Tag Archives: 1964

Book

[August 31, 1964] Grow old along with me (Brian Aldiss' Greybeard)

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by Gideon Marcus

A slow burn

The British love writing about the end of the world.

Whether it's J.G. Ballard depicting a drowning world, Nevil Shute showing us clouds of atomic radiation slowly enveloping the globe, the cinema showing the day the Earth caught fire, or John Wyndham terrorizing a blind world with man-eating plants, the UK has been fertile ground for a particular kind of disaster story.  While presenting global catastrophes is not unique to Britain, U.K. authors are more apt to focus on the social ramifications, and also the aftermath, rather than the more flashy destruction scenes.  Moreover, British SF tends to take its time with disasters, letting you stop for a contemplative tea rather than maintaining a continuous mad dash.  Of course, Americans write contemplative post-disaster too (viz. Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, but it's rarer.

Brian Aldiss, the vanguard of the British "New Wave" of science fiction, had already made his mark in this genre with Hothouse, a portrayal of Earth's far-future where humans have reverted to knee-high savages and plants have displaced virtually all of the animal kingdom.  A popular series and then a fix-up book, Hothouse was a hit, winning a Hugo a couple of years back. 

Now, the prolific Oxonion (by residence, not degree) has produced the latest in inexorable aftermath fiction: Greybeard.

Winding down

The basic premise of Greybeard is like a cross between On the Beach and John Christopher's The Death of Grass (No Blade of Grass in the United States).  In 1981, orbital atomic tests cause the Earth's protective Van Allen Belts to waver, and the Earth is scoured with extraterrestrial radiations.  Most large mammals are adversely affected; they sicken and die, they cease to breed true.  Humans are hit worst of all: half the world's children succumb to the ensuing illness, and virtually all humanity is rendered sterile.

Aldiss begins his story in 2029, after society has largely collapsed.  The viewpoint character is Algernon Timberlane, generally known as "Greybeard" for his signature adornment.  Of course, some fifty years after "the Accident", everyone is grey, but Algy stands out for being among the youngest of humanity's remnants, a spry 54-year-old in a world of old coots.  An intellectual and possessed of vigor, and also married to one of the youngest and loveliest women yet living (Martha Broughton), Greybeard stands out, and he has many years left for adventure.

Adventure he does, in a sort of quiet, understated fashion.  From the first chapter, the book wends in two chronological directions.  Going forward, Algy and Martha leave their authoritarian community of Sparcot after it is overrun with feral stoats, their goal to reach the coast and see what's left of the world before it decays completely to a natural state.  Going backward, we journey stepwise to the immediate aftermath of the Accident, first to the warlord era of 2018, then to the world wars of 2001 as nations struggled to secure the last viable children, and finally to Algy's youth, before humanity is certain of its doomed status.

A British manner of storytelling

Greybeard does an excellent job of exploring humanity with a hollowed out spot where its legacy should be.  It's a fascinating study, a story of old people (men and women equally represented) in a field normally dominated by the young.  At first, our species tries to carry on, business as usual.  We then fall by stages into strife and then a senescent blurriness.  In other words, as a race, we age and begin to die. 

Aldiss is never in a hurry to tell his story, letting the reader soak in the sights and smells of the slowly decaying civilization.  At the same time, neither does the pace lag, with Algy moving around quite a bit and meeting an interesting ragtag of other survivors.  The book is in many ways a travelogue of southeast England, with Aldiss' home of Oxford featuring prominently.  This intimate familiarity with the region adds verisimilitude to a very immediate-feeling tale.

The author also cuts the subtle horror of the situation with an arch sense of humor; for instance, the journalistic organization Algy joins after the wars, in order to document the last days of humanity, is called Documentation of Universal Contemporary History, for which Timberline is assigned to the English branch.  Yes — DOUCH(E).  The advancing senility of the people Greybeard meets is at once deeply chilling and comically ridiculous.  In other words, the situation is hopeless but not serious.

Hope or despair at the bottom of the box?

Of course, the overriding question on everyone's mind (particularly the reader's) is whether or not there are any viable children left on the planet.  There are hints given throughout; however, certain verification yea or nay is reserved for the very end.  Either answer would work, but would result in wildly different tales and messages.  I liked the path Aldiss chose.

In any event, Greybeard is definitely one of the stronger books of the year, and another excellent outing by Mr. Aldiss.  Four stars.


photo by John Bulmer

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Science / Space Race

[August 29,1964] Coming to You Live via Satellite

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by Kaye Dee

Back in early January 1955, I was incredibly lucky to hear space promoter and science fiction writer Mr. Arthur C Clarke give a talk in Sydney about the future prospects of space activities. One of the things he discussed was the way in which satellites in Earth orbit could revolutionise communications around the world, allowing us to make phone calls or transmit television and radio virtually instantaneously from country to country. He first wrote about his ideas for global satellite communications back in 1945, especially in an article in the British radio enthusiasts’ magazine “Wireless World”. Mr. Clarke explained that three satellites, placed equidistantly around a very particular orbit, would be able to provide radio and television coverage across the world by relaying signals sent from ground stations in each country.

The first two pages of Mr. Clarke's seminal article on communications satellites. As a science fiction author, I guess he couldn't resist the title.

The special orbit that Mr. Clarke discussed is now called “geostationary orbit”: it’s 24,000 miles above the equator. Satellites in this orbit are travelling at the same speed as which the Earth rotates, and this means that they appear to be stationary above one spot on the Earth’s surface, so that they can act as a stable relay platform for radio and television signals.

From Imagination to Reality

Well now Mr. Clarke’s idea is in the process of becoming reality! Since 1962, Telstar, Relay and the Syncom 1 and 2 satellites have all transmitted telephone and television between the United States and Europe. But none of these satellites was in geostationary orbit and none of them was in a suitable position to transmit to the Southern Hemisphere. On August 19, Syncom 3, the latest in the series, was launched —and it is going to become the world’s first geostationary communications satellite! Right now, it’s manoeuvring from its initial elliptical orbit up into its final geostationary orbit, which it is due to reach by late September — just in time to broadcast the Tokyo Olympic Games to you in the Northern Hemisphere. Unfortunately, we here Down Under will miss out again this time, but hopefully not for too much longer….


The Syncom 3 geostationary satellite. Soon it will be bringing you the Tokyo Olympics live – if you live in the Northern Hemisphere

Introducing INTELSAT

Just a few days ago, on August 24, Australia formally became a founding member of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, which is going to be known as INTELSAT for short. INTELSAT is a revolutionary idea: an intergovernmental consortium that will develop, own and manage a global geostationary satellite communications network to provide international broadcast services. Member nations will contribute to the cost of establishing, operating and maintaining the satellite system, but they’ll get a return for that investment through the revenue generated from satellite usage fees. The really great aspect of INTELSAT is that its services will be open to any nation to use and everyone will pay the same rates. This is an important policy because it means that Third World countries will be able to afford to have access to satellite communications and be connected to the world.

In my May item on rocket mail, I mentioned how important satellite communications could be to Australia. The big difference is that it will really reduce our isolation from the rest of the world. Right now, if something major happens overseas, it’s going to be two or three days at least before we can see any film footage about it on television or in the newsreels. With satellites, we could see things the same day they happen! Satellites will also make it easier for us to communicate within Australia — we’ve got a very big country with a very small population, and there are a lot of parts of the Australia where it’s difficult or just too expensive to provide telephone connections and television service.

A Presidential Proposal

The late President Kennedy first proposed the idea that has become INTELSAT in a speech to the United Nations in 1961.


When President Kennedy addressed the United Nations in September 1961, he proposed a global satellite communications system – and international research into weather control.

He even signed the Communications Satellite Act in 1962 to help bring it into being. That Act created the Communications Satellite Corporation, which calls itself COMSAT, as a private corporation to represent the United States in the international governance for INTELSAT, where most other countries are represented by their national telecommunications carriers: Australia, for example, will be represented by the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (OTC), which has been our telecommunications agency since 1946. In addition to Australia, seven other countries have joined together to establish INTELSAT, and several more nations will become members soon, once their governments have enacted the necessary legislation.

Mrs O’Donahue Saves the Day!

INTELSAT plans to launch its first its first satellite in the first half of next year. Interestingly, I have heard that NASA is thinking of using INTELSAT satellites to provide communications links with its tracking stations around the world for the Apollo Moon programme. Actually, a recent incident at the NASA Carnarvon Tracking Station in Western Australia may have helped to give them the idea. Back in April, the Manned Space Flight Network station in Carnarvon suffered a major loss of communications just minutes before it was due to support the uncrewed Gemini 1 mission.


Gemini 1 launched successfully, but one of NASA's main tracking stations for the mission almost wasn't operational!

A lightning strike destroyed the telephone lines between Carnarvon and the town of Mullewa, which was the tracking station’s only connection to Perth and the overseas cables that carried data to and from America.

Luckily, an alternative route along an obsolete section of an old pole-top phone line was improvised. Information from NASA, relayed via Perth, was sent to along this line to the tiny settlement of Hamelin Pool. Mrs. O’Donahue, the postmistress there, then read the data figures down the temporary line to the Carnarvon telephone exchange for more than two hours! After this near-catastrophe, it’s no wonder NASA is looking for a more reliable means of communication with Carnarvon!


Here's a woman who never thought she'd be saving NASA's bacon: Mrs. O'Donahue, the postmistress at Hamlin Pool

If NASA goes ahead with its plan to use communications satellites for its Apollo communications network, I guess OTC will be establishing Australia’s first satellite ground station in Carnarvon, to keep the NASA station in contact with the United States. I can’t wait to see the first live satellite broadcasts to and from Australia.

And if I can call my Scottish cousins directly via satellite, that’s going to be a slice of science fiction become reality!

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Book, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 27, 1964] Change..? ( New Worlds, September-October 1964)

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

It seems that the winds of change may be beginning to blow here again in the British Isles. Since we last spoke, we’ve had ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill retire from Parliament, which may be a sign that the old guard is changing. There are also rumours of a General Election being announced later in the year.

Whilst we are in Parliamentary recess, the signs are that things will get rather intense after the Summer. Should be interesting: Labour have a vibrant new man at their helm, named Harold Wilson, who makes the Conservatives seem staid by comparison.

He’s even met The Beatles, making him the envy of 99% of Britain’s youngsters.

Harold meeting the Fab Four in March 1964

I am tempted to suggest that perhaps the Beatles should be elected – surely with their current global reputation they would stand a good chance. I have enjoyed reading about the US reaction to the A Hard Day’s Night movie, which seems almost as frenzied as the reaction here when I saw it back in July. I decided to wait for the fuss to die down before seeing it myself, but I did enjoy it a lot. If ticket sales are any sign of success, it’s still being shown in cinemas here, with some fans seeing it on a weekly basis.

In terms of music, the seemingly unstoppable Beatles have, after three weeks, had the single A Hard Day’s Night replaced by a slightly more unusual Number One: that by the mighty Manfred Mann (it’s a group and a person!) and their catchy number Doo Wah Diddy Diddy.  My current favourite however is the rather loud and brash You Really Got Me by The Kinks.

If we’re not queuing up to see A Hard Day’s Night again, then the cinema pickings are a little slim. I did enjoy seeing Carry On Spying recently, a comedic spoof of the James Bond genre in that slap-around British manner that is not to be taken at all seriously. The plot is that a top secret chemical formula has been stolen by STENCH (the Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans), and so a bumbling set of trainee spies led by Agent Simpkins (Kenneth Williams) are on the trail, chasing villains such as The Fat Man, Dr Milchman and Dr Crow (really!) around the world.

Movie poster with the inimitable Kenneth Williams (centre)

Ok – it’s not subtle. But it made me laugh, and almost made up for the fact that Ian Fleming is no longer with us – I wonder what he would have made of it.

And whilst I mention Bond, I’m also waiting impatiently for the next Bond movie, Goldfinger, due here next month. Can’t wait.

The signs of change are also here in the newest New Worlds magazine as well. Three issues in of this new version and I think that we’re beginning to see the new format settling down into some kind of order. The good news is that the last couple of issues have been a marked improvement overall for me, although there have been some spectacular mistakes as well – Michael Moorcock’s ‘story’ Goodbye, Miranda in the last issue was just awful.

The Issue At Hand

The cover is another eye-catching one, by ‘Jakubowicz’, in the style of those previously done by Jim Cawthorn. I do like these new covers, they do grab your attention. Can you tell that this is a science fiction magazine? You certainly couldn’t with the last of the John Carnell issues. And we’re also (at last!) seeing some interior illustration as well – it was much missed.

The issue starts with a call-to-arms. We begin with a spirited Editorial from Mike Moorcock attempting to allay concerns that the new artistic approach in the magazine will be at a cost to the entertainment provided by reading old-style science fiction. It’s a convincing argument, although I’m not sure that it will change the views of some of the old-time readers.

The hints are that readership numbers are up on the new magazine – possibly double the print run of the old Nova format. If this is new readers, or lapsed readers, then surely the opinion of ‘the oldsters’ will be less important?

To the stories themselves.

The Shores of Death (Part 1 of 2), by Michael Moorcock

So we begin with the first part of a two-part serial written by the editor of the magazine. And at first glance, the title is straight out of the Pulp-SF era, a tad over-melodramatic.

Look: more artwork! (by James Cawthorn)

Nevertheless, the story is promising, although typically dour. The future for Humanity seems bleak as our galaxy colliding with another means the end of all we know soon.  In addition to this, travel to other places seems to be difficult, if not near impossible – most of those who try to travel long distances away from Earth either die or are driven mad. Our hero of the story, Clovis Marca, is searching for something – an answer, a solution, a source of inner peace before the end, perhaps. He is pursued by people – one is Fastina Cahmin, a young woman, the other the enigmatic Take, who may have an answer for Clovis, though he’s not saying (yet) what it is.

So again, this is an old-style pulp story given new sensibility. There’s sex and lots of inner angst, as Clovis is driven to search for answers. It has that tone of what I’m now noticing as a British theme that the future will be bad and will get worse, and all ends abruptly to be continued next month, but it feels like a lot of fuss about nothing special, which is never good for a story, I find. It’s another so-so effort from the editor, though not as bad as Goodbye Miranda. 3 out of 5.

Private Shape, by Sydney J. Bounds

Another of the old guard making a return to the new magazine. This is an odd one – a Marlow-esque attempt to tell a detective-noir story from the viewpoint of a shape-changing private detective. Didn’t really work for me. 3 out of 5.

Integrity, by P. F. Woods

Another friend of the editor, this is Barrington J. Bailey under his nom de plume, who appeared most recently in the May-June 1964 issue. Integrity is described in the heading as “a story of a Goldwater paradise” about a future ‘Free America’ where shooting everything and everybody for social placement seems common. I get the impression that it’s meant to shock, or at least warn, but it just seems like reality magnified to an unrealistic degree, and therefore loses credibility to me.  3 out of 5.

I Remember, Anita, by Langdon Jones

By contrast I liked this one more. The second story in successive issues by relative newcomer Langdon Jones. I must admit that the title gave me concern as its title reminded me of the Moorcock story last issue, but I’m glad to say that this one was better. It is a love story which initially reads as if it could be published in a mainstream magazine but has a science-fictional twist in the tale at the end. Surprisingly sexy and shocking. This is better than his last story and shows surprising potential. 4 out of 5.

Andromeda, by Clifford C. Reed

Last seen in March 1964, Cliff Reed gives us another dystopian tale. Andromeda is a protest story in a time of strict control, and the consequences to a young woman who dares to speak up in a totalitarian society on “Free Speech Sunday”. It’s another nicely told story, showing how a figure of protest can become a focus point when she chooses to die rather than remain in captivity. A talky tale. 3 out of 5.

New Experience, by E. C. Tubb

I could make a cliched comment about this being a "New Experience", having traditional sf writer Tubb in this new issue of New Worlds, but modesty forbids…

Nevertheless, the return of Tubb is an interesting one. I liked his last serial, Window on the Moon in New Worlds (April – June 1963) at the beginning, although it was a bit of a mess at the end. I was hoping that this story was better.

The story itself is little more than what I can only imagine is a bad drug trip wrapped up in a basic science-fictional idea that scientists are searching for a drug that will remove painful memories. Like a lot of inner-space stories it involves ideas of god-like deities.

It’s certainly different to Window on the Moon, and although it covers similar ideas to stories from the end of the Carnell era – I suspect that it might be one left over in the pile, so to speak – it is better than most of those other drug-addled stories. I can see why Moorcock would like it, as it clearly plays to his William S. Burroughs-ian interests. But for someone like me whose drug-taking extends to the odd cup of tea it leaves me unmoved. Self-obsessed and yet surprisingly dull. 3 out of 5.

The point that the long-established writer’s name has not been used on the front cover of the magazine to sell it, whilst relative new writer Michael Moorcock’s has, is rather telling of the new approach to the magazine. Will Moorcock’s name grab the attention more than Tubb’s?

The return of the book review column shows Burroughs mentioned by Moorcock again as he extols the virtues of J G Ballard and his new book The Terminal Beach.

James Colvin (don’t forget, a pseudonym of Moorcock and Barrington Bayley, which must make editorial meetings interesting!) similarly praises John Carnell’s latest publications – a ‘best-of’ New Worlds from 1961-63, published in America, and his first publication here since stepping away from New Worlds called New Writings in SF.

Honesty time – I tried reading it myself last month and really disliked it, as it seemed to be a issue of old-style New Worlds published in paperback form. It was tired, overwrought and had what I saw as all of the weaknesses of the old magazine but in a book form. I couldn’t finish it.

The review here disagrees with my view, considerably, being “a good start to the series which promises to be one of the most popular and influential ever to be published in this country.”  Hmm.

Of the short book reviews there’s a mixture of fairly un-original fiction, often not the best of the writers involved, and some excellent non-fiction. I was amused by the summary of Robert A Heinlein’s  Revolt in 2100 as “really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. 3 stories on overworked themes by SF’s shadow-Hemingway.” I quite liked them.

In terms of the Letters, there’s more debate on the issue raised in the Editorial, of the point of difficult books over simpler fare, (summarised as “Ulysses is a classic and Finnegan’s Wake a dud”) and a plea to recognise the range in current sf – there is room for everything from Clarke to Burroughs. A sort of “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!” kind of thing.

As ever, the reader’s ratings of recent issues make interesting reading, to see if the critical mass feel the same as I did. No surprises to see Ballard doing well, but Goodbye Miranda came fourth – did they read the same story as me?

Summing up

I’m now starting to get an idea of what Moorcock is trying to achieve here. In this new incarnation of New Worlds he clearly wishes to move the genre forward but is also conscious of maintaining links to the past. There is not a complete break with the traditions of the past but there is a clear determination to move towards softer science and more literary material. It hasn’t always worked for me this issue, but I can now see where I think things are going. It should make things interesting. More change…. Exciting times.

On this new schedule the next issue will be out at the end of October. However, I am hoping that I’ve finally been able to get hold of a regular supply of Science Fantasy magazine, which should be out next month. Until next time…

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[August 23rd, 1964] The Reign Of Boredom (Doctor Who: The Reign Of Terror [Part 1])

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By Jessica Holmes

Ready for another historical episode? This serial of Doctor Who comes from the mind of Dennis Spooner, who I don’t think we’ve had a story from before. Interestingly, this is the first Doctor Who serial to be partially shot on location, instead of the airing cupboard at the BBC they usually use.

I want to start with a couple of things. One: I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an expert on the French Revolution. And two: my opinion on this episode is objective fact and I shall not be tolerating any dissenters.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

A LAND OF FEAR

The TARDIS lands in a nice spot of countryside, and in keeping with his promise at the end of the previous serial, the Doctor curtly informs Ian and Barbara they can go now, and not to let the door bang their backsides on the way out. However, considering this is the Doctor we’re talking about, Ian and Barbara aren’t about to just waltz off when they’re not even sure they’re on the right planet, so Ian manages to coax the Doctor out for a drink while they scope out the area.

Hearing some loud bangs as they leave the TARDIS, Ian rummages around in the bushes and drags out a small boy, who kindly informs them that they’re in France. To be fair, it’s not far off from Old Blighty. Get a ferry from Dover and you can make a day trip of it.

The boy runs off, and the others track him to a deserted house.

Ian and Barbara admit to themselves that they wouldn’t really be disappointed if they weren’t in England in 1964. Or should they come back to 1963? I’m not sure if it’s been as long for them as it’s been for us.

Finding the house empty, the companions promptly start plundering the owners’ belongings. Aside from some fancy frocks and dusty candlesticks, they find documents signed by Robespierre…and realise where and when they are.

And just to round things off, while exploring alone (always a bad idea) the Doctor gets a nice whack over the back of the head.

Meanwhile, the rest of the companions are helping themselves to some contemporary clothes. The garments look quite accurate to the location and time period, though I couldn’t say if the lack of corsets is excellent historical attention to detail (the corset having fallen out of fashion during the revolution in favour of simpler garments), or simply a lack of budget or modern clothing standards getting in the way of accurate period costuming.

That might all be a bit nit-picky, but I think the Doctor would appreciate my twaddle on whether or not everyone should be wearing a corset. This is, after all, his favourite historical period. I don’t know what that says about him but I think we should probably keep him away from any members of the aristocracy, just in case.

Oh. Too bad, because a couple just showed up. This farmhouse, it turns out, is their hideout. I’m not going to tell you their names because for one, I didn’t catch them, and for two, they’ll be dead in a couple of minutes so there’s no point.

They prepare to make a brave stand as a gang of soldiers come to capture them, only for one of them to chicken out and run outside, necessitating the other to come out and rescue him. He’s doing well at persuading the soldiers not to shoot them, right up to the point that he tells them that even if they have uniforms, they’re still peasants underneath.

To literally nobody’s surprise, that’s not a very clever thing to say to a bunch of gun-toting peasants.

R.I.P, French blokes whose names I don’t know.

Meanwhile, Ian’s trying to find where they stashed the Doctor, who is still out cold, but the soldiers barge in before he can, and drag everyone (except the Doctor, who is still having a nice nap) out into the courtyard.

The Doctor finally wakes up just as the soldiers are about to execute his mates. However, their leader persuades the men that they should take the companions to Paris, where they’ll be rewarded for delivering them to ‘Madame Guillotine’. How nice.

Before leaving, they decide to burn the house down, just to be thorough. Things sure don’t look good for the Doctor. Pity I literally don’t care. Of course I always know the Doctor or whoever is imperiled in the cliffhanger-of-the-week is going to be fine, but I am usually enjoying the episode enough that I can suspend my disbelief.

I didn’t know 24 minutes of television with multiple shootings and a house burning down could actually be this boring. Yes; this is the end of the episode! Is it just me, or would all these events normally take place within the first fifteen minutes?

2 out of 5.

GUESTS OF MADAME GUILLOTINE

I think I like the title more than I like the episode.

With the Doctor being slow-roasted French-style, the companions arrive in the city of lights, and Paris gives them a lovely warm welcome, by which I mean they’re immediately sentenced to death for being in the company of traitors of the revolution.

There we go. Show’s over, everyone’s dead.

…Sadly I don’t think I’ll get out of doing this write-up that easily.

Unfortunately there’s a backlog of necks that want chopping, so Ian, Barbara and Susan are going to have to wait a bit, in the company of a delightfully charming jailor who makes creepy implications about what Barbara could do for him to secure her release. Barbara gives him a slap instead. That’s my girl. Susan, on the other hand, wallows in misery, convinced everyone’s going to die. Tsk.

Oh, and the Doctor’s alive too. The little boy from last episode went into the house and dragged him out, which is nice of him. Don’t expect him to stick around, though, nice as it might have been for the Doctor to have a plucky young sidekick. The Doctor’s off to Paris!

On a real, actual road! With real sky! And a fake Bill Hartnell! Two out of three isn't bad. See, they didn't actually have the budget to transport any of the cast out to the filming location, so they had to make do with a double shot from a distance. That's pretty neat!

Ian, meanwhile, is sitting in a cell with a chap who is not feeling his best. He’s got a nasty gunshot wound, and it’s clear he’s not long for this world. The wounded man tells Ian to find an Englishman in Paris, who is in the city to gather information. There’s a war coming between England and France, because the day ends in a Y. I can’t even remember which historical war they’re gearing up for. There’s too many, and a ridiculous number of them are simply called the ‘Anglo-French War’. We’ve been at war, or preparing for it, pretty much ever since that William bloke paddled across the Channel.

I digress. The man imparts his wish, and dies, and I swear this should be more interesting to me than it is. It’s just not doing anything for me.

Out in the sunshine, the Doctor is having a nice walk in the countryside, and comes upon some ‘tax-dodgers’ being forced to work on the road. He tells their foreman that they might work faster if he actually picked up a pick. Astute observation, Doctor, and a great way to illustrate the difference between intelligence and wisdom, as this makes the foreman take offence, and investigate the Doctor's lack of travel papers. No papers, eh? Probably up to no good. And what do we do with people who are up to no good? We put them to work!

In Paris, Barbara and Susan are making progress on digging their way out of their cell. It looks like the ladies might be coming to the rescue.

Meanwhile, the man who was commanding the soldiers who captured the companions (I’m sorry, I didn’t hear his name) has come to investigate the death of the man in Ian’s cell, and asks if he and Ian spoke before he died. Ian lies to him, and says that they didn’t, but the jailor tells the commander otherwise, though he didn’t hear what was said.

Back in the ladies’ cell, Susan and Barbara find some rats in the hole they’ve made, and go into hysterics, because we womenfolk literally melt if we see a rodent, don’t you know? I don’t know. You cross the universe fighting priests who cut people’s hearts out and bug-eyed monsters and pepper-pots with death rays, and you go to pieces over a few rats?

Look. I’m scared of spiders. But if I’m going to be decapitated in the morning, and the only way out of it is to crawl through a tunnel filled with tarantulas, I’d absolutely, positively, definitely…get my last rites in order and sort out a will.

Perhaps I can’t really talk.

Meanwhile in the countryside….

Sometimes I do wish the characters would stay together for longer than five minutes so I don’t have to come up with a new way to re-introduce them every other paragraph to prevent things getting repetitive.

But meanwhile à la campagne, the Doctor gets in a boring and stupid and unnecessary scene that, unless there is some deep meaning in it that I’m too thick to get, is there just to pad out the episode. This whole thing with the roadworks is so pointless.

The Doctor distracts the foreman by making him stare at the sun, then steals his money, throws it on the ground, and while the foreman is digging through the soil, whacks him over the back of the head. Our hero, everyone!

Okay, so he was actually using the foreman’s greed against him by making him think he’d found a treasure trove, but he still knocked a man out cold while he wasn’t even looking.

To be fair, I was already thinking ‘why not just hit him with your pick’, and then he did, but that doesn’t reflect well on either of us.

Back in Paris (see? This is what I mean), the guards come for Susan and Barbara, and they’re taken with a bunch of other prisoners to the guillotine.

And all Ian can do is watch helplessly from his cell.

And how have I managed to write so much about an episode of little substance?

2 out of 5.

A CHANGE OF IDENTITY

Let’s introduce this one with a little scrap from my notes:

My chippy tea is going cold and I’m having to watch this.

Jessica from the past, you put it into words.

At least we’re finally getting to the bit where people’s heads start getting chopped off. Please?

The Doctor makes it to Paris, just as the women are on their way to have a little off the top, though of course he doesn’t know that.

In an alleyway, two men, noblemen by the looks of it, are lying in wait for the prisoners and soldiers heading their way.

And back in prison. Oh, back in prison. I can barely bring myself to go on. The jailor leaves the key to Ian’s cell…in the lock. Of Ian’s cell. And then rushes off because the commander chap is calling him. Leaving Ian free to grab the key-ring, nick his key, and put it back how he found it before the jailor remembers what he did with the keys.

I don’t even have the will to make a joke or be annoyed about it. It’s just not worth it.

Out on the streets of Paris, the horse towing Barbara and Susan on their way to certain doom throws a shoe, and Barbara plans to make a run for it when the guards unhitch the horse. Susan, however, has suddenly developed a very inconvenient illness and so can’t be running off anywhere, and Barbara, bless, won’t leave her.

Luckily the two men are nearby to save them because goodness knows they couldn’t possibly have rescued themselves in the face of this sudden narrative contrivance.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is shopping for new clothes. This is Paris, after all. Being in possession of no actual money, he trades in his old clothes and also a rather ugly ring, in return for…well. Wait and see.

Barbara and Susan make it to a safehouse. The blokes who saved them are called Jules and Jean, and they are posh, upper-class, and might as well have a dotted line around their necks labelled ‘chop here’.

Ian, meanwhile, is escaping, but not without notice.

I’ll just say, it’s not a very thrilling escape when the jailor is passed out on the floor and the only conscious witness is presumably hoping Ian will just lead him to the English spy, and so doesn’t lift a finger.

Susan and Barbara tell Jules and Jean about the farmhouse and the men they met there. They realise that their escape route has been compromised. A messenger arrives for them, a man called Leon.

Back in the dungeon….

Forget everything mean I’ve said about this episode. It’s just redeemed itself.

Behold the Doctor’s new outfit:

Besides being a genuinely funny reveal, the Doctor’s new outfit serves another purpose. It enables him to walk right into the prison in the guise of a regional officer, and interrogate the jailor as to the whereabouts of Ian, Barbara and Susan!

He learns of their escape, but before he can go off to be their knight in fabulous plumage, along comes the commander, who asks to see the Doctor’s papers. Of course, the Doctor remembered to forge some this time (perhaps the only worthwhile thing to come out of his little interlude in the countryside), so he’s not rumbled…yet.

However, the commander is on his way to have a chat with Robespierre himself about the execution lists, and extends an invitation to the Doctor, who can’t very well say no.

At least that might be interesting next time.

In what the French call le safehouse, Leon and Barbara make small-talk. Barbara tells him that she’s English, which he takes as an encouraging sign that she doesn’t really have a side in the whole revolution thing.

Look, she’s a history teacher. I can bet you she has opinions.

So that’s nice. And dull.

However, back at the prison, qu’est-ce que c’est? Or, as the English prefer to say, what is this that this is?

It’s the man from the clothing shop. He informs the commander that he has evidence of a traitor, and then (all together now), dun dun DUUUUUUUN…!

He produces the Doctor’s ring.

See, this is why I don’t wear jewellery. You never know when a duplicitous merchant of clothes might buy it off me and use it as evidence of me betraying the ideals of the revolution.

Okay, that’s it. I’m free. For now. I really hope things start picking up next time.

2 out of 5.

Final Thoughts

Well, having spent quite a lot of this review just making my own stupid jokes, how engaging do we think I found this serial so far?

Not very.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but if I was going to hazard a guess, I would say that it’s the pacing. There is not enough plot here to stretch over a six-part serial, and so in dragging out individual plot points that might actually have been interesting in a more densely-plotted story, all the flavour is drained out of them. Think of it like jam scraped over too much bread.

Now, that’s not to say that a story must have a dense plot to be good. Not by any means. However, what a good story may lack in plot it absolutely must make up in terms of interesting character insight and development, and apart from the core cast, I don’t even know the names of any other characters here! The jailor’s a drunken lecherous lout, an embodiment of contemporary Royalist stereotypes about the Revolutionaries, right down to the tatty uniform. The commander? Well, I’d give you my judgement only I don’t have one. I don’t recall one thing about him! As for the young aristocratic men, they seem nice enough but about as interesting as white bread. At least the men in the first episode had the distinguishing characteristics of being a snob and a coward. Not the best characteristics, but I remembered them, didn’t I?

We’ll have to see how the rest of the serial pans out for me to lay down any greater judgement one way or another, but between you and me? I wouldn’t hold my breath.

[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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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine

[August 21, 1964] The Good News (September 1964 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Reversing the trend

The United States is the richest country in the world.  By any reckoning, we measure in superlatives: biggest economy, strongest military, most movies, coolest cars.  But there is one outsized statistic we shouldn't bury in gloss — 19% of Americans live in poverty.

Several months back, newly installed President Johnson took an unscheduled trip through Appalachia, the poorest part of our country.  This region, between the Eastern seaboard and the Plains states, north of the agrarian South and the Industrial North, has traditionally been an economic backwater.  Shocked by what he found, LBJ promptly declared a War on Poverty, seeking to continue the efforts of President Roosevelt to bring up the nation and, in particular, Appalachia.

Yesterday saw a great step forward taken in that direction.  President Johnson signed into law the Economic Opportunity Act, designed to help the poorest families find their way out of their economic quagmire.  This will be achieved a number of ways, largely through the creation of new task forces and funding of groups whose goal is poverty relief. 

For instance, the newly created Job Corps and Neighborhood Youth Corps will provide work and training for the underskilled and underemployed.  Work Study college grants and Adult Basic Education will ensure that the poor are not barred from employment by illiteracy or lack of education.  There are also loan and grant programs for individuals and agencies. 

It's a smart system, not a simple redistribution of wealth but an investment in the next generation of Americans.  I have a lot of confidence that it will be successful — provided, of course, that the money gets put to good use.  Time will tell.

Big and small scale

Just as the White House has endeavored to improve the lot of Americans, so has Fantasy and Science Fiction's editor worked to address a disturbing trend.  In fact, this month's issue is easily the best one of the magazine that I've read in a while, and it's not even an "All-Star Issue".  It's just good.

So for those of you who came to hear me flog F&SF, you're going to be disappointed…

Mel Hunter's cover shows a post-Mariner 2 Venus, a cloudy inferno.  It's a beautiful piece, though it pertains to no story in this issue and is, perhaps, a better fit for Analog. 

The stories, on the other hand, are pure F&SF:

Chameleon, by Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart writes these flip, droll little pieces, with deft skill (if not great consequence).  This particular one stars Ben Jolson, member of a corps of secret agents whose special talent is shapeshifting.  People, animals, furniture, these superspies transform instantly and apparently without regard for mass considerations.  Jolson is a particularly adept, if eccentric, agent, grudgingly tasked with getting the prime minister of Barafunda to make a proclamation against the practice of using soulless, mass-produced people as slave labor.  By any means necessary: becoming a trusted adviser, inciting violence, even becoming the PM herself.

Goulart keeps things real enough to avoid farce, light enough to avoid melodrama.  If you like Laumer's Retief or Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories, this will be right up your alley. 

Four stars.

A Miracle Too Many, by Alan E. Nourse and Philip H. Smith

Dr. Stephen Olie discovers that being able to miraculously cure with a touch is a curse as well as a blessing.  Both Nourse and Smith are physicians, so it's no surprise that this piece involves the medical profession.  I liked everything but the ending, which felt a bit lazy.

Three stars. 

Slips Take Over, by Miriam Allen deFord

Ms. deFord, who is 76 today (Many Happy Returns!) offers up a tale of a man who slips between parallel timelines as easily and inadvertently as we might get lost on the streets of an unfamiliar city.  It's a neat idea, with the kind of great creepy atmosphere deFord is good at, but she doesn't do much with the story.  Plus, there are inconsistencies regarding what items do and do not travel with the hapless universe-crosser.

Three stars.

Olsen and the Gull, by Eric St. Clair

Eric, the husband of famed author Margaret St. Clair, is an author in his own right.  This is his first story not to be written for children and involving SFF elements.  In this case, it's a shipwrecked lout of a sailor whose only entertainment is to crush the eggs of the multitudinous seagulls while chanting "tromp tromp tromp."  One enterprising bird undertakes to distract Olsen the sailor by teaching him the art of summoning… with amusing and unfortunate results.

Four stars.

Carbonaceous Chondrites, by Theodore L. Thomas

Even Thomas' little column, usually sophomoric in the extreme, isn't bad this month.  He posits that the carbon compounds being found in certain meteorites are evidence of extraterrestrial life — but not the way you think!

Three stars.

Four Brands of Impossible, by Norman Kagan

The longest piece of the issue is by a new writer, a student at New York City College.  As befits a novice, the story, about a mathematician tapped to develop an illogical logic, is somewhat unfocused.  Moreover, when it's all done, I'm not exactly sure that anything of importance has happened.

On the other hand, there are bits in the story that are quite compelling, about space research, the value of an automated presidency, the folly of racism, etc., and I will remember the novelette for these if nothing else.

Thus, three stars.

The New Encyclopaedist-II, by Stephen Becker

A mock encyclopaedia article, about Jacob Porphyry, who reversed the trend toward malaprop and literary inanity by making his books hard to read.

It's cute once you get into it.  Three stars.

Theoretical Progress, by Karen Anderson

This first of two poems by Karen Anderson (Poul's other half), is a modern-day send-up of Antigonish. 

I liked it.  Four stars.

Investigation of Galactic Ethnology, by Karen Anderson

On the other hand, the second poem, a limerick, is barely worth a pained smirk. 

Still, that's the appropriate reaction to a well-delivered pun.  Three stars.

Elementary, by Laurence M. Janifer and Michael Kurland

Raise your hand if you want to murder your agent.  Goodness, there are a lot of you!  I shouldn't be surprised…I'm not even convinced that they're a necessary evil these days.  Anyway, this story is about a pair of authors who decide to put paid to their 10% bloodsucker only to find their efforts repeatedly thwarted.

This is another piece with a great beginning and middle, but the ending didn't quite work for me.  Perhaps you'll feel differently.

Three stars.

The Haste-Makers, by Isaac Asimov

The Good Doctor's non-fiction article is on catalysts this time around.  I learned a great deal, but then chemistry has never been my bag.  The big revelation I got out of the piece was that catalysts aren't magic but merely a side effect of our living in an oxygen-filled environment (just like airplanes no longer boggle the brain when you realize that they don't fly on nothing — air just happens to be invisible).

Four stars.

The Deepest Blue in the World, by S. Dorman

When the stars become a battlefield, the men will go off to fight and die, and women will be brought to the Wedding Bench to conceive and rear the next batch of soldiers.  If they resist their breeding lot in life, it's prison and the mines for them.

A chilling story by an author with an uncanny vision of female subjugation.  A strong four stars.

Inconceivably Yours, by Willard Marsh

A bachelor worries that the failure of a contraceptive will end his bachelor days, but one God's curse is another man's blessing.  A fair story with a delicious title.

Three stars.

The Star Party, by Robert Lory

The astrologers presume to know a lot about people.  Unfortunately, master star-teller Isvara picked the wrong two Madison Avenue party attenders to cast readings on.  It's a nice little tale, though the astronomical inaccuracy at the end was unfortunate.

Three stars.

A Crown of Rank Fumiter, by Vance Aandahl

Last up, we have young Vance Aandahl, who started out strong and has been delivering weak tea indeed for several years.  This piece, about a recluse who, in the midst of death finds his humanity, is a refreshing change of direction — and thus a perfect capper for a surprisingly strong issue.

Four stars.

Summing up

I don't know that any of these stories hit it out of the park for me, but there were plenty of good pieces and no clunkers in the lot.  Even Davidson's introductions were entertaining.  This issue will certainly be a contender for best magazine this month.

More good news: F&SF has several foreign editions.  They've just started a Spanish edition, Minotauro, the first issue of which arrived by mail the other day.  My daughter, who is learning the language in high school, is currently working her way through Damon Knight's What Rough Beast and enjoying it, even translated.  So, if you speak Spanish, and you want a "best-of" issue of the magazine, you could do worse than to pick up a copy!

[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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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[August 19, 1964] Seasonal Musings: Fall/Winter 1964

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by Gwyn Conaway

It’s August! Despite the summer heat, I always look forward to this time of year. Why, you ask? Because I can look forward to the fashions of another Fall/Winter season!

And what a majestic season it will be for coats, dresses, and evening gowns. We’ll look at some of these beautiful details from major fashion houses here and in Europe, as well as how well they support my predictions of the last season through revolutionary past ages.


The Sears Catalog is my go-to resources for seeing fashion on the streets. This amazing resource gives great insight to what will be available in stores, not just on the runway. It seems like woolens and corderoy will be major players this season! Fall Fashions, Sears Catalog, 1964

With a new school year just around the bend, and women looking excitedly for the changing of the leaves, it’s no wonder our catalogs and department stores have started showing off their interpretations of this year’s Fall/Winter runways. Above we can see a fantastic palette of mulberry, teal, cobalt blue, and russet brown, perfect for ushering in the new season.

In addition, there’s an overarching theme of funnel collars and square, modest busts. The neckline is kept away from the base of the neck, allowing the column of the throat to look longer and slimmer. This is perfectly in line with the proclivities of a revolutionary period, where the rules of fashion are changing drastically. Rather than pull attention to the bust and waist, fashion is now more interested in wrists and ankles and necks. Fascinating!


Of course, this trend is following the works of major designers. Here is a pattern from this year of Jeanne Lanvin’s hooded silk cocktail dress and pink coat made from wool coating. The collar here is exaggerated, leaving room for the hood of the dress to frame the face and neck. Allowing the neck and face to rise from a thicker collar or ballooning shape creates the iconic cocoon style of our time.

The evening gowns walking the runways for this winter are scrumptious as well. Let’s take a look at what’s in store for us this year, and how it’s evolved from the previous season. When I compared the two, my excitement became palpable!


The evening fashion of 1963 compared to the Neoclassical era in my previous fall article:
Scrying the Future by Looking Back


Balenciaga Fall/Winter 1964

Last year, we started showing the signs of a neoclassical era with soft solid-color skirts, waistlines on the lower ribs, and square torsos with abstract natural motifs. This year, the trend continues, but with ever more fervor. Note above that Balenciaga has dived head first into this renaissance. The designer’s evening gowns this year sport flat bows and voluminous satin skirts that extend from the bust. These styles allow for the neck and arm to garner all the attention rather than the more traditional bust and waist.


Designers from left to right: Hannah Troy, Yves Saint Laurent, Anne Fogarty, 1964.

Many other designers are also exploring the redefinition of beauty in similar ways. Hannah Troy’s Schiaparelli pink evening gown is an uncanny likeness to the round gowns of the 1810s. Yves Saint Laurent and Anne Fogarty follow a similar train of thought with their cocktail dresses, both of which sport overbust satin bows, forcing our eye to lengthen the leg and dramatically shorten the torso.

The funnel collar and thick woolens, the hidden waists and exposed arms; all of it is bound to leave a lasting impression on the decade. In particular, I’m excited to see the overbust move into mainstream catalogs and department stores in the coming months. Such a fresh and energetic new symbol of the changing times! It is sure to ignite inspiration for fashion in the months to come.

[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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Science / Space Race

[Aug. 17, 1964] Yes and No (Talking to a Machine, Part 1)

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by Gideon Marcus

Making sense of it all

Computers can do amazing things these days. Twenty years ago, they were vacuum tube-filled monstrosities purpose-built for calculating artillery trajectories; now, they are sleek, transistorized mini-monstrosities that do everything from calculating income tax to booking vacations across multiple airlines. It used to be that computers were mathematically inclined women — these days, digital computers do everything those able women did, and many times faster.

This is an absolute miracle when you realize just how limited a digital computer really is. It's about the dumbest, simplest thing you can imagine. Appropriately, the successful operation of a computer, and programming those operations, is one of the more abstruse topics I've come across. Certainly, no one has ever been able to give me a concise education on the subject.

I'm a naive (or arrogant) person. I'm going to try to give you one. It's a complex topic, though, so I'm going to try to break it into "bite"-sized parts. Read on for part one!

Ones and Zeroes

Whether you know it or not, you are already familiar with the concept of binary. Your light switch is either on or off. Your television, your radio, your blender — all of them are either in operation or not. There is no in-between (or, at least, there shouldn't be).

A digital computer is nothing but a big bunch of places where you process ons and offs; for simplicity's sake, let's call an off "0" and an on "1". Inside every computer is a place for storing 1s and 0s called its "memory". If you've ever seen medieval chain mail, you have an idea what it looks like, a net of metal rings, each of which can be individually magnetized. If a ring is magnetized, the computer sees it as on or "1". If not, it sees it as off or "0".

Now, there's not a lot of information you can store there — just the on/off state. But what if you grouped of eight of these binary digits (or "bits") so that your computer knew they were associated? Then you could have all sorts of 8-digit groups (called "bytes"). For instance:

00000000
11111111
11110000
00001111
10000001

and so on. All told, you could have 256 combinations of ones and zeroes in each of these groups, and that's enough to be useful. Here's how.

Three simple tasks

A computer, at its heart, can do just three things:

  1. Store information. Think of a computer's memory as a post office, and each byte is a mailbox. In fact, in computing, these mailboxes are called addresses. Each address can store one of the 256 combinations of ones and zeroes.
  2. Do arithmetic. A computer is designed to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
  3. Compare numbers. A computer can look at two different numbers and tell you if one is equal to, greater than, or less than the other.

That's it! When I first learned that, I (like you) wondered "how the heck can something like that do something complicated like making sure my Allegheny Airlines reservation gets transferred to Eastern for my trip to New York?"

As it turns out, these three basic computer functions are sufficient for that task — if you are clever in how you instruct a computer to do them.

Talking in numbers

Remember that a computer can only speak in binary digits ("binary" for short.) Let's say a computer has been hard-coded to know that when you input "110", you mean "store the following number in the following address." If you input "101" it means "add the number in the following address to whatever is in this other, following address. And let's say "111" means "print out whatever is in the following address."

A very simple program, computing A + B = C might look like this (for the sake of simplicity, let's say that your computer's memory has 256 addresses in which it can store bytes, each addressed with digits 00000001 through 11111111):

  1. 110 1 00000001
  2. 110 10 00000010
  3. 110 0 000000011
  4. 101 000000001 00000011
  5. 101 000000010 00000011
  6. 111 000000011

In English, that's:

  1. Put "1" in address #1.
  2. Put "2" in address #2.

    3. (how does 10 equal 2? Just like when you add 1 to 9 in normal, base 10 arithmetic, you make the ones place 0 and carry the one into the tens place.  In binary, 1 is the most that can ever fit into a digit — so if you add 1, you make that place zero and carry the 1 to the next place over.

    Thus 1 + 1 = 10 (2), 10 (2) + 1 = 11 (3), 10 (2) + 10 (2) = 100 (4) …and 11111111 =255!)

  3. Put "0" in address #3 (just to make sure we're starting from zero — if a program had used that byte before, it might not be empty!)
  4. Add whatever is in address #1 (in this case, 1) to whatever's in address #3 (so far, nothing).
  5. Add whatever is in address #2 (in this case, 2) to whatever's in address #3 (so far, 1).
  6. Show me what's in address #3: The answer should be "3" (because 1+2=3). Except, it will probably be displayed as "11" because this is a computer we're talking about.

Good grief, that's a headache, and that's just for one simple bit of math. The first big problem is just remembering the commands. How is anyone supposed to look at that code and know what those initial numbers mean?

An easier way

The folks at IBM, Univac, CDC, etc. solved that particular problem pretty easily. They designed a program (entered in binary) that translates easier-to-remember three letter alphanumeric codes into binary numbers. Thus, someone could write the above program as, for example:

  1. STO 1 00000001
  2. STO 10 00000010
  3. STO 11 00000000
  4. ADD 000000001 00000011
  5. ADD 000000010 00000011
  6. SHO 000000011

STO, ADD, and SHO make a bit more intuitive sense than strings of numbers, after all.

And since you can translate letters to binary, why not numbers and addresses?

  1. STO 1 A1
  2. STO 2 A2
  3. STO 0 A3
  4. ADD A1 A3
  5. ADD A2 A3
  6. SHO A3

Note, these are not commands in any actual language — I made them up. And each computer system will have its own set of commands unique to the system, but real code will look something like this.

This easier to understand, mnemonic language is called "Assembly" because the program assembles your commands into something the computer understands (remember — they only know ones and zeroes).

Hitting the ceiling

Assembly makes it easier to program a computer, but it's still tedious. Just adding 1+2 took five lines. Imagine wanting to do something simple like computing the hypotenuse of a right triangle:

In geometry class, we learned that A2 + B2 = C2.

The first part of that is easy enough.

  1. STO A A1 (store A in address A1)
  2. STO B A2 (store B in address A2)
  3. STO 0 A3 (Clear out address A3 for use)
  4. MUL A1 A1 (multiply what's in A1 by itself)
  5. MUL A2 A2 (multiple what's in A2 by itself)
  6. ADD A1 A3 (add what's now in A1 to what's in A3)
  7. ADD A2 A3 (add what's now in A2 to what's in A3)

All right. That gets us A2 + B2 in the third address…but how do we get the square root of C2?

When I wrote this, I had no idea. I've since talked to a programmer. She showed me a thirty line program that I still don't understand. Sure, it works, but thirty lines for a simple equation? There has to be an easier way, one that doesn't involve me pulling out my accursed slide rule.

There is! To find out how, join us for the next installment of this series!

[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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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine

[August 13, 1964] Plus ça change (September 1964 Amazing)

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by John Boston

Still Long, Still Hot

Big surprise: Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, the three civil rights workers who disappeared in June in Mississippi after being pulled over for speeding in Neshoba County and then released, have been found dead, buried under an earthen dam, two of them shot in the heart, the third shot multiple times and mutilated.  The sheriff of Neshoba County had said, “They're just hiding and trying to cause a lot of bad publicity for this part of the state.” During the six weeks that law enforcement was failing to find their bodies, they did find the bodies of eight other Negroes, five of them yet unidentified—business as usual, apparently, in that part of the country.

The Issue at Hand


by Robert Adragna

The September Amazing has a different look from the usual hard-edged Popular Mechanics-ish style of Emsh and especially of Alex Schomburg.  Robert Adragna’s cover features surreal-looking buildings and machinery against a bright yellow background (land and sky), a little reminiscent of the familiar style of Richard Powers, but probably closer to that of the UK artist Brian Lewis, who brought the mildly non-literal look in bright colors (as opposed to Powers’s often more morose palette) to New Worlds and Science Fantasy for several years. 

The contents?  Within normal limits.  Business as usual here, too, though less grisly.

The Kingdoms of the Stars, by Edmond Hamilton

The issue leads off with The Kingdoms of the Stars, by Edmond Hamilton, a sequel to his novel The Star Kings, which originated in Amazing in 1947, and is to the subgenre of space opera what the International Prototype of the Kilogram is to the realm of weights and measures.  In The Star Kings, regular guy John Gordon of Earth finds his mind swapped with that of Zarth Arn, a prince of the far-future Mid-Galactic Empire, and ends up having to lead the Empire’s space fleets against the forces of the League of Dark Worlds (successfully of course, despite a rather thin resume for the job).  He also hits it off with Princess Lianna of the Fomalhaut Kingdom before he is returned to his own Twentieth Century body and surroundings.

The new story opens in a psychiatrist’s office, with John Gordon much perturbed by his memories of chasing around the galaxy and wooing a star-princess.  He wants to find out if he is delusional.  This may be a case of Art imitating Life, or at least imitating somebody else’s account of Life with the serial numbers filed off.  Hamilton surely knows of (and I think is sardonically guying) The Fifty-Minute Hour (1955), a volume of six case histories by the psychiatrist Dr. Robert Lindner, one of which, The Jet-Propelled Couch, involves a similar story of a patient with detailed memories or fantasies of living in a spacefaring far future, which he ultimately abandoned and admitted were delusions.

But shrink notwithstanding, Gordon is brought back into the future, corporeally this time, by the benevolent machinations of Zarth An.  Princess Lianna is anxiously awaiting him, but this time he’s in his own body and not Zarth An’s, and she’s going to have to get used to it.  Meanwhile, they trundle off to the Fomalhaut Kingdom to attend to the affairs the Princess has been neglecting.  En route, to avoid ambush, they head for the primitive planet Marral, ostensibly to confer with the Princess’s cousin Narath Teyn (who is in fact one of the schemers against her).  Various intrigues and diversions occur there, followed by a narrow escape that sets the scene for the next in what obviously will be a series.

One can’t quarrel with the execution.  Hamilton lays it on thick in the accustomed manner:

“Across the broad loom and splendor of the galaxy, the nations of the Star-Kings were marked in many-colored fire, crimson and gold and emerald green, blue and violet and diamond-white . . . the kingdoms of Lyra, Cygnus, Cassiopeia, Polaris, and the capital of the great Mid-Galactic Empire of Canopus.  The Hercules Cluster blazed with its Baronies of swarming suns.  To the south, as the cruiser beat westward toward Fomalhaut, the Orion Nebula sprawled its coiling radiance across the firmament.  Far northward lay the black blot of the Cloud, where drowned Thallarna lay now in peace.”

Oh, and don’t forget the “vast wilderness of the Marches of Outer Space” (in space, can anyone hear you march?), presided over by the Counts of the Marches, who are allied to the Empire.  And so on.  Along the way there is plenty more colorful decoration, not least the telepathic struggle between a sinister gray-cowled alien and the deeply loyal Korkhann, Fomalhaut’s Minister of Non-Human Affairs, five feet tall and resplendent in gray feathers.  At the end, Gordon concludes that this world beats hell out of the “sordid dream” of Twentieth Century life to which the psychiatrist wanted to confine him.  Fiddle-de-dee, Dr. Lindner!

But—kings?  It’s ultimately pretty depressing to be told that after two hundred thousand years, humanity hasn’t come up with something better than monarchy and all its cheesy pageantry.  Bah!  What this galaxy needs is a few good tumbrils and guillotines.

Three stars—a compromise between capable execution and shameless cliche.

Clean Slate, by James H. Schmitz


by George Schelling

There’s no monarchy in the issue’s other novelet, James H. Schmitz’s Clean Slate, but exactly what there is remains murky.  It’s fifteen years since the Takeover, when several “men of action” . . . well, took over, though there’s no more explanation than that.  There seem to be elections, or at least the risk of them, and public opinion has to be attended to if not necessarily followed.

The viewpoint character is George Hair, a Takeover functionary in charge of the Department of Education, and nominally supervisor of ACCED—a post-Takeover research program designed to develop “accelerated education” to produce enough adequately trained people to keep this complex modern civilization humming.  Problem is the high-pressure regime of experimental ACCED, very successful in the short run, causes severe psychological problems as the kids get a little older.  It seems having a personality gets in the way of this educational force-feeding for the greater good.

So they go to younger kids—less personality to get in the way–and when that doesn’t work, they get some newborns, who should have even less.  Still doesn’t work.  So they apply techniques of SELAM—selective amnesia—to get some of people’s inconvenient memories out of the way.

Maybe you’ve noticed that this is completely crazy.  It gets more so: hey, why not just get rid of all the memories, to create the clean slate of the title?  The guy running the ACCED program is the first subject of this total memory elimination, which, followed by intensive ACCED, will make him a superman!

But there’s a snag.  A big one, with huge implications for the program, and the government, and the story ends on the brink of a denouement that is hair-raising, not to mention Hair-razing.

The story is a meandering mix of scenes with actual dialogue and action and long stretches of Hair’s ruminations and recollections about the history of ACCED and the politics of the post-Takeover government and his place in it.  Like many of Schmitz’s stories, it really shouldn’t work at all, and does so only because he is such a smooth writer one is lulled into keeping on reading.  That smoothness also distracts one from the fact that what he is writing about—the subjection of children first to an educational program that destroys them psychologically, and then to the eradication of part or all of their memories—is utterly monstrous, worthy of the Nazis’ Dr. Mengele (also something not unknown in Schmitz).  Three stars and a shudder.  This one is hard to put out of one’s mind.

The Dowry of Angyar, by Ursula K. Le Guin


by George Schelling

Fomalhaut rears its head again in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dowry of Angyar, which takes place on a human-and-other-sentients-inhabited planet in that system, one with enough contact with humans to be taxed for wars by them, but not much more.  Semley, a princess of the Angyar, covets an elaborately jeweled necklace which has somehow vanished from her family’s treasury, goes on a quest for it among the planet’s other sentient species, and gets badly burned by her greed and by not understanding enough about what is going on.  It’s very well written and visualized, as always with Le Guin, but its ostentatiously folk-taley and homiletic quality is a bit tedious to my taste, and it’s too long by about half—an off day for a class act.  Nonetheless, three stars for capable writing.

The Sheeted Dead, by Robert Rohrer


by Virgil Finlay

Robert Rohrer is back with The Sheeted Dead, blurbed as “A tale of horror . . . a story not for weaklings,” illustrated by Virgil Finlay in a style reminiscent of the old horror comics that were driven out of existence by public outcry and congressional hearings.  The story is written in the same spirit.  In the future, humans have fought wars all over space, and as a result, “great clouds of radioactive dust blew through the galaxy.” To avoid extinction, Earth has Withdrawn—that is, surrounded itself with some sort of electronic barrier so no radiation can get in, meanwhile leaving its armies stranded around the galaxy to die. 

A mutated virus brings the local deceased and decayed veterans to life, or at least to animation, in their mausoleums on Earth, and they set off for the illuminated cities searching for revenge for their abandoned comrades, and for the field generator, so they can turn it off, allowing them to see the Sun again, and also killing off everyone left alive.  William Blake said, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” We’re waiting.  Meanwhile, this is at least (over)written with a modicum of skill and conviction.  Two stars and a suppressed groan.

The Alien Worlds, by Ben Bova

Ben Bova’s The Alien Worlds continues his series on how humans could live on the planets of the Solar System, this time focusing on Mercury, Jupiter and the planets further out, and the planetoid belt (as he calls it, ignoring the more common usage “asteroid belt”).  The material is mostly familiar and rendered a bit dully, as is frequent with Bova.  Two stars.

Summing Up

Overall, not bad; most of the issue’s contents are at least perfectly readable, reaching the median through different combinations of fault and virtue.  As always, one would prefer something a little bit above the ordinary; as all too frequently, one does not get it.  In print and elsewhere.

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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 11, 1964] Leigh Brackett Times Two: The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman (Ace Double M-101)

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by Cora Buhlert

So far, this summer has been cold and rainy. Even the cheery tunes of "Liebeskummer lohnt sich nicht" (Heartache does not pay) by Swedish singer Siw Malmkvist, which has been number 1 in Germany for almost as long as it has been raining, can't dispel the summer gloom.

Siw Malmkvist "Liebeskummer lohnt sich nicht"

However, rain outside means it's the perfect time to read. And so I was lucky to spot Leigh Brackett's latest in the spinner rack at the local import bookstore. Now a new novel by the queen of space opera, is always a reason to rejoice. And the latest Ace Double offers not one but two new novels by Leigh Brackett.

Though upon closer examination The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman are not so new after all, but expansions of two novellas first published as "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" and "Black Amazon of Mars" in Planet Stories in 1949 and 1951 respectively.

The two novels are more closely connected than Ace Doubles usually are, because not only are both by the same author, but they also feature the same character, Eric John Stark, intergalactic mercenary and outlaw and hero of several stories by Leigh Brackett.

The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman

The Wild Man from Mercury

Eric John Stark is a fascinating character. An Earthman born in a mining colony on Mercury, Stark was orphaned as a young child and adopted by natives who named him N'Chaka, the Man Without a Tribe. A few years later, Stark was orphaned a second time, when the tribe that adopted him was exterminated by miners from Earth who wanted the natives' resources for themselves. The miners put Stark in a cage and would have killed him, too, if Stark hadn't been rescued by Simon Ashton, a police officer from Earth. Ashton took the young Stark in and raised him to adulthood.

Though outwardly a civilised man, inside Stark is still N'Chaka, the wild boy from Mercury. There are parallels between Eric John Stark and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan, who was one of the inspirations for the character according to the foreword by Edmond Hamilton, Leigh Brackett's husband. Eric John Stark is also a black man, something which is sadly still much too rare in our genre. Though you wouldn't know it from the covers, as both Planet Stories cover artist Allan Anderson as well as Ed Emshwiller, covers artist for the Ace Double edition, portray Stark as white.

Stark has little time for human civilisation, but a lot of sympathy for the plight of downtrodden natives throughout the solar system. He involves himself in an endless chain of uprisings and guerrilla campaigns, which are reminiscent both of the Indian wars, which were still within living memory when Brackett was born, as well as the various anticolonial movements currently sweeping through Africa and Asia. Stark's activities as a mercenary and weapons smuggler naturally bring him into conflict with the Terran authorities.

This conflict comes to a head in the opening pages of The Secret of Sinharat, which finds Stark on the run with Terran police officers led by Stark's mentor and surrogate father Simon Ashton in hot pursuit. Stark is facing twenty years in prison due to his role in a failed native uprising on Venus, but Ashton offers him a deal. Kynon, a Martian warlord, is planning to lead the desert tribes into a holy war with the help of off-world mercenaries. If Stark joins Kynon's army as an agent for Ashton, the Terran authorities will forget about Stark's crimes.

I really enjoyed the relationship between Stark and Ashton. Both men clearly have a lot of respect for each other and Ashton is probably the only person in the solar system Stark truly cares about. Ashton also clearly cares about Stark, but is not above using their relationship and Stark's sympathies for barbarian tribes, who – as Ashton reminds him – will suffer most from Kynon's holy war, to get Stark to agree to the deal. I would have loved to see more of Simon Ashton and his past with Stark. Alas, he only appears in the opening chapter, then Stark is on his own.

Martian noir

Planet Stories Summer 1949
Stark meets with Kynon and steps into a nest of snakes. For starters, Kynon is a fraud who claims to have rediscovered the titular secret, a device which can transfer a person's consciousness into a new body and therefore guarantees eternal life. Kynon is also surrounded by a cast of shady characters who wouldn't seem out of place in the one of the noir movies for which Leigh Brackett wrote the screenplay. There is Delgaun, a Martian gangster, Luhar, a Venusian mercenary and old enemy of Stark's, the Martian femme fatale Berild, who is both Kynon's and Delgaun's lover and seduces Stark as well, and Fianna, Berild's sweet and innocent maid who also takes a shine to Stark. None of these characters are what they seem and all but one will be dead by the end of the novel, either at each other's hands or at Stark's.

The Secret of Sinharat is chockfull of exciting action scenes and atmospheric descriptions of the dying Mars. Stark takes us on a tour of a Martian opium den, survives a deadly sandstorm and a gruelling trek through the blistering desert and explores the ancient city of Sinharat and the mysteries that lurk in its catacombs.

A Strangely Familiar Story

The Secret of Sinharat is a highly entertaining novel, which also seemed oddly familiar, though I knew that I couldn't have read the earlier magazine version. However, I realised that The Secret of Sinharat bore several parallels to a novel I reviewed two months ago for Galactic Journey: The Valley of Creation by Leigh Brackett's husband Edmond Hamilton, the expanded version of a story first published in 1948. The protagonist of both novels is a mercenary recruited to fight someone else's holy war, who realises that he is fighting on the wrong side. Both novels feature ancient technology which can transfer human consciousness into other bodies and both protagonists find themselves subjected to said technology. Both protagonists even share the same first name, Eric.

The Valley of Creation by Edmond HamiltonOf course, there are also differences. The Valley of Creation is set on Earth, in a hidden valley in the Himalaya, while The Secret of Sinharat is set on Mars. And Eric John Stark is a much more developed and interesting character than the rather bland Eric Nelson. Nonetheless, the parallels are striking. Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett are not known to collaborate like C.L. Moore and her late husband Henry Kuttner did. But given the similarities of both stories and the fact that they were written around the same time, I wonder whether Brackett and Hamilton did not both write their own version of the same basic idea.

Into the Gates of Death

People of the Talisman, the other novel in this Ace Double, opens with Eric John Stark once again in a fistful of trouble. A dying friend entrusts Stark with the story's plot device, the talisman of Ban Cruach, an ancient king who founded the city of Kushat to guard a mountain pass known as the Gates of Death in the polar regions of Mars. Stark's friend stole the talisman, but now wants to return it, because without the talisman, Kushat and all of Mars are in grave danger.

Stark wants to honour his friend's dying wish. But before he can fulfil his mission, he is captured by raiders who take him to their leader, Lord Ciaran, yet another Martian warlord who wants to unite the tribes and lead them to victory over the decadent cities. Though Lord Ciaran is a much more interesting and memorable character than Kynon from The Secret of Sinharat. Ciaran is the illegitimate child of a Martian king who never acknowledged him. Hungry for revenge and power, Ciaran dresses in black armour, wields a battle axe and always wears a steel mask.

Ciaran wants Stark to join his army, but Stark is wary, probably due to his previous bad experiences with Martian warlords. Of course, Ciaran also wants the talisman and since Stark refuses to hand it over or say where it is, Ciaran has him brutally whipped.

Stark escapes. Half dead, he makes it to Kushat to warn the city of Ciaran's attack, but has a hard time convincing the city guard of the danger. Nor can Stark reveal that he has the talisman, for the rulers of Kushat have kept its disappearance a secret and would kill Stark to preserve it.

Planet Stories 1951 Black Amazon of Mars

Ciaran Unmasked

Ciaran's forces attack after all and in the pitched battle that follows, Stark faces off against Ciaran himself. Before striking the killing blow, Stark rips off the warlord's mask and gets a surprise that has already been spoiled both by Ed Emshwiller as well as by Allan Anderson on the original Planet Stories cover. For underneath the black mask, the warlord is a striking woman. The unmasking scene is reminiscent of a similar scene in "Black God's Kiss" by C.L. Moore, the story that introduced the swordswoman Jirel of Joiry to the world.

Ciaran is a fabulous character, a strong warrior woman, which is still all too rare in our genre even thirty years after Jirel of Joiry first took off her helmet. Though fascinated by Stark, Ciaran immediately decks him after he has unmasked her. Later, Ciaran tells Stark, "I did not ask for my sex. I will not be bound by it." I suspect Leigh Brackett agrees with her.

Every woman Stark meets in the two novels falls for him and Stark is only too happy to dispense "kisses brutal as blows" (apparently, Simon Ashton's education did not include how to properly treat the other sex). And so Stark falls in lust with Ciaran, even though she had him whipped half to death only days before.

Stark escapes with the talisman and a caravan of refugees through the Gates of Death to seek Ban Cruach's secret with Ciaran and her forces in hot pursuit. A battle ensues in which Ciaran is taken prisoner.

Now the novel takes a sharp turn into Lovecraftian territory. For beyond the Gates of Death lies an ancient city inhabited by alien beings (unlike the humanoid Martians Stark normally deals with). Initially, the aliens claim that they just want to be left in peace. But they quickly show their true colours and attack the humans.

Stark and Ciaran wind up fighting back to back. They escape and Ciaran agrees to leave Kushat alone and conquer the city of her deadbeat father instead. Stark goes with her in what may well be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Fiction versus Reality

I thoroughly enjoyed both novels, though they are clearly relics of an earlier age. Leigh Brackett's Mars with its deserts, ancient cities and even older ruins most likely does not exist, just as Mariner 2 revealed that the fog-shrouded Venus with its swamps and oceans that is a staple of pulp science fiction does not exist either. In fact, I suspect that the reason why Ace has not reprinted the third Eric John Stark adventure "Enchantress of Venus" (which I read in German translation a few years ago) is that the red gas ocean of Venus which Brackett described so evocatively is no longer plausible in our brave new age of space exploration.

Planet Stories Fall 1949 Utopia #95: Revolte der Verlorenen

Of course, it is the fate of most science fiction that it will eventually become outdated as science and knowledge march on. But even though we know that the solar system Leigh Brackett described is not plausible, the Eric John Stark stories still remain glorious adventure tales with a protagonist who is a lot more complex than the standard square-jawed heroes of pulp science fiction.

Something everyone can enjoy, rain or shine!

Bremen City Parliament building topping out
It stopped raining long enough to celebrate the topping out of Bremen's new city parliament building, sitting right next to the 13th century St. Petri cathedral

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Comics

[August 9, 1964] Heroic Considerations (Fall 1964 Alter Ego, July 1964 Batmania)

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by Erica Frank

This month brings us two amazing fanzines: Alter Ego 7 discusses several superheroes and villains of the past, and a new fanzine, Batmania, has just begun. We also have a few notes about advances in metaphysical news.

Alter Ego 7

Alter Ego's had a rocky time; I covered issue 3 almost 3 years ago, which is a long stretch for what's supposedly a quarterly zine. The editor's note at the beginning notes that management has recently changed hands; Ron Foss is handing the reins to Roy Thomas, who believes he's more able to keep up with a quarterly schedule.

Cover for Alter Ego 7 fanzine
Cover for Alter Ego 7, Fall '64

And That Was the End of Solomon Grundy? by Richard Kyle

Solomon Grundy is an undead villain named after a children's rhyme. His initial appearance and defeat by the Green Lantern was 20 years ago, in the October 1944 issue of All-American Comics, and he appeared a few more times in the 40s. He is appearing in the new Showcase #55, facing off against Doctor Fate and Hour-man. The article shows that Grundy is not just a mindless nearly-unkillable thug, and I look forward to seeing him battle other heroes in the future.

Alter & Captain Ego, written and illustrated by Biljo White

Captain Ego, a spaceman from planet Zircon, crash-lands on Earth. Alter Albright rescues him with the help of the Captain's alien technology. The teen can enhance Ego's abilities with a "telepathicontrol" helmet that uses a Z-Beam to tap into the boy's brain and connect to a particle that Ego also has… at this point my eyes glazed over. I understand that spacemen and rocket ships are supposed to be "science" but at some point, you might as well call it a "magic crown." The villain is a cliché of a man who looks exactly like Ming the Merciless from the classic Flash Gordon serials.

Side-by-side pictures of Ming the Merciless and Tigris
I don't know whether I'm impressed by his artistic skills or disappointed by his lack of imagination.

White's art is excellent; he could be drawing for any of the professional comics. However, his storytelling skills are mediocre. The plot is a semi-coherent mix of hackneyed storylines, and neither Ego nor Alter seems to have a personality beyond "be noble; fight evil." The core ideas are interesting (if you can swallow the "science") but the execution is weak.

A Hot Idea by Rick Strong, with art by White

This is a history of the Human Torch before the Fantastic Four: He began as a "synthetic man" in Marvel Comics #1, 1939. Originally, he could not control his flame powers; he had to be kept in an airtight glass cage for the safety of those around him. Once he learned some control, he dedicated himself to a life of heroism. I had not known the details of his pre-Fantastic Four history; he's been through some big changes!

One Man's Family: The Saga of the Mighty Marvels, by Roy Thomas, with art by White

This article is almost a quarter of the zine, obviously the spotlight feature. It covers the origin story of Billy Batson who becomes Captain Marvel when he calls out "Shazam!" and the origins of his friend Freddie Freeman (Captain Marvel Jr.) and his long-lost twin sister Mary Batson (Mary Marvel).

Fawcett Comics had found a successful superhero-generating origin in "someone says Shazam while wishing for super powers," so they kept using it. Three alternate versions of Billy Batson became the Squadron of Justice, or the "Lieutenants Marvel." Hoppy the Marvel Bunny was planned for the Funny Animals comic line. Uncle Marvel didn't actually have superpowers, but he believed he did, and the others humored him. Black Adam, the first of the wizard Shazam's protégés, was a hero who turned evil.

The Marvel family appeared in their own series and several other comics in the 40s. They had a few recurring villains, including the Sivana family of mad scientists and King Kull, a beastman who wanted to destroy all humans. The Marvels were also patriotic, fighting Nazis and later appearing in the Korean War. As Fawcett published more horror stories, the Marvels appeared there as well. Eventually, the stories and villains grew too hokey for even the tongue-in-cheek style of the "Big Red Cheese"—the nickname fans adopted from one of Dr. Sivana's insults—and readership dropped off.

Panel from Captain Marvel #17, in which Dr Sivana calls Captan Marvel a "big red cheese cake."
Was this a common insult in the 40s?

Sadly, Captain Marvel and his family have been out of print for over ten years. National Comics accused them of copyright infringement, claiming that Captain Marvel was too similar to Superman. The lawyers argued for years, and in 1953, Fawcett ceased publishing. The Marvels may never appear again. Children of the future may never know the joy of shouting "Shazam!" in the hope that a lightning bolt will grant them magical powers.

The Gilded Age of Comics, by Shel Silverfish

Three-page humorous illustrated history of the comics industry, complete with political cartoon. Charming and informative.

Cartoon of Barry Goldwater in a superhero outfit, with a woman telling him that they're not taking new superheroes until after November 4th.
It's an eagle! It's a rocket! It's… Super Goldwater!

The Tragic Monster, written and illustrated by E. Nelson Bridwell

This article draws on religious history and mythology to discuss various monsters who were the "superheroes" of their eras. It mentions Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Pan, Hephaestus, and Polyphemus from Greek mythology, and Frankenstein's monster and Quasimodo. It mentions The Thing from the Fantastic Four but no other current comic-book superheroes. Still, it's a nice look into the concept that a hero doesn't need to be handsome, healthy, and friendly to do good.

Readers Write, by Otto (Eando) Binder, plus other letters

Normally, the Journey doesn't review or even mention letters columns, but this one includes a four-page letter from Otto Binder, the creator of the Marvel Family characters and author of many of their stories. He insists none of his characters or stories were "lifted" from Superman, and that quite the reverse occurred: several elements of CM stories appeared in later Superman comics. He's not making any accusations, just pointing out that, in an industry with very similar types of characters and stories, sometimes they'll accidentally match.

Photo of Otto Binder

Batmania 1

This new fanzine, devoted entirely to the interests of Batman fans, is edited (and mostly written) by Biljo White, the main artist for Alter Ego. It is almost certainly not timed to release alongside Andy Warhol's new Batman/Dracula last month. (I only managed to watch part of it, but that was enough to realize that if there was a plot, I couldn't find it. This film is too avant garde for me. The music was nice, though.)

Batmania 1 cover
Batmania 1, July '64

Editor's Notes

Batmania began because Biljo, a firefighter, drew some superheroes for the paperboy visiting the station, and the young boy didn't know who Batman was. He identified more well-known characters like Superman, the Lone Ranger, Tarzan, and Dick Tracy, but not the long out-of-print Captain Marvel, and not Biljo's favorite, Batman. Batmania, with its name used by permission of National Comics, is the result of that encounter.

The New Look, Biljo White and the Batmanians

The artists and the art style in Detective Comics have recently changed. The new artists are Carmine Infantino on pencils and Joe Giaella on ink, with John Broome as the author. Bob Kane and Bill Finger are not entirely gone, but are no longer doing the main stories. The Batmania article gives several fans' opinions of the new art, mostly arguing for or against Kane's pencil work compared to Infantino's. They mostly agree that the stories have improved.

Scene from Detective Comics 327
How many escapes does a penthouse apartment normally have?

Profiles on Collectors: John Wright

This South African author of The Komix fanzine is long-time comic collector who loves Daredevil, Captain America, and The Black Hood. His story "The Black Panther" won Alter Ego's "Alley Award" for best fanzine fiction last year. He recently published his first mystery novel, Suddenly You're Dead, under the pseudonym Wade Wright. I like the spotlight-on-fans feature; it helps make a scattered community feel more connected.

Comic Oddities

Discrepancies and did-you-know details about comics: Alfred Pennyworth used to be portly; Whiz Comics never had a Vol. 1 No. 1. Some details are just random facts, but some are useful. Knowing that Robin makes an appearance in Lois Lane #6 can help a Batmanian track down all the issues about their favorite characters.

Pro Spot: Model T to T-Bird, by Russ Manning

This article is about a comic artist's career, which would be easier to follow if it MENTIONED HIS NAME. It's hard to read a long article that keeps referring to its topic indirectly. ("For those fans who haven't already guessed… a very dissolute-looking character is inscribing this artist's name on a tombstone in panel 1, page 9, of Johnny Mack Brown #3 (Jan-Mar 1951).") I had to track that down: the artist is Jesse Marsh. The comics are all westerns, a genre that does not interest me. It does discuss in great detail the changes in his art style and assignments.

The New-New Look, by Bill Ryan

A brief consideration of other art styles that mightv'e been chosen for the new Batman comics.

Three pictures of Batman in very different art styles
"He's best at crime fightin' 'cause he eats his vit'mins…"

Who Are the Batmanians?

The Batmanians are a fan club of people who want "a greater, more popular Batman." Joining is as simple as sending a letter explaining why you're interested; Batmania zines are free for Batman fans who pay for postage. It's 10 cents for a folded issue or 20 cents in a large envelope.

Metaphysical Miscellany

Superheroes aren't the only people interested in strange mental abilities and saving the planet from evil. However, the psychiatric and spiritual fields are working with smaller, less flashy evils: they fight imbalances of the mind and heart.

Psychedelic Review: Vol 1, No. 3, 1964

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Timothy Leary's journal about the effects of psychoactive drugs also hasn't kept to a strict quarterly schedule. It's keeping up with the calendar better than Alter Ego, but we can assume that Dr. Leary has better funding than the average comic-book fan. I reviewed the first issue, Summer of 1963, last October. The newest issue is a tribute to Aldous Huxley, who died last year on the same day as President Kennedy and C. S. Lewis. Huxley was a philosopher and prolific author who created the disturbing Brave New World.

Nature Retreat Therapy

The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, a foundation for expanded consciousness, has welcomed Fritz Perls, a noted German psychologist. Perls will be teaching his "gestalt therapy" methodology. People will be attending the Institute for its innovative approaches to the mental sciences and not just the famous hot springs.

Esalen Lodge in Big Sur
Esalen Institute

The Scholarly Druids

A short followup note about the Druids of Carleton College: the college has removed the chapel attendance requirement, but the Reformed Druids of North America continue to hold services. Two young men have recently been ordained into the Third Order; this allows them to lead services and initiate new members.

Druids meet on a hillside
A lovely way to hold religious services.

It seems that "weird news" is happening more often and in more places. There's a growing movement to explore not just outer space and the hidden areas of our world, but also our own connections to the world and to each other. Heinlein may have tapped into that in Stranger in a Strange Land; the realms of science and spirit are not as separate as we used to think. I love the evolving fusion of mental and physical sciences.

…I'll still be reading Batman and fanzines about him, though.

[Come celebrate with 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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