that it could score anywhere between 2 (unstructured mess) – and 5 (work of genius!) depending on the person reading it.

Book Reviews: Use Your Vagina by J. G. Ballard

Image of the advertisement for the book as shown on the back page of New Worlds.Advertisement from the back cover for the reviewed book.

In which J. G. Ballard reviews in detail a “sexual handbook.” Wouldn’t happen in Analog!

Book Reviews: The Boy from Vietnam by M. John Harrison

More relevant, perhaps, Harrison reviews a collection of two stories, one by Aldiss and one by Ballard in a book entitled The Inner Landscape, with varying degrees of success. Harrison then claims that Aldiss is “on better form” with his collection of five novellas in Intangibles, Inc. Eric Burdick’s Old Rag Bone is a non-genre book seemingly dealing with Catholic guilt.

Lastly and in keeping with contemporary themes, Harrison reviews Norman Mailer’s Why Are We in Vietnam? reminding me that the magazine is sold in the US as well as England. The book was reviewed in more detail by Douglas Hill in the March 1968 issue of New Worlds.

Book Reviews: The Comrade from Ploor by James Cawthorn

James Cawthorn generously reviews E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Subspace Explorers as a book that “offers the kind of entertainment that made the good old days of sf what they were” (ie: not the sort of story found in New Worlds today!), Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen which “stretches credibility just a little” and John Brunner’s Double! Double! which has “no credibility whatsoever”. There’s also an Ace Double with Code Duello by Mack Reynolds and The Age of Ruin by John M. Faucett, a review of a new biography of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Richard A. Lupoff, World of the Starwolves—a space opera by Edmond Hamilton, and positive reviews of James H. Schmitz’s This Demon Breed and Hal Clement’s story collection, Small Changes. I was pleased to see some more traditional sf get some positive comments.

Book Reviews: The Machiavellian Method by R. Glynn Jones

R. Glynn Jones reviews a book on tyranny, which is most disconcerting for having photographs of Hitler’s teeth.

Book Reviews: Woman’s Realm by D. R. Boardman

Lastly, D. R. Boardman reviews The Tunnel by Maureen Lawrence, a “competent first novel”. Was mildly pleased to see that it has been written by an ex-academic who is local to me, but not really my sort of thing, being the story of “a bored lonely woman living a boring life”.

Summing up New Worlds

Good news: although the scores may not reflect it, this is a better issue than the last. Although not perfect, the magazine scores with the conclusion of the Moorcock serial and Brian Aldiss’s take on the character. They are recognisably similar yet different, both confusing and subversive. New readers will not have a clue, regular readers will appreciate the word play and anti-establishment satire.

On the other side of the coin, there is also lots of material by relative unknowns, the new lifeblood of the magazine. Most of it is acceptable, though rarely outstanding. For example, the Hawkins was OK, but like Obtuowicz’s story last month really was another unpleasant story without anything really new to offer, Alan Passes’ Spoor was just dreadful.

Anyway, that’s it, until next time.




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Horror, Movies

[May 24, 1969] Cinemascope: The [NOUN] of [PROPER NAME]’s [NOUN]: Blood of Dracula's Castle and Nightmare in Wax

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by Fiona Moore

It’s exam time here at Royal Holloway College, and there’s nothing better than a bad movie to burn off the stress whether you’re studying or marking. As a break from examining sociology papers, I’ve taken in a double bill of new American movies to check out the state of the low-budget horror world in, well, the States.

Poster for Blood of Dracula's Castle
Poster for Blood of Dracula's Castle

A young couple (Gene O’Shane and Barbara Bishop) inherit a castle somewhere in Arizona (yes, really). Upon arrival, they find out that the tenants are Dracula (Alexander D’Arcy), his wife (Paula Raymond), his pagan priest butler (John Carradine and probably the best thing in the movie), a shambling moronic manservant named, for some reason, Mango (Ray Young), and a werewolf (Robert Dix). At this point the viewer should be wondering if this is, in fact, a spoof along the lines of The Addams Family or Carry on Screaming, but no, apparently it’s being done straight. It continues on in the same grab-bag-of-horror-cliches vein (pun intended), echoing the Mad Libs feel of the title, up to an ending which I think is a cargo-cult version of the climax of Witchfinder General.

A still from Blood of Dracula's Castle depicting four people chatting in the hall of a castle.
The Draculas: they're just regular folks.

Which is a pity, because I think there could be genuine satirical potential in a modern-day Dracula. He and his wife are living an affluent and luxurious Southwestern socialite lifestyle; rather than biting their victims to death, they have a cellar full of young women whose blood they periodically extract and drink from wine-glasses. It’s not too far a stretch to view this as a metaphor for the movie world, where the old and established prey on the young and naïve, and get away with it thanks to a permissive social environment. Their relationship with the werewolf, Johnny, is also one that could have been more interestingly explored, as they use him to do their dirty work so as to maintain plausible deniability. But this isn’t that movie.

I never like to be totally negative about a film, so I will say that the landscape is beautiful and is shot to its best advantage. The castle scenes were filmed at the real-life Shea’s Castle, a 1920s folly in the California (not Arizona) desert, and I’d like to see more of it. The opening features a groovy theme tune that really ought to make it into the charts.

A still from Blood of Dracula's Castle depicting a human sacrifice ritual.
There's also a human sacrifice scene, because you have to have one of those for some reason.

However, the acting is wooden, the script appears to be a first draft, there are a lot of time-wasting filler sequences and inexplicable character actions. For instance, the girls that the Draculas have chained up in the cellar apparently just hang there, not bothering to attempt escape or even conversation. A human sacrifice to the god (sic) Luna takes place right in front of our protagonists and neither of them do anything to stop it or even raise an objection. The horror is surprisingly chaste and bloodless (particularly given the movie’s title) so there isn’t even the benefit of titillation or a good cathartic wallow in gore. The opening section is a long and seemingly pointless advertisement for an aquatic theme park named Marineland.

One star, mostly for the castle.

Poster for Nightmare in Wax
Poster for Nightmare in Wax

Vincent Renard (Cameron Mitchell), a brilliant Hollywood makeup artist and lover of the beautiful actress Marie Morgan (Anne Helm), is disfigured when the studio head Max Block (Berry Kroeger), who has designs on Marie himself, throws a glass of wine at Renard just as the latter lights a cigarette. Some time later, Vincent is working at a Hollywood-themed wax museum; Marie’s boyfriends seem to have a habit of disappearing, and tribute mannequins of them winding up in Vincent’s wax museum. You can see where this is going, particularly as one can assume his revenge plan for Max is a bit more complicated than simple murder, though there’s a twist at the end which could have been better handled.

A still from Nightmare in Wax depicting a man working on a wax head.
How to get a head in Hollywood.

The performances are at least better than in Blood of Dracula’s Castle, with two weary policemen (Scott Brady and Johnny Cardos) trying their best to investigate the goings-on and Victoria Carroll providing some humour as Theresa, a mercenary blonde trying to get onto Max’s casting couch. There’s some knowing humour about Hollywood and its incestuous, venal culture, and, once again, there’s a groovy psychedelic dance number, albeit in the middle of the movie rather than the start.

We get a little more motivation for the main character than in the previous movie, through the interesting, if not terribly original, idea which comes in towards the end of the story, that Vincent is convinced everyone else is laughing at him and yet we also see that the other characters, in fact, respect his genius as an artist even if they think he’s a bit weird as a person. His turn towards misogyny is also credibly introduced, as his experiences with Hollywood cause him to believe that all women are simply interested in trading sex for career advancement.

A still from Nightmare in Wax depicting Vincent's laboratory.
I hope I wasn't the only one who shouted "Frying tonight!" at the sight of the boiling vat of wax.

Again, though, it’s all a bit tedious and bloodless, and the cliché of the bitter, scarred artist has been done, well, to death. This is another movie where the script could definitely have done with another draft: plot threads are left hanging, and the motivations of secondary characters left unexplained. The idea that Vincent is deeply insecure really ought to have been brought into the story earlier than it is. A movie director who is something of a Hitchcock figure, but young and handsome, is introduced with great fanfare, leading one to assume that he will be Marie’s new love interest and the one who saves her from Vincent’s twisted affections, but then he vanishes from the story with no explanation.

Two stars.

One conclusion I’m drawing from this slate of films is that the traditional horror genre is, for the moment at least, played out. Vampires, werewolves, twisted scarred genisues and imperiled ingenues don’t have much to offer these days. The future, on both sides of the Atlantic, is clearly with the folk horror movement.




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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction