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[June 20, 1968] Art imitates Life (the wargame Viet Nam)

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by Gideon Marcus

Over There

It seems like only yesterday that a minor naval engagement in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam embroiled the world's mightiest nation in a struggle against Communism in Southeast Asia. Less than a year later, the American commitment totaled 100,000 troops. Today, as the last aftershocks of the second Tet Offensive are beaten back from Saigon, more than half a million soldiers are fighting and dying in those far off jungles and cities.

It's a war unlike any other we've fought, though perhaps not unlike wars our allies have fought–there's a reason why the British, who fought an ultimately successful anti-guerrilla war in Malaya, have declined to join us in Vietnam.  It's not really a war for territory, nor a total war, as we fought against the Nazis or the Japanese.  It's a holding action, a war for "hearts and minds", holding the bag until the South Vietnamese can fight for themselves–if, indeed, that will ever be possible.

So new and unusual is this conflict that one would hardly expect it to be a viable subject for board wargaming.  After all, the pushers of counters on hex grids have largely stuck to World War 2 and the Civil War for their battlefields, highly researched and decently distant as they are.

And yet, just one year after Tonkin, Game Science came out with Viet Nam, a sophisticated wargame covering the war on a strategic level.  Could a game developed so early in the conflict have any chance of modeling reality?  And is it any fun?  This Memorial Day, we took the game for a spin and came to some very interesting conclusions.

In the trenches

The first thing one notices about Viet Nam is the board.  Rather than use the hex grid that has become de rigueur these last several years, it reverts to areas like in last decade's Diplomacy.  This makes sense.  Viet Nam is not a game of tactical maneuvers but of strategic province control.

The Allied forces (Americans, ARVN, Koreans, Filipinos, Australians) and the Communists (Viet Cong and NVA) start out splitting the provinces between them.  Control is indicated with a little bingo disc that represents a local militia.  Each side also gets a number of regular armies, the Allies starting with more, but acquiring them at half the rate of the Communists.  The regular armies are important because they are the only units that can both move and hold ground, the local militias adding strength but being both immobile and subject to flipping by the enemy.

The Allies also get air units that can be used for tactical support of armies (adding to their strength), strategic bombing of provinces (with a chance of destroying Communist units in the area), interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail (which kills Communist reinforcements) and mass bombing of North Vietnam (which earns victory points).  Bad weather in the summer and fall months limits strategic air missions.

Each turn, simulating one month, begins with both sides allocating ten factors towards various political activities: bolstering/destabilizing the government, terrorism/counter-terrorism, psychological warfare (to flip militias), seeking world favor (worth victory points), and ambush/counter-ambush (a trap for Allied armies).  This is essentially Rock-Paper-Scissors and the place where the Communists can win the game.  Unless the Allies guess right every time, they will lose stability or provinces, each of which leads them down the path of losing victory points.  Once below a certain level, they go down to nine or fewer factors to apply in this phase, which is a spiral of doom toward defeat.

After the political phase, both sides plot their moves in secret.  The Communists are trying to seize provinces and Allied bases.  The Allies are seizing provinces, defending, and allocating air power.  As the Communist players in our game quickly learned, randomness is key–there are always a dozen places they can attack, and the less consistent they are, the less chance the Allies will anticipate and head off an attack.

Combat is another kind of Rock-Paper-Scissors, each side having a set of four cards depicting various attack strategies.  In each conflict, the two players choose cards and then compare the two to determine the result.  For the Americans, the outcome is either inconclusive or a victory resulting in the loss of a regular army.  For the Communists, they are either forced to retreat or they win.  In other words, this is a part of the game the Communists will also ultimately win once they understand the cards, as the Allies cannot guess right every time, and they run out of armies faster than the Communists.  The more provinces under Communist control, the more mobility they get, again building momentum toward victory.

So is the game hopeless for the Allies?  Maybe not.  The game begins in January 1965, when weather is excellent.  Optimal strategy suggests that the Allies should interdict the NVA for those good months, allowing the Allies to build up an army superiority.  The Communists can only really run rampant if they have the regular troops for it.  If any air power be left over, the Allies should immediately start bombing North Vietnam as it is the only sure way to get victory points–it is the Allied counterpart to the Communists' political factor advantage.

Provided the Allies can contain the NVA and make lucky guesses to keep the Communists stalled, it is possible that, over time, the Communists will be forced below 10 political points per turn and, themselves, end up on the slide to defeat.  It'd be a long slog, but it is at least conceivable.

Proof in the pudding

I spotted Viet Nam not at my local game store, but in the campus store at the new campus of University of California San Diego.  Though the copyright on the game is 1965, various references in the rules and components suggest this is a brand new edition, updated based on three years of conflict.  Thus, I don't know how prescient the original was.

That said, the game seems to suggest that unless the United States goes bombing right out of the gate, as many generals urged us to do, there is no chance of victory.  Even a six month delay results in swarms of NVA and endless Red provinces.  Moreover, even had we gone in, bombs blazing (and what might the political ramifications vis. a vis. the Soviets been of that?), Viet Nam suggests that victory still would not have been certain, and it would have taken a long time.

It seems like an accurate simulation to me!

But is it fun?  Well, we enjoyed it at the time, all eight hours that we played before the Allies conceded the game to the Communists in latter 1965.  But on further analysis, there actually isn't that much to enjoy.  It's all a matter of luck, see-sawing back and forth on the victory point chart, until a lucky break drives the meter over to either a win or the inevitable road to defeat.

Thus, Viet Nam is less a game and more a puzzle–and a lesson.  Once the puzzle be solved and the lesson absorbed, there is not much replay value.

Just like the real war…




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Magazine/Anthology, Science / Space Race

[June 18, 1968] I Just Read It for the Stories (February-June 1968 Playboy)

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by Erica Frank

Introduction

After looking over Playboy in January and finding Vonnegut's gem of a story, I decided to check out the next few issues. This time I skipped all the political commentary (which is mostly "money is good and women should wear fewer clothes") and focused on the stories and articles potentially of interest to science fiction fans.

March 1968 Playboy cover - a naked woman with a bunny painted on her back looks over her shoulder
Cover of March 1968's Playboy. I found this the least-boring cover of the set – the only one that looks like she's having fun.

I read everything that looked remotely like it might be a science fiction story, even though some of them were a stretch. I also looked at the science-related articles. There are quite a few of them, since this covers a five-month period.

A Day in the Life of…, by Ralph Schoenstein (February)
The full title of this story is "A Day in the Life of President George Romney—Or Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Charles Percy, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, Lurleen and George Wallace." It's a satire inspired by Jim Bishop's A Day in the Life of President Johnson, speculating about the biographies of other potential presidents. I had hoped this involved some kind of parallel universe setting, or time travel… but no. This is just mild political commentary, a few paragraphs of satirical character study on each.

Romney awakens at 5 a.m. and scowls at his wife for addressing him by his first name. Kennedy leaps from his bed and cartwheels into the bathroom. Nixon polls his public to find out if he should get out of bed in the morning. Reagan is refraining from sex for the duration of his presidency to avoid the risk of marks. King never smiles and never argues. Humphrey worships LBJ and calls him "Big Daddy."

As satire: 3 stars. As science fiction: 1 star–there's some vague hint of multiple universes, but that's all.

Hat Trick, by Robert Coover (February)
Certainly interesting. A magician performs a hat trick – pulling bunnies, doves, another hat, and eventually, a whole assistant out of his hat. And then the story turns dark. This had some surprising twists and a disturbing ending.

4 stars; this one will stick with me.

The Chronicle of the 656th, by George Byram (March)
The set-up: a former student brings his professor a locked box, found buried under a house he'd purchased. The box contains Civil-War-era documents and objects – and a notebook dated 1944. After establishing that this was not a hoax, he'd read through the notebook: an entire army combat team had vanished from their WWII training area and found themselves in 1864. They help win a major Civil War battle, although several of the team members are conflicted – their families and ancestors are from the South.

The writing is good, but the story is not. Everyone dies, so there's no time paradox to address. It reads like normal fiction, not like a series of diary entries. I guessed the big secret as soon as they established what happened. (Secret atomic bomb testing sent them back in time! How shocking!) This must be what the mundanes think science fiction is supposed to be.

2 stars. Unless you enjoy war stories, in which case, it may be 3.

The Origin of Everything, by Italo Calvino (March)
This "story" is two vignettes that take place at the beginning of the universe – one before the Big Bang (or, mostly before), and one a bit after. They are both whimsical explorations of the idea of "people" in places where people obviously cannot exist.


The art by George Suyeoka nicely captures the feel of the story.

There's a surreal conjunction the everyday and the cosmic: Mrs. Ph(i)Nko taking Mr. De XuaeauX to bed, but since they are all in a single point before the expansion of the universe,

…"it isn't a question of going to bed, but of being there, because anybody in the point is also in the bed. Consequently, it was inevitable that she should be in bed also with each of us.

After the creation of the universe, all of the residents of the point hope to find Mrs. Ph(i)Nko again, but alas, she cannot be found; only the memory of her love for them all survives.

In the second vignette, astral children play marbles with hydrogen atoms; one child has stolen all the new atoms, and one of his companions then tricks him with fake atoms made of junk.

4 stars; this was delightful.

The Bizarre Beauties of "Barbarella" (March)
This is a pictorial review of the movie that's coming out later this year, based on the French comic, "The erotic space adventures of Barbarella." I'm not familiar with the comic, but I gather it has

  • Beautiful women
  • Wearing very few clothes
  • Having sex
  • In space


The Black Queen enjoys a dream interlude with the angel Pygar, whom she's forced to obey her will.

Fashion of the future on the planet Lythion

Barbarella rescues Pygar, and then Pygar rescues Barbarella.

I'm not rating this, but I am looking forward to the movie when it comes out.

Bucking the scientific Establishment, by Theodore J. Gordon (April)
This is a nonfiction article about innovative scientists who were initially faced with derision and insults, and were later proved to be correct. …Or rather: this is an article about innovative historical scientists, and a handful of current scientists whose theories are still considered more in the category of "crackpot" than "fact," which the author would like you to believe are very plausible, as shown by the fact that several other scientists used to be considered crackpots but are now lauded as groundbreakers in their fields.

Author seems to have skipped over the thousands of so-called scientists who were widely believed to be crackpots and later were still believed to be crackpots.

2 stars. Reasonably entertaining writing; good facts; bad science.

Papa's Planet, by William F. Nolan (April)
This is short and I wish it were forgettable. Fortunately, it's incoherent enough that most of the details will fade with time. Philip, our protagonist, is Cecile's fourth husband; her father recently died and left him the deed to a planet. The story is obviously not meant to be taken seriously ("Five million miles out from Mars, we turned sharp left and there it was: Papa's Planet"), and while it's obviously science fiction–the planet is inhabited by nothing but Hemmingway clones–there's not really any actual story here. (Is this what the mundanes think science fiction is?)

2 stars. It's not anything like good but it's not overtly bad enough for me to rank it at 1 star.

The Annex, by John D. MacDonald (May)
I had hopes for this one. It started out interesting: a nurse tending an unconscious patient, discovering he's dislodged his IV needle. Then it shifts perspective entirely: Mr. Dave Davis visits a huge, strange building, in the process of being torn down while its residents refuse to leave. There are hints that he's on some kind of assignment from an agency; he tries not to reveal exactly why he's visiting or how he got access. His guide, Mrs. Dorn, refuses to let him find his own way, insisting he'd just get lost. (It is clear that yes, he would quickly get lost.) When they reach his destination–

The story loses focus. It gets a bit surreal; while I generally enjoy surreal–see my notes about the Calvino story above–this lacks the whimsy or allure that would allow it to be more than somewhat nonsensical. Then the story shifts back to the nursing ward, where Silvia Dorn is a nurse, her beloved Dave is being kept alive by machines, and the reader is obviously meant to draw meaning from these details in a way that eluded me.

3 stars, I suppose–I can tell there's a decent story here even if it seems to want a set of assumptions I don't share.

Henne Fire, by Isaac Bashevis Singer (May)
This is told folktale-style, a story of Jewish fantasy (of a sort) rather than classic science fiction. Henne Fire is a terrible woman–she has been so awful, all her life, that she basically became a demon. Or perhaps she was born as one. She was nasty to everybody. Eventually, she became prone to random attacks of hellfire–her clothing would catch fire, or little flames would start around her. She could not even move into the poorhouse; nobody wanted a boarder who would catch houses on fire. She pleaded with the rabbi to help her, and eventually, the town made her a small brick house–basically a shack made of stone, with a tin roof.

Illustration by Bernard McDonald

The neighbors might've just shunned her after that, but one of her daughters married a rich American and started sending her money. Suddenly everyone wanted to befriend her. (This did not make her a nicer person.) One day people noticed that Henne hadn't been around for a few days, and they found her remains at home–a burnt skeleton, sitting in a chair with no mark of fire on it.

3 stars; entertaining enough.

The Dead Astronaut, by J. G. Ballard (May)
After the space age is decades past–shut down after a bloody history of orbital accidents–a married couple awaits the crash landing of their friend who died 20 years ago, so they can gather his remains.

Charle Schorre's illustration is eye-catching and does not actually capture the tone of this semi-post-apocalyptic story.

I enjoyed this story, although it is not a happy tale and it does not end well for anyone. I especially enjoyed: Mrs. Groves had been (was still?) in love with the astronaut, and her husband does not seem to have been jealous–mostly amused, and a bit concerned for her. I did not enjoy: The revelation of the ominous secret (a bit too predictable), and the final moments where the husband says, "I never asked you–" and then looks at her, and realizes he has his answer.

What that answer was, what the question was, I do not know. This was obviously written for men of a certain class, of a certain culture, who would understand the unspoken words. I can recognize the poignancy of the ending but I don't know what actually happened.

3 stars. If I'd been part of the intended audience, it probably would be 4.

The Snooping Machine, by Alan Westin (May)
Another nonfiction piece, positing a cashless, computer-data-driven society by 1975. It mentions that computer tape is so efficient a storage medium that one could hold 2000 pages of data for each of America's two hundred million citizens in a single room, on as few as a hundred reels of tape.

It discusses some history of government data-gathering, which includes both "big brother" hysteria and a pressing need for accurate data on which to base decisions. (Which regions need better school funding? Which areas might need new roads?) Government officials have admitted it may be impossible to separate personal identity details from the data they need, and that sorting out the conflicting interests in privacy and data is an ongoing problem.

3 stars. A nice overview of data technology and both the problems and possibilities it brings, but a bit pedantic in approach.

The Man from Not-Yet, by John Sladek (June)
Epistolary fiction, told through letters. Two friends in 1772 discuss an incident some ten years past, in which they had a visitor who claimed to be from the future. He was questioned by Samuel Johnson, who asked disparaging questions–"You will want to tell me no doubt of carriages that operate without benefit of horses. Of engines that carry men through the air like birds. Of ships without sails."

The visitor is astounded that he has guessed the future so correctly, but Johnson just scoffs, until the man offers to bring him to the future. They visit his time machine; the two enter the device; after a few moments of silence, it glows and explodes, leaving Dr. Johnson in the wreckage but the traveler gone.

The remaining few letters let the readers know what happened, while the men themselves remain unaware.

3 stars. I have little interest in this kind of historical fiction, and there is almost no point to the story: too much exposition with a "gotcha" twist at the end.

Ghost, by Hoke Norris (June)
The protagonist of this story is a somewhat conservative, ambitious man who has a "ghost" that speaks to him constantly, urging wild and rebellious acts. The ghost was the previous inhabitant of his body, and he cannot get rid of it even though he is now in control. He is also dating the boss's wife's sister (instead of the girl he loves). He wants the money and status that comes with the high-class connections but he also wants the comfort and joy he finds with Marie; he is caught between these two issues (with the ghost constantly berating him for his ambition) until Marie turns up pregnant.

They have a fight, he goes for a walk, and everything changes.

4 stars–this one will (heh) haunt me.

Conclusion

Playboy is about on par with most science fiction magazines for quality, and better than some… if you can accept that it has only one to three pieces per issue that are relevant to science fiction fans. Although the stories are okay, with some much better than that, many of the best-written stories have dark themes or unhappy endings or both. It seems the average Playboy reader is not expected to be interested in stories of otherworldly exploration or how technology might solve our problems, but how people with psychic powers or spaceships are just as likely to be miserable as the average person today. It's heavy on pedantic verbosity and all rather depressing.

If you also like the libertarian politics, there is more entertainment per issue, and of course, if your interests include pictures of young women with their shirts off, it has quite a bit to offer.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 16, 1968] More Scandal! New Worlds, July 1968

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

It’s been a while, but it’s good to be back.

Something I suspect Editor Mike Moorcock has been saying too, because since I last wrote THINGS HAVE HAPPENED.

Quick recap, then. You might remember that last issue I said that newsagents W. H. Smith and Sons, Britain’s biggest newspaper and magazine vendor, in collaboration with John Menzies, refused to distribute the March issue of the magazine on the grounds of ‘obscenity and libel’, and that the national newspapers here once they got hold of the story brought it to national attention?

Well, it got further. In May, questions about the magazine, as a consequence of being partly paid for by the national Arts Council, were raised in the House of Commons, no less.

With national coverage in the House of Commons a Tory asked a question of Jennie Lee, the Minister for the Arts, asking why public money was being used in this manner (since the Arts Council is funded by taxes).

So New Worlds is now part of the records of British government, forever!

From what I understand Miss Lee gave a spirited riposte to the criticism, but what impact this will have on the magazine, I must admit that I don’t know. I’m lucky in that I get my copy through a subscription, but as most copies are purchased by casual buyers off the shelves in the newsagents this can only be bad – especially as I’ve said in the past that sales have recently declined, and Moorcock is desperate to increase revenue. It also means that readers are unlikely to see a copy at their local library.

On to this month’s issue.

Cover by Stephen Dwoskin

These covers seem to have regressed, haven’t they? This is the latest that to me echoes the bad old days at the end of the Carnell era, when there was just no money for artwork. Sound familiar? If you’re looking to grab attention, this isn’t it.

Lead in by The Publishers

Some changes here too. Editor Mike Moorcock has brought readers (those of us who are left, anyway) up to date with what has been happening in the Lead In, even if some kind of strange time warp has happened as the Editor claims that his comments were made “last month” and not actually in the April issue. Readers with a good memory and less impacted by this may remember what Moorcock said back in April, when more pages and pictures in colour were promised – clearly now that isn’t going to happen.

The rest is just the usual descriptions of the authors and their explanations of their stories, for those of us too unintelligent to work it out for ourselves.

Scream by Giles Gordon

Giles’s second published effort, after his story Line-Up on the Shore in the December 1967 issue of New Worlds .

Scream is another of those Ballardian-like stories divided into sections and often filled with stream of consciousness adjectives so beloved of New Worlds of late. It describes the effects of a single scream – in a city, on the people who hear it. Some panic and run whilst others are just confused. Result – a tale that feels like it wants to be seen as new, but really isn’t. There are lots of pseudo-meaningful phrases clumped together in a manner it would be wrong of me to describe as a story, emphasised by the point that the text has printed prose running at different angles around the page, which does little to endear the story to me as a reader.


Scream can be summed up as being full of allegorical symbolism, combined with language determined to grab your attention but to increasingly meaningless effect. It is memorable, but not always for good reasons. I hope I never have to come across the words “love juice” in New Worlds again. 2 out of 5.

Drake-Man Route by Brian W. Aldiss

And now on to the return of another regular and much-loved writer. Bad news, though – Drake-Man Route is another Charteris story. These have had diminishing returns for me since the first, Just Passing Through in the February 1967 issue of SF Impulse. And this one soon degenerates into the gobbledegook last seen in Auto-Ancestral Fracture in the December 1967 issue. Charteris has returned to England from Europe and travels north from London to try and communicate what he has seen. Lots of strange events occur as a result, with Charteris travelling with people who lapse into gibberish as a consequence of PCA Bombs in the Acid War, and meeting Brasher, the leader of the People of the new Proceed, the religious group created after the war. There are details on how Brasher got to this point, before they all drive off into an inconclusive ending marked by poetry, song lyrics and, guess what – more text running in unusual directions around the page.

Some may like these stories for their use of imaginative language, strange poetry, and drug-related symbolism. Others (like me) may be less impressed. Almost makes me rather read Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land instead, of which I’m really not a fan. I really hope there’s not many more of these. 2 out of 5.

Bug Jack Barron (Part 5 of 6) by Norman Spinrad


This one seems to have gone on forever. I now realise that with next issue being the final part I have been reading this story for over six months. Such an extended space of time does not help keeping up with this, although the summary of what has gone before helps, even if it now extends over a whole page in small print.

Things take a turn this issue, finally! After what feels like months of incessant ranty dialogue, Jack is contacted by the wife of Teddy Hennering, the Senator who co-founded the Freezer Bill with Howards and who Jack took to task live on air back in the first part of this story. He has been killed because he was about to reveal something about the Foundation – murdered by Howards, according to the wife. Jack dismisses the call as one borne of hysteria, but then the next day she is killed by a hit-and-run driver.

On Jack’s TV show that night negro Henry George Franklin makes a drunken claim that he had sold his daughter to a white man for $50 000. After the show Howards demands that Franklin is kept off the air and threatens to kill Barron if he doesn’t. Barron’s response? Feeling that Howards is somehow involved, he goes to visit Franklin in the Mississippi.

After four parts of lengthy dialogue and debate we finally get something happening. Spinrad moves the plot along and clears the decks for presumably what will be a final showdown between Barron and Howards in the final part. For that reason, it is better, but still feels weary. 3 out of 5.

Instructions for Visiting Earth by Christopher Logue

Poetry time. This one is about how aliens should blend into the background by being predictable and conformist, but at the same time tells us of the things that make humans human. Despite it being rather unmemorable poetry, this one gains points for being both pleasingly short and – gasp! – understandable. 3 out of 5.

Plastitutes by John Sladek


Remember last month’s New Forms, Sladek’s story of a form that wasn’t a form? Here, Sladek’s at it again, producing a comic strip-style story that reminded me of the Charles Platt cut-up diatribes we’ve seen in recent issues. I quite liked the Platt versions, this one less so, a tale of satirical nonsense involving IBM, pictures of car parts and fake conversations between idealised figures of manhood and womanhood. Difficult to describe – this has to be seen rather than understood. The McLuhan is strong in this one. 3 out of 5.

Methapyrilene Hydrochloride Sometimes Helps by Carol Emshwiller

The latest in a number of recent stories by Carol in New Worlds, who seems to be blazing a trail for telling odd stories from a female perspective. This time it is a dialogue given by a woman/robot/alien (who knows?) about the strange relationship she has with a male Doctor and his daughter. Lots of biological comments and various body parts are involved. As predicted, it is odd, and I’m not sure I get it. 2 out of 5.

Two Voices by D. M. Thomas

I approached this one with caution after the awful “Head Rape” poem of the March issue. Thankfully this one is not quite as traumatic, although much longer than what we normally get – more of a poetic essay than a poem, involving two different perspectives. Unsurprisingly the story involves sex, birth and death (I think.) The accompanying artwork feels like something out of a psychedelic-Beatles creation. So – marks for style, ambition and intelligence, if not for literary quality. 3 out of 5.

The Definition by Bob Marsden

Another story obsessed with sex, though using deliberately florid and shocking language in an attempt to shock. It tells of the night (and the morning) after a rock concert party, with the associated sex, drugs and rock and roll. I suspect it is meant to be satirical, but rather than being innovative and interesting, this was just silly – the point where a drunken character is hit on the head with “an autopenis” was the limit for me.  2 out of 5.

A Landscape of Shallows by Christopher Finch

Art  by Francois Vasseur

A tale that in its dry observations and depiction of its settings, not to mention in its detailed descriptions of vehicles, feels like a Ballard-style tale. Set in an Arabian country, Drover works for Delta Studios, who create advertising campaigns created by computer that use all senses – sight, hearing, taste and smell. There he meets Amaryllis, who tests the machine used to create Drover’s experiences, and this leads to a one-night stand, although the focus of the story seems to be on Drover’s occupation.

I must admit that for much of this story I couldn’t work out what was real and what was imagined by Drover as he relates his dream-like descriptions back. I suspect that this uncertainty may be the point of the plot. Some interesting ideas though – as well as the idea of fully immersive art, I quite liked the idea of the car radio that adapts to the user and their moods. Despite its relatively linear structure, I found I was enjoying this more than I thought I would, probably because it followed the needlessly poetic and pseudo-intellectual style of the previous stories. Still Ballard-light, though. It actually reminded me a little of the last Langdon Jones story published here, in its determination to change form between sections. 4 out of 5.

The Circular Railway by John Calder


As the Lead-In tells us, John’s last work here was Signals in the September 1966 issue. The Circular Railway is a story that on the surface does little more than describe a dreamlike journey taken on a railway, in poetic tones. But of course, being allegorical, it probably means more than it suggests. Overall, it makes me think of a typical train journey for me – one that is putting me to sleep. 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews – Dr. Moreau and the Utopians by C. C. Shackleton

No poetry reviews this month – instead, C. C. Shackleton (also known as Brian Aldiss) points out that the writings of H. G. Wells seem to be back in favour once more, and then addresses the idea that H. G. Wells has often been considered as an optimist. This may be surprising when you consider Wells’ works such as The Island of Dr, Moreau, which told of the horrors created by genetic manipulation.

Nevertheless, Shackleton eventually gets to the point of the review – that a book by Mark R. Hillegas entitled The Future As Nightmare looks at Wells’s ideas of utopia and how such ideas are regarded by his contemporaries and successors. Annoyingly, just as it seems to be getting to a point, the review is then truncated, to be continued next issue (optimistically).

An interesting article – but then as Aldiss/Shackleton is also a huge admirer of H. G. Wells, I would expect nothing less.

Summing up New Worlds

Clearly the long lay-off has given the New Worlds team chance to catch up on some poetry. As we had none in the last issue, this month we have two. I suspect that this may be new Associate Editor James Sallis’s fault.

We also seem to have had a new typewriter installed in the printing works, as we have not just one but two stories that mess around with
T
H
E
TEXT a BiT.

Aldiss has been guilty of such experimental prose before, whilst I think back to Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination back in the 1950’s.

I always feel that such textual acrobatics are more about style than substance, sadly. It’s not really new, nor really clever. And whilst I can appreciate the idea of writers playing with form, is it really necessary to have two doing the same thing in the same issue? It feels a little like desperation to me. The fact that, as much as Brian has done to retrieve New Worlds from the brink of bankruptcy, his Charteris stories do little or nothing for me doesn’t help.

But then I could say that about some of the other stories in this issue as well. The issue generally is filled with material that is odd, unpleasant, or both!

Most of all, this issue feels again like New Worlds is in a holding pattern. There are lots of middling or low scores, suggesting that this issue feels a bit like it is treading water. At its worst this feels like an issue that actually seems desperate, where there’s a need to publish but it is an issue made up of what’s available, rather than the best that New Worlds can be. There’s nothing here that I found particularly memorable, and the emphasis on trying to shock the readers seems to have diminishing returns – for me, at least.

This is a little worrying. I expect to find at least one story or article or review each issue to keep my interest and my subscription paid. This issue didn’t really have anything, although it could be argued that that in itself is a point of discussion.

As frustrating as this issue was, I know that I should be grateful to see anything this month – it is good to have New Worlds back again, even if who knows for how long.

I did not notice an advertisment for the next issue, worryingly.

Nevertheless, until next time – whenever that is!



 

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 14, 1968] Men, Women, and Monsters (June 1968 Galactoscope)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Physicians (and Nurses), Heal Thyselves


Anonymous cover art, and it has nothing at all to do with the book.

A Piece of Martin Cann, by Laurence M. Janifer

My fellow Galactic Journeyers have reviewed a couple of Janifer's books (Slave Planet and The Wonder War) and found them lacking. Let's see if this one is any better.

The time is the second half of the 21st century. There are references to a devastating plague that happened a long time ago, travel to the planets in the solar system, and the replacement of all nations and governments with a single, worldwide authority.

Never mind all that, because these science fiction themes have nothing at all to do with the story. The novel could easily be set in the very near future, because there is only one important speculative element.

Technology allows people to enter the minds of others. This is used to treat mental illness when all other methods fail.

(The premise is somewhat similar to that of John Brunner's novel The Whole Man. In that book, however, the technique was used by a natural telepath, and did not require machines.)

Two nurses and two physicians enter the mind of a man in a catatonic state. In his imaginary universe, he is God. He has created angels and light, but nothing else. The medical professionals arrive in the form of angels as well.

Their motive is to convince the patient, through argument with the other angels, not to create anything else. Why? Because they believe a fully realized world would prevent him from ever escaping his solipsistic existence.

The process has its dangers for those who use it. We're told it can even be fatal, although there is no real evidence for this. One of the characters will suffer the consequences.

This synopsis is a lot more linear than the plot. The author frequently shifts point of view among the characters. (I haven't even mentioned the patient's mother and girlfriend, who also have important parts to play.)

The book reminds me, in some ways, of D. G. Compton's novel Synthajoy. Both works are introspective and deal with devices that allow one to share another's experiences.  Both have depth of characterization, but Janifer's isn't quite as profound as Compton's.

A Piece of Martin Cann also lacks vividness.   The scenes of debate among the angels are difficult to picture.  Overall, the book fails to provide much emotional involvement.

I admire the author's ambition, even if I question his execution.  This is definitely not an ordinary escapist adventure story.  It has a touch of New Wave to it.  (Although Janifer is American, the novel seems very British to me.)  I might describe it as an interesting failure.

Three stars.


by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Of Men and Monsters by William Tenn

Of Men and Monsters Ballantine Cover

In the days of yore (also known as 1963) our esteemed editor noted that William Tenn’s Men in the Walls was only half a story. Five years later, we have finally got a novel length version of the tale. Does it fulfil the promise?

Apart from a few minor tweaks, the original novella makes up the first third of the book, renamed Priests for their Learning. In order to avoid repetition, feel free to reread the original synopsis.

The second part Soldiers for their Valor follows the now exiled Eric as he heads into Monster territory, here he meets others, people from further back in the burrows. They do not have experience in fighting monsters as the front burrow people do but have more complex organization and are willing to experiment with alien science in order to try to gain an advantage over the monsters (a subject verboten among the men of the front burrows). However, they end up captured and brought to an experimental laboratory of the monsters. Eric manages to survive being vivisected but is put into the cage of a strange woman.

The third part, Counselors for their Wisdom, finishes the narrative. The woman is named Rachel and she is from the far back burrows where they have retained much more knowledge from man’s time before the arrival of the monsters. After spending much time learning such varied subjects as the nature of the current Earth (the burrow is merely one of many in this particular monster’s house), astronomy and metaphysics. After they fall in love they escape and devise a plan to solve humanity's problems.

After the strong start in the first part, I found it less interesting as it went along. Firstly, moving the majority of action from burrows to the cages in the lab removes a lot of the atmosphere that made the prior segments so effective. In addition, the unveiling of the world moves away from exploration to explanation. For example, rather than encountering the “Wild Men”, who primarily live outside the monsters houses in the open, we are merely told by Rachel that Eric resembles one. This approach leans things away from excitement and more towards tedium.

Secondly, Tenn makes a lot of the points in a clumsy manner. One example is having Eric regard Rachel like a piece of cattle, assessing her viability for mating and thereby showing his lack of understanding of love. Having multi-paragraph descriptions of his thoughts on her naked body feel less poignant and more voyeuristic. Another would be where “little brown men” are put into the cage with men from the burrows we know and they end up fighting over customs.

And then for all of that, it doesn’t end up feeling very profound or unique. I think I can understand the points Tenn is making but it doesn’t feel that different from Micromegas, Giant Killer, Gulliver’s Travels, The Twilight Zone: The Invaders, or a hundred other tales of perspective and size based conflict. On top of that, the ending just felt perfunctory to me and a little silly.

That is not to say there are not good pieces to it. I agree with the initial review that the first section is very strong, Tenn has a great turn of phrase and at points there is a real sense of adventure to it. But it doesn’t really add up to much.

I would give the whole thing three stars, but not anything more.


by Blue Cathey-Thiele

The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets, by Lloyd Biggle

Based on Still, Small Voice, a short story Biggle published in Analog, 1961. The initial work was met with optimism, but left our reviewer disappointed. Let's see how the novel fares.

"Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny."

This is the Interplanetary Relations Bureau's code, and a bold statement to make. IPR, tasked with guiding planets to qualify for membership in the Federation of Independent Worlds, has been working for over 400 years to unseat a monarchy in Kurr. Forzon, a member of the Cultural Survey, is called to the planet and met with no orders and no democracy – surely there has been a mistake. Something suspicious is happening in the IPR headquarters. He is taught the wrong language, dressed as an enemy, and sent into an ambush. What saves him then will save him later: beauty. The people of Kurr surround themselves with art and even the most mundane items receive decoration.

Kurr has bread and, crucially, circuses. The system is flawed, but the "ugliness" is mainly unseen. The official punishment for any offense (real or imagined) is amputation of the left forearm, the victims sent to "One-hand Villages". Out of sight is out of mind with so much beauty to observe instead. Beauty and morality are often equated, and the book falls into sexism. Artisans pass their craft from father to son in a caste system, and while women play a rounded harp, that is the only note of their artistic endeavors. IPR had attempted to foment dissatisfaction among the women of Kurr, but was met by indifference and a denial that they lacked equal treatment. (I would have liked a better explanation for this, or any explanation at all.) Later, Forzon marries an IPR agent whose most noted trait is a memorable nose.

IPR must work within the existing culture, motivating the people to take action as democracy needs to occur without apparent outside influence. The "Rule of One" allows an exception. A single technological advancement may be introduced… but no one has done it before. It sounds simple. Flintlocks, for example! But those require metalworking, trigger mechanisms, gunpowder. Technologies build on what came before, and progress may look different depending on need. This brings up questions about whether civilizations are actually "more" or "less" advanced… or just different.

Forzon has a trumpet made and given to a newly handicapped harpist, who rejoices in the ability to create music again. Not limited by caste, the One-Hand Villages take up the instrument. Kurr is enchanted, having only known string instruments. The king is as well… until he realizes that the players are one-handed and he bans them as the sight weighs on his conscience. Denied beauty, the people rise up.

Did the rebellion depend on this king having a conscience? Did Forzon play things close to his chest or did he make it up as he went? It's left muddy. Even the IPR agents, despite living so long in Kurr were confused by the cause of the rebellion- which I found hard to believe. The concepts behind the book held up better than the execution. The short story only received 2 stars, so this is still an improvement.

3 stars


by Lorelei Marcus

The Last Unicorn

Once, unicorns filled the forests. They frolicked and played and rested their heads in giggling virgins' laps, indifferent to the passage of time. Then one day they all disappeared, and only one remained. "I am the last," she said. "I must find what happened to the others."

She traveled far and long in a new world that could only see her as a white mare. She found companionship in a uselessly powerful magician and a harlot with a soft heart, who followed her on her travels. And at the end of their journey they came to face a wicked king and his brutal, frightful weapon, the Red Bull. A tale of tragedy and hope, the Unicorn reunites with her kind, but can never dream to be one with them ever again.

I can't help but feel that something is missing.

That was my first thought after finishing The Last Unicorn. I was ready to cast it aside as just another well-written fantasy novel, nothing more, but then friends and family, one after another, came to tell me how wonderful the book was. How fantastic. How excellent. I felt the mystification and perhaps jealousy that Schmendrick felt when he could not touch the Unicorn, but Molly could. Why couldn't I see how wonderful the book was? What was I missing?

I can agree that Peter S. Beagle's writing has a magical quality. The way that his words twist and conceal, describe and suggest, it caters to the human imagination – creating the sense of mystery that fairytales were born from in the first place. His characters, too, run counter to expectation and yet fall into their roles beautifully. Perhaps that is the difference for me. No matter how much Beagle allows his words and characters to push at their boundaries, they are still just words and characters to me. This book is just a story, and painfully, so are the unicorns within it. I think this is the difference between me and others. Others can believe in the magic, even if only for a little while. I simply cannot.

That said, I found the unicorns fascinatingly science-fictional, and thinking about them in an SFnal way made me appreciate the book more.

What are the unicorns? They never die from old age, but they can be killed. They see through disguises and can heal with the touch of their horn. Most importantly, though, they exist outside of time. Here is the passage that struck me most of this fact:

"Often then, between the rush of one breath and the reach of another, it came to her that Schmendrick and Molly were long dead, and King Haggard as well, and the Red Bull met and mastered – so long ago that the grandchildren of the stars that had seen it all happen were withering now, turning to coal – that she was still the only unicorn left in the world" (92).

What is unique about this paragraph is the way the Unicorn foresees the long distant future as if she were already existing there, but lacking the foresight of how her journey will truly end. It viscerally describes her experiencing her inevitable immortality, and yet she has this vision only midway through her journey, long before that time will come. Her human companions live and breathe beside her and yet also, paradoxically, are long dead ancestors in her mind. In a way, she is a fourth dimensional being, capable of seeing the present and elements of the future at the same time.

The Unicorn's ageless immortality and her ability to preserve her home forest in a perpetual spring also support the idea that unicorns are creatures with some dominion over time. The unicorns exist outside of time, adding somewhat to their wonder, and they have the ability to extend some of their immortality to the world and creatures around which they dwell. Perhaps their ability to heal is also a kind of time travel, in which they revert the afflicted body or mind to a time when it was healthy.

As inter-dimensional beings, it would also follow that unicorns would be able to tell false truth. When trapped in Mommy Fortuna's midnight carnival, the Unicorn is not deceived by the overlays the witch puts on her poor display animals. She sees in multiple dimensions their true forms and their disguises, and it is only the soaking of time that make it more difficult for the Unicorn to tell the difference

I think this leads to one of the key themes of the novel: that time affects all things and over time we as living (and eventually dying) creatures affect our world back. The mortals (such as King Haggard) bend the world around them until the earth itself is transformed and bearing their legacy. Meanwhile, the unicorns cannot change, and thus their surroundings do not change either. Their forests remain green and un-hunted, but also never grow beyond their boundaries. The Red Bull, too, is an immortal constant, but it is constrained to always require a master, never ruling its own domain or leaving a visible impact.

So it is only the humans and other mortal creatures that, while constrained by time, also reside within it. They can saturate time with meaning, and that meaning can then permeate the ground, seeping into the three lower dimensions. The unicorns exist statically, outside of time, barred from ever feeling its touch or touching it. They get eternal beauty and life, but they do not love. I do not know which existence is superior, but at least looking at it through this SF lens, I feel that I understand the unicorns and their book a little better. The unicorns are the opposite of the human experience, and by extension I think that makes us aware of what the human experience is. Schmendrick and Molly and even King Haggard are all foils to the unicorn to exaggerate how alien she is. This then reflects back how human her companions are, and how human we the readers are. The last unicorn is a fairytale, but it contains truths so vivid and tied to reality, it seems to exist outside of itself. Therein lies the true magic. Through only the power of words, Beagle creates life.

4 stars




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 12, 1968] 2 Late Reviews: John Cage (concert January 16), Lenore Kandel (1966 book)

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by Victoria Lucas

A Busy Time

These reviews are very late what with all this moving, looking for a place to buy/live, and working as temps when my husband Mel and I can in Humboldt County, California (with nearly weekly trips to the San Francisco Bay Area). Still, maybe you won't have attended/heard about the reviewed subjects, so perhaps they will still give you some information you didn't have before.

I think I'll start with the concert, since if you hang this up I'd rather you do it when I'm nearly done–and the second review is of a book that is controversial to say the least.

Electronic Music!


Another use of the Art Gallery space

First, John Cage was not present at the concert of his work "Variations VI" given at Mills College (Oakland, California) on January 16. It was unusual in so many aspects I hardly know where to start. I guess the physical space is as good a place as any. As you may or may not know, Mills has a perfectly good auditorium that they regularly use for music. This wasn't held there. It was in an art gallery that had absolutely nothing in the space except: (1) some pillows, (2) synthesizers and other electronic gadgets, (3) long tables in a square to define a central performance space, and (3) what seemed like hundreds of patch cords draped over rolling clothing racks.


This is why the racks of patch cords–the Buchla 100 Series

Walking into this space was like visiting an alien landscape. It was like no concert I've ever seen before or since. Although Cage was not there, his collaborator David Tudor was, along with other electronicists. People (audience) were lining up along the walls around the performance space, some sitting on the floor. The pillows were taken. The floor was too hard to spend the entire concert sitting on it, so Mel and I wound up walking around as the musicians performed.

Pioneers of a New Musical Frontier


David Tudor, electronicist

Sometimes many performers were playing, sometimes a few. Knowing Cage's compositions, we could have predicted that there would be many silences. Sometimes there would be only one sound from one synthesizer or other electronic or electrical device, surrounded by silence.

I would not have known the Buchla 100 ("Music Box" above) had I not seen it before. I don't remember exactly when, but it must have been in 1965 I was hanging out at intermission in the tiny lobby of the San Francisco Tape Music Center on Divisidero and noticed that composer Morton Subotnik was standing near a small table they used for taking cash and dispensing tickets, then empty. A man I had never seen before came in with something under his arm that he deposited on the table. It looked like one of the two modules shown above, like a tiny telephone switchboard but with something like a keyboard showing.

I remember that I was close enough to hear the man carrying it (turned out to be Donald Buchla himself) explain that the metal strips that looked like keys did not depress but responded to a hovering finger. The expression on Subotnik's face was priceless, and I remember that he literally jumped for joy. I later learned that this meeting constituted the delivery of a piece of equipment commissioned by Subotnik and Ramon Sender of the Tape Music Center and paid for ($500) by a Rockefeller Foundation grant.

I know, I'm weird, but I enjoyed the music in the gallery tremendously and hungrily watched the patch cords as they were deployed on different instruments by different performers. Tudor was the only one I could recognize in the mix of (mostly) men dodging back and forth from the hanging cords to the instruments. Here is the list of performers from the front of the program: Tudor, Martin Bartlett, Charles Boone, Anthony Gnazzo, William Maraldo, Edward Nylund, Judy Ohlbaum, Ivan Tcherepnin, and Ron Williams. Unfortunately for those of us who are mad for tape and electronic music, the instruments were not identified.

The Future of Music

I tell you all this, because music is changing. Although I don't expect much change (especially for some years) in traditional orchestras, some part of musical performance won't ever be the same again. The Moog synthesizer and Buchla Box (for instance) on display at this concert are prototypes of instruments of the future. The future ones won't look the same, because these are too hard to play as they are if you aren't an electronics engineer. (Hence the patch cords–on most there are no keys that depress, no place to blow, nothing to bow or pluck.) At least some of the music of the future will be very different, but I'm sure I will still enjoy it. This music in this performance? 10 out of 10!

Book Review of an Illicit Pamphlet

On to the second review, of a book by poet Lenore Kandel that has been out since 1966. It's very hard to obtain, because it keeps getting confiscated by police as obscene. Unlike some religions, our Protestant Christian variety has no place for sacred sexuality (although Kandel read some excerpts from Roman Catholic mystics at her trial).


Lenore Kandel with Her "Book"

Her The Love Book is a small pamphlet of poetry (8 pages of 4 poems) that treats religious sex seriously ("sacred our parts and our persons"), using some ordinary and some made-up words, but also many words and phrases that are believed to be anathema to polite society because they do not disguise the activities they extol.

What can I say about these well crafted turn-ons that I finally managed to find for sale? Only that they harm no one, are meant for adults, and display a reverent, eccentric beauty. Since Kandel's tiny paper booklet started being repeatedly ripped off by the authorities, sales have increased anywhere the book could be found. Kandel's reaction? In thanks to the representatives of authority, she contributes 1% of her proceeds to the Police Retirement Association. As for this book–like the music, once I was able to get hold of it I experienced it as 10 out of 10 for its rare, raw, honest description and exaltation of feelings.

I hope myself to have a book of transcribed interviews on female sexuality coming out, but it might not be for a year or two. Maybe I'll need to get a guest to review it for me.

Toodle-oo till next time,

Vicki




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 10, 1968] Froth and Frippery (July 1968 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

A little goes a long way

Science fiction has a reputation for being a serious genre.  In tone, that is–it's still mostly dismissed by "serious" literary aficionados. Whether it's gloomy doomsday predictions or thrilling stellar adventure, laughs are usually scarce.

There is, however, a distinct thread of whimsy within the field.  Satire and farce can be found galore.  For instance, Robert Sheckley was a master of light, comedic sf short stories in the '50s (he's less good at it these days).  In moderation, fun/funny stories break up a turgid clutch of dour tales.

On the other hand, when you put a bunch together, particularly when only one of them is above average…

You get this month's issue of Galaxy.

You're too much, man


by Jack Gaughan

Before we get to the stories, in his editorial column Fred Pohl reminds Galaxy readers to submit proposals for the ending of the Vietnam War…in 100 words or fewer.

It makes me want to send something like this (with apologies to Laugh-In:

How I would end the War in Vietnam, by Henry Gibson.

"I would end the War in Vietnam by bombing the Vietnamese.  I would bomb them a lot.  When there are no more Vietnamese, we would win."

Thank you.

A Specter is Haunting Texas (Part 1 of 3), by Fritz Leiber


by Jack Gaughan

The lead piece is the beginning of a new serial by one of the old titans of science fiction.  It tells of one Christopher Crockett de la Cruz, an actor from a space colony orbiting the moon.  He has come down to Earth to ply his trade, a very risky endeavor as even lunar gravity is uncomfortable for him.  De la Cruz requires an integrated exoskeleton to get around.  That plus his emaciated, 8-foot frame makes him look like nothing so much as Death himself.  A handsome, well-featured Death, but Death just the same.  (Hmmm… a handsome, gaunt actor–I wonder on whom this character could be based!)

As strange as De la Cruz is, the situation on Earth is even stranger.  He makes touchdown in Texas, now an independent nation again in the aftermath of an atomic catastrophe in the late '60s.  Its inhabitants have all been modified to top eight feet as well (everything is bigger in Texas, by God's or human design), and they claim sovereignty of all North America, from the Guatemalan canal to the Northwest Territory.  And over the Mexicans in particular, who not only are excluded from the height-enhancing hormone, but many of whom are forced to live as thralls, harnessed with electric cloaks that make them mindless slaves.

Quickly, De la Cruz is embroiled in local politics, unwittingly used to spearhead a coup against the current President of Texas.  Along the way, the descriptions, the events, the setting are absurd to the extreme–from the reverence paid to "Lyndon the First", father of the nation, to the ridiculous courtships between De la Cruz and the two female characters.

It shouldn't work, and it almost doesn't, but underneath all the silliness, there is the skeleton of a plot and a fascinating world.  It doesn't hurt that Leiber is such a veteran; I've read froth for froth's sake, and this isn't it.  I'm willing to see where he goes with it.

Three stars.

McGruder's Marvels, by R. A. Lafferty


by Joe Wehrle, Jr.

The military needs a miniaturized component for its uber-weapon in two weeks, but the regular contractors can't guarantee delivery for two years.  The colonels in charge of procuring reject out of hand a bid that will provide parts for virtually nothing and almost instantly.  It is only when they start losing a global war that they grasp at the seemingly ludicrous straw.

Turns out the fellow who made the bid used to run a flea circus.  Naturally, now he's into miniaturization.  His parts really do work, and they really are cheap, but as can be expected, there's a catch.

If I hadn't known this story was written by Lafferty, I'd still have guessed it was written by Lafferty.  After all, he and whimsy are old companions.  It's more of an F&SF fantasy than SF, but it at least has the virtue of being memorable.  Three stars.

There Is a Tide, by Larry Niven


by Jeff Jones

The best piece of the issue is this one, featuring a new Niven character (the 180-year-old space prospector Louis Wu) in a familiar setting (Known Space).  This is set later than the rest of the stories, past the Bey Schaeffer tales, contemporaneous with Safe at Any Speed somewhere close to the year 3000.

Wu has gotten tired of people, and so he has gone off in his one-man ship to explore the stars.  His motive is fame–he wants to find himself a relic of the Slavers, the telepathic race of beings who ruled the galaxy and died in an interstellar war more than a billion years ago.  In a far off system, his deep radar pings off an infinitely reflective object in orbit around an Earthlike world.  Assuming it's a Slaver treasure box, kept in stasis these countless eons, he moves in for the salvage.  But a new kind of alien has gotten there first…

Once again, Niven does a fine job of establishing a great deal with thumbnail, throwaway lines.  In the end, Tide is a scientific gimmick story, the kind of which I'd expect to find in Analog (why doesn't Niven show up in Analog?), but the personal details elevate the story beyond its foundation.

It's funny; I read in a 'zine (fan or pro, I can't remember) that Niven writes hard SF that eschews characterization.  I think Niven writes quite unique and memorable characters and hard SF.  It's a welcome combination.

Four stars.

Bailey's Ark , by Burt K. Filer

by Brock

Now back to silliness.  Atomic tests have caused the oceans to flood the land.  After a few decades, only a few mountaintop communities are left, and soon they will be inundated.  Fourteen humans have been chosen to be put into cold storage for 1500 years, to emerge when the waters have receded.

All the animals have died, except for a few caged specimens, and no effort has been made to preserve them through the impending apocalypse.  It's up to one wily vet to save at least one species by sneaking it into the stasis Ark without anyone noticing.

Everything about this story is dumb, from the set up to the execution.  Its only virtues are that it's vaguely readable and that it's short.

Two stars.

For Your Information: Interplanetary Communications, by Willy Ley

This is a strange article which never quite makes a point.  The subject is sending messages from points around the solar system, but ultimately, Ley presents just two notable things:

1) A table of interplanetary distances (available in any decent astronomy book, and without even a convenient translation of kilometers to light-seconds/minutes/hours).

2) The assertion that satellites, artificial or natural, will be necessary as communications relays as direct sending of messages from planetary surface to planetary surface is prohibitively power-intensive.  It is left to the reader's imagination as to why that would be.

Sloppy, rushed stuff.  Two stars.

Dreamer, Schemer, by Brian W. Aldiss

Two captains of industry vie for control of a city.  One offers a collaboration; the other takes advantage of the offer, double crosses the offerer, and leaves him penniless.  When the double-crosser gets second thoughts, he subjects himself to a "play-out", a sort of mind trip where he gets to recreate and re-examine his decision in a fantasy world scenario.  The double-crossed, coincidentally, engages in a "play-out" at the same time, for the same reason.

This concept was done much more effectively more than a decade ago in Ellison's The Silver Corridor.  Two stars.

Factsheet Six, by John Brunner


by Jack Gaughan

A callous capitalist comes across "Factsheet Five", a rudely typed circular that details all the horrible injuries caused by the defects in various companies' products.  This and the prior Factsheets have had harmful impacts on the companies listed, from financial loss to outright bankruptcy.  The capitalist, who has his own industrial empire (and attendant quality-control issues), wants to find the author of the Factsheets so he can get inside knowledge to make a killing in the investor market.

Of course, we know who will be featured in Factsheet Six…

This is the kind of corny, Twilight Zone-y piece that shows up in the odd issue of F&SF.  I was sad to find it here.

Two stars.

Seconds' Chance, by Robin Scott Wilson


by Brand

Ever wonder who cleans up after the James Bonds and Kelly Robinsons of the world, settling insurance claims, smoothing diplomatic feathers, etc.?  This is their story.

Their rather pointless, one-joke-spread-over-too-many-pages, story.

Two stars.

When I Was in the Zoo, by A. Bertram Chandler


by Vaughn Bodé

Here's a shaggy dog story, told White Hart style, about an Aussie fisherman who gets abducted by jellyfish aliens, exhibited in a zoo with a collection of terrestrial animals, and then seduced for professional reasons by one of the lady jellyfish.

Frankly, I'm not quite sure what else to say about it other than it's the sort of tale you'd expect from A. Bertram Chandler writing a White Hart story–competent, maritime, Australian, and forgettable.

Three stars.

2001: A Space Odyssey, by Lester del Rey

The issue ends with a review panning 2001 as New Wave nihilism, meaningless save for the vague suggestion that intelligence is always evil.  This is a facile take.  It's possible 2001 is what I call a "Rorschach film", like, say, Blow Up, where the director throws a bunch of crap on the screen and leaves it to the viewer to invent a coherent story.  However, there are enough clues throughout the film to make the film reasonably comprehensible.  Moreover, there is a book that explains everything in greater detail.

I'm not saying 2001 is perfect, and I imagine those who had to sit through the longer, uncut version enjoyed it less (save for Chip Delany, who apparently preferred it.  I'll never know which I would have liked best, since the director not only trimmed down the film after release, but burned the cut footage!) But it is a brilliant film, extremely innovative, and it's worth a watch.

Starving for a bite

After eating all that cotton candy, with only the smallest morsel of meat to go with it, I am absolutely famished for something substantial.  Thankfully, I'm about to hop a Boeing 707 for a trip to Japan, where not only the food will be exquisite, but I can catch up on all the 4 and 5 star stories recommended by my fellow Travelers in earlier months.

Stay tuned for reports from the Orient!




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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[June 8, 1968] Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)

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by Gideon Marcus

Robert F. Kennedy is dead.

I wasn't even a fan of Kennedy, not really. Until last week, I'd regarded him somewhat with disdain. After all, he'd stayed out of the presidential fray until Senator Gene McCarthy had cleared the way, jumping in as if to steal his lunch. He had none of the urbane wittiness of his late brother, looking rather like a bad caricature of Jack Kennedy.

But as I followed the race, I came to develop respect for the man. The newspapers did not cover his speeches in depth, for RFK's speeches were about policy, and policy is boring. I like, policy, however. I like a candidate who lays out his priorities. I like a candidate who appeals to the most downtrodden of Americans, who risks being branded a rabble-rouser or "dangerous" in his efforts to bridge the race gap.

And he clearly was resonating, from his surprise victory in Indiana, to his follow-on win in Nebraska, to his narrow loss to McCarthy in comfortable, suburban, white Oregon.

Bobby came to San Diego last week. I think McCarthy was here, too. Kennedy talked of uniting their efforts against Humphrey to take the country in a new direction. McCarthy responded, per my local newspaper, that he prefered to go it alone and see what happens.

Well, McCarthy's gotten his wish, though he can't be happy with how it happened.

I did not vote for Kennedy in last week's primary, but I would have cheerfully voted for him had he survived to win at the convention. I did not dwell overmuch about Kennedy before last week. Now, I cannot think of the man without blinking away tears.

He did not deserve to die. This is the fifth time in six years that an assassin's bullet had cut down a hero in his prime (JFK, X, Evers, King, and now RFK) At this point, I'm not sure how much more we can take. As President Johnson tearfully said in a nationwide address last week:

"Let us, for God's sake…put an end to violence and to the preaching of violence."


by Victoria Silverwolf

It has happened again.

Robert Francis Kennedy, Senator from the state of New York and Presidential candidate, was pronounced dead early on the morning of June 6, a day after being shot multiple times after speaking to supporters in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.


The candidate addressing supporters not long before the murder.

Political assassinations are supposed to be something Americans read about in history books. Lincoln, Garfield, Mckinley. Those of us who were around three decades ago may recall the murders of Mayor Anton J. Cermak of Chicago and Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana. Old news, or so it seemed just a few years ago.

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy: November 22, 1963.

Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz): February 21, 1965.

Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.: April 4, 1968

Only two months after the latest of these atrocities, we once again have to ask ourselves why such horrors plague us so frequently.

I should feel sorrow. I should feel rage. No doubt I will experience these emotions very soon. Today, I am numb.

Perhaps it is best if I end with words spoken by Kennedy himself, on the day Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered.


Senator Kennedy announces the death of Doctor King to a crowd in Indianapolis, Indiana. Some claim the wise and gentle words of this impromptu speech kept the city from exploding into violence.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.


by Victoria Lucas

The Real World Invades the Land of Make Believe

In case you haven't been watching children's TV lately, Daniel Striped Tiger is Fred Rogers' sock-puppet alter ego that he voices for his Misterogers' Neighborhood PBS program and public appearances. Daniel is mostly seen in the show's make-believe section that Rogers carefully distinguishes from the "real" parts of his "neighborhood" to help children understand the difference. But sometimes the real world enters the inner world of Lady Aberlin (Betty Aberlin) and King Friday XIII (another puppet), as it did earlier this year when an anti-war protest happened in this part of the show (as reported by me in this piece).

Lady Aberlin Comforts Daniel


A nose rub helps

After Daniel gets another worry off his chest about whether all the air could go out of someone, making them cease to exist, he gets to the real concern bothering him. He asks his friend Lady Aberlin what "assassination" means. "Have you heard that word a lot today?" asks Lady Aberlin. The answer, as you can imagine, is "yes." His friend defines the term in words a child could understand, and soon attempts to move on and talk about a picnic two other denizens of the make-believe world are about to have. But Daniel is too sad to go to the picnic–very uncharacteristic of this childish, sensitive, and highly social character.

Rogers Will Speak Frankly Tonight

In another uncharacteristic move, NET has announced a half-hour prime-time special this evening for Rogers to speak–not, as he usually does, to children, but to adults, and specifically to parents, about caring for their children during this trying time. Although I don't have children (yet), I want to learn how to be sensitive to the needs of our friends' little ones.


Fred Rogers

And I don't know about you, but I'm going to try to find a neighbor with a TV who wants to watch tonight, since Mel and I still don't have one of our own. I can hardly think of anything more soothing than the voice of Mr. Rogers, speaking slowly and deliberately, attempting to comfort and inform. In the meantime I will be thinking about Bobby Kennedy and how excited I was looking forward to voting for him.


Bobby Testifying

Rest In Peace, Mr. Kennedy. I think history will treat you kindly.




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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 6, 1968] The Stalemate Continues (July 1968 Amazing)

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by John Boston

This July Amazing—wait, what?  You thought Amazing appeared in even-numbered months?  No more.  The mis-dating of the April issue as June means that what was to be the June issue has been pushed back—or at least the cover date has been—to avoid the confusion and likely loss of display time and sales had the publisher released a second issue dated June.  And Fantastic is pushed from July to August to keep these bimonthly magazines in alternate months rather than in direct competition. 

This issue looks a little better than the last.  There’s a new and seemingly higher grade of paper; the pages look less pulpy and the magazine is a bit thinner.  The cover, by Johnny Bruck, is lighter and more attractive than his usual; even though there’s a line of guys waving ray guns, for the foreground he’s borrowed another sort of cliché from Ed Emshwiller—guy with firm jaw, determined expression, and clenched fist staring out towards the viewer, like he just stepped off an Ace Double.  Relatively speaking, it’s a relief.


by Johnny Bruck

Once more, all but one item of fiction are reprints, though this issue’s exception is more considerable than some: House A-Fire, by Samuel R. Delany, described as a short novel (at 33 pages!) on the cover and contents page, though editor Harrison acknowledges in the letter column that it is actually an excerpt from Delany’s new novel Nova, forthcoming from Doubleday.  Delany’s name is misspelled on the cover and contents page and in Harrison’s editorial, spelled correctly on the story’s title page and in the letter column.  Are you getting tired of all this nit-picking?  So am I.  But the persistent sloppiness of this magazine continues to irritate.

Editor Harrison, clearly chafing under the reprint regime, continues to tout the non-fiction contents (seemingly the only part of the magazine that he actually controls) on the cover—“New Feature by HARRY HARRISON” (an editorial) and “New Article by ROBERT SILVERBERG POUL ANDERSON and LEROY TANNER” (the book review column).” There are also a new “Science of Man” article by Leon Stover (see below) and a London and Oslo Letter by Brian Aldiss, recounting his travels in Scandinavia.  The book review column includes Robert Silverberg’s thoughtful review of Brunner’s new novel Quicksand, Poul Anderson’s slightly celebrity-struck review of Asimov’s Mysteries, and two reviews by “Leroy Tanner,” a Harrison pseudonym.  One is a perfectly reasonable review of James Blish and Norman L. Knight’s A Torrent of Faces.  The other, of Algis Budrys’s The Amsirs and the Iron Thorn, spends more space (about a page!) denouncing Budrys for his review in another magazine of a book Harrison co-edited than it does on Budrys’s book.  This is distasteful to read and represents notably bad judgment on the editor’s part.

Harrison’s editorial, titled The Future of the Future, picks up where last issue’s mistakenly truncated editorial left off, reiterating his division of the world into SF-1, SF-2, and SF-3, and proceeding mostly to a series of platitudes.  (“SF-3.  This is wide open now and there are no rules. No one school is SF-3 and no one particular style or clique is any more important than the others.”) He does amusingly recount that he asked J.G. Ballard to tell him what inner space is, and he was about to answer, but just then someone interrupted them and the answer never came.  The letter column, with its traditional title Or So You Say, is back as well, for those who care.

House A-Fire, by Samuel R. Delany

Delany’s excerpt House A-Fire is about a bunch of overprivileged kids who are seemingly able to gallivant around the galaxy at whim.  We first meet Lorq von Ray, son of a mining magnate in the Pleaides Federation (Earth is in Draco), as a child.  Lorq’s parents are big shots in local politics.  They vacation (or something) on an off-the-map world called Brazillia where things are a little primitive; one of the local amusements is a variation on cockfighting.  There, he meets two other children, Prince Red and his sister Ruby Red; their father, Aaron Red, is a hyper-wealthy spaceship mogul from Earth, proprietor of Red-shift Ltd. (I guess Acme was taken.) Prince has an artificial right arm and is belligerently sensitive about it. 


by Gray Morrow

Young Lorq is of course brilliant and among other things, when he’s a little older, has his own spaceship, which he races in the New Ark regatta, coming in second, before heading off to a party thrown by Prince on Earth—in Paris, at the Ile St. Louis.  (“Caliban can make Earth in three days.”) He and his crew arrive and Prince immediately recruits them to rescue Che-ong, “the psychodrama star,” and her hangers-on, who have gotten stuck in a snowstorm in the Himalayas and upon rescue, prove to be a bunch of stereotypically air-headed teenagers.

At the party, everyone must have masks, and Prince has prepared an elaborate pirate mask for Lorq.  Delany has hinted to the reader, but kept Lorq in the dark, about Lorq’s father being involved in piracy.  A bit later, Lorq encounters Ruby Red, who has gotten pretty grown up since last seen, and who lets him in on the joke.  Prince shows up and tells Lorq to get away from his sister, they have a fight, and Prince lays Lorq out and messes up his face with his prosthetic fist.  Lorq’s crew carries him away and Ruby shows up on the river in her skimmer-boat and takes them all to the spaceport.  Later, in a final scene, we see Lorq, now back home, rich, and scarred, and contemplating his future.

This all sounds in summary like an overripe pulp space opera, but it is framed in some striking visualization and writing, as one would expect from Delany.  Like Lorq’s first glimpse of the mature Ruby Red:

“Then there was this: her eyes were smashed disks of blue jade, her cheek bones angled high over the white hollows of her wide face.  Her chin was wide, her mouth thin, red, and wider.  Her nose fell straight from her forehead to flare at the nostrils (she breathed in the wind—and watching her, he became aware of the river’s odor, the Paris night, the city wind); these features were too austere and violent on the face of a young woman.  But the authority with which they set together would make him look again, he knew, once he looked away; make him remember, once he had gone away.  Her face compelled in the way that makes the merely beautiful sick with jealousy.”

Yeah, a bit hokey, but it’s good hokum, suitable to our modern age.  And keep in mind that this is obviously all stage-setting for what one can hope are more substantial doings in the novel it is mined from.  Four stars, optimistically.

Locked Worlds, by Edmond Hamilton

Next up, straight from the September 1929 Amazing Stories Quarterly, is Edmond Hamilton’s Locked Worlds, all 50 pages of it.  It’s a sort of mad scientist story.  Dr. Adams, head of Physics at Northeastern University (a real place!), brilliant but widely disliked, discovers that the seemingly loose electrons sometimes found in atoms are really evidence that matter partakes of two worlds; our world’s electrons going around in one direction, the other world’s going in opposite directions.  Room for everybody! 

The rest of the profession isn’t having it and mocks Adams, who is determined to show them and get his own back.  Shortly he disappears, leaving his apparatus and a pile of bluish clay behind.  His assistant Rawlins comes to narrator Harker with an awful suspicion—and the newspaper clippings to prove it, sort of—that Adams has fled to the other world and that he’s planning his revenge there (the clippings refer to large and small piles of blue clay found at various places around the Earth).  So what to do for Rawlins and Harker but reconstruct Adams’s apparatus, follow him into whatever world he’s gone to, and thwart him?

And so they do, finding themselves on a mostly barren world with a blazing white sun overhead and blue clay under their feet.  And then—the giant spiders attack! 


by Frank R. Paul

Now Hamilton does not seem just to be trading on arachnophobia here.  Going forward, he refers to these giant spiders as spider-men, and shows them with a fairly advanced civilization.  But still, they signify that a cliched plot is about to take off, featuring captivity, aerial escape, pursuit, return in force with Earth’s new allies the bird-men (the birds and spiders engage in a dogfight), confrontation with the mad Dr. Adams, some literal cliff-hanging, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

Well, that was tedious.  It’s not for lack of enthusiasm on Hamilton’s part.  A sample, as our heroes escape the spiders with Nor-Kan, the bird-man, in the latter’s aircraft:

“He whirled to the craft’s controls, opened its speed lever to the last notch, and sent the air-boat racing on toward the south in a burst of added speed.  The great flying-platforms swiftly leapt after us, hurtling through the air at immense speed and slowly drawing ever closer toward us moving obliquely toward our own course.  Closer they came, and closer, air-boat and flying-platforms cleaving the air at a velocity unthinkable; now we saw from the foremost of the platforms behind us a shaft of brilliant orange light that burned toward us at the same moment.  Nor-Kan swerved the air-boat to avoid it.  He turned toward us, motioned swiftly toward the long tube-like projector mounted on a swivel at the stern of our own air-boat, and which I had already noticed.

“ ‘The static-gun!’ he cried.  ‘There are a few charges left in it—try to stop them with it!’ ”

Back in 1929 that would have been enough to get everyone’s blood up.  But in this decadent age, hot pursuit by ray-bearing airborne spiders just doesn’t seem to make it any more.  Or maybe it would take Delany to bring the spider-men to life.  Two stars.

The Genius, by Ivar Jorgensen


Uncredited

The other reprints in this issue are all from the 1950s, which is not necessarily good news.  Ivar Jorgensen is present with The Genius, from the September 1955 Amazing, except that Mr. Jorgensen is not really present because he doesn’t exist, being a house name used variously by Howard Browne, Harlan Ellison, Paul W. Fairman, Randall Garrett, Robert Silverberg, and Henry Slesar.  It is alleged in some circles that Randall Garrett is the mystery guest this time.  The story is a caveman epic, about old Zalu, who is trying to prove he’s still worth feeding so his grandson Cabo won’t bash his head in to get rid of him.  His plan doesn’t work, but Zalu does something rather significant en route to getting his head bashed in.  It’s short, readable, and mildly amusing.  Three stars.

The Impossible Weapon, by Milton Lesser


by Julian S. Krupa

None of the above can be said about Milton Lesser’s The Impossible Weapon (Amazing, January 1952), which is the kind of silly finger-exercise fluff that filled the back pages of the lower-level SF magazines in the 1950s.  Earth is losing a war to the League (League of what?  I forget), and our hero Stokes has figured out how to counter their super-weapon, but no one will listen to him, so in cahoots with a spaceman he meets in the wake of a barroom brawl, he commandeers a spaceship and takes off and proves he can do it.  Yeah, that oversimplifies a bit, but mercifully.  Stokes’s invention is silly, as is the supposed scientific rationale for it, as are all the other events from the beginning of the story to the end, so much so that I can’t bear to recount them.  Read the damn thing yourself if you must.  One star, too generously.

This Is My Son, by Paul W. Fairman


by Tom Beecham

Paul W. Fairman’s This Is My Son is from Fantastic for October 1955, during his two-year absence from the editorial masthead of that magazine.  It too is pretty dreadful.  Protagonist Temple, a young physicist with a fixation on getting a son, and his new wife are trying to reproduce, without success.  Temple has a great career opportunity and signs a contract taking him to South America for five years.  Jill is not pleased.  She wires him four months later that his son is due in five months.  But he can’t go back under his contract and if he breaks it he’ll be blacklisted.  After the five years he heads home to meet his son, and everybody’s happy, until he finds the manufacturer’s receipt for the android child, and reacts xenophobically.  Jill slaps him across the chops and then leaves after telling him, double-edgedly, that the child is as human as he is.  So he’s miserable for years, finally begins to see the error of his ways and sends the kid a gift.  Then the kid lands in the hospital after saving a couple of other kids from a fire.  Temple beats it to the hospital, the kid’s on the brink, so he offers an “old-fashioned blood transfusion” instead of the bottled plasma the nurse is about to give him.  Curtain, music swells, everything’s going to be fine.  It’s ridiculously contrived, sentimental, and manipulative, but at least demonstrates a little more craft than The Impossible Weapon.  Grading on the curve, barely two stars. 

Killer Apes—Not Guilty! , by Leon E. Stover

After the last two I am definitely in the mood for the contentious Dr. Stover, whose “Science of Man” article, Killer Apes—Not Guilty!, is suitably abrasive.  He takes on Robert Ardrey’s best-selling African Genesis from a few years ago, and he clearly has been waiting for his chance.  Ardrey attributed the bloody-minded and -handed character of homo sapiens to the apes from whom we descended.  Not so, says Stover; the apes were peaceful vegetarians (though not averse to the occasional grub or worm mixed in with their roughage), and the next step up (homo erectus) were carnivorous browsers, not carnivorous hunters.  We sapiens achieved our predatory status all on our own. 

Along the way Stover asserts with confidence a great deal about such subjects as the effect of domesticating fire on prehistoric social life, though without much explanation of how the dots were connected.  But he is also happy to patronize those of a different view, such as Ardrey’s favorite, the distinguished Professor Raymond Dart, late of the University of Witwatersrand: “Everybody is more than willing to let the old gentleman play with his pet theory that Australopithecus stood up to adult baboons and clouted them with humerus bones taken from antelopes.  Few take it seriously.” Good times!  Three stars.

Summing Up

Once more, business as usual at Amazing: signs of editorial vitality struggling to be seen beneath the clammy wet blanket of the publisher’s reprint policy, against the backdrop of negligent or indifferent production.  The stalemate continues.




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TV

[June 4, 1968] (Doctor Who: The Wheel In Space [Part Two])

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By Jessica Holmes

Here we are at the end of another serial and another series of Doctor Who. For sure, it’s had its ups and downs, but does the series end on a high note? Let’s look at the ending of Doctor Who: The Wheel In Space.

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Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 2, 1968] Necessary Evils (July 1968 IF)

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by David Levinson

The Baltimore Nine

You may recall one of the more spectacular draft protests last October when Father Philip Berrigan and three other men forced their way in a Selective Service office in Baltimore, Maryland and poured blood into filing cabinets containing draft records. Father Berrigan has acted again, this time along with eight others. The group included Tom Lewis, who was also part of the earlier protest, Berrigan’s brother Daniel, also a priest, and two women.

The Baltimore Nine shortly after their arrest. Fr. Philip Berrigan is 2nd from the left in the back row.

On Friday May 17th, the group entered the Selective Service office in Catonsville, Maryland and began stuffing several hundred A-1 draft records into wire incinerator baskets. Clerk Mary Murphy tried to stop them, but was restrained by one of the protestors. They then made their way back outside and set fire to the records using home-made napalm while quietly reciting the Lord’s Prayer. A short time later, they were arrested, and firefighters extinguished the fire. The following Monday, they sent flowers and a letter of apology signed “The Baltimore Nine” to Mrs. Murphy and the other clerks.

On one hand, the escalation to fire is concerning. Imitators may be less inclined to ensure that no one is harmed. On the other hand, the sight of a group including two priests and a monk defying what they call an unjust war and an unjust law may make people think, especially Catholics. These aren’t a bunch of hippies and long-haired college students who just don’t want to fight in a war.

Of war and women

Two themes run through this month’s IF: war as a necessary evil and female characters who are present solely as motivation for male characters. To be fair, there are as many female protagonists as there are plot pawns, but the latter outweigh the former.

Abbott and his men are the first to reach the Sleeper’s chamber. Art by Gray Morrow

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction