[November 17, 1964] A Continuing Adventure In Space And Time (Doctor Who: Planet Of Giants)

November 17, 2019 Jessica Holmes 1 Comment

By Jessica Holmes

Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to our adventure through Time and Space on Doctor Who! This second series is off to an excellent start, courtesy of Louis Marks, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. In excruciating detail, no less. Let’s get stuck in to Planet Of Giants, shall we?

PLANET OF GIANTS

AWOOOGA, AWOOOGA. We’re barely a minute in and already things are going wrong aboard the good ship TARDIS. As the Doctor brings her in to land, the doors start opening by themselves. Fortunately, the companions manage to get them closed and they land safely. Or do they? The Doctor is very agitated about the doors opening, but doesn’t do a good job of explaining what it is that’s bothering him. Something strange is afoot, that’s for sure.

Something very strange indeed, as the Doctor sincerely apologises to Barbara in case he was rude to her under pressure. Goodness, he really has mellowed out, hasn’t he?

However, when they try to look outside with the scanner, it blows up, as if it were trying to display something ‘too big for its frame’. Pardon? I am quite certain that the Doctor is a bit more than 12 inches tall, yet Bill Hartnell has yet to explode out of my television screen in a shower of glass.

Oh, and apparently the reason that the doors opened during landing was the ‘space pressure’ being too high. No, I’m not sure what that means either.

Still, it’s all over now. Time to see what sort of planet we've landed on.

A rocky one, by the looks of it. So far, so normal.

And then Barbara finds a dead earthworm. Sound ordinary? You haven’t seen the size of it.

A few moments later, Ian and Susan come upon some massive ant eggs, followed by a giant dead ant.

I think we can guess what’s really happening on this so-called 'planet of giants'.

Ominous music builds as Ian comes upon a gigantic matchbox. Prepare for me to gush over the set design quite a lot over the course of this article. It really is very good and creative, and there has been a definite step up in quality, boding well for the rest of the series. That, or they spent all the budget on Planet Of Giants, and the rest of the series will be taking place in my back garden.

And the points go to Susan for working out what’s going on first: this isn’t a planet of giants after all. They’ve shrunk!

So, the rock formations? Paving stones. They’re between the paving stones on someone’s charming garden path. Basically, when the doors opened during landing, the space pressure made the TARDIS and all its occupants shrink… or something. No, I don’t buy it either.

But then everything goes dark and there’s a thunderous sound, as a man walks overhead on the garden path. Susan runs to hide, but when she comes out, Ian is nowhere to be found. He fell inside the massive matchbox. And he’s stuck inside!

Watching William Russell fling himself from side to side to simulate being jostled about in the matchbox is hilarious but slightly undermines the drama of the situation.

Oh dear. Mr Regular-Sized-Human (or, as he’d probably prefer, Farrow) has a cat. That might be a bit dangerous. What also might be dangerous is the scientific research he’s involved in. Something involving a powerful insecticide, one so powerful it’ll kill absolutely everything it touches that isn’t a plant.

Naturally, he’s withholding approval on the project on account of the risk to the ecosystem. However, the financier of the project, a man called Forester, stands to lose an awful lot of money if this doesn’t go through. Farrow, however, isn’t budging.

So, what’s a man to do? He pulls a gun, that’s what.

Now we have the first indications that the dealings going on at full scale are going to be important to the Doctor and his companions, as a dead insect drops out of the sky, carrying with it a strong chemical whiff. And Barbara raises a pertinent question: can whatever’s killing the insects kill them too?

They don’t have long to worry about that, as they hear the sound of a distant cannon. Well, that’s what it sounds like to them, anyway. A few minutes later, they come across Farrow’s lifeless body, and as the Doctor notes, there’s a whiff of gunpowder in the air.

I have to say, we’re off to a great start. Creative set design and cold-blooded murder in the first twenty minutes of story. And, what’s more, a cute little enormous kitty just showed up. What’s not to love?

DANGEROUS JOURNEY

Not to worry, folks. The Doctor and Ian know just how to avoid being eaten by a gigantic housecat. You just stay still until it gets bored and wanders off. I’ve never had a cat before, but that sounds about right.

Close-up of cat's eyes — You know what I'd like to see? A planet of giant cats.

The companions wonder if they should do something about the whole murder problem, but the Doctor points out they’re tiny and it’s not as if they can do anything right now.

Along comes an enormous leg to imperil them, and Ian and Barbara make a break for the closest shelter they can find: Farrow’s briefcase.

Up at normal scale, Forester has been joined by a scientist. He’s got a white lab coat and everything, because I suppose scientists dress like that all the time. Forester tells him that it was an accident, but the scientist isn’t fooled, concluding upon examination of the body that Farrow was shot through the heart from some feet away. There are no powder burns around the bullet hole.

Neither of them are too upset about the death of an innocent man, though. The scientist, Smithers, is more upset that this means he’ll have to scrap the research.

Smithers does have a somewhat noble motive, though. He wants to save people from famine, which is very commendable of him. Thing is, if you go wantonly killing every single living thing that isn’t a plant in your field, you’re really just sowing the seeds of a future famine that’ll be far worse. I’d think a scientist would know that, especially one specialising in research into pest control with regards to agriculture.

The men head into the lab, taking Farrow’s briefcase with them, before heading out to hide the body. Ian and Barbara don’t enjoy the ride much. In Barbara’s words, it’s worse than the Big Dipper. I have to admit, as much as I like the Big Dipper, it is a rather rough ride. Grand National (the rollercoaster, not the horse race), on the other hand, is a must-do if you ever happen to visit Blackpool.

Barbara rubs her ankle as Ian looks on. — To be fair, bumps and bruises do tend to happen when you ride the Big Dipper.

The Doctor and Susan emerge from hiding, and seeing the briefcase gone, realise that it must have been taken inside. The Doctor attempts to climb into a drainpipe, finding that it stinks to high heaven of the stuff on the dead insects. So of course they decide climbing into it is a great idea. Um, guys? Does the phrase ‘toxic fumes’ mean anything to you?

Inside, Ian and Barbara come upon some enormous grains of wheat that are covered in some sticky stuff. Not knowing what the sticky stuff is, Barbara goes ahead and touches some of it. Smart.

Unnoticed by Ian, Barbara picks up a giant seed. — You'd think after the debacle with the Aztecs, Barbara would refrain from picking up everything she sets eyes on.

Ian has a good idea about using the paperclips in the briefcase to make a chain they can climb down, and hopefully make it back to the others. Barbara would like a look in the briefcase for herself, as her suspicion grows that her hands are covered in insecticide.

Meanwhile in the pipe, the Doctor is regretting every single decision he’s made in his life. It’s not as bad as it could be, though. The chemical runoff from the lab has corroded the inside of the pipe, so there’s plenty of hand and footholds.

Back in the house, as Ian struggles to get the briefcase open, a housefly turns up behind Barbara. It’s quite a lifelike puppet, with moving joints and everything. Barbara sees it, and faints, though it’s not clear if it’s the sight of the bloody big fly or the symptoms of poisoning setting in.

Barbara is confronted by a giant housefly. — Imagine a planet of giant insects, though. I'd be having nightmares for weeks.

Meanwhile, Smithers and Forester have hidden the body, though Smithers is very upset with Forester for involving him in this whole sordid business.

Susan and the Doctor make it up the drainpipe and emerge at a plughole which is really pretty neat. We haven’t had so many unique sets before, I’m sure of it.

The Doctor and Susan stand at the rim of a gigantic plughole. — Incy Wincy Doctor climbed up the water spout…

Barbara wakes up from her fainting spell, to be told by Ian that the fly flew off, then landed on the seeds and died instantly. Well, that doesn’t bode well. Barbara, now might be a good time to tell Ian about the fact you touched them, too.

But that’ll have to wait, as they hear Susan calling from the sink, and begin climbing down the plug chain towards her and the Doctor.

Outside, Smithers and Forester have just finished mopping up the blood. Now it’s time to wash their hands.

Uh-oh.

Hearing the men coming, Ian and Barbara climb back up the chain, and the Doctor and Susan start heading down the pipe.

Smithers notices the dead fly, and gets excited about how effective the insecticide is, and we get into a scene which did seem a bit inconsistent to me. Forester says something about Farrow lying about the effects of the insecticide in the report, which I don’t quite understand. I thought Smithers and Forester were on the same page about Forester killing Farrow to prevent him revealing the destructive truth of the formula and putting an end to the project. Unless Smithers thinks his work is perfectly sound, and Farrow was going to turn in a false report for his own gain? I don’t know.

The point is Forester is going to doctor the report.

Meanwhile, Farrow fills up the sink and washes his hands, while the Doctor and Susan cower in the drainpipe below.

And then he pulls the plug.

CRISIS

Ian announces to Barbara (and the viewer) that the tap has been turned on with the Doctor and Susan still being in the sink. Thank you, Ian, we can see that.

Barbara fears the Doctor and Susan have drowned, so she and Ian go to find out.

Not to worry, Barbara. It turns out that the Doctor and Susan were hiding in the overflow pipe, so managed to avoid the deluge, and out they pop, reuniting the gang at last. I swear this lot get separated so often they should make a habit of holding hands everywhere they go. Or perhaps the Doctor should put his companions on a leash.

The Doctor and Susan hide in the overflow pipe — Down came the rain and washed poor Doctor out…

The sink set is my favourite from this serial. It’s quite simple, but the layout makes for some really cool looking shots, and it’s a very good replication of a kitchen sink.

Forester finishes doctoring the report, and puts in a call to Farrow’s department in Whitehall, pretending to be the dead man. However, the operator on the other end doesn’t seem convinced.

Forester uses a handkerchief to muffle his voice as he makes a phone call. — Now is not the time to be making a prank call, Mr. Forester.

Our companions continue their trek across the lab and come across a notepad, upon which is written a chemical formula. Could it be the pesticide? Barbara suggests that knowing what it is might help them find a cure for it. Nobody else sees the value in curing it if they can simply prevent it from being used, as Barbara still hasn’t told anyone about her predicament. It’s rather pertinent information, Barbara. I suppose she doesn’t want to make a fuss. That’s… very British of her. I’m so proud.

The notebook is too big to read, so they map it out into Susan’s own notebook, and discover, after a bit of chemistry talk that goes over my head, that the insecticide doesn’t wear off or weaken over time. Meaning? Once you put it on a field, there it’ll stay. Forever. Seeping into the soil, into the groundwater.

To say that would be a disaster would be an understatement. Apart from the ecological collapse that would ensue, imagine eating food contaminated with a pesticide this deadly. Even touching contaminated produce would slowly kill us.

At the sound of all this, Barbara gets quite agitated, but she still, for some reason, doesn’t tell the others. Come on, Barbara. They might start getting their bums in gear if you mention the teensy little fact that you might be about to drop down dead.

It’s not as if the others haven’t noticed. They ask her if she’s all right, but she just brushes them off. It’s a bit of a contrived way of ramping up the tension. At least, I assume that’s the intention. Can’t we have the tension ramped up with everyone being tense and worrying if they’ll manage to get Barbara back to full-size before her itty-bitty insect-sized body goes kaput?

The group decides to make an attempt at using the phone. For some reason. It struck me, as I was brushing my teeth later that night (sorry, I’m feeling a bit slow on the uptake lately), that it’d be quicker to just go back to the TARDIS, get back to proper size, and then use the phone to get the authorities.

The Doctor, Susan, and Ian shout into a giant telephone receiver. — I don't know what they were expecting.

Then again, the sight of everybody bellowing down the phone, loudly and slowly like a Brit in Benidorm trying to order some sangria, is pretty funny.

It doesn’t work, of course. Worse still, Barbara isn’t doing well at all, and she collapses. She comes around before Ian comes along, but the game’s up. She tries to tell him that she’s fine, but he grows suspicious when she won’t let him touch her hands or her handkerchief, and then she passes out again. Sniffing the handkerchief, the Doctor realises she’s suffering from the effects of the insecticide.

Barbara comes around just in time for a good scolding from the Doctor for not telling anyone sooner. Thank you, Doc. I was about to climb into the screen and tell her myself. However, Barbara won’t let the others take her back to the ship until they’ve put a stop to the insecticide threat. Now, that’s very nice and noble and all, but I think it’d be a lot easier at full-scale, don’t you?

Speaking of full-scale, Forester and Smithers are finishing up their dirty business, when Smithers says he wants to go back to the lab and have another look at Farrow’s notes. Behind his back, Forester pulls the gun out again, and loads it.

Back with the companions, the Doctor and Ian are being wonderful role models for children, by which I mean they decide to start a fire in order to draw the attention of the neighbours. The Doctor quite literally giggles and rubs his hands with glee at the thought of a bit of arson. I love him.

A call comes through for Farrow, but all is not as it seems, as the operator has Farrow’s superior listen with her as Forester ‘hands over’ the phone to Farrow. The pair of them agree that it sounds like he’s just impersonating Farrow.

The group are working on their arson plan. They’ve found themselves a gas tap, so now all they need to do is find a way to light it. Ian enlists Susan to help him strike a match, not an easy task when said match might as well be a battering ram.

Ian and Susan handle a giant matchstick. — And I struggle to get a normal match lit.

The plan’s simple enough. The Doctor has spotted a pressurised flammable canister nearby the gas tap. If they light the gas, the can will heat up, and eventually explode. The difficult part will be getting far enough away from the can before it goes boom.

While they’re doing that, Forester finally admits to Smithers the full truth of why he murdered Farrow— with a gun pointed at his chest. Looks like he’s tidying up all the loose ends.

The companions take cover, and the two men come back into the lab just as the can blows, scattering shrapnel in Forester’s face. With Forester blinded, Smithers grabs the gun, which is promptly taken from him by the police constable who has just materialised. Did the operator call him? I can only assume so, but that was a bit quick, wasn’t it? Or did he just hear the can explode? Pretty convenient that there was a passing bobby.

As the companions make a break for it, the Doctor grabs one of the contaminated seeds, wrapping it in his cloak to ensure he doesn’t poison himself. The group get back to the TARDIS without any trouble, and the Doctor sets about restoring them to proper size, Ian watching in amazement as the seed the Doctor brought appears to shrink before his very eyes. Of course, the seed isn’t shrinking— they’re growing.

Now at full size and having managed to get a good drink of water, Barbara does seem to be doing better. Gee. That’s just a bit convenient. The scanner’s still broken, though, so who knows where they’ll end up next?

The companions are back in the TARDIS. — I wish I could cure all my illnesses with a sit down and a nice glass of water.

Final Thoughts

So, here we are, at the end of the first serial of the new series.

I can’t help but think that this story would have been over in five minutes if Barbara had just told everyone about the pesticide on her hands. They could have just gone back to the TARDIS to fix their size problem, then given the police a quick ring. Barbara healed, day saved, devastating environmental disaster averted. Easy.

That issue of the plot being over instantly if everyone used their brains aside, this is a very enjoyable serial. I found the three episodes to be just the right length for this story. The three-act structure is tried, tested, and approved by generations of storytellers. An issue I found with the previous series of Doctor Who was that the serials were sometimes quite poorly-paced, with some of them overstaying their welcome by an episode or two. Planet Of Giants, however, keeps up a lively pace all the way through, with no filling.

We’ve also seen a pretty excellent demonstration of the phrase ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’. It applies pretty well to Smithers. Not so much with Forester. But with Smithers, yes. In his hopes of ending famine, he became an accessory to murder, and almost poisoned all our farmland.

Also, perhaps the most important factor for why I like this serial: it’s fun. Everybody wrestling with comically-oversized household objects is funny, there’s a bit of ick-factor with the giant bugs, and we’ve also got a serious murder drama subplot with an environmental twist!

It’s a scarily plausible story, tiny people aside. Modern pesticides can, and have, saved millions of lives from their boost to crop yields, but at the same time, it’s important to be careful that we’re using them safely and responsibly, with proper oversight (q.v. the troubles with DDT, and the issues brought up in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring). Honesty and integrity won out on Doctor Who, but will the same be true for us? I don’t know.

4 out of 5 stars

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 15, 1964] Veteran's Triumph (December 1964 Galaxy)

November 15, 2019 Gideon Marcus 16 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Marching as to War

November 11 used to be the federally mandated holiday set aside for the honoring of World War I veterans. After "The Great War" was eclipsed by later conflicts, the day's scope became more general, dedicated to veterans of all wars. And so, parades like this one in Walla Walla, Washington, featuring soldiers from as far back as the Spanish American War, have become an annual tradition.

Of course, in Las Vegas, it was a day like any other. Well, the show must go on…

It is no surprise that, given this particularly bloody century (which saw the American Civil War, two world wars, the Korean War, the Russian Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese Civil War, etc. etc.) that war is a perennial theme in science fiction. But where war was once portrayed in a patriotic light, or at least, merely as an exciting backdrop for adventure, we are now starting to see a decidedly cynical tinge to modern SF war stories.

And there is no finer example of this trend than this month's superb issue of Galaxy. Read on and find out why:

The Starsloggers, by Harry Harrison

The biggest military science fiction hits of the last five years run the gamut from novels like Heinlein's ultra-jingoistic Starship Troopers and Dickson's Hornblower-esque Dorsai! at one end, through the more nuanced "Joe Mauser" series by Reynolds and the latest Starwatchman, by Bova, to anti-war pieces like Dickson's Naked to the Stars.

But there has never been such a biting, such an accurate, and such an eminently readable satire of the veteran's experience as Harry Harrison's new novel, The Starsloggers.

Bill, a backwoods hick with dreams of becoming a Technical Fertilizer Operator, is shanghaied into This Man's Space Navy. Thus ensues months of grueling, dehumanizing boot camp under the merciless lash of the fanged Drill Sergeant, Deathwish Drang. But these torments are as nothing when the entire training division is drafted into an all-out war against the saurian "Chingers", whose greatest offense is that they exist.

Bill is pressed into serving as a fusetender, sweating profusely while he watches for the big red band on the six-foot weapons fuse to turn black, and then replacing it with another monstrous device. It's a position that normally takes the better part of a year to learn the intricacies of, but needs must, and somehow Bill and his brood learn the ropes in about fifteen minutes.

Along the way, Bill meets such notable characters as "Eager Beager", a perennially smiling chap who loves to shine everyone else's boots; Tembo, a proselytizing zealot who refuses offers to muster out; a nameless ship's chaplain who doubles as the laundry officer…and on and on. All of them are ridiculous, yet strangely plausible.

Ultimately, Bill ends up in a Southeast Asia analog, fighting to preserve a 10-mile square postage stamp of land against a limitless enemy in the foggy jungle. This is the kind of story where the protagonist is punished for bravery and rewarded for self-interest, and suffice it to say, by book's end, The Starsloggers earns the ironic subtitle: Bill, the Galactic Hero.

Satire is hard. Comedic satire is harder. It's easy for a story to devolve into silliness, and it's harder still to maintain the joke and readability throughout novel length. Harrison manages to lambast every sacred cow in the military barn, all while making a story with just enough reality and interest to keep the pages turning.

The Starsloggers should be required reading for anyone who reads Starship Troopers, if anything to keep too many Eager Beagers from enlisting. Five stars.

The Rules of the Road, by Norman Spinrad

In this, Norm Spinrad's second appearance outside of Analog, a death-defying mercenary is hired to explore an alien dome that has mysteriously appeared on Earth. Nine men have gone in before; none came out. Can the mercenary survive the strange geometries and lethal traps of the dome? And what will he be when he comes out?

An interesting piece, though perhaps 20% too padded and without a great deal of consequence. Three stars.

Ballad of the Interstellar Merchants, by Sheri S. Eberhart

The third poem from this author; a pleasant 24th Century space shanty. I imagine someone will put music to it and we'll hear it at Westercon next year. Three stars.

For Your Information: The Rarest Animals, by Willy Ley

The latest from Veelee, the good German, is a piece on endangered species thought to be extinct…but aren't! It's quite good, except it just abruptly stops without any kind of conclusion. I hope he didn't have a heart attack at the end!

Three stars.

The Monster and the Maiden Roger Zelazny

One of the genre's newer lights offers up this silly little piece, about virgin sacrifice and turnabout. It's worth a chuckle. Three stars.

A Man of the Renaissance, by Wyman Guin

Last time we saw Wyman Guin, he offered up a political piece set in a delightfully unique world. With Renaissance, the author has outdone himself.

The story is set on a water world, on whose oceans float islands of vegetation-lashed pumice. Their dwellers are reduced to a resource poor and medieval existence. But one latter-day Leonardo, Master of the Seven Arts, would risk love, limb, and life to effect a daring plan: to bind three small land masses together. To accomplish this, he must overcome prejudice and adversity, and plain, hide-bound stubborness.

Renaissance starts a little choppily, confusing since the context only comes gradually, and I found the combat scenes a little inexpert. But everything else, particularly the worldbuilding, is simply marvelous. I tore through it in no time…and then found myself trying to figure out how to make a wargame out of the setting!

Four stars.

Let Me Call Her Sweetcore, by David R. Bunch

Bunch, of course, is best known for his tales of Moderan, where humanity has become increasingly roboticized. Sweetcore seems to take place in an adjacent universe; it is a love story about an old man, his overly emotional robot, and the girl robot whom it falls in love with.

I both appreciated the story's juxtaposition of the maudlin machine and its emotionless master, while at the same time being annoyed with the stereotypical portrayal of love and marriage.

A low three stars.

To Avenge Man, by Lester del Rey

We end with another robot story, which is also a war story. Sam, a sentient Mark I machine assigned to a small moonbase, is left behind when the scientific team is recalled to Earth. Shortly thereafter, the planet flares into myriad pinpoints of brilliance before going dark. Now Sam is truly alone.

The first half of the piece, where Sam becomes fully actualized after reading the base library, is quite compelling. But the latter half, in which Sam looks for humanity's remains in vain, deduces that we were destroyed by Wellesian aliens, and leads a galactic crusade to punish them, is both redundant and revealed in the story's prologue.

Sadly, this reduces what could have been a four star story to readable three.

Yin's Yang

I lamented that this month's IF was decidedly subpar, and per Victoria Silverwolf, Worlds of Tomorrow wasn't much better. But Galaxy, the old warhorse of Editor Fred Pohl's stable, remains a sterling example of how to do science fiction right. Just the Harrison and the Guin would have made a full, 4.5 star issue of F&SF. It's ones like these that have kept me a faithful subscriber for 14 years, and I don't see myself bugging out any time soon.

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[November 13, 1964] Beat the Devil (The Outer Limits, Season Two, Episodes 5-8)

November 13, 2019 Natalie Devitt 4 Comments

by Natalie Devitt

Take Two

You may recall that the first month of the second season of The Outer Limits marked a big shift in the series, not just because the show experienced a number of major changes behind the scenes, but because the program only produced one truly memorable entry, The Soldier. Has the show returned to greatness or even surpassed expectations since we last met? Join me for a closer look at the latest from The Outer Limits.

Demon with a Glass Hand, by Harlan Ellison

Demon with a Glass Hand marks Robert Culp’s third appearance on The Outer Limits, after his previous roles in The Architects of Fear and Corpus Earthling. The third time is absolutely a charm. In this episode, Culp transforms into Trent, a man who recalls nothing of his past, but in the present is being pursued by human-like extraterrestrials called the Kyben.

The Kyben are after Trent to gain possession of his glass computerized hand, which “holds all knowledge.” His hand speaks, providing guidance to Trent to help him avoid capture. The Kyben already possess three of his fingers, which Trent needs in order to collect more information about his past. Along the way, he meets and is helped by a charming seamstress, Consuelo Biros, played by Arlene Martel of The Twilight Zone episodes Twenty Two and What You Need.

Harlan Ellison has done it again. Just like with The Soldier, Ellison‘s writing has helped The Outer Limits dive much deeper into science fiction. Ellison combines a lot of different things that, in the hands of a less skilled writer, might not work as well as they do here. The episode has an interesting premise, drama, action, and just a little bit of everything. Culp and Martel deliver spectacular performances. Back in the director’s chair is Byron Haskin, director of The War of The Worlds (1953) and this summer’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

I do have one complaint, though, which is that the makeup and costumes for the Kyben (essentially mime foundation, raccoon eye shadow, and white body suits) look very uninspired, especially after all the intricate makeup and elaborate costumes used to create different creatures last season. One thing that Demon with a Glass Hand certainly has going for it, however, is its location. Los Angeles’ Bradbury Building, which was also used in the noir classic D.O.A. (1949), heightens the episode’s film noir atmosphere. The special effects and the musical score are great, and everything is topped off with an interesting twist at the end. Demon with a Glass Hand has a cinematic quality to it, which is why it earns four and a half stars.

Cry of Silence, by Robert C. Dennis

Andy (Academy Award nominee Eddie Albert) and Karen Thorne (veteran actress June Havoc) take a trip from their current home in the city to the small town Wild Canyon to get a look at a property that they are considering purchasing. While driving, their convertible hits a large rock, leaving the couple stranded. As Andy assesses the damage, Karen falls down a hill and injures her ankle. Andy is unable to carry his wife back uphill to their car. Karen, being the more perceptive one in the relationship, begins to notices that some nearby tumbleweeds seem to be closing in on them. Andy expresses doubt, until the tumbleweeds begin to randomly fly at the them despite there being no wind. Karen fears the tumbleweeds are controlled by some kind of “force.”

Andy and Karen decide to build a campfire for the night, which is spotted by a man named Lamont, performed by character actor Arthur Honeycutt (The Twilight Zone’s The Hunt). Lamont invites the Thornes back to his farmhouse. He tells them that since a recent meteorite fall, the number of tumbleweeds in town has dramatically increased, his livestock have disappeared, and his telephone and electricity have stopped working. Lamont suspects that “there is a malignant intelligence in the weeds” and it will prevent any of them from leaving the canyon. Is it a demonic presence, or simply extraterrestrials too alien to effectively communicate?

What Cry of Silence lacks in artistry, it almost makes up for in charm. With its menacing tumbleweeds and killer flying bullfrogs, Cry of Silence is probably (unintentionally!) the funniest offering of the series thus far, even though I know Controlled Experiment attempted (deliberately) to add a little humor into the often dark and serious show. This entry does succeed in creating a few genuinely spooky moments, especially as the characters lock themselves inside Lamont’s farmhouse and the being from space begins to possess Lamont's body, but its just hard to sustain the terror for long when people are being stalked by tumbleweeds, and eventually rocks and frogs. The episode’s weak writing is improved a little by actors who play their roles with conviction, sometimes a little too much conviction. Objectively, it is not the greatest episode, but it can be fun, so two and half stars for Cry of Silence .

The Invisible Enemy, by Jerry Sohl

Adam West (Robinson Crusoe on Mars) plays Major Charles Merritt, who with his fellow astronauts, set out on an expedition to Mars to determine what became of a crew that landed on Mars three years earlier but never returned to Earth. It has been assumed that some kind of ghost is the only explanation for the last group’s disappearance. But when the latest crew arrives, they discover something that swims towards them from underneath the planet’s sandy surface, like “a blood-thirsty shark in the ocean.” To make matters worse, it turns out that there is not just one creature, but an entire “army of them.”

The Invisible Enemy is so very slow. Most of its characters are not terribly smart or likeable. There were also a number of weak performances by otherwise decent actors. Scientifically, The Invisible Enemy has quite a few problems. I got a kick out of things like one of the astronauts saying that helmets are not needed on Mars.

That said, this installment of the series is incredibly atmospheric. Kenneth Peach’s photography of the exterior shots of Mars’ surface combined with the set design, sound effects and the screeching violins in the musical score make for some beautifully eerie moments. But all of that comes crashing down the second that one of the growling space fish comes swimming by with their ridiculous claws extended out of the sand. Sure, they are not quite Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) bad, but pretty bad. Two stars, mainly for the production design and art direction.

Wolf 359, by Seeleg Lester

Wolf 359 is the story of scientist Jonathan Meridith (Patrick O’Neal of The Twilight Zone’s A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain), who has recreated a smaller version of much larger existing planet “eight light years away” in his lab. Jonathan calls it Dundee Planet. Time moves faster on Dundee: from a primordial state, the planet experiences changes in weather and begins to show signs of life. Its new form life begins evolving at a fast rate and even senses when others are watching it.

Jonathan is excited to be able to “watch evolution at work.” However, his wife, Ethel (Sara Shane of Douglas Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession (1954)) calls the creature “pure evil.” Eventually, Jonathan pushes away his wife and lab assistant rather than “expose them to the dangers of this creature.”

Wolf 359 is not the first nor best episode of The Outer Limits involving a scientist speeding up evolution, but it is interesting, even if it is not entirely successful. The episode is generally nice to look at and had some decent performances. It certainly has an odd if less than effective creature, which resembles a floating white glove. The writing is not quite strong enough to carry such an ambitious concept. Wolf 359 is worth the watch, but not quite good, so two and half stars.

Prognosis

The Outer Limits is not quite firing on all cylinders, but it has improved a little over the course of the past month. Looking back at it, there was the terrific Demon with a Glass Hand, Cry of Silence was amusing, The Invisible Enemy often looked great but lacked substance, and Wolf 359 almost had something. All in all, most episodes were intriguing, even if they were not as strong as they had potential to be.

Is it enough to warrant renewal?

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 11, 1964] Unloading (December 1964 Amazing)

November 11, 2019 John Boston 4 Comments

by John Boston

The festivities continue, albeit muted, at the University of California at Berkeley, where the administration continues its clumsy and tone-deaf standoff with students and some faculty who are demanding rather ordinary political rights in the public places of what amounts to their home town. From this distance, it seems the administration is unable to let go of its usual habits of exercising authority in order to deal with the rather concrete issues raised by the students (whose cause now has a name, the Free Speech Movement), practical resolution of which really should not be difficult. The FSM’s view of its own righteousness creates another sort of rigidity, no doubt strengthened by the American Civil Liberties Union’s announcement that the disputed restrictions violate the First Amendment and that the ACLU would intervene on behalf of the students who were suspended.

For example, last month’s demonstration around and on top of the police car was resolved with an agreement to establish a committee to discuss and make recommendations about campus political behavior and its control. So the administration proceeded to name the members of the committee without consulting with the FSM, which responded that the committee was illegitimate and should be disbanded. The committee went forward anyway and heard a procession of witnesses telling it that shouldn’t exist. This argument was settled within a couple of weeks with an agreement on the membership of an expanded committee. One wonders why that conversation couldn’t have been had in the first place, avoiding the antagonism and waste of time.

Meanwhile, University president Clark Kerr made a speech at the Chamber of Commerce in which he said “Students are encouraged, as never before, by elements external to the University.” A few days later, he said at a news conference that he believed some of the demonstrators “had Communist sympathies.” Where have we heard that before? It’s the standard line of the southern segregationists: we didn’t have any problems until the Communist-inspired outside agitators came, and just the thing to say about people with whom you are supposedly trying to make peace—some of whom just returned from contending with the southern segregationists.

On the substance of the dispute, the university’s explanations for its positions sometimes read like self-parody, like this statement by the Dean of Students: “A speaker may say, for instance, that there is going to be a picket line at such-and-such a place, and it is a worthy cause and he hopes people will go. But, he cannot say, `I'll meet you there and we'll picket’.”

The FSM, for its part, has continued to threaten a return to civil disobedience if it didn’t get some concrete results from its demands, and held a rally on November 9. Some students resumed staffing tables to solicit funds and members for their causes, the practice that started this controversy. The University then dissolved the agreed-upon joint committee, an action denounced by FSM. And there, more or less, things stand.

The best judgment on the management of this dispute is probably the one pronounced by Casey Stengel to the 1962 New York Mets: “Can’t anyone here play this game?”

The Issue at Hand

By Robert Adragna

One might seek refuge from this tedious stalemate in the December Amazing, but one would be disappointed. The issue features a “complete short novel” which exemplifies the literary philosophy “Got no ideas today, but I’ll throw some random crap together and make it move fast enough and nobody will know the difference.”

The Further Sky, by Keith Laumer

By Robert Adragna

The featured story is Keith Laumer’s The Further Sky, in which the disgusting and ill-tempered reptilian Niss are the honored guests (actually, the secret conquerors) of the pusillanimous Syndarch dictatorship of Earth. Our hero Ame, after being treated contemptuously by a Niss, is visited by a very old guy talking about their Navy days together (which didn’t happen). The old guy is also the one who just stole a scout spaceship from Pluto, and he boasts about killing Niss. Ame helps him sneak away when some Niss and Syndarch types come looking, and later finds him dead. But very much alive is Jimper, a foot-high character adept with a tiny crossbow who says he’s an ambassador from the King of Galliale—er, where?—and he is, or was, with Jason, the deceased senior citizen.

Ame and Jimper have to flee, since Syndarch and Niss are after them, so Ame befuddles a few functionaries, swipes a Syndarch spaceship, and they head for Pluto by way of Mars. On Pluto they crash-land and struggle across the mountain ice, just ahead of Niss pursuers, and there it is, the portal to Galliale, a sunny and bucolic land of more little people—but whose king, the ample Tweeple, the Eater of One Hundred Tarts, does not know Jimper despite his being an ambassador.

The king says Ame has to go into the nearby tower to slay the dragon, and Jimper comes with him, and there’s no dragon but there is a glowing cube which proves to be a portal to yet another world, and when the dragon (more like a giant centipede) shows up, they flee through the portal, where godlike four-dimensional beings, one of whom calls them fleas and wants to dispose of them, inform them that they are in the Andromeda galaxy three million years in their past, and explain the time travel gimmick that has been obviously in the wings all along, as well as the relationship among all the various species of beings involved (some of whom I have not bothered to name), and they materialize a spaceship for Ame and Jimper that will get them home at the right time, and don’t the Brits have a phrase for this sort of thing? Oh, right—“load of old bollocks.” One star for tiresome and unconcealed cynicism in the service of a word count.

The Quest of the Holy Grille, by Robert F. Young

By Robert Adragna

Speaking of tiresome loads, Robert F. Young is back with The Quest of the Holy Grille, one of a series, or cluster, or infestation, of stories about sentient automobiles. This one begins, “Housing had never been one to go chasing after girlhicles,” and there’s much more about girlhicles and boyhicles, who collectively make up manmobilekind, and towards the end there is some discussion of whether one of the characters is a virginhicle. This goes on for 31 pages. Pffft! Begone! One star.

The Last of the Great Tradition, by James R. Horstman

The short stories are by no-names, or worse. James R. Horstman has no prior genre appearances, and his The Last of the Great Tradition is a well enough written but rather obvious satire of a snake-oil salesman who switches to the Wisdom of the Flying Saucers line, and receives poetic justice. He is assisted by his servant (sic) George Washington Carver-Spokes, who speaks in cliched dialect of the sort that I hoped had gone out with Irvin S. Cobb (1876-1944, and good riddance). Two stars and a bad taste in the mouth.

The Day They Found Out, by Les Dennis

Les Dennis, another newcomer, contributes The Day They Found Out, a vignette about Recognition Day, on which all the kids are supposed to bring their pets to school so they can receive a lesson in what real life is about. It would be shocking if it weren’t so obvious. This guy probably read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and thought, “Hey, I can do that too.” Well, not really. It’s capably enough done for what it is, so two grudging stars.

The Moths, by Arthur Porges

By George Schelling

The above-mentioned “worse” is Arthur Porges, who could justly be said to have extinguished himself in his prior appearances. Porges is back with The Moths, which attempts to carry a little more weight than his previous trivialities, not very successfully. A disgraced and alcoholic entomologist who is dying of cancer in his hovel encounters a rare moth which proves to be a mutant, absorbing energy from a flame rather than being destroyed. Fade to not very interesting symbolism. Two stars, being generous.

Philip Jose Farmer: Sex and Science Fiction, by Sam Moskowitz

Sam Moskowitz’s new “SF Profile” is a departure. Titled Philip Jose Farmer: Sex and Science Fiction, it features a writer with no work from the ‘30s and ‘40s for Moskowitz to dwell excessively on, and purports to be a subject matter survey as well as an author profile. It starts off by dismissing the observations on the subject by scholar G. Legman (no sex in SF except in the chambers of mad scientists) as accurate enough but dated, since he stopped looking in 1949. But now here’s Farmer! Whose first published SF was the 1952 novella The Lovers, featuring an affair between a human male and an alien female with an insectile life cycle (book version not published until 1961 by the reasonably intrepid Ballantine Books). Moskowitz notes a modest bump of sexual subject matter immediately after The Lovers, but then says maybe things were going that way anyway (citing earlier examples), but before that the genre magazines were pretty puritanical (but here are the exceptions, some quite amusing), and what there was of sex in SF appeared in hardcover books.

Why this reticence? “The answer most probably is that science fiction is a literature of ideas. The people who read it are entertained and even find escape through mental stimulation.” Oh . . . kay. Moskowitz then moves on to a brief account of Farmer’s somewhat ill-starred life (he had to stop writing and take a job at a dairy, publishing next to nothing during the late 1950s), ending with an unusually sharp summation of his strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Surprisingly, this turned out to be one of Moskowitz’s better articles. Four stars.

Summing Up

Well, that was pointless, wasn’t it? The fiction is all well below the waterline, with the longer stories by bigger names half-buried in the muck. The only thing worth reading is the Moskowitz article (except for Robert Silverberg’s book reviews, which roll along in unassuming excellence). Next month we are promised a “powerful” novel by Roger Zelazny, which might be worth waiting for, and a “rollicking” Jack Sharkey story, which—oh, never mind.

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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[November 9, 1964] Shall We Gather At The River? (January 1965 Worlds of Tomorrow)

November 9, 2019 Victoria Silverwolf 5 Comments

by Victoria Silverwolf

You Only Live Twice

Cover art by Richard Chopping

I trust that the spirit of the late Ian Fleming will forgive me for stealing the title of the last James Bond novel to be published during his lifetime. (Rumor has it that at least one more may be published posthumously.) Those evocative four words bring to mind the notion of life after death.

Since the dawn of consciousness, human beings have pondered the possibility of an afterlife. From reincarnation to oblivion, from Paradise to Gehenna, countless visions of an existence after death have filled the imaginations of poets, prophets, and philosophers.

But what about science fiction writers?

Few SF stories dealing with the subject come to mind. There are, of course, many tales of fantasy about survival beyond the grave, often comic versions of Heaven or terrifying visits to Hell. Science fiction, with its disdain for mysticism (despite a weakness for pseudo-scientific premises that are just as fantastic) generally ignores the question.

This 1962 novel is a rare exception.

It is remarkable, then, that almost half of the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow consists of a novella with a large cast of characters who have all died and been resurrected, without the need for a supernatural explanation.

Cover art by George Schelling.

Wanted: Dead or Alive

In fact, a few of the other pieces in the magazine feature characters who may have died, and who may have come back to life, although these are more ambiguous than the lead story.

Day of the Great Shout, by Philip Jose Farmer

Illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

A man who knows he died finds himself alive, nude, hairless, in a young and healthy body, floating in empty space, surrounded on all sides by countless others in his condition. After falling through the void and having a dream about an encounter with God, he wakes up on a new world.

(The author never gives this planet a name. The fact that the stars are different, along with other details, make it clear that it's not Earth. For convenience, let's call it Riverworld, based on the most notable physical feature of the place.)

All around him are other naked, bald people, mostly in a state of panic. One can't blame them, since this afterlife doesn't resemble anything they imagined. When they calm down a bit, it becomes clear that they are now in the valley of a wide river, surrounded on both sides by impassible mountains. A curious device, obviously making use of extremely advanced technology, provides them with food, and even luxury items such as tobacco and lipstick.

A fellow who has an unfortunate encounter with the device proves that it's possible to die a second time.

By this time, we find out that our protagonist is the famous Victorian adventurer Richard Francis Burton. It might be a good idea to list the other characters who play major roles during his adventures on Riverworld.

Dramatis Personae, in order of appearance:

Monat Grrautuft, an alien who died on Earth during the Twenty-First Century.

Kazzintuitruuaabemss, an ape-man who died sometime during the dawn of humanity. Fortunately for the reader, he'll be called just Kazz for the rest of the story.

Kazz in battle.

Peter Frigate, a writer born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1918. If that sounds familiar, that's because his time and place of birth are identical with the author's. Given that he has the same initials, it's clear that's he meant as a fictionalized self-portrait. He died during the same incident that led to the death of the alien.

Alice Pleasance Hargreaves, the woman who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland.

Lev Ruach, a man who also died at the same time as Frigate and the alien. (It turns out that a grave misunderstanding between aliens and Earthlings led to both being wiped out. The main reason for this apocalyptic incident, I think, is so the author doesn't have to deal with people from the far future. Everyone who has ever died on Earth is now alive on Riverworld, so limiting the timescale from prehistory to the Twenty-First Century makes his job a little less daunting than it might be.)

Gwenafra, a seven-year-old girl who died in ancient Gaul. We find out later that children who died before the age of five are somewhere else, not specified.

These are just the good guys. After some time passes, given the nature of humanity, war and slavery develop on Riverworld. Burton and his companions battle the forces of the infamous Nazi leader Hermann Goering and Tullios Hostilios, a legendary king of Rome, long before it became a Republic and then an Empire.

After this violent conflict, our heroes find out that a man is not what he seems to be, and we learn something about the origin and purpose of Riverworld.

The discovery involves the ability of Kazz to see things that the others can't detect.

The premise is a fascinating one, and Farmer develops the setting in convincing detail. There's plenty of action, and a generous number of science fiction concepts to hold the reader's interest. My only complaint is that the story is open-ended, with Burton ready to continue exploring Riverworld. I suspect that a sequel or two is in the works, perhaps leading to a full novel.

An anticipatory four stars.

Field Weapons Tomorrow, by Joseph Wesley

The first of two nonfiction articles in this issue imagines what the equipment used by an ordinary foot soldier of the near future might be like. Sensitive radar detects enemies, and small missiles of various kinds serve to identify and destroy targets. The author makes use of a couple of fictional characters to demonstrate the technology, enlivening a rather dry subject.

An interested three stars.

Retreat Syndrome, by Philip K. Dick

Illustrations by Gray Morrow.

Starts with a guy stopped for speeding in his futuristic vehicle. This mundane beginning soon turns weird as the fellow moves his hand through the dashboard of his one-wheeled car as if it weren't there. We're firmly in the territory that the author explored in previous works; what is reality?

Flashing back reveals that the man remembers killing his wife with a laser gun when she threatened to reveal plans for a revolution against Earth by colonists on Ganymede. His psychiatrist advises a visit to the woman, who is apparently alive and well on Earth.

Did this happen or not?

The guy thinks he's been brainwashed, and that he's not on Earth at all, but still on Ganymede. A mind-altering drug may be involved.

The truth is a little more complicated than that. The fellow winds up committing what promises to be an endless cycle of attempted murders that might not be real.

Touches of what Simone de Beavuoir might call (sexual) 'oppression' make reading an otherwise intriguing story uncomfortable. We're told that the woman intended to betray the revolution out of petty spite and female bitterness. Another direct quote from the protagonist:

Like all women she was motivated by personal vanity and wounded pride.

That's a pretty wide-sweeping indictment of half the human race, even if we accept the fact that the main character isn't in his right mind. Trying to ignore this unpleasant part of the story, I found it to be compelling, with one of the author's more accessible plots.

A slightly offended four stars.

The Pani Planet, by R. A. Lafferty

Illustration by Norman Nodel.

The commander of a military expedition on an alien planet dies. The only native inhabitant who bothers to speak to the humans offers to fix the broken man. Rejecting this as ridiculous, the new leader buries the dead officer, who treated the aliens decently, and initiates a new, harsher policy. You won't be surprised to find out that the deceased commander returns to life. Of course, not all is what it seems to be.

Typical for the author, this story combines whimsy with tragedy. There's comedy in the broken English of the alien, and the tale ends with a joke, but there's also torture and death. The details of the plot are gimmicky, but it's worth reading.

An ambiguous three stars.

Stella and the Moons of Mars, by Robert S. Richardson

Our second nonfiction article rehashes material that appeared in the December 1963 issue of the magazine. Once again, we go over the remarkable fact that Jonathan Swift seems to have predicted that Mars would prove to have two moons, long before they were discovered, in his satiric classic Gulliver's Travels. After talking about the history of the sighting of the satellites, and discussing their known and speculative properties, the article half-seriously suggests that Swift might have seen them through a telescope and slyly announced the fact in the pages of his book. At least the author is honest enough to admit that this hypothesis is impossible, given the limitations of telescopes in Swift's time. We learn a little about the moons of Mars, but the rest is old hat.

An overly familiar two stars.

The Dead Ones, by Sydney van Scyoc

Once again we have death and revival, of a sort. A man is horribly injured in an industrial accident, and is presumed to be near death. Not much later, he turns up perfectly fine. His son-in-law smells something fishy, and finds out the truth about the mysterious health care system of this future world. There's a twist ending you may see coming.

This story features some of the most implausible happenings I've ever read. First of all, you have to believe that one secretive company controls all health care. Secondly, you have to accept that nobody minds the fact that they experience loss of memory during routine physical exams. Thirdly, you have to presume that the hero is the only person who has ever questioned the fact that many people approach death from disease or injury, yet are completely healed right away in some unseen manner.

A skeptical two stars.

Manfire, by Theodore L. Thomas

Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.

The bizarre, and probably imaginary, phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion becomes a worldwide plague in the near future. (The author calls it pyrophilia, but that seems like a very misleading term. The victims of this horrible death certainly don't love it!) Governments make use of all possible resources in an attempt to solve the problem.

Off to secure the remains of a victim.

The United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare contacts an eccentric, reclusive genius to see if he can help.

Our hero.

A victim.

The fellow investigates things in his own way, eventually setting up a team of experts to work on the mystery from a strictly theoretical viewpoint.

He also makes sure that they have plenty of booze.

Other than some gruesome scenes of people being consumed by flames coming out of their bodies, and investigators collecting the grisly remains for study, there isn't much to this story other than the main character's method of attacking the problem. The point seems to be that throwing a bunch of highly intelligent people in a room and having them come up with speculative hypotheses is superior to the methodical collection of data. I'm not sure I agree with that, since both are important. The explanation for the rise in spontaneous combustion reveals some ingenuity on the part of the author, but is rather anticlimactic.

A disappointed two stars.

Can These Bones Live?

Like people, most stories have a limited lifetime. A lucky few gain something like immortality, reprinted in anthologies that survive when others fade away. The two authors named Philip have a good chance of seeing their creations resurrected from the pages of the magazine, into new bodies in the form of books. The other writers, maybe not as much. Only time can tell, and, like the afterlife, nobody really knows anything about the future.

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Book, Magazine

[November 7, 1964] Landslides and Damp Squibs (December 1964 IF)

November 7, 2019 Gideon Marcus 4 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

In Your Heart, You Knew He Was Wrong

It's been a month for dramatic political change. In the Soviet Union, Khruschev was deposed after eight years in power, and the British Labor party came to the fore after thirteen years in the wilderness. And in the United States, the reactionary politics of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater have been loudly repudiated: Lyndon Johnson has been elected President in the biggest landslide in recent memory.

On his coattails, Democrats have ascended to high offices around the country. In the Senate, Robert Kennedy beat incumbent Ken Keating for the open New York seat, Joseph D. Tydings trounced incumbent James Glenn Beall in Maryland, and Joseph M. Montoya smashed appointed incumbent Edwin L. Mechem in New Mexico. Only in California did former hoofer George Murphy win against the Democrat, Pierre Salinger, in something of an upset. What's next for the Golden State? Ronald Reagan as Governor?!

And in the House, Democrats picked up a whopping 37 seats. This means that the party of Jackson and Roosevelt (#2) has not only the White House, but veto-proof control of both houses of Congress. It's likely that The Great Society will continue unabated through the next two years.

Even in the science fiction world, revolutions are happening. Avram Davidson is leaving his post at F&SF (thank goodness), and Cele Goldsmith, at the helm of Fantastic and Amazing, has gotten married.

But with this month's IF, editor Fred Pohl's neglected third daughter, things are not only business as usual, they're a little worse…

The Enemy is Us

by Gray Morrow

When Time Was New, by Robert F. Young

We begin with a tale of time travel. Howard Carpenter, a native of 2156 A.D. Earth, has gone back to the late Cretaceous in his "Triceratank", designed to fit in with the Mesozoic fauna. His mission is to find out why there is a modern human skeleton lying in 80 million year old strata.

But once there, he finds two children, Marcy and Skip, who are on the run from kidnappers. But these kids aren't time travelers — they're actually space travelers from a contemporary (to the far past) Martian civilization!

by Gray Morrow

Thus ensues an adventure whose style and subject matter would make for a fine kiddy comic or Danny Dunn adventure, but which is somewhat jarring for a grown-up mag. Also, I find it highly improbable that a race of humans identical to those on Earth (specifically, the blonde, blue-eyed kind) would arise on Mars, and 80 million years ago, no less. A slightly lesser quibble is the appearance of Brontosaurs; they were long extinct by the Cretaceous period.

And then there's the relationship between the 32 year old Carpenter and the 11 year old, however precocious, Marcy. It's all very innocent and largely on Marcy's part. I can't say more without spoiling the story, but in the end, we get a situation not unlike the reveal in The Twilight Zone episode, The Fugitive. I didn't mind it all that much, but some may find it off-putting.

Anyway, I'm sure John Boston would give the story one star, two at best. But Robert Young, even at his worst, is still a pretty good author, and despite the story's flaws, I did want to know what was coming next.

So, a low three.

The Coldest Place, by Larry Niven

Niven, a brand new author, takes us to the coldest place in the universe, home to a most unique kind of lifeform. The kicker, revealing the setting, is interesting, as are the various concepts Niven introduces in the piece. On the other hand, there's really a bit too many ideas here for the short space allotted, so the story doesn't really go anywhere.

I have a suspicion that, given proper time to develop, this author may be one to watch.

Three stars.

At the Top of the World, by J. T. McIntosh

by Nodel

Two hundred years after the last war, Gallery 71, deep underground, prepares for Ascension Day. What awaits them on the surface? Is there even a sky? Or all the legends just mythical doubletalk?

It's a good setting for a story, not dissimilar to the author's previous 200 Years to Christmas, but the ending is both a fizzle and a letdown. Also, I could done with less of the author's unconscious sexism. No father admirers his daughter's "exquisite curves" and I would have expected a greater role for women in the piece than two teenagers of little consequence.

Another low three.

Pig in a Pokey, by R. A. Lafferty

Lafferty, whose middle name would be whimsy if it didn't start with an A., offers up a duel of wits between a porcine head-collector and the human who would claim the former's asteroid.

Neither foul nor fine (which makes it "fair", I guess), it's over before you know it.

Three stars.

The Hounds of Hell (Part 2 of 2), by Keith Laumer

by Ed Emshwiller

The bulk of the issue is taken up with the conclusion to Keith Laumer's latest novel. Last time, John Brandeis was on the run from a horde of demonic dog things who assumed human guise and filched human brains. Brandeis went so far as to have his body highly cyberneticized so that he could fight the hell hounds on an even footing. With the help of the feeble-minded sailor, Joel, he managed to give them the slip.

But not for long. Upon arriving in America, Brandeis' worst fears are realized: the aliens have taken over key positions of authority, probably throughout the world. Worse, when he lures one of them to a remote spot in Colorado, in the hopes of ambushing and interrogating one of the invaders, Brandeis is, in turn, ambushed and killed.

And when he wakes up, it's in the body of a 70 foot tank, waging a war against other brain-run tanks on the Moon!

by Ed Emshwiller

Hounds of Hell has a lot of promising threads. It could have been an exploration of what it is to be human in an increasingly inhuman body. The robot tank angle, brilliantly explored in prior stories, could have been developed as a sort of prequel to those pieces.

The problem is, we never learn a damned thing about Brandeis, nor do we really care about the world that the Hell Hounds have taken over. The only character with any substance is Joel, and he plays a minor role. In the end, Hounds is a series of action scenes that aren't even up to the author's normally decent standard.

Two stars; two and a half for the book.

The Results

IF used to be Galaxy's experimental twin. It was a magazine with rawer authors and more outré stories. Now that Pohl has to spread his material three ways, IF seems to be the dumping ground for the least worthy stuff.

This month, at least, it wasn't worth the 50 cent cover price. A poor issue to accompany the Christmas subscription renewal drive!

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[November 5, 1964] The State of the Solar Empire: Perry Rhodan in 1964

November 5, 2019 Cora Buhlert 3 Comments

[Don't miss your chance to get your copy of Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963), some of the best science fiction of the Silver Age. If you like the Journey, you'll love this book (and you'll be helping us out, too!)

by Cora Buhlert

Here in Germany, the Iron Curtain just got a tiny hole, because since November 2, East German pensioners are allowed to visit friends and family in the West. In the first few days, hundreds of elderly people availed themselves of the opportunity to see loved ones they had’t seen in years.

East German pensioners at the Oberbaumbrücker border crossing in Berlin, visiting family, friends and loved ones for the first time in many years.

This elderly lady from East Berlin got to embrace her son for the first time since the Wall was built three years ago.

Nobody is under any illusion that this is anything but a propaganda coup for East German leader Walter Ulbricht. Pensioners are considered more of a burden than an asset to the so-called German Democratic Republic, so the East German state does not mind if they decide to stay in the West. But the many families who are finally reunited do not much care about Ulbricht’s political machinations – they are just happy to see their loved ones again.

Meanwhile on the music front, the West German charts have been dominated by a curious song called "Das kommt vom Rudern, das kommt vom Segeln" (That's from rowing, that's from sailing) by Peter Lauch & die Regenpfeifer, a band which has made its name with mildly risqué novelty songs. Hint, the lyrics are not really about rowing and sailing, but about other physical activities in which adults engage. Personally, I find the song rather silly, but it has clearly hit a nerve, because it was playing all over this year's Freimarkt, the annual autumn fair which has been held in my of my hometown of Bremen since 1035 AD. Yes, you read that correctly. This year was already the 929th Freimarkt.

The Freimarkt has changed a lot in the past 929 years. In fact, it has even changed a lot in the past ten years. The technology of fairground rides is improving steadily and new rides are debuting every year. This year, we even had two space themed rides, the rocketship ride Titan and Sputnik, a spectacular ride where a tilting ring of cars orbits a globe that represents the Earth. Both rides are a lot of fun and probably as close as an ordinary human like me will get to outer space in the foreseeable future.

The "Titan" rockship ride as well as the old standby "Wellenflug", a chain swinger ride and "Round-up" at the Bremer Freimarkt.

The spectacular Sputnik ride, built by Anton Schwarzkopf, at the Bremer Freimarkt.

Checking in on Perry Rhodan

Talking of outer space, it has been more than a year since I last discussed Perry Rhodan, Germany’s most popular science fiction series. So it’s high time to check in on Perry again to see what he’s been doing this past year.

Quite a lot, it turns out. Since the Heftroman issues of Perry Rhodan are published weekly now, the plot moves at a brisk clip. Furthermore, a monthly companion series of so-called Planetenromane (planet novels), 158 page paperback novels, premiered in September. The third issue just came out. Many Heftromane have paperback companion series, but most of them just republish old material, occasionally by literally stapling unsold issues together and adding a new cover. The Planetenromane, on the other hand, offer all-new stories, often side stories, which don't quite fit into the main series.

The cover of the first "planet novel", "Planet of the Mock" by Clark Dalton a.k.a. Walter Ernsting

The lives of Perry Rhodan and his friends remained busy in the regular series as well. Perry Rhodan in particular had to deal with a series of personal losses. First, his Arkonian wife Thora, a mainstay of the series since issue 1, died last year. Next, another character who has been in the series since the very first issue, Perry's friend and brother-in-law, the Arkonian Crest, heroically gave his life in issue 99.

The Arkonian Crest dies in issue 99 of Perry Rhodan

A Universe With Too Few Women

Particularly, the loss of Perry's wife Thora in issue 78 is still keenly felt after more than a year, because Thora was one of the few female characters in the male-heavy Perry Rhodan universe. There are women in the Mutant Corps that Perry Rhodan founded, a female intelligence agent named Fraudy Nicholson who fell in love with her target played an important role in a recent mini plot-arc and there are other women guest characters as well, but Thora was the only consistent female presence in the series.

Of course, Perry Rhodan is immortal and so it is to be expected that he would eventually move on. And indeed, he gradually fell for Akonian scientist Auris von Las-Toór, whom he met in issue 100. Auris also developed feelings for Perry, even though they found themselves on different sides during a conflict with the Akon. And when Auris finally deserted her family and homeworld to be with Perry, she was killed in the ensuing battle in issue 125.

Perry Rhodan and Auris von Las-Toór on the cover of issue 107.

Perry Rhodan's tendency to kill off its few female characters is troubling, especially since half of the cast is immortal. Though it has to be said that quite a few male characters were also built up, sometimes over several issues, only to be unceremoniously killed off. Perry Rhodan fans have taken to calling this practice "voltzen" after writer William Voltz in whose stories this frequently happens.

What Perry Rhodan really needs is some women on its writing staff, which currently is all male. Perry Rhodan co-creator Walter Ernsting a.k.a. Clark Dalton frequently translates stories by female American science fiction authors, so he isn't averse to science fiction written by women at all. So why doesn't he invite some German woman writers to join the Perry Rhodan staff? Plenty of women read Perry Rhodan, so it would only be fair of some of them got to write for the series.

A Family Tragedy

Being related to Perry Rhodan is clearly a risk to your health, as the example of Perry and Thora's estranged son Thomas Cardif shows, for Thomas became increasingly hostile and tried to depose his father. I was not a huge fan of the Thomas Cardif story arc, if only because Cardif's initial motivation is only too understandable. After all, Thomas Cardif was raised in secret, not knowing who his parents were, supposedly for his own safety. And once he learns the truth, Thomas blames Perry Rhodan for his difficult childhood, not entirely without reason. After his first attempted coup, Perry Rhodan orders Thomas Cardif's memories hypnotically wiped (because keeping him in ignorance of his true origin worked so well the first time). As a result, Thomas becomes even angrier when he recovers his memories and goes on a worse rampage than before. He even captures and impersonates his father for a while. Thomas eventually dies of old age, when his cellular activator, the device which grants Perry Rhodan and his close associates immortality, fails.

Thomas Cardif is killed, when his cellular activator explodes in issue 116.

The story of Thomas Cardif is a tragedy, but a preventable one. Furthermore, our hero Perry Rhodan does not come off at all well in this story arc, because his bad parenting decisions were what caused Thomas to go rogue in the first place. Conflicts between a parent generation still steeped in the propaganda of the Third Reich and a younger generation that demands the truth about all the ugly history that was swept under the rug are currently playing out all over Germany, so it is only natural that a series as popular as Perry Rhodan would reflect that conflict. However, the overwhelmingly young readers did not expect that Perry Rhodan of all people would side with the reactionary parent generation.

Thomas Cardif was not the only one who challenged Perry Rhodan's rulership over the Solar Empire. A group calling itself the Upright Democrats was also disenchanted with Perry's policies and tried to assassinate him. Naturally, Perry survived – he is immortal, after all – and had the malcontents exiled to a distant planet, where they tangled with friendly and hostile aliens for several issues.

In fact, Perry Rhodan introduced several new alien species over the course of the last year, such as the invisible Laurins (named after the invisible dwarf king of medieval legend) and the duplicitous Akonians, who are distant ancestors of the generally benevolent Arkonian race, hence the very similar (and confusing) names. Another welcome new addition to the series are the positronic-biological robots, Posbis for short, a cyborg race that lives on planet with one hundred (artificial) suns. The Posbis were initially hostile towards the humanity, but eventually became close allies after Perry Rhodan reprograms their brains.

The Posbis fight the humans on the cover of issue 144.

The planet of the Posbis, orbited by one hundred artificial suns.

No article about Perry Rhodan would be complete without recognizing artist Johnny Bruck, who has created every Perry Rhodan cover as well as all interior illustrations and spaceship schematics to date. His sleek spaceships, futuristic cityscapes, quirky alien creatures such as the fan favourite character Gucky, the mouse beaver, and – when the plot allows – beautiful women have contributed a lot to Perry Rhodan's success. Bruck is a true phenomenon, not just West Germany's best science fiction artist, but one of the best in the world. Unfortunately, his work is little known outside the German speaking world, but I hope that he will eventually receive the international recognition he deserves.

Quo Vadis Perry Rhodan?

Johnny Bruck's covers are one of the few constants in a series that is in a period of transition, as unceremoniously killing off long-term characters such as Thora and Crest shows. The writing team headed by co-creators Clark Dalton and K-H. Scheer has well and truly outrun their initial outline for a series of fifty Heftromane by now. This is also why Perry Rhodan has felt somewhat disjointed of late, focussing on mini-arcs which last for a couple of issues each and sometimes don't include Perry or any of the other main characters at all. It is obvious that the writers are experimenting, introducing new characters and concepts, while looking for a new direction for the series as a whole. In fact, issue No. 166, which came out this week, doesn't feature any of the main characters and introduces yet another new alien race.

The latest alien race introduced in issue 166, rendered in Johnny Bruck's inimmitable style.

The most successful of the newly introduced characters is Atlan, an ancient Arkonian who crash-landed on Earth in prehistoric times and spent millennia asleep in a dome under the ocean, waking every couple of centuries to protect and guide humanity. During his latest awakening, Atlan not only learned that humans had become a spacefaring civilisation in the meantime and even made contact with his own people, he also encountered Perry Rhodan. After some initial misunderstandings, Perry Rhodan and Atlan became close friends – after all, they both share the same goal, to protect humanity.

Perry Rhodan and Atlan fight on the cover of issue 54. But don't worry, it's all a misunderstanding.

Since his introduction in issue 50, the character of Atlan quickly became a fan favourite, to the point that the covers frequently announce "A new Atlan Adventure", even though the series itself is still named Perry Rhodan. The popularity of Atlan is also part of the reason why longterm series mainstays such as Crest and Thora were written out. And indeed, Atlan has pretty much taken over the role as Perry Rhodan's alien best friend that was once filled by Crest. I am not as enamoured with Atlan as many other readers seem to be and also wonder why Perry cannot have more than one Arkonian friend. But the character of Atlan is clearly here to stay and has become an intrinsic part of the series, as Perry Rhodan searches for a new direction that will take it to issue 200 and beyond.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[November 3, 1964] State of the Art of War(games)

November 3, 2019 Gideon Marcus 8 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Where we stand

Just over a decade ago, there were no board wargames. Back then, if you wanted to simulate the field of battle on a scale smaller than 1:1, your only real option was to buy or cast an army of tin soldiers and fight per the few various rules sets that had been developed.

And people did just that, mind you, whether they were playing Fletcher Pratt's naval wargames or H.G. Wells' Little Wars.

In 1954, Charles S. Roberts started a modest revolution with his game, Tactics. Now, armies could be represented with cardboard chits instead of expensive figures. And for nearly ten years, Roberts stood as virtual king of an entire class of games. With the exception of Games Research's Diplomacy, Roberts' company, Avalon Hill, produced every board wargame ever made. By 1961, his company war producing two a year (as well as several general audience games).

But in December 1963, straitened circumstances caused Roberts to sell the company over to Eric Dott, head of Monarch Services, Avalon Hill's creditor. Roberts' friend and colleague, Tom Shaw, is now at the helm.

This turnover does not seem to have affected the wargame company from Baltimore. Two games have been launched this year, both World War 2 titles: Afrika Korps, a simulation of Rommel's drive in North Africa, and Midway, depicting the savage naval battle between Japan and the United States near the Pacific island base.

Of course, I was bit by the gaming bug right at the start, and I've done my best to keep on top of all the new games. With the exception of the poorly rated Chancellorsville and the obtuse Gettysburg, I think I've played them all. And that means I get to share my experiences with you on the current state of the art of wargaming. Read on…and perhaps you'll get bit by the bug!

Breakout

In 1958, Roberts developed a sequel to Tactics imaginatively called Tactics II. This game didn't simulate an historical battle. Instead, "Red" faced "Blue" in a match that was geographically dissimilar, but with identical armies. It was with this game that Roberts popularized a number of elements common to wargames today.

First, the idea that (as opposed to chess or checkers) that you can move all of your pieces during your turn. This was a revolution, and it took time for new players to wrap their heads around it!

The second was the "Combat Results Table" (CRT). Tactics II set the mold for wargames, incorporating a movement phase followed by a combat phase. All units that ended their turn next to an enemy had to fight them, the results of said battle determined by the roll of a die and consultation with the CRT. At odds of 1 to 1, or even 2 to 1, it was a brutal chart — more dangerous to the attacker than the defender.

But at 3 to 1, the attacker was assured of success. The enemy would have to retreat or would be outright eliminated, sometimes taking an equal number of attackers with them. The odds of defender elimination rose as the odds increased in favor of the attacker.

It was a simple concept, and yet, so profound was its impact in its elegance, that the think tank, Rand, approached Roberts. It seemed that his CRT was strikingly similar to ones they were using in their own games! A sheepish Roberts explained that he'd made his in about 15 minutes, developed from the textbook maxim that odds of 3 to 1 were considered the minimum necessary to guarantee victory.

That's the history — how's the game? Well, Janice and I took a stab at it, but quite frankly, it didn't appeal. The lack of historical underpinning, and the complete parity of the forces gave us a sense of "why bother". Perhaps if we'd played the advanced game, which has more bells and whistles.

Also, we had been spoiled by the more advanced games that Roberts developed in the '60s. Once you see the improvements made, you'll understand what we mean.

So, two stars for Tactics II, but coupled with admiration for the revolution it was.

The Great Invasion

There is no question that the most "popular" war of the last several centuries is World War 2. This makes sense — all of us served, or had family who served. It was global and thus rich in settings and scenarios. It was a "good" war with clear good guys and bad guys.

It's no surprise, then, that four of the last five wargames put out by Avalon Hill (and at least the next two, per early reports) all have WW2 as their setting.

The first in this series, D-Day, covers the most dramatic American land engagement of the war: the assault on and liberation of Nazi-occupied France.

As with Tactics II, a lot of firsts were introduced in this game. Unlike its historical predecessors, Gettysburg,Chancellorsville, D-Day didn't simulate a battle but a whole theater of war. Moreover, instead of having a fixed setup, with units occupying (more or less) the places they held on the eve of the depicted battle, D-Day is the first alternate history wargame.

For the Allied player may choose one of seven invasion beaches, Normandy among them. And the Germans largely have free reign on how to set up their forces in anticipation. This means that every game has the potential to be completely different from the last.

Another big distinguishing element from Tactics II, though it was pioneered in Chancellorsville, are the hexagonal "squares" on the mapboard. This was an innovation Roberts definitely borrowed from Rand's wargames; these innovative hexes allow equidistant movement in six directions, as opposed to squares, on which diagonal movement is greater than movement through the sides.

Needless to say, my friend John and I were eager to try out this behemoth of a game. After a false start — it's really easy to lose as the Germans if your setup is suboptimal — we settled down for a twenty hour slog across France. The first time out, I'd done a simple storm across the Channel into Picardy. This time, I was experimenting with the southern option, going in from the Mediterranean. That meant I'd flanked most of the German defenses. I got lucky and managed to spill out into central France before John could solidify his defense, and so, halfway through the game, I had all of my invasion forces ashore, arrayed against a precarious line of his troops.

What ensued was a methodical, tedious grind as I slowly pushed him back, hex by hex. Attempts at clever breakthroughs involving paratroop operations in Holland resulted in failure. Time and time again, 50/50 die rolls went against me. Finally, at the banks of the Rhine, I made a couple of desperate die tosses…and lost.

We were highly impressed with the game at that point. It had afforded us several sessions of entertainment and had come down to a virtual draw. But there was a nagging feeling tugging at the back of our brains. While the opening rounds of the game were exciting and varied, we had a suspicion that it always came down to the mid-game slog…and dozens of hours of grinding to a conclusion.

To explore our concerns, we teamed up, working on the optimum German defense. We found that, no matter what, the Allies can always crack through somewhere, and at that point, it's just a matter of time before the Allied behemoth is on the continent, working its way toward the Reich.

Conclusion: D-Day is a great game to play once or twice, but it pales after that.

Four stars for the first games. Two beyond.

Duel in the Desert

The next two games that Avalon Hill released after D-Day were Waterloo and Stalingrad, games I have reviewed in prior articles. The first was a set piece battle a la Chancellorsville; the second an operation monster similar to D-Day.

The latest release, Afrika Korps, lies somewhere inbetween the two in scope. A simulation of the battle for North Africa, 1941-42, it pits a powerful, mobile German force against a ragtag but ever increasing band of Allied defenders. As with prior releases, there are a couple of interesting innovations.

For one, logistics is not abstract, as in D-Day, or not a concern at all, as in Waterloo. Instead, supply trucks are physical units you drive around, and they are expended in an attack — which can leave your aggressors high and dry even after a successful assault!

Also, because of the scale and nature of the desert terrain, moving units along a road doesn't just confer a +1 movement bonus; you get a whopping +10! Also, the Germans have an immortal Rommel unit who confers an additional +2 movement bonus to accompanying troops. That means that there are German units that can move a ridiculous 24 hexes in a single turn.

That kind of mobility and the lack of defensive terrain (no river lines, for instance) makes for a much more fluid game. Units dart around, forward and back, trying to encircle the enemy and cut them off from supply while at the same time, trying to prevent being encircled themselves. Rather than a slow slogfest, like D-Day, Stalingrad, or even Waterloo to a degree, Afrika Korps affords and rewards daring play.

Unfortunately, a lot of the game is luck based. In order to keep the Germans from stomping the Allies, and to model the interdiction of Axis transport by the British navy, there is a chance every turn that the fascists' supply trucks don't show up. Enough turns like that, and the Germans become unable to do much before the defenders build up their forces.

Morever, the Axis must take both El Alamein and Tobruch to win, and assaulting Tobruch is always a risky proposition. Afrika Korps, like its predecessors, uses the exact same CRT as Tactics II. There's a one in three chance a powerful unit gets destroyed in a 3 to 1 attack, the best the Germans will be able to muster. And if the Germans lose one of their two big tank units, that's a huge blow. That's not counting all the supply die rolls, which are often 50/50.

What this boils down to is that there's an awful lot of luck that goes into each game. That may be realistic, but it's also frustrating. Janice and I had (and are having) a lot of fun playing Afrika Korps, but these issues make it hard to give it more than three stars.

Come out and play!

Financial difficulties aside, Avalon Hill knows it's got a growing audience. To that end, the company has launched a bimonthly newsletter, The General, in which new games are announced, players discuss strategy, and lonely players find each other for local contests. It's a brilliant idea, and while the articles range from mildly interesting to somewhat sophomoric, there's no question it helps knit the community together.

Heck, it's even inspired us to build our own network of players. Because whatever the issues with the individual games, wargaming is an exciting new hobby. It stretches the mind, enhances understanding of history, and is a lot of fun.

Perhaps you fancy yourself a future Napoleon, Wavell, or Xenobia — come join us! We'd love to swap war stories…

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Science / Space Race

[November 1, 1964] Time (sharing) travel

November 1, 2019 Ida Moya 3 Comments

by Ida Moya

New Toys for Los Alamos

As the Traveler said, things have really been heating up in Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL). And what with President Kennedy being taken from us so traumatically last year, it has all been too much. We have been struggling with national security while mourning the loss of our leader, and also attending to a deluge of new computers that are coming into the lab. Things have calmed down a little so I am now able to share a few secrets with you again.

Page from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory report LA-1

I've been busy helping with the preparation of the upcoming declassification of the Los Alamos Primer. This is the very first official technical report we produced at LASL, numbered LA-1. It is based on 5 lectures introducing the principles of nuclear weapons. These lectures were given in 1943 by LASL librarian Charlotte Serber’s husband, the physicist Robert Serber. You bet it's release took a long time to get this approved. Doing the work to cross out all those “Secret Limited” stamps and restamp each page with "Unclassified" also took some time.

Los Alamos is so important to the nation’s top-secret defense work that we are able to commandeer the first of each of the fastest computers manufactured. We had Serial no. 1 of the IBM 701 “Defense Calculator” in 1953. LASL also tested one of the first of 8 IBM 7030 “Stretch” computers, which even with its uptime shortcomings can calculate so fast that some people call it a “Supercomputer.”

I’m sure I also told you that we finally received our IBM 7090 computer. This equipment is being used for big science calculations around atomic energy, guided missile control, strategic planning (cryptanalysis, weather prediction, game theory), and jet engine design. I'm sure it is no surprise when I tell you we are using it to simulate nuclear explosions. This computer also has what they call an “upgrade,” the addition of more memory and input-output capability. The upgraded computer is called an IBM 7094.

Scientists at LASL, Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been working on better ways for computer operators to use the IBM 7094. Rather than custom-writing each computer operation and calculation that have to be done, they are working on a kind of “supervisor” to allow for more than one person to use the computer at the same time. This "operating system" is called CTSS or Compatible Time Sharing System.

I don't have a current picture of Marge, but here is MIT Professor Robert Fano using CTSS from a Teletype ASR 35.

Sharing the Wealth

It's difficult to convey just how important this will be. Computers are hideously expensive things, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are also vital for any scientific institution's operations. Currently, only one person at a time can use them, which results in one of two situations. Either one person at a time has a monopoly on the machine during for the time it takes to compose and enter a program into the machine (incredibly inefficient) or programs are written "off-line" and run in a "batch". This latter solution ensures that the computer is always running, but it means no one can access the computer in real-time, and it might take days to get results (or notice that the program failed to run correctly!)

With time-sharing, several people can use a computer at once, running different programs in real-time. While the performance might not be as efficient for the computer, since it is accommodating multiple processes at once, the increased efficiency for the operator should more than make up for it.

One of my colleagues at MIT, Marjorie Merwin-Dagget, co-wrote a paper with Robert C. Daly and MIT lab head Fernando J. Corbato (Corby) about the CTSS operating system. You can have a look at it here An Experimental TIme Sharing System.

The Mother of Invention

Marge majored in math, taught for a couple of years, then found a position doing calculations and differential equations at an engineering lab. In the mid-50s, one of Marge’s female colleagues at this lab was sent to MIT to learn about the Whirlwind computer, and when this colleague came back, she taught her about how to code for Whirlwind.

Marge then leveraged this knowledge to code applications for a card punch calculator, an IBM 407 accounting machine, which was much quicker than the manual equipment their lab had been using. This clever coding work helped her land a job from Prof. Frank Verzuh in the MIT computer center. Marge got her friend Robert "Bob" Daly a job there too, because he was so skilled programming the IBM 407.

The IBM 407 Accounting Machine is "programmed" by changing wires on this plugboard.

One of Marge's first assignments was to compare assembly language programming to FORTRAN programming. Her findings are that FORTRAN is quicker to use and easier for other programmers to understand. She quickly became the FORTRAN expert of her group. She even got to work with the brilliant John McCarthy. John has been promoting the notion of timesharing computer systems at MIT and beyond. These computers are so fast that, John reasons, that several people can use them at once.

Marge tells me that Corby thought she and Bob are the best programmers on the staff. CTSS started as a demo, to demonstrate the feasibility of computer timesharing. This demo turned into a viable system, something people wanted to actually use. She worked one-on-one a lot with Corby, rehashing the problems. They ended up working a lot at odd hours, staying up late going over listings and working out the problems. Kind of like those “hackers” I told you about last year. She was so excited when she told me that it finally worked for two Flexowriters.

MIT's Fernando Corbato standing amidst some of an IBM 7090 computer system at MIT.

Corby worked on programming the supervisor and queueing, while Marge took the task of coding interrupt handling, saving the state of the machine, commands, character handling, and a method for inputting and editing lines for the demos. Bob Daly was best at translating this to the mechanical working of the computer.

After co-writing this paper, Marge got married and took a leave of absence after her first child was born. She did return to MIT last year (1963), and is working part-time on smaller support projects outside the mainstream of CTSS development. It’s troubling how difficult it is for a woman to juggle fulfilling technical work with the demands of raising a young family.

Things to Come

Next time, I will tell you about our newest Supercomputer, the CDC 6600. This remarkable machine, designed by that wag Seymour Cray, is being installed in Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory right now. It is so fast and hot that it has to be cooled by Freon, which is making for a lot of fuss with air conditioning technicians coming and going to the lab. I spend a lot of time making copies of "Site Preparation Guide" manuals for everyone from the managers to the technicians. There's a lot more to these computers than just programming languages, that's for sure. I hear that IBM is working on a new computer system, the 360. One of its requirements is that the pieces be able to fit through standard doors, and ride in standard elevators. Guess buyers are getting tired of having to break through walls to get their computers installed!

Installation manual photo of the CDC 6600. Look at that display console with the two round screens, perfect decor for your evil lair.

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Book, Magazine

[October 30, 1964] The Deadly Barrier (November 1964 Analog)

October 30, 2019 Gideon Marcus 8 Comments

by Gideon Marcus

Trapped on the wrong side

In the 1940s, the sound barrier was as mighty a wall as the Maginot line. Planes approaching Mach One lost control of their wings, heat built up and melted vital components — the demon living in this wall refused to let any pass.

It wasn't until 1947, when Captain Chuck Yeager took to the skies in his rocket-propelled X-1, that the barrier was first breached.

Our genre has its own deadly wall. If left unpierced, it leaves a reader like those poor, challenging planes and pilots of yore: broken and dispirited. It is the Three Star barrier, the divide between fine and feh — and this month, five of the six science fiction magazines that came out in the English-speaking world failed to break through it.

Sure, some issues made brave attempts. Both New Worlds and IF came right to the edge, the latter with some memorable stories, and the former maintaining bog-standard mediocrity down the line.

But timidity breaks no records. Playing it safe pierces no barriers.

Cele Goldsmith's mags, Amazing and Fantastic, both fell well short of the mark, managing only 2.6 stars. Perhaps if she'd lassoed the best parts of both of this month's issues together, she might have managed a breach.

And the less said about the struggling Fantasy and Science Fiction (also 2.6 stars), the better. Pour one out for a faded glory, folks.

An Analog to failure

That leaves the November 1964 Analog. Can Campbell's mag, once the undisputed leader of the genre, succeed where all its compatriots have failed? Read on…

by John Schoenherr

Invasion by Washing Water, by D.R. Barber

But, first, this message.

Are you a British astronomer? Are you tired of having your photographic negatives eaten by bacteria? Do you want to know why your shots of celestial bodies get ruined periodically by fuzz and rot? Well never fear! D.R. Barber has the answer:

Invaders from Venus.

Yes, Mr. Barber has determined that, when the Earth and Venus are aligned just right, and a major geomagnetic storm is raging, that the conditions are perfect for Venusian microbes to land in England to destroy our film. Of course, this only seems to happen in England because of vagaries of our atmospheric currents. And it's impossible for there to be a terrestrial origin for the bugs. Oh no.

Sigh. Only in Analog. One star.

Gunpowder God, by H. Beam Piper

by John Schoenherr

Our first attempt to break the Three Star barrier involves a sideways leap. Veteran SFictioneer Piper writes of Calvin Morrison, Corporal in the Pennsylvania State Police of Earth — our Earth. Through a freak accident, caused by careless activities of the universe-traveling Paratime authority, Morrison is warped to another Earth.

In this timeline, Indo-Europeans went east instead of west, crossing the Siberian land bridge, and colonizing the Americas. Come this world's 1964, the eastern seaboard is a patchwork of feudal kingdoms on the brink of a gunpowder revolution. Calvin Morrison, a Korean war veteran and all-around man of action, is perfectly placed to become a big wheel, the titular "Gunpowder God". Very soon, he is "Kalvan", organizing the troops of Hostigos against the Nostori Hordes and their tepid allies, the Principality of Sask.

But the agents of the Level One timeline, sole possessors of the secret of timeline travel, are rushing to stop Kalvan before he gives away Paratime's game…

Piper has basically recycled the plot to L. Sprague de Camp's lovely Lest Darkness Fall, in which a 20th Century man goes back to 6th Century Rome to save it from the Byzantines. And what Piper does well, he does quite well. There are fine tactics, good war depictions, the bones of an interesting plot.

But only the bones. I was expecting a novel; instead I got a short novella. Everything suffers as a result. Kalvan is welcomed all too eagerly and learns the local lingo (akin to Greek, it seems) in no time. His romance with Skylla, a princess who dresses and is treated as a man, is perfunctory — to say nothing of the wasted opportunity to develop such an interesting character!

Plus, there's this weird assumption that Aryans are the catalyst of culture, even though the geography and environment of North America are wildly different from that of Europe — and Europe's technological preeminence was never assured (and largely based on developments in other parts of the world!)

So Gunpowder God skates to the edge of the Three Star barrier but progresses no further. Strike One.

Gallagher's Glacier, by Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond

by Kelly Freas

In the future, corporations have a stranglehold on the solar system's shipping lanes. One crazy man hatches a plan to install a fusion drive into an ice asteroid and become the first independent trader. But since the corporations have the monopoly on drive-making equipment, no one can join him in his independence…unless some plucky captain is willing to take his company ship and defect.

Wow. As written, that sounds like a pretty good yarn! But when the Richmond's tell it, they give you nothing more than the above paragraph and a lot of padding.

Glacier barely hits Star Two, much less Three. And that's Strike Two.

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Princes (Part 2 of 3), by Mack Reynolds

by Robert Swanson

Our third attempt comes with the second installment of Mack Reynold's latest serial. When last we left Denny Land, erstwhile Professor of Etruscan Studies and now national gladiatorial champion, he was headed to Spain. His top secret mission: to meet up with Auguste Bazaine, inventor of the anti-anti-missile technology that could destabilize the world, plunging it into atomic fire. But though he does manage to find Bazaine at a cocktail party, Denny is sapped on the neck, and Bazaine is kidnapped. The Sov-world, the West-world, and Common Europe all blame each other.

There is only one resolution: trial by combat. All three regions will send a three-man team into a one-hectare arena. Whomever comes out alive will be privy to the anti-anti-missile secrets…if Bazaine is ever found.

I find it ironic that the characters spend so much time lambasting the gladiatorial games, the reliance on bread and circuses of the world's idle masses. Yet this series of books is really just an excuse for some riproaring modern fight fiction. Is this a subtle message?

Less subtle is the writing, which is competent, but not up to what Reynolds can deliver when he tries. Bette Yardborough, "the girl" on Denny's spy team, gets the worst of it. To wit, this immortal dialogue:

Bette said softly, "Between your accomplishments as a scholar, and a . . . a man of violence, I would assume you have had little time for women, Dennis Land."

Was she joshing him? Denny shot a quick scowl at her. He growled, "I'm no eunuch."

She laughed again, even as she turned away to go below. "After seeing you dispatch those two trained Security lads, I'm sure you're not, Dennis."

Sweet Dreams is never going to break the Three Star Barrier with this kind of stuff, even if the fighting scenes and the world Reynolds' created are pretty interesting. And I don't have high hopes for the conclusion next month, either.

Strike Three! Oh wait. The umpire has run onto the field and called FOUL BALL. Apparently, we can't count an unfinished serial. All right. Onwards and…someway-wards.

Guttersnipe, by Rick Raphael

by John Schoenherr

Here's an oddly technical story involving sanitation and water workers… OF THE FUTURE! Their tremendously complex operation is threatened when radioactivity is found seeping into the drinking supply of one of the cities. After many loving descriptions of apparatus and mechanisms, the source is found and eliminated.

If anyone could have broken the Three Star Barrier, it'd be the fellow who brought us 400 mph cars in the Code Three series. Sadly, the piece reads like a science article on water reclamation rather than an sf story.

Mind you, I like articles on water reclamation, but I don't buy Analog to read them.

And so, Rafael's piece falls short of the barrier, somewhere beyond the Star Two line.

Strike Thr… Oh. Another foul against the line. Apparently science factish stories don't count either. Fine. One more piece to go.

Bill for Delivery, by Christopher Anvil

by Kelly Freas

About a decade ago, Bob Sheckley wrote a great little story called Milk Run. It's about the AAA Ace duo trying to form a livestock shipping company. Each of the animals on board their one transport had its own foibles, and dealing with one species exacerbated things with the others.

Chris Anvil's piece is much the same plot except less interesting and more saddening.

Another Star Two piece and (looks around for the umpire) STEEEERIIIIIIKE THREEEEE!

You're Out

In the end, I can't imagine Analog's dismal 2.2 star ranking really surprises anyone. Still, it would have been nice for at least one of this month's mags to break the Three Star Barrier. I tell you, it's times like these that I wonder about turning in my quill.

On the other hand, if I may mix my metaphors further, no single panning returns a nugget. The quest for gold is a diligent process that accumulates the stuff grain by grain. As bad as this month was in aggregate, it still gave us a decent number of good stories.

And that's why we keep doing this. Because without us, you'd be stuck slogging through all the dreck. Now, you can enjoy the gold without dealing with the dross.

You're welcome. I need a drink…

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]

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55 years ago: Science Fact and Fiction