By Jessica Holmes
No, it doesn’t deserve a better pun. Dear reader, I have suffered. I have been tormented, driven to the very edge, and my hearing may never recover from the onslaught of NOISE. This isn’t the worst serial I’ve had to review, but it might be the most irritating. Hang on a tick, and I’ll explain why.
Continue reading [March 22, 1965] To Bee Or Not To Bee? (Doctor Who: The Web Planet [parts 4-6])
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
Loud Tensions
The news recently has been dominated by battles between the old-guard conservative and the new liberal voices in the matter of race relations.
In the USA President Johnson has urged passage of a Voting Rights Act at the same time as another Johnson (a judge this time) has agreed to let a civil rights march in Alabama continue, in spite of fierce opposition.
In the UK, Rhodesian ministers have been touring trying to drum up support for their declaration of independence under white minority rule to resolve the stalemate between Ian Smith and Harold Wilson. Given the Rhodesian argument seems to primarily be that they have real experience of governing and the black people of Rhodesia are uncivilized, I don’t think they are going to win too many friends.
At the same time we have continued debates over Commonwealth immigration into the UK. Firstly whether the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act is being circumvented illegally and how widely, secondly if those citizens should be deported and, thirdly, if further controls need to be placed on immigration. I am personally in agreement with the late leader of the opposition, Hugh Gaitskell, who stated that it was cruel and brutal, and as such I am not surprised there are some people trying to get around it.
Then there are the inflammatory statements made by Sir David Renton MP that certain communities do not wish to integrate and that we have too much of our farmland been taken up by urban sprawl. On my personal experience, Indian and Pakistani communities in the UK are doing a much better job of integration into British life than most British people living in India seemed to have done. Whilst most of the increasing land-use over the last ten years seems not to have come from immigration but from those formally in the cities moving out to areas with more space. If they are really worried about this I would contend wider availability of birth control, legalization of abortion and a proper investment into inner city renewal.
A Quiet Town
Closer to home in Bedford, however, we have long had a thriving immigrant population and I have yet to hear any complaint about it. In fact the biggest grumbling locally is the that TV signal continues to be poor and plans for a nearby relay station continue to be delayed.
Thankfully we have many other entertainments around here. We have a number of local picture houses, with The Empire continuing to show a range of excellent films for the SFF enthusiast. On Sunday they are having both Vincent Price and Boris Karloff films I hope to sync my teeth into.
As well as the national charts, we get local charts. I approve of the top 3 going into this weekend (which I definitely contributed to myself).
And, of course, plenty of reading material, including two long awaited pieces. The Fourth issue of Gamma, which is looking backwards, and City of A Thousand Suns, which has an eye on the future.
Gamma: A Long-Expected Magazine
by John Healey
First thing, we have to start with is the cover. Gone now are beautiful space pictures and instead is a lurid cover right out of the pulp era. I have to wonder if this is the influence of the new co-editor, Jack Matcha, who has made a career writing Pulp Sleaze novels for Kozy Books and has the forthcoming novel A Rogue’s Guide to Europe whose content, I have heard, is just what you would expect from the title.
The editorial confirms we are now going straight back to the pulp era. I personally was not yearning for the days:
…when Jayne Mansfield who invariably wore a space suit apparently constructed by a bikini manufacturer and every Bug-Eyed Monster attacked her for reasons known (if at all) only to himself (itself)?
We are definitely a far cry from the literary attempts to include imaginative fiction of all types, and the issue feels much the lesser for it.
The Clutches of Ruin by H. B. Fyfe
H. B. Fyfe was first published in Astounding back in 1940 and was prolific during the 50s although he has been appearing in print less often of late.
Neil Bryson and a dietician named Carole Leland (who acts as his secretary), are sent on a mission by the Galactic Federation to assess a recently admitted planet that has seen a marked population boom that is alarming the other members of the federation. They are to investigate what is being done to get this down. On this planet we meet different groups with different responses to this directive.
One reason why I like to return on occasion to pulpy space adventures is they are fun and easy to read. This, on the other hand, is like reading through treacle with over-description, pointless diversions and regular stating of Bryson’s own thought process.
And yet the actual story within is quite fascinating. At first it seems like it is going to be a colonialist parable about “stupid natives” overpopulating themselves and not accepting the tenants of “superior people”. However it quickly gets messy as the Galactic directive has completely changed the various societies on this planet in unprecedent ways and we are led to wonder if the federation itself was at fault to start with.
So a very interesting piece brought down by poor execution. Three stars.
The Towers of Kagasi, by William P. Miller
William P. Miller is apparently a well-known and respected mystery writer, but I believe this is his first foray into science fiction. In this story, a team of astronauts investigate the titular planet from where a ray was sent to Earth, killing the entire population of four major cities.
At times it felt like what you used to get in Thrilling Wonder Stories, but it lacks any of the enjoyment and is a story that comes across to me as meanspirited, misogynistic and gross.
One star
Food, by Ray Nelson
Our first story by Ray Nelson since he got Four- and Five-star reviews for his pieces at F&SF in 1963 and is apparently now working on a novel with Philip K. Dick. He continues to show here why he is one to watch.
Ben is the last crewman alive on a planet where numerous creatures seem to be trying to kill him. This does not feel like a pulp era story at all, rather like the kinds of atmospheric vignettes we get in New Worlds.
Four stars
Hans Off in Free Pfall to The Moon, by E. A. Poe
This is a significant abridgement of Edgar Allen Poe’s Hans Pfall (about one fifth of the original length) done by cutting out his verbosity and digressions and instead sticking to the core of the tale, one of a man attempting to travel to the moon in a balloon.
Though I am not a fan of the original full-length work and do think Poe will use ten words where one can suffice, it feels like a lot is lost by making such a change. For example a section observing the Earth from above and pondering its appearance becomes a note about checking altitude on a barometer.
One star for a rather pointless exercise.
The Gamma Interview: Forrest J. Ackerman
I am a bit disappointed overall not just by the brevity of this interview but also the shallowness of it. It starts off interestingly, talking about the early history of monster movies but quickly descends into Ackerman bemoaning how terrible they all are. Also I am surprised that no real attention is given to how Hammer and Toho have really revived the monster film in recent years. He claims he watches every monster film that comes out but you would think from his description everything today was like The Creature From The Haunted Sea. You are much better off checking out Fritz Lieber’s editorial in the recent Fantastic instead.
Two stars
Open Season, by John Tanner
John Tanner is not a medical student as claimed but another alias for new co-editor Jack Matcha (and his second story for Gamma). In this tale, Ditmar is travelling to Venus to try to find out what happened to his wife, who disappeared previously on the same route. While there, the ship gets boarded and crew taken to the asteroid Zara, this being the exclusive property of Cyrus Blake, one of the wealthiest men on Earth
The story seems to be trying to be a tense mystery but I was just getting impatient. The twist itself is pretty expected for anyone who has encountered The Most Dangerous Game (and given how widely reprinted, taught, filmed and copied it is, that is probably 90% of the readership) and the whole thing feels like a very tired exercise.
One star
The Woman Astronaut, by Robert Katz
Katz is another new writer to science fiction from outside the field; if this vignette is anything to go by I hope he never comes back!
A comedic (and I use the term very loosely), dramatic telling of the first American Woman in space, this anonymous Mrs. Smith spends her time worrying about her appearance, is confused that communist China isn’t actually red from space and is generally befuddled by the whole experience.
It has been over a year since the first woman went into space on Vostok 6 and these kind of prejudiced attitudes are insulting, disgusting and probably do continued damage to any hope for progress on this front from NASA.
Unfunny, uninteresting and insulting. One star, only because I cannot give anything lower.
Happily Ever After, by William F. Nolan
The former managing editor of Gamma returns to try to raise the magazine out of the doldrums with this little tale. Donald Spencer buys an asteroid to live on with his wife, on the basis that land value increases will mean it is a sound investment in the long term. It turns out not enough was known about the asteroid and they might be destined for a different kind of happily ever after.
Not that strong, but it hums along and is at least a slight improvement on the last few pieces. Two and a half stars
Don’t Touch Me I’m Sensitive, by James Stamers
Huckelberry Waterstone Smith arrives on a heavily populated Earth controlled by various corporations (the zone he is in being the City G.L.C. Services inc.) wanting to be a space warden, but he lacks the mathematical skill and is illiterate. However, he has the unusual ability to leave behind him images of himself wherever he goes.
I have forced myself to read through this story three times now and I have no idea what is meant to be about. It seems to be written as a joke or satire but I am not convinced it really works as being about anything. Add to that the terrible prose style and it only gets one star from me.
The Hand of Dr. Insidious, by Ron Goulart
With Dr. Fu Manchu set to be brought back to life in the cinema later this year, it seems appropriate that Goulart, a skilled writer of silly satires, would do his take on the famous villain. In this version Dr. Insidious is attempting to create a talent agency and take control of Hollywood. When the 00 agents have been killed in their attempts to stop him it is up to crack spy Ian Naismith and Hollywood’s top plastic surgeon Dr. Maxwell Phoebus Jr. to take him down.
A fun and silly piece as you would expect from Goulart but it doesn’t really get at or examine the myriad problems with the Fu Manchu stories. In fact reads more as another silly version of the Spy-Fi genre.
Two Stars and a recommendation to instead check out the Goon Show stories of Fred Fu-Manchu.
A Messy Melee
Overall, a really disappointing turn for the once great magazine. My subscription is paid up until issue 7 and with the new bi-monthly schedule (assuming this one actually sticks) I should be reading up until September. However, if this is the new direction I certainly will not be renewing.
Thankfully, the other work is a significant improvement:
City of a Thousand Suns by Samuel R. Delany
And so we now come to the conclusion of Delany’s Toron trilogy, which (at least for myself) has been the most anticipated book for a decade. The first two books showed that Delany was a writer of immense skill and did an amazing job of setting up this fantastical future and the stakes of the conflict. Now he has a full length novel, rather than half of an Ace Double, to conclude this tale.
This book jumps between two main focuses. Firstly, we have agents from numerous different species in the city of the Triple Entity. Here we learn of the war with The Lord of The Flames and the previous efforts to combat him. The Lord of Flames cannot experience concepts like war or compassion as those in our universe can so he has been trying to understand them first hand. The final result of the war will depend on which side has ownership of three manuscripts of the most sensitive minds of Earth and it is up to the Triple Entity’s agents, without outside aid, to bring them.
Back on Earth, the focus is on Jon and Alter. Now back in Toron (the centre of the Toromon empire), they have discovered mysterious words scrawled on walls everywhere. Following this trail leads them to the final resolution to the many conflicts we have seen throughout the series.
This is one that I think is going to get sharp reactions from the science fiction community, this is probably the toughest novel in an incredibly experimental series. It is a philosophical work touching on religion, communication, the morality of war, class conflict, racism and free will. Through it all we have a wide range of characters and concepts across a massive scope.
To start with the positive, there is absolutely no faulting Delany’s imagination and ambition. What would take entire novellas for another writer constitute a passing reference for him. To take one example:
…one of the attendants was an attractive woman with wide hazel eyes. But a minute examination would have shown her slim almond-nailed fingers, her cream and honey skin to be a bizarre cosmic coincidence. Internal examination and genetic analysis would prove her a bisexual species of moss.
This character never becomes important to the narrative and this description could be entirely exorcised without any confusion. Yet what it does do is display the multiplicity of life in this universe and the vast difference in beings we will be encountering.
Also, in spite of how complex the story he is trying to tell is he handles the action beats and flow incredibly well. It is easy to get lost in the world Delany has created, the tribulation of the characters and feel the tension grow as the remaining pages count down.
Yet, as with the previous books, keeping all the characters and situations in my head can be a real struggle. I don’t think this is a personal thing; I like Tolkien and Tolstoy and find their enormous casts just fine to understand. What I think is the major issue with these books is that Delany is attempting to paint on such an enormous scale with an incredibly finite canvas. There is no reason these books could not be expanded to the length of The Lord of The Rings without the need for significant plot alterations.
That is not to say it is not a great work that shows a talent that seems destined to become one of the most important in the field. But I do wonder if this kind of writing might not be better off trying a mainstream publisher or a long magazine serialization than the slim paperbacks Ace produces.
Rating: Four and a half stars
By the way, Galactic Journey will be doing a special presentation of our "Come Time Travel with Me" panel, the one we normally do at conventions, on March 27 at 6PM PDT. Come register to join us! It's free and fun…and you might win a prize!
by Gideon Marcus
A Storm is Coming
"These are the times that try men's souls"
Thomas Paine
The times, they are a changing. If the post-Korea decade was a national honeymoon for the United States, then the tumult following Kennedy's assassination surely marks the dawn of a new era. To be sure, that decade of "good times" was secured in part on the back of many, be they Black, female, and otherwise. Nevertheless, it felt like we, as a country, were moving toward racial justice and equality, toward shared prosperity, toward peace in the world.
Not anymore. Where it seemed there might be rapprochement between East and West, now there is, once again, active American military involvement in Asia. Some 3,000 troops have been dispatched, and the USAF is taking an active role in the campaign rather than simply propping up our South Vietnamese allies (whomever is leading them this week).
The Chicago Tribune says the national mood is tilting in favor of this involvement, a recovery from dashed morale just a few weeks ago after several Viet Cong incursions. At the same time, the peace movement, which I wholly endorse, has also picked up steam, viz. the sit-in of 11 protesters at the White House last week. I take this as a hopeful sign.
Progress toward civil rights has been a matter of two steps forward followed by one backward. The "backlash" against newly won Black rights was in full display on March 7 when uniformed police brutally shut down a planned march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Quickly dubbed "Bloody Sunday," it was an adamant Southern rejection of the Negro's right to basic humanity.
Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s arrival on March 8 could not immediately change affairs, and an attempt made March 9 was blocked at the bridge out of town.
But the South has never lead this nation, not in the 1860s, nor in the 1960s. Those who saw this injustice were appalled, and this disgust reached the highest quarters of government. On March 13, President Johnson declared this restriction of free expression to be "a national tragedy", and on March 15, in an address to the jointly assembled Congress, announced sweeping Voting Rights legislation.
Yesterday, a federal judge set aside restrictions against the march. It will proceed as planned, starting as early as tomorrow or the next day. Again, a sign that we can make it through adversity to our dreams.
Weathering Through
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction has had its own tribulations after a decade of unparalleled excellence under its first two editors. The Avram Davidson era, 1962-64, was something of a nadir for the proud publication. Now that the magazine's owner, Joe Ferman, has taken over the editorial helm (though there are rumors that it's his son, Ed, doing the work), the magazine seems to be pulling out of its nosedive. Come take a look at the latest issue:
by Bert Tanner
Arsenal Port, by Poul Anderson
Once again, Poul Anderson takes the cover with the continuation of the adventures of Gunnar Heim, last seen in January 1965's Marque and Reprisal. The retired space captain had obtained a letter of marque from the French government to harry the Alerion regime, which had taken the Terran planet of New Europe hostage after a short war. Off went Heim to space in the cruiser, Fox 2, along with a scurvy crew, and there the first story ended.
Port takes place on the environmentally hostile planet of Staurm, where Heim has stopped to obtain arms for the trek. Possessed of heavy gravity and a toxic atmosphere, not to mention carnivorous trees and insane battle robots, it is perhaps even more difficult a world than Harrison's Pyrrus.
Complicating matters is the arrival of Heim's ex-lover, a xenobiologist named Jocelyn, who rather pointedly rekindles the affair. But is her love sincere, or is it merely to sabotage Heim's mission in furtherance of the goals of the Peace Party?
On the one hand, this installment is beautifully written, and the depiction of Staurm's weird planetology is hard science fiction at its best. We get a bit more of Heim's background and some nice color on his executive crew, too. On the other hand, Port boils down to a fairly simple adventure trek and doesn't further the main plot. It's roughly analogous to the middle third of Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, which also featured in F&SF. It's enjoyable reading, but you could just as easily skip it.
I waver between three and four stars. I'm going to settle for a high three and wait for the outrage.
F&SF is now experimenting with cartoons. Here's one by Gahan Wilson. There will be others.
Keep Them Happy, by Robert Rohrer
In the future, the death penalty is retained; but in order to be as humane as possible, the condemned are made as happy as possible before the execution. The story begins with a convicted murderer being told he has been acquitted and can go free — before being killed by a blow to the head by Kincaid, the psychologist/executioner-in-chief. The rest of the tale involves a bitter widow who killed her husband for infidelity, and Kincaid, who undertakes to find out what it will take to make her happy.
I found Happy to be disturbing and not a little anti-woman. And, in the end, completely predictable.
It's decently written, however, so it gets a low two star rating.
F&SF by Ed Emshwiller
Imaginary Numbers in a Real Garden, by Gerald Jonas
Here's a cute poem that utilizes mathematical symbols to complete its rhymes. But I fail to see why one looks beyond the stars for complex numbers (you look in electric circuits) and in any event, "i" is the symbol that should have ended the piece.
Three stars.
Blind Date, by T. P. Caravan
Hapless lab assistant is catapulted to the future by a mad scientists, only to find himself immediately made part of festivities celebrating his trip through time.
This tale is the very definition of forgettable; twice, I had to refer to the magazine to remember what this rather goofy tale was about.
Two stars.
The History of Doctor Frost, by Roderic C. Hodgins
Ah, but here's a good one. Frost is a fresh take on the Deal with the Devil genre (indeed, it's stil possible!) On the threshold of making a vital mathematical discovery, Dr. Frost is visited by a servant of Satan who offers to guarantee the man's success if only he will surrender his intellect and abilities to the devil after his demise. Frost demurs and is given 24 hours to make his decision, which he uses to consult with, in turn, a Jesuit Priest, a psychologist, and a female friend. In the end, the decision is entirely Frost's.
It's rather beautifully done, an archetypical F&SF story. Four stars.
Lord Moon, by Jane Beauclerk
Jane Beauclerk is back with another tale set on the nameless world we were first introduced to in July 1964's We Serve the Star of Freedom. Said planet is inhabited by humaniform aliens under the authoritarian regime of the Stars, venerable scholar/tyrants each with their own specialties.
This story involves Lord Moon, a sort of knight, who sails to the lawless twelve thousand islands of Lorran hoping to free and marry the daughter of a Star held captive there. It is not until the end that we have any encounters with actual Terrans, and the whole story is told in a magical legend sort of way. Indeed, it is left an open question whether or not magic works, side-by-side with science, on this particular world.
It's an acquired taste, but I enjoyed it. Three stars, like the last one.
The Certainty of Uncertainty, by Isaac Asimov
Doc A offers up a non-fiction article on quantum mechanics. Such is always a bold decision as it is an abstruse topic that does not lend itself well to popularization. Indeed, Asimov runs into the same problem as everyone else: he doesn't end up explaining it very well.
Having taken quantum mechanics in college (it was very new stuff then), I can tell you that it's not that complicated or difficult to comprehend — provided you have a solid grounding in calculus and second-year physics. Without them, any explanation is just pointless analogy.
I'm not trying to be a snob, and the Good Doctor does do a good job of explaining how tiny things live in a universe of their own, increasingly different from our everyday world as the scale shrinks. But in the end, you're left with a lot of gee whiz stuff and not much understanding.
Three stars.
Eyes Do More Than See, by Isaac Asimov
F&SF's science columnist by-and-large gave up fiction writing with the launch of Sputnik. He still keeps his hand in, every so often, though. Eyes involves energy beings of the Trillionth Century, our long distant descendants, who decide to return to dabbling with physical forms…and quickly discover why they'd given it up.
Apparently, this short-short was originally rejected by Playboy. In any event, it displays a rarely seen poetic side of the author, but whether you'll find it moving or maudlin depends on your particular sensibilities.
I fall right in the middle. Three stars.
Aunt Millicent at the Races, by Len Guttridge
And last, here's a modern-day Welsh fairy tale about a boy whose aunt is transformed into a horse, and how the boy's father exploits the occurrence for financial gain.
Normally, this kind of silly plot would be too trivial to keep my interest, and no doubt played for laughs. Neither is the case. Guttridge's writing, so tight and evocative, so cinematically vivid, makes this my favorite piece of the issue. It misses five stars, but only just.
The Star of Hope
Yes, times are currently tumultuous, and things can often seem hopeless. It's important at junctures like these that we reflect on what's positive in our life, the power we have to make things better, and the security that comes of knowing that things that have gone bad can truly come 'round.
And that's something to celebrate!
New York's Saint Patrick's Day parade, yesterday
by Victoria Silverwolf
Did You Check the Card Catalog First?
If you're like me, when you enter a public or school library, or a bookstore, or any other place where volumes of written material are available for perusal, you wander around from place to place without any particular goal in mind. Of course, sooner or later you're going to wind up at the science fiction section. But along the way, you might find other kinds of fiction and nonfiction to pique your curiosity.
Students hard at work at Brigham Young University.They're probably not reading science fiction.
I thought about this pleasant little habit of mine when I looked at the latest issue of Worlds of Tomorrow. The stories and articles reminded me of other categories of writing. Take my hand, and we'll stroll through the paper corridors of this miniature book depository and find out what wonders await us.
Cover art by George Schelling.
What Size Are Giants?, by Alexei Panshin
Category: Westerns
We start off near novels by Zane Grey and other chroniclers of the Old West. This rootin', tootin' yarn begins with a gal settin' by herself readin' a book (appropriately enough) and not realizin' that she's about to be run over by a stampedin' herd of wild critters. Luckily for her, a fella in a covered wagon comes by and saves her. He's sort of a medicine show kind of city slicker, of the type that the local settlers don't cotton to.
Drawin' by Norman Nodel. That's a mighty funny lookin' horse you got there, friend.
OK, let me knock it off with the dialect before I drive both of us crazy. We're really on a colony planet, one of many settled about a century ago, when a large number of gigantic starships fled Earth just before a global war destroyed all of humanity. The colonists survive at a low level of technology, while the people who remain aboard the ships enjoy much more advanced devices. The colonists envy and resent the starship folk, and the people on the vessels look down on the settlers as peasants.
Our hero sneaks off one of the ships and lands on the planet, intending to help the colonists with better goods, and to encourage trade between isolated communities. Along for the ride is his buddy, an intelligent, talking bird. (The only explanation for this animal is that it's a one-of-a-kind mutant, which is a little hard to swallow.)
Things don't work out too well. Not only do the settlers figure out the man is one of the hated people from the starships, but he is also tracked down by an enforcer from the vessel, because interfering with a colony is a serious crime.
A very accurate rendition of the author's description of this unpleasant character.
Complicating matters is the fact that the stampeding beasts are about to go on the rampage again, threatening to destroy the local village and everyone in it. It all builds up to an exciting climax, as our tomboy heroine comes to the rescue.
Ride 'em, cowgirl!
This is a decent enough adventure story, if not particularly outstanding in any way. The author's style is plain but serviceable. It'll give ya somethin' to look at while you're sittin' around the campfire, waitin' for Cooky to rustle up some coffee and beans.
Three stars.
The Effectives, by Zenna Henderson
Category: Religion
Not far away from the Bibles, Korans, Torahs, and other sacred texts, we find this work of inspirational fiction from a skilled author known for the use of spiritual themes in her tales of the People.
Illustration by John Giunta.
KVIN (as shown above) is a devastating illness of unknown origin. Those who suffer from it die very quickly after feeling the first symptoms, which vary from person to person. The only treatment is to completely replace the victim's blood with donations from healthy volunteers. This doesn't always work, however.
There's a peculiar geographic pattern to the cure rate. It never works in the San Francisco area; works half the time near Denver; and is always effective at a particular area near a medical research center. A troubleshooter arrives at the place and tries to figure out what's going on.
The center is near a religious community that has turned its back on the modern world, something like the Amish. They supply the blood donations. There is no such community in the San Francisco region, and half of the blood donations at the Denver area come from such a community. Could there be a connection with the cure rates? The troubleshooter, a hardcore skeptic, performs a risky experiment in order to find out.
How you react to this fable may depend on your religious beliefs. You may think that the author has stacked the cards too much in favor of faith over materialism. The troubleshooter is something of a stereotype of the stubborn atheist, although I'll have to give the writer credit for depicting him as a man with the courage of his convictions, but willing to change his mind when presented with strong evidence.
Considered just as a work of science fiction, this story is very well-written, with interesting speculative content. It may not change anyone's opinions, but it's definitely worth reading.
Four stars.
The Alien Psyche, by Tom Purdom
Category: Psychology
Strolling over to the nonfiction, we find this article next to a large volume of Freud. The author wonders about the ways in which biological differences between human beings and the sentient inhabitants of other worlds may lead to differences in their minds. What kind of neuroses would be found among aliens that reproduce by fission, or are hermaphroditic?
The piece mostly deals with traditional Freudian analysis, although the author has to admit that there are many other schools of psychology, and that none of them are anywhere near an exact science. Maybe someday we'll know more about the workings of the mind, but for now this is all idle speculation.
Two stars.
Bond of Brothers, by Michael Kurland
Category: Spy Fiction
Illustrations by Gray Morrow.
Stuck between books by Ian Fleming and John le Carré is this tale of Cold War espionage. A fellow arrives at the secret headquarters of a US government agency, where his identical twin brother works. The brother is currently in a Soviet prison, after the Reds caught him spying. The only reason the protagonist knows about the headquarters, and his brother's location, is the fact that the twins have a telepathic link.
The hero manages to convince the head of the agency of this psychic connection, and volunteers to rescue his brother from the Commies. He goes undercover and faces many challenges in his quest to free his twin from their clutches.
Parachuting into the USSR.
The ESP gimmick isn't really relevant to the plot, which is a straightforward secret agent story. Some of Fleming's books, such as Thunderball and Moonraker, have more of a speculative feeling to them than this tale. I suppose it's an acceptable example of this sort of thing, but I felt a bit cheated by its appearance in a science fiction magazine.
Two stars.
Explosions in Space, by Ben Bova
Category: Astronomy
Passing by star charts and maps of the Moon, we arrive at the section of this tiny library dealing with the cosmos. We find an article dealing with things that go BOOM! in the heavens.
We begin with solar flares, and build up to entire exploding galaxies, with discussions of novae and supernovae along the way. The piece concludes with theories about the recently discovered, mysterious things known as quasars (quasi-stellar objects.) The author may not have the charm of Asimov, or the obscure knowledge of Ley, but he explains an interesting subject very clearly.
Four stars.
Dem of Redrock Seven, by John Sutherland
Category: Detective Stories
Leaning on some volumes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett — we'll ignore the bestselling works of Mickey Spillane and stick with the classics — is this hardboiled yarn about a tough investigator and his sexy secretary, working on a case that could spell disaster for civilization.
Oh, did I mention the fact that these characters aren't human beings? In fact, they're the mutated descendants of insects, long after people contaminated Earth with radiation and nearly died off. The giant, intelligent insects now have their own sophisticated society, and the few remaining humans are living like savages in uncontaminated areas. They're only a minor nuisance, until the mysterious death of a government worker leads the hero to a hidden threat that could mean the end of the insects.
Clearly meant as a parody of private eye stories, this tongue-in-cheek tale is kind of silly — giving the secretary a lisp is particularly goofy and pointless — but amusing at times. I'll admit that the author does a good job writing from the insect point of view, and you may find yourself cheering for the hero over those dastardly humans. Like the first story in this issue, this one features the female lead coming to the rescue of the hero, which is a nice touch.
Three stars.
Bogeymen, by Dick Moore
Category: War Stories
Illustrations by Jack Gaughan.
We'll head to the shelf that holds accounts of naval battles for this tale of combat with an enemy that remains unseen most of the time, like a submarine. Instead of sailing the seven seas, we're out in space, on a routine patrol of the inner solar system. The current situation between two vaguely defined rivals is hotter than a Cold War, although both sides refer to their violent encounters as accidents.
The patrol vessel, and that might be Mars at the top.
Word reaches the ship that a large force of enemy vessels is on its way to Mars from a base in the asteroid belt. Its target seems to be the friendly base on Phobos. Because it's extremely difficult to detect ships in the vastness of space, it's a matter of guesswork as to where the good guys should intercept the bad guys. It boils down to heading to the most likely place for them to appear and then waiting.
I have no idea what this is supposed to be.
Meanwhile, the crew alters its armed missiles, turning them into devices they can launch into space in order to increase the chances of detecting the enemy. The main character rather foolishly comes up with his own scheme for the armaments removed from the missiles, which lands him in very hot water indeed. He winds up having to go out in a one-person vessel in order to retrieve the arms, while risking own skin against the approaching enemy.
The hero in the small ship, I think, although this doesn't match the way I pictured it at all.
To be honest, I'm not sure if my brief synopsis is accurate at all. I found the technical aspects of the plot very hard to follow. The hero's actions are extremely unprofessional, putting the ship and crew in great danger just so he can play a hunch. The story also seemed quite long, as I slogged my way to the ending.
Two stars.
Have Your Library Card Ready
Is it worth a trip to the stacks? Maybe, maybe not. You've got one good story (although that judgement may be controversial) and one good article, along with other works ranging from poor to fair. I wouldn't go digging through musty old volumes to seek it out, but if it happens to be close, you might as well take a look. You might see something interesting.
She's only the librarian's daughter, but you really should check her out.
by Jason Sacks
Longtime readers of this magazine may remember the hatred I shared a year or two ago for the fledgling super-hero line published by upstart Marvel Comics. At the time I felt the stories published in such comic book series as Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Tales to Astonish were crude, unsophisticated and just plain bad. This was especially true when those shambolic comics were compared to the smart, sophisticated science-hero comics published by their chief competitor, National Comics.
It’s shocking how much that equation has changed. National Comics like Flash, Green Lantern and Batman definitely outdo their competition in terms of slickness and a firm basis in pseudo-science. But Marvel has come a long way to making themselves into a modern comic book publisher which embraces the unpredictable 1960s.
The latest proof Marvel’s surprising unpredictability can be found in the current issue of The Avengers.
The Avengers are Marvel’s version of National’s Justice League. They’re a team of the company’s finest super-heroes gathered together to fight evil. Just as the JLA stars headliners like Batman, Hawkman, the Atom and Green Lantern, the Avengers have included in their corps such august members as Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man and the Wasp.
Emphasis in my previous sentence should definitely be on the word have, because as this title of Avengers #16 tells us, “the old order changeth!”
Shockingly, writer Stan Lee has decided to shake up what seemed like a winning formula, removing all but one of those headliners from his super-team. Even more surprising, Lee doesn’t replace Thor or Iron Man with the likes of Spider-Man or Daredevil, who likewise star in their own comic books. No, Lee replaced his stars with a trio of former bad guys now reformed and ready to fight for justice. Only Captain America remains from the former team to lead the villains, so now Cap’s kooky quartet is made up of Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.
I hear you readers saying, who?
Lee is making an odd, audacious decision by adding these third-rate villains-turned-heroes. That change in the status quo is almost shocking in its brazen rejection of super-hero tradition. Very few super-teams have existed, and even fewer have had their entire lineup shaken up in one fell swoop. And even more shocking is the reason the heroes leave. As the Wasp declares in one memorable panel:
National’s Justice League fight for right and never get tired. Marvel’s Avengers get tired of the fighting, need time off and even casually think about disbanding the team! Who does this stuff? And how can they get away with such a revolutionary take on super-heroes?
Even the reasons the new Avengers join is strange. Okay, so Hawkeye basically walks into the Avengers HQ and demands to become a member (who needs building security when you have super powers, I suppose).
But consider how the mutant siblings Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch come to join the team – by seeing a note in a newspaper that makes its way to their isolated Swiss chalet. Seeing a chance to change their lives, the Witch writes a letter to the Avengers requesting membership (!) – and out of a full bag of applications they are chosen! Just like out of a talent search TV program.
An adoring press meets the mutants as they arrive on the New York City docks, and they are quickly pressed to don their uniforms and announce their Avengers membership to the world. Never mind their previous membership in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and their former sworn fealty to the evil Magneto. They suddenly are members of the team Thor and Iron Man have left.
Shockingly, there is not even the slightest implication that one or more of these new Avengers may be trojan horses, infiltrating the team in order to defeat them. No, this is all played straight and seriously, and it appears Lee and his artists are committed to this startling change.
What in the world was Stan Lee thinking? Will sales plunge without the stars or will sales surge as Marvel blazes their own trail? This is just one of a number of moves from a company which seems to be pulling out all the stops to be decidedly different.
I know I’m on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what happens next. It’s as if Bonanza added a whole new cast and just kept Hoss. I may not be ready to join the Merry Marvel Marching Society just yet, but I do know I can’t wait to see what other shocking twists Stan Lee and his pals come up with.
by John Boston
No-Sale, Sale
The big news, previously rumored, is that Amazing and its stablemate Fantastic are to change hands. The April Science Fiction Times just arrived, with the big headline “ ‘AMAZING STORIES’ AND ‘FANTASTIC’ SOLD TO SOL COHEN.” Cohen is the publisher of Galaxy, If, and Worlds of Tomorrow, but will resign at the end of next month to take up his new occupation.
Why is this happening? Probably because circulation, which had been increasing, started to decline again in 1962 (when I started reviewing it!). The SF Times article adds, tendentiously and questionably, that “the magazine showed what appeared to be a lack of interest by its editors.” Read their further comment and draw your own conclusions on that point.
Whatever the reason, it’s done. The last Ziff-Davis issues of both magazines will be the June issues. Whether they will continue monthly is not known, nor is who will edit the magazine—presumably meaning Cele Lalli is not continuing.
The Issue at Hand
by Paula McLane
The previous two issues were much improved over their predecessors. Of course the improvement could not be sustained (viz. the current issue), but it has at least reverted to the slightly less mean than on some occasions.
The Shores of Infinity, by Edmond Hamilton
by George Schelling
Who was it who first said “If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like”? Dorothy Parker? Mark Twain? Pliny the Elder? Anyway, Edmond Hamilton’s latest in his backwards-looking saga of the far future featuring the Star Kings may not even rise to the level of that truism. The generically titled The Shores of Infinity spends about 10 of its 33 or so pages on background and build-up, and then the generically named John Gordon of ancient (i.e., contemporary) Earth takes off to the capital of the Galaxy to hobnob with the Emperor in the imperial city of Throon.
There, he learns of more rumors of the previously encountered mind-controlling menace, is sent off on a dangerous secret mission to investigate, is captured, victimized by treachery and benefited by its reversal, and the author seems as bored by the whole perfunctory and hackneyed business as I was. It’s ostentatiously inconclusive, so we are guaranteed more. To paraphrase W.C. Fields, second prize would be two more sequels.
A recurring theme here is Gordon’s alienation from the beautiful Princess Lianna. This seems to be the special Woman Trouble issue of Amazing; see below. (Note to Betty Friedan: if the viewpoint characters were female, it would of course be the Man Trouble issue. Tell women more of them should be writing SF.) Also worth mentioning is the cover, by Paula McLane, which portrays a giant space-helmeted visage peering into a room where two small diaphanous figures are trying to close the door against him. Obviously metaphorical, right? Actually, it’s a quite literal rendering of a passing scene in the story.
Anyway, this one has little going for it except the usual space-operatic rhetoric (“The vast mass of faintly glowing drift that was known as the Deneb Shoals, they skirted. They plunged on and now they were passing through the space where, that other time, the space-fleets of the Empire and its allies had fought out their final Armageddon with the League of the Dark Worlds.”) The problem with this decoration is there’s not much here to decorate. Two stars, probably too generous.
No Vinism Like Chau-Vinism, by John Jakes
by George Schelling
John Jakes’s long novelet No Vinism Like Chau-Vinism [sic], the title obviously a play on the all too familiar song There’s No Business Like Show Business, inhabits the territory demarcated by Pohl and Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants, Ron Goulart on a good day, and the Three Stooges. In the future, everything is showbiz. The populace is entertained and distracted by constant scripted and broadcast warfare between commercial forces, in this case the American Margarine Manufacturers Association versus the United Dairy Expedition Force, fighting of course in Wisconsin.
The script is disrupted by the appearance of a real gun in the hands of the rogue margarineer (Jakes calls them margies) Burton Tanzy of the Golden-Glo Margarine Company, who executes a cow on live TV, initiating a slapstick plot in which among other things besides real guns, the fake commercial war turns into a real union dispute. The protagonist Gregory Rooke of the Dairy forces must try to calm things down and restore order, lest the public get wind of the fraudulence of their world. His chief antagonist proves to be his ex-wife, who has dumped him to pursue her overweening ambitions, consistently with the Woman Trouble motif, though things work out better for Rooke than for poor forlorn John Gordon.
This story is actually quite amusing; Jakes has a knack for the farcical tall tale. Unfortunately it goes on too long and palls a bit by the end, keeping the final reckoning down to three stars.
De Ruyter: Dreamer, by Arthur Porges
Arthur Porges contributes Ensign De Ruyter: Dreamer, another in his tiresome series about the space navy guy who triumphs over cartoonishly stupid extraterrestrials through the clever use of basic science—in this case, it’s Fun with Electromagnetism. These stories barely rise to the level of filler. One star.
Greendark in the Cairn, by Robert Rohrer
Robert Rohrer continues in his “almost there” vein with Greendark in the Cairn, featuring a space captain who is either going nuts, or is being driven nuts by transmissions from the extraterrestrial enemy, but figures out how to defeat them and prevent himself from giving the game away. It’s gimmicky and facile but well rendered. Two stars, but do try again.
Speech Is Silver, by John Brunner
The earnest John Brunner undertakes a satire of American commercialism in Speech Is Silver, in which the protagonist Hankin is selected in the Soundsleep company’s “Great Search” for the man with the perfect voice for a program of sleep counseling—that is, counseling while one sleeps on how to handle the difficulties of the day. Except of course that’s not really how things work, and his new-found fame destroys his life. (Also—Woman Trouble again—his wife, who prodded him to enter the Soundsleep competition, leaves him, apparently because he was never ambitious enough, like Rooke’s wife in No Vinism [etc.].) At the point where Soundsleep decides to replace him with a younger near-double, Hankin detonates.
Like the Jakes story, this one is an acid satire on contemporary image-mongering American capitalism. Its problem, aside from being too long (also like Jakes), is that it isn’t crazy enough. Brunner’s calm and methodical style and storytelling muffle the plot’s antic qualities. Maybe he should get Jakes to introduce him to the Three Stooges.
Two stars.
Religion in Science Fiction: God, Space, and Faith, by Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz forges on with Religion in Science Fiction: God, Space, and Faith, rendered on the cover as Science-Fiction Views of God With a Profile of C.S. Lewis. It’s a rambling description of various SF stories on religious themes, starting reasonably interestingly with several older books that most readers will not have heard of, continuing with the promised account of C.S. Lewis, followed by Stapledon, Heinlein, Wyndham, Simak, Leiber, Keller, Bradbury, Blish, Miller, del Rey, Boucher, and Farmer.
In this recitation Moskowitz manages to miss Arthur C. Clarke’s Hugo-winning The Star and his equally well-known The Nine Billion Names of God; Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question; Leigh Brackett’s tale of a different sort of theocracy, The Long Tomorrow; Harry Harrison’s anti-theological polemic The Streets of Ashkelon; Katherine MacLean’s acerbic Unhuman Sacrifice; and, astonishingly, Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Remarkably, he says, “Heinlein, who introduced [religion] into the science fiction magazines, has long since tired of it as a focal plot device.”
But this (mis-)observation does not deter him from his conclusion: “Neverthess, the decision is made. The science fiction writer has come to the conclusion that scientific advance will not mean the end of belief. He feels certain that a truly convincing portrayal of a hypothetical future cannot be made without considering the mystical aspects of man.”
Can we say fallacy of composition? Two stars: another “almost,” some interesting material, some of it unfamiliar, the whole brought down by Moskowitz’s fatuous generalizations.
Summing Up
So, mostly not too bad (except for the egregious Ensign Ruyter), but mostly not as good as it should and could have been either. There have been issues that would make one regret that this regime is ending, but this isn’t one of them.
by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall
BBC Radio
For those outside the UK it may surprise people how closely controlled radio broadcasting is by the BBC. Whilst we have had commercial television for 10 years, you officially only have a choice of the BBCs 3 radio stations (unless you happen to live on the Isle of Man, but I will get to that later).
These are The Home Service, which is primarily dedicated to talk and drama (with a strong religious and educational focus), Network Three, which is primarily dedicated to classical music but with some jazz and educational content in between (such as Spanish For Beginners & Shorthand Dictation), & The Light Programme, for mainstream entertainment.
However, although The Light Programme is theoretically a national service for mainstream entertainment, this should not be mistaken for being a pop music radio station as you would have in America. The time is more regularly devoted to big band and soundtracks, with one of the most popular programmes being Housewives’ Choice
There are some specific slots set out for the kind of music that regularly appears on the charts, primarily on a Sunday. One of the most popular is Brian Matthew’s Easy Beat which, as the name suggests, tends to feature more easy listening popular artists such as Kenny Ball, The Hollies, and Val Doonican. Whilst it does feature some interesting artists, the Sunday Morning slot (just prior to broadcast of a church service) does not make it the most lively programme. At 4pm is Pick Of The Pops which features chart music and presented by Alan Freeman. Finally, late at night is The Teen Scene, which also features interviews with popular artists.
Why does the BBC provide so little for modern pop music? From what I have heard, many at the BBC radio consider their remit to be educational and do not have a high opinion of current musical trends. As such, it is not surprising that many people have sought out alternatives to the BBC’s monopoly over the airwaves.
Offshore Stations
Being next to the continent of Europe, those in the South of England can often get foreign signals quite easily.
The most popular of these is Radio Luxembourg. With (they claim) the most powerful radio transmitter in Europe they have been broadcasting in French and English to Britain since the 1930s. This decade they have begun to target the teenage market primarily and using American style DJs live. Until last year Luxembourg was the easiest place to access pop music.
There is now one commercial station officially licensed by the UK, Manx Radio. The Isle of Man, which sits in the North Sea between The Lake District and Northern Ireland, is a crown dependency but has its own parliament and laws. Last year they negotiated with the British Parliament to be allowed their own commercial radio station.
Manx radio began broadcasting in June from a small hilltop caravan. Its programming makes for an unusual combination, as it has the pop records and attempts to recreate the styles American disk jockeys you can hear on Radio Luxembourg, but mixed in between them is a lot of local flavour. We get the real sense this is a true rural homespun affair with ads for local businesses and news of life on the island. In many ways these idiosyncrasies make it as different as it might be possible to get from the stuffed shirt attitudes we get from the BBC presenters.
However, many people are turning their dials to a new kind of programming, pirate radio
Pirate Radio
Radio piracy is nothing new. The 1930s was also a major period for pirate radio: the IBC were broadcasting English language radio from mainland Europe, whilst West End hotels broadcast live dance bands from their own ballrooms. I am personally too young to remember those days, yet it is curious to wonder where we would be if the war had not disrupted so many of these.
The direct antecedents of today’s pirate radio ships are probably Radio Mercur and Radio Veronica. The former starting in 1958 for Scandinavian audiences and the latter for Dutch listeners in 1960, these broadcast from offshore ships and showed that 1) There is an audience for all-day pop music radio aimed at the teenage market & 2) it could be a successful commercial operation. And around a year ago British audiences got their own version, Radio Caroline.
Ronan O’Rahilly, owner of the Scene club and small-time record company owner, decided to park just a few miles off the British coast and began broadcasting a different kind of radio. Here it is a steady stream of pop music with casual DJ platter and a freedom to promote newer artists to the audience. One good example of this is 24 year old Tom Jones, whose debut record It’s Not Unusual has not been played on the BBC but has been getting regular airplay and has been slowly climbing the British charts as a result.
One of the best loved DJs is Tony Blackburn who intersperses his playing of fantastic pop records with a regular stream of quick puns. A world away from the reserved presenters you get on The Light Programme.
Since the merger with Radio Atlanta (another Pirate Radio ship that quickly followed Caroline’s lead) these two ships can broadcast to almost the entire British Isles. However, there are a couple of flaws in the broadcast. Foreign signals disrupt the broadcast after 9pm which means the show stops broadcasting. Also, from what I have heard, in Northern Scotland, South Wales, and Cornwall the signal gets very weak. It is best able to supply those in the South East and North West of England.
However, Caroline now has a major rival in the form of Radio London. Also known as Big L or Wonderful Radio London, was started by a group of Texan Car Dealers in the mould of Radio Caroline and based on a former minesweeper sporting a radio mast which is (they claim) more than 200ft tall.
Whilst only in operation since December they have already attracted a loyal audience via a combination of the clear experience demonstrated by their team and being explicitly a top 40 station, with their own weekly Fab 40 Chart we get to hear from.
Then we have the more unusual case of Radio City. In order to understand this you have to first know of two oddities of British life, the sea forts and Lord Sutch.
During the Second World War a whole range of armoured forts were built off the British coast in order to help defend against German attacks. These have since all been decommissioned and have been sitting empty off the British Coast. Last year one of these was seized by David Edward Sutch AKA Screaming Lord Sutch.
Lead singer of the rock group Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, Sutch has become much written about in the newspapers for his unusual stunts, such as outlandish stagecraft and standing for election as a candidate for The National Teenage Party. Yet his records had a lot of trouble getting any airplay and he has been outspoken about the need to liberalise radio.
As such last May he took over Shivering Sands fort and began broadcasting Radio Sutch. As well as record play there were such segments as readings from erotic novels and other material designed to shock. This enterprise ended up being more important for the stunt than the actual broadcast as the transmitter was only able to reach a small area of the mainland and he soon sold it to his unofficial manager Reginal Calvert, who renamed and relaunched the operation as Radio City.
This is a somewhat more professional operation than Sutch put together, able to hit a lot more people but retains a little of the more eclectic content with output varying between new music releases to comedy to even evangelical broadcasts from local religious organisations.
The Current Battle
So as the number of pirate radio broadcasts continues to grow, so does the opposition to it from the government’s side. As well as the continued outspoken statements from The Postmaster General Anthony Wedgewood-Benn, Britain became a key signatory to the European Agreement for the Prevention of Broadcasts transmitted from Stations outside National Territories in January, designed to stop Pirate Radio.
In 1962, the Government had investigated the possibility of licencing of commercial radio but had concluded there was no demand for it. Yet a report from last year found that in areas where Radio Caroline has a good reception around one-fifth were identified as Caroline ‘addicts’, 70% of them under 30 years old. At the same time a Gallup Survey estimated the listening audience at seven million.
Pirate radio clearly has a big cultural grip on the British Youth and is loathed by the establishment. Who will win in this battle remains to be seen, but I will keep turning my dial to 199 for my daily dose of Caroline.
by Gideon Marcus
Understanding the Other
Civilization is about building a society out of disparate units. It has to go beyond the family and clan. The key to organizing a civilization is empathy, recognizing that we are all different yet we share common values and rights. Once we understand each other, even if we don't agree on everything, then we can truly create "from many, one."
Science fiction allows the exploration of cutting edge sociological subjects, one of them being the understanding of the "other". That's because the genre has a ready-made stand-in for the concept: the alien. Indeed, many science fiction stories are allegorical; they address colonialism, the Cold War, societal taboos, in ways that might currently be too touchy or on-the-nose for conventional fiction. We can hope that, with the bottle uncorked, less allegorical stories will be required in the future.
Of all the science fiction magazines that come out every month, I think Fred Pohl's trio of Galaxy, IF, and Worlds of Tomorrow has the strongest tradition of incorporating aliens (Analog also has aliens, but thanks to its editor's sensibilities, they are almost invariably both more evil and inferior to human beings; Campbell likes a certain kind of allegory…)
Meeting the Minds
by George Schelling (it says it illustates War Against the Yukks, but it doesn't)
This month's Galaxy is a case in point, with six of its nine tales involving aliens of one kind or another. There's some good stuff in here, as well as a number of slog stories. Let's look, shall we?
Committee of the Whole, by Frank Herbert
by Nodel
Watch your step — there's a rough patch right at the start.
Whole is a meandering preach piece about an inventor who appears before a Congressional committee with news of a new, revolutionary invention. I'll just tell you about it because the first two thirds of the story are less suspenseful than obtusely annoying: it's a ray gun. Its applications are infinite, but the one most of the Congressmen are worried about is that every owner has a weapon more powerful than the atom bomb at their disposal. And, because of the way the invention has been disseminated, everyone in the world has access to them.
The result, the inventor opines, is going to be a world of true libertarian equality. "An armed society is a polite society" is how the expression goes. It's the kind of naive sentiment that would go over well at Analog, but for adults, it's just ridiculous. In equalizing humanity through armed neutrality, the inventor has made aliens of us all. I'll wager that Earth's population of humans will be dead inside a week…and probably most of the animals.
One star, and yet more disdain for the Herbert byline.
Wrong-Way Street, by Larry Niven
Ah, but then our fortunes truly turn around. Wrong Way Street gives us the unplanned adventure of Mike Capoferri, a scientist stationed on the Moon late this century to investigate an alien base and space ship. They have lain on the lunar plain for countless millions of years, and their provenance and function are completely unknown. That is, until Mike unwittingly not only discerns the motive force for the space ship, but also activates it. Here, understanding the alien way of thinking proved hazardous to Mike's health. Can he get home? Will the human race survive his journey?
This is author Niven's third story, and he continues with the same deftness he displayed with his recent short novel, World of Ptavvs. I guarantee that the ending of Street will stay with you.
Four stars.
Death and Birth of the Angakok, by Hayden Howard
by Jack Gaughan
Peterluk is a young Eskimo out hunting when a horrifying bunch of one-eyed Seal People arrive. He panics and entreats his powerful Grandfather, holed up in Peterluk's igloo, to aid him with his mystical powers. But Grandfather is too weak to assist and, in the end, Peterluk is left to defeat one of the aliens with a conventional rifle.
When the Seal People ship surfaces from beneath the ice, much to Peterluk's surprise, it disgorges not aliens but white people in uniform. And Peterluk begins to doubt the power, and even the human nature, of his strangely humped, ever demanding Grandfather.
Confusing at first, Angakok is actually a pretty neat tale of two types of aliens (human and truly extraterrestrial) as seen from the point of view of one completely naive to other cultures. While the bones of the plot are fairly conventional, I appreciated the novel viewpoint.
Three stars.
Symbolically Speaking, by Willy Ley
Any meeting of the minds between human and alien will require a common symbology to convey ideas. A science fiction writer looking for inspiration for such a symbol set could do worse than to read Willy Ley's latest science article for Galaxy, in which he discusses the evolution of symbols for the planets, alchemical substances, numbers, etc.
Fairly dry, but there's interesting information here. Three stars.
A Wobble in Wockii Futures, by Gordon R. Dickson
by Gray Morrow, channeling Bill Gaines
Tom and Lucy Reasoner are a recurring pair in a series of stories, this being the fourth. Sort of a "Nick and Nora" meets Retief, the stories of the Reasoners began charmingly enough, with Tom an interstellar diplomat with a mystery to solve, and Lucy his sometimes discerning assistant.
Last time around, Tom had not only gotten inducted into the interstellar assassin's guild, but he'd also catapulted Earth onto the galactic scene, dramatically increasing his home planet's clout. Now the humans have gotten themselves hip-deep in a planetary investment that made turn out to be completely worthless. Tom must find out who hoodwinked the Terrans and why before humanity is bankrupted.
This installation has the same problem as the last one — Lucy is sidelined and played for stupid, and the humor of the tale just isn't funny. Dickson can, and usually does, do better.
Two stars.
Wasted on the Young, by John Brunner
The concept of the "teenager" is a fairly recent one. It used to be that kids enjoyed a relatively short childhood before transitioning to the labor force and/or marriage. Now there is an intermediate phase before adulthood during which a youngster can learn the ropes of grown-up society.
Brunner's latest story posits an even longer period of immaturity, one in which kids are given free credit until age thirty to do whatever they want. The catch: once they reach their fourth decade, they have to pay back what they've spent by being productive members of society. Thus, the wastrels find themselves indebted indefinitely, while those who lived a spartan life get to be free agents.
Hal Page, age 32, believes he knows a way to cheat the system…but in the end, society has use for people who have spent it all, even their life.
There's a great idea here, but I feel it was somewhat wasted on the gimmick (and not particularly logical) ending. Still, three stars.
The Decision Makers, by Joseph Green
by Jack Gaughan
Allan Odegaard is a Practical Philosopher, a kind of emissary for humanity to other worlds. His job is to judge whether a planet is inhabited by intelligent life or not; if so, Terran policy is to keep hands off. As one would expect, such a determination is often strongly opposed by financial interests.
Capella G Eight is an ocean planet, though during times of Ice Age, three continents emerge from the sea as the water level drops. Its dominant life form is a seal-like creature. Though it possesses a relatively tiny brain pan, somehow it lives in a communal society and can use tools. Is it intelligent? Does the fact that these creatures live near a rich uranium deposit factor into Odegaard's decision?
We've seen this kind of story before — H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy series is probably the purest example, though J.F. Bone's The Lani People should also be noted. It's a worthy subject, and Green does a pretty good job, though the ending is abrupt and not quite as momentous as I would have liked.
All in all, it's the best story I've seen from Green in an American publication (he tends to stick to the English side of the Atlantic.) Three stars.
Slow Tuesday Night, by R. A. Lafferty
We're back to Earth for this one. We all know that the pace of life has only quickened over the generations. Lafferty, whose middle name would be "whimsy" if the initial were a W. and not an A., writes of a future society in which society is speeded up a hundred-fold compared to now. Fortunes are made and lost in minutes. Marriages last an hour on a good night. And a lifetime can be lived in a week.
It's cute, but the satire wears thin about halfway through. Also, there are only two female characters, and their sole goal appears to be competing for the earliest wedding of the evening.
A low three, I guess.
Sculptor, by C. C. MacApp
Eight years ago, a disgraced spaceman abandoned his crewmates on an alien world, rushing home with a set of invaluable statues — and a hole in his memory about the affair. Now he has been shanghaied by a criminal bent on returning to this world and plundering it for more of the exquisite figurines.
What race made these wrought-diamond minatures? And why does the amnesiac spaceman feel such dread on the planet's surface?
This is another "they looked like us" yarn that has been around since Campbell kick-started the genre with Who Goes There (and Heinlein made it popular with The Puppet Masters). It's so prevalent, in fact, that there's another example of it in this very issue! (Angakok) Despite not really treading on new ground, it may well be the best work I've seen from C. C. MacApp, a fairly recent author who never fails to never quite succeed.
Three stars.
War Against the Yukks, by Keith Laumer
by Gray Morrow
Six years ago, the Journey had the (dubious) pleasure of reviewing Missile to the Moon. It was one of a long line of movies involving a man-less society, run by a bunch of sex-starved female beauties just waiting for a hunk to tip the order on its ear.
Laumer's latest is the same old story: this time, the men are an anthropologist and his stereotypically British assistant, who are whisked to Callisto where they encounter the last remnants of an ante-diluvian war between the sexes. High Jinks ensue(s?)
Only the author's puissance at writing elevates this story above the level of dreck. Even then, it's a disappointment. I understand that satirizing a hoary cliche can be fun, but the whole point of Galaxy is that the magazine doesn't even acknowledge the existence of said cliches, much less indulge in them.
It really deserves two stars. I'll probably give it three anyway.
Summit's End
This month's Galaxy was as alien-heavy as usual, and there was a broad variety of stories. On the other hand, with the exception of the Niven, there were no stand-outs. Indeed, the issue read more like an overlong issue of IF (which has also dipped in quality) than Galaxy of old.
Nevertheless, Ad Astra per Aspera. What goes down must come up again, and when humanity finally does meet the alien denizens of the stars, should they exist, our starship crews will doubtless have been inculcated with the lessons learned in SF, particularly in magazines like Galaxy.
by Victoria Silverwolf
Start With an Earthquake and Build to a Climax
The above phrase, or some variation on it, has been attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, although this is almost certainly apocryphal. In any case, it represents the interest Hollywood has long had in depicting disasters on the silver screen. Sometimes these have been recreations of historic events, from San Francisco (1936, the 1906 earthquake) to In Old Chicago (1938, the 1871 fire) to A Night to Remember (1958, the sinking of the Titanic.) Watch for these on the Late, Late Show.
Here in the Atomic Age, it seems that fear of the Bomb has replaced some of the fear of Nature. Going back at least as far as Five (1951), films dealing with nuclear disasters have filled the theaters and drives-ins for quite a while now. There are far too many of these to discuss in any detail, from low-budget quickies full of folks in rubber suits pretending to be monsters, to sober and serious dramas. The best of these have been the topics of full articles by Galactic Journeyers, so I direct you to the archives for more information.
Humanity gets wiped out, or at least reduced to very few, in most of these apocalyptic flicks. But what about those in which the entire planet Earth is threatened with destruction? I can only think of a few.
Read the book!
Based on the 1933 novel by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, George Pal's 1951 production of When Worlds Collide dealt with a wandering star on its way to crash into Earth, and the effort to build spaceships to carry a few survivors to the star's only planet. (They sure were lucky that it turned out to be habitable.)
See the movie!
It was a handsome production, winning an Oscar for special effects and nominated for cinematography.
Nifty spaceship. Looks like an Astounding cover, doesn't it?
See the movie; there isn't any book.
1961's The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a British production. Filmed in black-and-white on a modest budget, it depicted the effect that simultaneous nuclear bomb tests by the United States and the Soviet Union had on Earth's orbit, tilting it on its axis and sending it spiraling into the Sun.
Some scenes were tinted to suggest the devastating heat.
An unusually realistic portrait of the possible end of the world, with an ambiguous ending, I found it made for compelling viewing.
Will the latest entry in this small group of Earth-In-Peril films prove as exciting as its trailer suggests? Let's find out.
Dig We Must
All this destruction going on, and Dana Andrews is making a phone call.
The plot of the new movie Crack in the World seems to have been inspired by Project Mohole, so a brief review of that troubled effort to reach deep into the Earth is in order.
First proposed in 1957, Phase 1 of this mighty engineering project got started in 1961. Five holes were drilled at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Baja California, the deepest about six hundred feet below the ocean floor. (You have to consider the fact that these holes start about twelve thousand feet below the surface of the water.)
You can see from this diagram why it makes sense to drill from the bottom of the ocean rather than from the land.
The rumor mill has it that there's a lot of controversy over the multiple scientific, political, and economic factors involved in moving on to Phase 2. Eventually, Phase 3 of the project is supposed to achieve the ultimate goal of reaching the Mohorovičić discontinuity, which is the boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle. (It's named for the Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić. No wonder most folks call it the Moho layer.) It's too early to tell how low things will go.
The Core of the Problem
The opening title, in cracked letters.
Project Inner Space, our cinematic version of Project Mohole, begins on land rather than at sea. A brief scene of warriors carrying spears and shields establishes the fact that we're in Africa. We'll find out later that the location is Tanganyika. (That former nation only joined with Zanzibar to form Tanzania last year, so I'll cut the filmmakers some slack on the misnomer.)
It's hard to see here, but that scaffolding contains a rocket pointed down into the Earth.
A jeep carrying people of many different ethnicities and accents arrives at the site. They're here to talk to the head of the project, who needs their approval for his ambitious plan.
Dana Andrews as Doctor Stephen Sorenson.
You see, Project Inner Space is a lot more ambitious than Project Moho. Its goal is to reach all the way down to the Earth's core, so that the magma can be used as a virtually limitless supply of energy and raw materials. Since the Moho discontinuity is twenty-odd miles below the surface of the land (something less than five miles if you go under the sea) and the core is about eighteen hundred miles down, you can see that Moho is really small potatoes compared to Inner Space.
Doctor Stephen Sorenson (American actor Dana Andrews, leading man of the 1940's and 1950's, perhaps best known to most moviegoers for The Best Years of Our Lives, but familiar to horror film buffs for Curse of the Demon) wants the committee in charge of the political side of the project to give the OK to shoot an atomic bomb down into the Earth. (He's already got a rocket set up to deliver the thing, so it's obvious he expects to win them over to his side.)
On the right is Kieron Moore as Doctor Ted Rampion.
Stephen has a very strong sense that his notion of using an A-bomb is safe, but he's honest enough to admit that a fellow scientist, Doctor Ted Rampion (Irish actor Kieron Moore, best known to SF fans for appearing in The Day of the Triffids, and familiar to me for having the lead role in Doctor Blood's Coffin) opposes him. Ted thinks the massive explosion might create a crack in the world, leading to massive destruction. Well, given the title of the movie, you can guess who's right.
Janette Scott as Doctor Maggie Sorenson.
Complicating matters is the fact that Doctor Maggie Sorenson (British actress Janette Scott, also in The Day of the Triffids, and known to me from the psychological shocker Paranoiac), Stephen's wife and fellow scientist, was formerly in a relationship with Ted. Adding to this soap opera subplot is the fact that Stephen has a terminal illness that he is hiding from everyone, even his wife.
Stephen gets the go-ahead from his bosses, and the atomic bomb is rocketed deep into the Earth. The resulting explosion destroys the scaffolding and releases a fountain of magma. Everything seems just fine, but since we've still got about an hour of running time left, you know it's not going to be that easy.
Reports of massive earthquakes and tidal waves indicate that, yes, we've got a crack in the world. It's racing across the globe, too, threatening to rip the planet apart. Desperate to save Earth from total destruction, Ted and the other scientists attempt to stop the progress of the crack by dropping another nuclear bomb into the heart of an active volcano on an island.
Inside the volcano
Because the bomb has to be guided into the volcano by hand, requiring two people in spacesuits to descend with it, this is a particularly tense scene. (It's not a big surprise that Ted, our hero, is one of the two.) The device is dropped into the molten lava successfully, and triggered from a safe distance.
A nice little detail is the fact that the scientists carefully record all this.
Unfortunately, this doesn't halt the crack, but only reverses its direction. It looks like it will head back in the general direction of Project Inner Space, threatening to link up with itself and send a chunk of the planet off into space.
Scenes of massive destruction follow, portrayed through stock footage and some really good miniature effects. A railroad disaster, done with models, is particularly convincing.
The crack is approaching the doomed train from behind the bridge.
Will Earth survive? Will any of our three lead actors survive?
This scene may give you a hint.
Worth Digging Up?
The science in this movie may be questionable — there's an amusing moment when Doctor Maggie Sorenson, who should know better, pronounces the word seismograph as SEIZE-mograph — but overall I found it entertaining. The visual effects are quite good, and the story (written by Jon Manchip White and Julian Halevy, directed by Andrew Marton) is never stupid, even if it's implausible and clichéd at times.
I like the fact that Project Inner Space is truly an international effort, and that the scientists generally act like scientists. The sets look like places people could really work.
I also appreciated the fact that Doctor Stephen Sorenson isn't a megalomaniac, but simply a man who makes a terrible mistake, and does everything he can to correct it.
Four stars. I dug it.
by David Levinson
When Gideon contacted me about taking on the reviews for IF, I took President Roosevelt’s words to heart and said, “Yes.” It’s tougher than it looks. I’m stretching some mental muscles I haven’t used in some time.
New Beginnings
March is a good time for new beginnings. Spring isn’t quite here yet, but its promise is apparent. Depending on where you live, the crocuses may have started to bloom, or at least the snowdrops. And until Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar almost exactly 2,000 years ago, it was the first month of the year (which is why our ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months are named Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten). It even stuck around as the first month for some into the Eighteenth century under the Old Style.
So what’s new? Well, we have another new country: The Gambia. This tiny nation on the west coast of Africa was granted independence by Great Britain on February 18th. It closely follows the lower course of the Gambia River to its mouth on the Atlantic and is surrounded on three sides by Senegal. I wouldn’t rush out to buy a new map or globe any time soon. There are still plenty of colonies in Africa and elsewhere around the world seeking their independence.
The Duke of Kent at the official opening of Gambia High School during the independence celebrations
There’s also a new measles vaccine. Unlike the current vaccine, which requires a series of shots, this requires only a single injection. Fewer injections are bound to be a relief to children and their parents.
A little closer to the interests of the Journey, MGM has announced that Stanley Kubrick (Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove) is working on a science fiction film, tentatively to be called Journey Beyond the Stars. There isn’t much information at this time. It will be shot in Cinerama, and Arthur C. Clarke is apparently involved in some fashion. Maybe we can dare hope for more than ray guns and schlocky monsters.
Stanley Kubrick in the Dr. Strangelove trailer
What about IF?
Art by McKenna
Are we getting anything really new this month? Has Fred Pohl started to turn the decline in quality around? The answers are “A little” and “Not really”. As for the first question, five of the six authors in this issue are new enough that the Journey actually covered their first story. (Well, in the case of this month’s first time author you’ll have to wait a few paragraphs for that to be true.) For the second, read on.
The Altar at Asconel (Part 1 of 2), by John Brunner
Brother Spartak, a monk in a scholarly order on Annanworld, is just about to begin writing a history of his homeworld of Asconel, when he is interrupted by the arrival of his brother Vix. It turns out that these two are brothers to Hodath, the Warden of Asconel, who fell victim to a coup staged by the leaders of a cult (one of whom is a telepathic mutant) from the world of Brinze which worships Belizuek. Neither Brinze nor Belizuek is known to the monastery’s encyclopedic computer. The two leave, first to find their remaining brother, Tiorin, and then to make contact with the resistance in the Asconel system. But before leaving, Spartak is reminded by his abbot that he took a vow of non-violence and that committing a single violent act will forever bar him from returning.
Aboard his ship, Vix is attacked by an assassin. Spartak is able to stop the attack by rapidly reversing the ship’s artificial gravity. (Is slamming someone repeatedly into various surfaces not an act of violence, just because you only twisted a dial?) We also meet Vix’s mistress, Vineta, and learn that Vix is hot-headed and occasionally verbally abusive to her.
Art by Gray Morrow
They travel to Delcadore, hoping to get a lead on their brother. There, the ship is impounded by the Imperial bureaucracy and the brothers are dragooned into taking a telepathic mutant to the world of Nylock. They are psychologically conditioned to fulfill their assignment, but are able to delay take-off long enough to make contact with Tiorin and for him to come aboard. The delay is brought about by Spartak pointing a weapon at an administrator and threatening to shoot a bunch of people. (Is that an act of violence if he didn’t actually mean to go through with it?)
The mutant, a teenage girl named Eunora, is brought aboard in an artificially induced catatonic state. Spartak insists on bringing her out of it, and a few days later, she breaks the conditioning of the others. However, she has no interest in going to Asconel and is planning to condition them herself to take them where she wants to go. Once she figures out where that is.
That’s really not a lot of action for 47 pages. The rest is taken up by exposition. Some good, some of the “As you know, Bob” variety. We learn that there is a galaxy-wide human empire, but it is in decline, gradually contracting its borders. A few places that have left the empire, such as Asconel and Annanworld, have retained imperial values and systems, but others have lapsed into piracy and barbarism. The empire is nearly 9,000 years old and the ships are even older, created by an ancient vanished race and found by humans when they first ventured out to the stars.
John Brunner is the grand old man of this issue, having been writing since the early 50s. He has apparently written a couple of things in this setting before. The Brunner I’ve read before has been closer in tone to the newer British style. This is pure space opera. As is typical of space opera, the women characters don’t do too well. Vineta submits weakly to Vix’s abuse, though she may be developing an interest in Spartak, and there are at least some hints at a bit of depth. We don’t see much of Eunora, but she’s not off to a good start. The only other woman is the bureaucrat, described repeatedly as fat and foolish.
Despite the excessive exposition and reliance on coincidence, a tentative three stars for readability and some decent writing in spots.
What T and I Did, by Fred Saberhagen
An amnesiac wakes imprisoned in a Berserker. One eye is bandaged, and he assumes he is horribly disfigured, because the others trapped with him seem to be repelled by him.
It’s difficult to say much more about this without giving the whole thing away. If you read “The Stone Place” last month, the answer to at least some of the mystery will be obvious, but that’s far from the whole story.
This is Saberhagen’s fifth story about the dreaded Berserker killing machines. Clearly he does have more he can say with the Berserker stories, but I would like to see him stretch his legs a little more with something else. A solid, high three stars.
Across the Sea of Stars, by Jeff Renner
This is a poem which uses the title of at least one science fiction work in every line. The meter here (when the author sticks to it) is the sort of sing-song I associate with bad children’s poetry. The only good thing is that the poem is barely longer than the list of authors offered an apology. Renner had another bad poem in F&SF in March of last year. He shouldn’t quit his day job. One star for me, maybe two if you enjoy the game of figuring out how many of the referenced works you’ve read.
Gree’s Hellcats, by C.C. MacApp
Colonel Steve Duke is back. During a boring (for the reader) space battle, he learns that the Gree has a new species working for it. From pictures he took, the bird people figure out that these are “upgraded” animals. Col. Duke is once again sent behind enemy lines to investigate.
Art by Nodel
Once again, he spends some time in the bush. Once again, he waltzes into the enemy base by pretending to be wounded. After crawling around in the ductwork, he eventually locates some electronic devices being implanted in the creatures’ horns. He steals one and has the brilliant (read: blindingly stupid) idea of trying it out on himself. It proves to be some sort of computer-aided thinking device that also punishes thoughts against the Gree. Steve steals a spaceship with the aid of the device. The end.
Why hellcats? A reference to the Grumman F6F? The M18 tank hunter? The 12th Armored Division? Hellcats of the Navy starring Ronald Reagan? Mary Todd Lincoln? Who knows? Or cares? I’m not sure even the author does.
MacApp has written some decent stuff. “A Guest of Ganymede” comes to mind. Even the first of the Gree stories wasn’t bad, but this and the previous installment have been awful. If MacApp must write space opera, might I suggest a sequel to “Under the Gaddyl”? Two stars and no more Gree, please.
Our Martian Neighbors, by John McCallum
An astronaut has crashed in the Martian desert. After days struggling through the heat, he comes upon a glass dome. In it are two children and their mother. He can hear them speaking, but they can’t hear him desperately pleading for water.
McCallum is this month’s new author. He shows some skill, but the story is very unpleasant. Imagine a Mars story written by an evil Ray Bradbury. I’ve no idea why this got the cover. Well written, but only two stars for egregious cruelty and not really having a point.
White Fang Goes Dingo, by Thomas M. Disch
In 1970, the Masters, beings of pure energy, came to Earth. They took over the power grid and made pets of some humans, especially the beautiful and artistic. They use the Leash, some sort of electric stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain, and the pets are eager and glad for it. It is now a few generations later.
Our protagonist is known at various times in his life as Dennis White, White Fang, and Cuddles. He is the son of Tennyson White, who wrote a very popular book about Masters and pets through the allegory of dogs. A few years after White Fang’s birth, his mother left for another solar system and his father was captured and killed by wild humans, also called Dingoes. White Fang and his brother Pluto live in a poorly run kennel for a few years and are then adopted by a Master after meeting a human girl, Julie, on an abandoned farm. A decade later, White Fang and Julie are let off the leash while visiting Earth, but their Master never returns. Eventually, they are captured by Dingoes and get to see what is left of human civilization.
Art by Gaughan
You might expect this to be a broad comedy from the title. It isn’t. There is humor and satire here, but it’s subtle. The story is up to Disch’s usual standards, but might need more room to really develop. It’s either too long or too short. I can’t quite decide. A very high three stars; it’s missing that certain something to get a fourth.
Wrapping it up
So, are there signs of Pohl righting the ship? Not really. These are hoary old clichés for the most part. Space opera, a hostile but habitable Mars, humanity enslaved by aliens. Only Saberhagen and Disch do something new and different with them. Maybe Brunner will, too, but not this month. Come on, Fred. Don’t make me regret taking this gig.
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