Tag Archives: 1967

Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 10, 1967] Jack the Ripper and Company (Dangerous Visions,Part One)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

There's a new anthology of original science fiction and fantasy stories in bookstores this month. It's certain to be the topic of a lot of discussion among SF buffs, and maybe even some arguments.

It's also big; more than five hundred pages, and it'll set you back a whopping seven bucks. It's so big, in fact, that Galactic Journey is going to slice it into three pieces and discuss it in a trio of articles. (Why three? Because it's got thirty-three stories in it, and eleven articles would be silly.)

Let's dig into the first part of this mammoth collection and see if it's destined to be the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band of speculative fiction, or just another dud.

Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison


Wraparound cover art by the husband-and-wife team of Leo and Diane Dillon, who also provide an interior illustration for each story.

Before we get to the nitty-gritty of fiction, we've got no less than two forewords by Isaac Asimov and a lengthy introduction by the editor.

In The Second Revolution, the Good Doctor outlines the history of modern science fiction from Gernsback through Campbell, and into the New Wave. Astounding was the first revolution, you see, and now we're in the second one. That may be a little simplistic, but it gets the point across.

Harlan and I, on the other hand, is a personal essay about Asimov's relationship with the editor, ending with a teasing anecdote. Ellison adds a long footnote offering a different version of their first encounter.

More substantial is Thirty-Two Soothsayers, the editor's longwinded but endlessly entertaining and informative account of what this book is supposed to accomplish, and how it came to be. Ellison wanders all over the place in this piece, and it's a fun ride. In brief, the stories he chose are supposed to be both enjoyable and provocative, with new ideas that might not appear in the usual SF markets. We'll see.

(If you're wondering why thirty-two and not thirty-three, it's because one writer supplies two stories; but that's for another time.)

I should mention that each story comes with an introduction by the editor and an afterword by the author, except for the one case when those roles are reversed. You'll see what I mean in a while.

I'm going to do something a little different here. I'll rate the quality of each story with the usual one to five stars, but I'll also add an indication for how dangerous each one is. This will be determined by sexual content, violence, profanity, experimental narrative style, taboo subject matter, etc. GREEN = safe to proceed, YELLOW = caution indicated, RED = hazardous conditions.

Let's begin.

Evensong, by Lester del Rey

An unnamed character flees through the universe in an attempt to escape those who have overthrown his reign. To say anything else would give away the point of the story, which is an allegory.

Three stars. YELLOW for questioning the deeply held beliefs of some readers.

Flies, by Robert Silverberg

In a premise similar to his excellent novel Thorns, the author presents a severely injured astronaut who has been put back together by aliens. In this case, however, his body has been restored to normal, but his mind has been made more sensitive to the emotions of others. That doesn't work out well.

Silverberg has become a fine writer, one of the best now working. Like Thorns, this is an uncompromising look at human suffering.

Five stars. YELLOW for scenes of extreme cruelty.

The Day After the Day the Martians Came, by Frederik Pohl

Set in the very near future, this tale deals with humanity's reaction to the discovery of ugly, semi-intelligent lifeforms on the red planet. Mostly, people make nasty jokes about them. The intent of the story is to expose human prejudices, in a way that's about as subtle as a brick thrown through a window.

Three stars. YELLOW for dealing with a major social problem in the USA today.

Riders of the Purple Wage, by Philip Jose Farmer

This is, by far, the longest story in the book. It is also incredibly dense and fast-paced, so any attempt to describe the plot would be a miserable failure. That said, I'll just mention that it takes place in a very strange future, involves an artist and his tax-dodging ancestor, and contains a ton of wordplay. There are scenes of slapstick violence that are simultaneously hilarious and offensive. It's a wild rollercoaster ride, so keep your seatbelt tightly secured.

Five stars. RED for a Joycean narrative style and Rabelaisian humor.

The Malley System, by Miriam Allen deFord

In the future, the worst criminals receive a very unusual punishment. This is a grim story, that doesn't shy away from the horrors perpetuated by human monsters.

Three stars. YELLOW for violence.

A Toy for Juliette, by Robert Bloch

In a decadent future, a man uses the only time machine in existence to kidnap people from the past, in order to satisfy the whims of his sadistic granddaughter. He picks the wrong potential victim. This is a spine-chilling little science fiction horror story with a twist in its tail.

Three stars. YELLOW for sex, torture, and murder.

The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World, by Harlan Ellison

This is a direct sequel to the previous story, with an introduction by Bloch and an afterword by Ellison. An infamous murderer finds himself in the far future, where the inhabitants enter his mind in order to enjoy his sensations as he kills.

Written in an experimental, almost cinematic style, this is an unrelenting look at the evil that lurks inside all of us. Not for weak stomachs.

Four stars. RED for explicit violence.

The Night That All Time Broke Out, by Brian W. Aldiss

People get so-called time gas supplied to their homes through pipes. It allows them to enjoy better times in the past. As with any form of technology, things can go wrong. This is a light comedy with a unique premise.

Three stars. GREEN for whimsy.

The Man Who Went to the Moon – Twice, by Howard Rodman

A young boy takes a trip to the Moon by holding on to a balloon, becoming a local celebrity. Many years later, as a very old man, his only claim to fame is not as valued as it once was. Reminiscent of Ray Bradbury, this is a gentle, quietly melancholy tale.

Three stars. GREEN for wistful nostalgia.

Faith of Our Fathers, by Philip K. Dick

The Communist East has won a hot war with the Capitalist West. The protagonist is a bureaucrat given the task to determine which of two term papers truly represents the Party line. Meanwhile, a seemingly harmless substance allows him to perceive what appear to be multiple and contradictory truths about the Mao-like Party leader.

That's a vague synopsis, because this is one of the author's stories in which you've never quite sure what is real and what is illusory. Ellison strongly hints that it was written under the influence of hallucinatory drugs. Be that as it may, it's a provocative and disturbing look at the possible nature of reality.

Four stars. YELLOW for politics, drug use, and existential terror.

The Jigsaw Man, by Larry Niven

A man is sentenced to death for his crime. His organs will be harvested for transplant. Through a series of unusual circumstances, he manages to escape from prison, but his troubles aren't over yet.

The full impact of this story doesn't hit the reader until the very end, when we find out the nature of the man's offense.  Other than that, it's an ordinary enough science fiction action/suspense story.

Three stars.  GREEN for futuristic adventure.

One Down, Two To Go

So far, this is a fine collection of stories, without a bad one in the bunch.  Sensitive readers might want to stay away from the more dangerous ones, but most mature SF fans will enjoy it.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[October 8, 1967] Things Fall Apart (November 1967 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

P.O.P. Sends Out An S.O.S.

The seaside amusement area known as Pacific Ocean Park, opened in 1958, closed its doors forever a couple of days ago, due to decreasing attendance and failure to pay back taxes and rental fees.


Pacific Ocean Park in happier days.

This aquatic rival of nearby Disneyland offered such futuristic and nautical delights as the House of Tomorrow, a Sea Circus, Diving Bells, the Sea Serpent Roller Coaster, and even a Flight to Mars, to name just a few out of dozens.


Artist's impression of the entrance to the defunct wonderland.

Long Time Passing

The vanishing of this Southern California landmark brings thoughts of the way in which almost everything disappears sooner or later. Pete Seeger's classic folk song Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (perhaps best known in the version recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary a few years ago) could serve as appropriately melancholy background music for such meditations.


It's on the trio's first album, by the way.

Appropriately, the latest issue of Fantastic contains a number of stories dealing with the passage of time and the decay of technology and culture.


Recycled art by Johnny Bruck.

The painting on the cover, as usual, has already appeared elsewhere. In this case, it's from an issue of Perry Rhodan, the popular weekly German publication named for the heroic space adventurer who appears in its pages.


Working from a German/English dictionary, the caption seems to mean something like Robots Please Allow . . . Far Is The Way To Noman's Land — A New Arlan Story. I'm sure my German-speaking fellow Galactic Journeyers can supply a better translation.

The Housebreakers, by Ron Goulart

Before we get to all the doom and gloom stuff dealing with vast expanses of time and the breakdown of society, let's have a little comic relief from a writer who specializes in funny stuff. If nothing else, it's the only new story in the issue.


Illustrations by Jeff Jones.

A mercenary gets his latest assignment from a talkative computer riding in an unreliable automated car. It seems there's a planet that essentially serves as a suburb. Folks commute from it to other planets to work. Some of the inhabitants are criminals and other lowlifes dumped there. (That seems like a really bad idea to me, but it sets up the plot.)

Crooks are appearing out of nowhere, grabbing loot and then disappearing. Since they don't have the gizmo necessary for teleportation, this seems impossible. The last guy to investigate the case is missing in action and presumed dead. Our hero has to contact the wife of a fellow who has joined the robbers in an attempt to track them down. Could it have anything to do with the planet's only real city (as opposed to bedroom communities), thought to be abandoned?


And what about this guy?

Maybe this sounds like crime fiction or an adventure story, but it's almost pure slapstick. There's not a lot of plot logic. The bad guys show up on horses, which doesn't make any sense in this high-tech setting. I guess the author wanted to spoof Westerns. The explanation for teleportation without a device is completely anticlimactic. Without giving too much away, it boils down to plot convenience.

Two stars.

Hok Visits the Land of Legends, by Manly Wade Wellman


Illustrations by Jay Jackson.

Speaking of vast amounts of time, let's go way, way back to the Stone Age. We've met the mighty caveman Hok a couple of times before. This yarn comes from the April 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures.


Cover art by Malcolm Smith.

Hok decides to kill a mammoth all by himself. He manages to wound the beast badly, and track it down through heavy snow to its place of dying. (This is similar to the legend of the elephant's graveyard.)


Note the very modern-looking snowshoes.

This turns out to be a deep valley, where the weather is nice and warm. The first thing you know, Hok is attacked by a pterodactyl.


Yes, this is an extreme anachronism; but what's a few million years between friends?

He also has to fight off a nasty critter, sort of like a rhinoceros, that doesn't belong in his time either. Poetic license, I guess.

A tribe of folks live in the treetops of this hidden tropical jungle. They're ruled by a brutal dictator. Hok has to deal with this guy as well as the animals that are out to kill him.

Even more so than in previous stories in this series, it's impossible to take this outrageous tale as a serious look into the remote past. The hot weather in the valley, the presence of beasts that died out millions of years before humans showed up; none of it makes sense.

There are tons of footnotes, as if we're supposed to accept this as scientific speculation rather than pure fantasy. These get in the way of just enjoying an exciting adventure story. Perhaps the most unbelievable thing about this exercise in pseudo-scholarship is the notion that Hok is the source of legends about Hercules.

Two stars.

That We May Rise Again . . ., by Charles Recour


Illustration by Julian S. Krupa.

From the remote past we jump forward into the extreme far future, in this apocalyptic tale from the July 1948 issue of Amazing Stories.


Cover art by Arnold Kohn.

A really long time from now, Earth is ruled by gigantic telepathic ants. They keep a few human beings around as servants. Our hero's master is a relatively kind ant, it seems. It lets him wander through a library of ancient books, learning how humanity used to dominate the planet. Apparently, the huge ants were created by radioactivity during the atomic war that destroyed civilization (The author anticipated the flick Them! by a few years.)

The ants want this fellow to take a ride in their only rocket ship, so he can act as a sort of double-check on their navigation systems. They don't want to go into space, but they want to take a look at things up there. Meanwhile, the guy meets the only other human being he's ever seen. Wouldn't you know it, she's a woman, and they fall instantly in love out of pure instinct.

Suddenly the prospect of taking a trip into the void doesn't sound so appealing. The lovebirds set out on their own, despite the opposition of the massive brain that rules over all the ants and their human slaves.

This is kind of a silly story that tries to create pathos in the fate of the two humans but winds up seeming ludicrous instead. The love story is implausible, to say the least, since these folks have never encountered one of their own kind before. It almost makes the giant ants seem realistic.

Two stars.

Make Room for Me!, by Theodore Sturgeon


Illustration by Gerald Hohns.

The May 1951 issue of Fantastic Adventures supplies this story featuring one of the author's favorite themes.


Cover art by Robert Gibson Jones.

As in his famous novel More Than Human (1953), Sturgeon presents us with a kind of group mind. Three college students form a triangular relationship. One, the only woman in the group, supplies the emotional and esthetic aspects of their lives. One of the men is an intellectual, and the other performs physical tasks. They drift apart over the years, but inevitably come back together. There's an unexpected reason for this.

An alien who consists of three symbiotic parts inhabits their minds. Those of its species have been acting as mental parasites on the simple lifeforms on the moon Titan. Now they intend to move to Earth, because the creatures they prey upon are running out. Working as one, the humans come up with an alternate plan to benefit everyone.

Despite its rather melodramatic science fiction aspects, this is a moving account of people who find themselves drawn together mysteriously, often against their conscious wills. As you'd expect from Sturgeon, the characters seem like real, complex people. It may be something of a stereotype to have the only woman be the emotional member of the group, but this doesn't seriously detract from the story.

Four stars.

Full Circle, by H. B. Hickey


Illustration by Ed Valigursky.

The premiere issue of the magazine (Summer 1952) is the source for this brief bit of irony.


Cover art by Barye Phillips and Leo Summers.

Once again, we're in the very far future, after human society has disappeared. The world is inhabited by robots. After an extremely long struggle, they have finally produced the ultimate being.

Well, just a glance at the illustration gives away the story's twist ending. Despite that, it's fairly effective. A minor piece that nevertheless accomplishes what it sets out to do.

Three stars.

The Metal Doom (Part 1 of 2), by David H. Keller, M. D.


Illustration by Leo Morey.

This Kelleryarn (Kellernovel?) originally appeared in three parts in the May, June, and July 1932 issues of Amazing Stories. All cover art also by Leo Morey.


Another physician in the issue.


This time there's a Ph.D. included.


Keller gets his name on all three covers.

For no apparent reason, all metal rots away. Naturally, this wipes out civilization. A husband and wife, with their infant daughter, escape the city early enough to find an abandoned farmhouse where they can live off the land.

A wealthy fellow not too far away sets up a group of folks who work together in order to fight off the bands of desperate criminals roaming around, now that no prison can hold them. After some violent battles, the first attempts to form some kind of loose confederation with other communities for mutual defense begin.

This is a grim story, not always pleasant to read. The main character changes from an ordinary citizen into somebody willing to kill dangerous people in cold blood. There's a disturbing subplot about the physician in charge of an institution for the so-called feebleminded, who has to make a terrible decision about what to do about them.

Three stars.

Order Out Of Chaos?

This wasn't a very good issue, with only the Sturgeon worthy of notice. I wonder if the magazine and its sister publication Amazing are going to slowly wear away into nothing, given the way they're both raiding back issues for the dregs. Maybe it's about time to look around for some better reading, like a classic novel.


From 1958, a groundbreaking work of modern African literature.

Or you could turn on the radio instead, and listen to KGJ for all the hits, all the time!




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[October 6, 1967] Deus ex Machina (Star Trek: "Changeling")

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by Gideon Marcus

Recycling is good practice

We are now three weeks into the second season, and Star Trek continues to impress.  If the season premiere was an episode that could only have existed in the Star Trek universe, last week's and this week's are back to the first season formula of adapted, universal science fiction tales.  Nevertheless, "The Changeling" is a uniquely Trek episode, adding to the depth of the setting and capitalizing on what we know of the characters.

Checking in on the Melurian system, the Enterprise finds that something has wiped out its four billion inhabitants.  Said something then begins shooting at the Enterprise with bolts possessing the power of a whopping 90 photon torpedoes (the fact that the shields can withstand four such hits suggest either the torps are weak sauce or the assailant was at the edge of its range).  After firing on the enemy, Kirk attempts communication; that Kirk didn't try talking first is not inconsistent with his character; he's "a soldier, not a diplomat."

The hail works.  The assailant, barely more than a meter in length, consents to being beamed aboard the Enterprise.  There, it is quickly determined that it is what is left of the 21st Century deep space probe "Nomad", and it thinks Kirk is its creator, Jackson Roy Kirk (perhaps a distant ancestor?)

Nomad is now more than just the next iteration of Mariner spacecraft.  After a collision and merging with the alien probe, Tan Ru, it is now an intelligent, self-aware being with just two motivations: "To seek out and sterilize all that which is not perfect" and to impress his creator, "The Kirk."  Nomad “fixes” the Enterprise so it can go Warp 11, popping all of the Enterprise's rivets.  It kills Scotty, then brings him back to life.

More chillingly, it zaps four security guards out of existence (to be fair, they fired first).  It gives Uhura a kind of stroke, temporarily cutting her off from her advanced knowledge.  And when Kirk concedes that he is an imperfect biological unit, Nomad resolves to go back home to Earth–and wipe out all imperfection.  He is only stopped when Kirk, in "a dazzling display of logic", makes Nomad aware of its own imperfections, ordering it to self-destruct, which it does.

There's nothing in this episode we haven't seen or heard before.  The naive, all-powerful presence taken aboard the Enterprise, kept in check solely by a tenuous parent-worship of Captain Kirk, is the same plot as "Charlie X".  Kirk already defeated a computer with logic in "Return of the Archons."  All of the action takes place on the Enterprise, and much of the music is recycled from the prior two episodes.

And yet, this may be my favorite episode of the season thus far.  Not only do we learn some interesting things about Terran history (we now have a tentative timeline – from the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s to the first warp-powered probes of the early 21st Century), but the episode depends in large part on things that have already been established about the characters we've come to love.


I love this show of Sulu jerking back as Nomad flies right past him to ask what the heck Uhura's doing

Nomad is intrigued by Uhura because of her singing, and we get to see her speaking Swahili again, too.  Scotty gets himself killed defending her (we learned last episode that Scotty's brain short circuits where women are concerned).  Spock uses his mind-touch on Nomad (and aren't there all kinds of interesting ramifications from that).  Kirk is better than ever at beating computers–his defeat of Nomad was far more logical and satisfying than his victory over Landru.

I found Kirk's performance more understated this episode, which I appreciated, and Nimoy was excellent as usual.  I also appreciated the return to a more ensemble approach, with heavy focus on Uhura, Chapel, Scotty, and McCoy.  If there was only one bobble in tone, it was Kirk's (admittedly funny) line about lamenting the loss of Nomad, his son, the doctor.  Given the loss of four billion Melurians and four of his crew, one would think Kirk would be a touch more somber.

Those are quibbles, though.  Four stars.

The Truth will set you free


by Joe Reid

I find large numbers to be amazing things.  We as human beings have developed ways to express and manipulate numbers that are vaster than we have the ability to conceive of.  I myself can mentally picture 10 bowling pins, 100 sheets of typing paper, and a jar of 1000 pennies.  Ten thousand, one hundred thousand, and even one million are numbers that inspire awe.  How about four billion?  Imagine you line up everyone on earth, you would be 500 million short of four billion!  This week’s episode of Star Trek left me with a question that needs to be answered.  How do you kill four billion people?

I don't mean the physical means by which he brought this about.  Each of Nomad's bolts packs a 90-photon torpedo wallop.  I mean how does Nomad, an intelligent thinking machine, kill four billion people?  I look at Star Trek as a mirror being held up to the audience.  With the writers holding up that mirror and saying, “This is what we look like.” Therefore, the question also is, how do we as intelligent thinking beings kill hundreds, thousands, and even millions of people?  The answer to both questions is the same.  You believe a lie.

Nomad believed that it was perfect.  That its creator was perfect.  That the mission in its memory tapes were perfect.  Nomad took that belief as a given.  So, anything that didn’t fit within its own understanding should be wiped clean.  We saw this when Nomad encountered a singing Uhura and erased her mind.  Since Nomad was perfect any action it took was ultimately justifiable, so any resistance to it should be eliminated, which was the case of the four guards and Scotty.  All of which died.  Along the same lines, any being that does not meet his level of perfection is an infestation which must be eliminated.  We were told about four billion examples of that, with the promise of more to come.


The price of imperfection.

By Nomad’s actions we see our own human condition.  When we believe the lie that we are better than those around us, that those who are not like us are below us, we find justification to ignore them.  Those who we can’t ignore we remove.  Those we don’t understand or agree with we erase.  Those not like you are not human, so killing them is justified, because those “things” are a useless infestation.  My friends, we believe such lies and commit these acts upon other humans.

In the end, Nomad was undone by the truth.  When it learned the truth that it was not perfect, Nomad stayed consistent with its other beliefs and ended its own existence.  How do humans respond when they are exposed to the truth?  Perhaps a future episode of Star Trek will provide that answer.  I cannot.  Since like you, I am afflicted with my own deck of lies that guide my own beliefs.


Nomad learns the truth.

Overall, this was another exciting and thought-provoking episode which makes my Thursday nights most enjoyable.  Not perfect by any means, but a worthy addition to this wonderful program.

4 stars

"The Nomad who Wandered Got Lost"


by Amber Dubin

As a self-confessed robot-a-phile, I felt the need to take a second pass at this episode to fully understand its protagonist. After listening to the audio tapes I made of the episode, I found that the understanding I gained left me unsettled.

The concept I found most disconcerting is that, despite the fact that it wiped out an entire solar system's worth of people, to hate Nomad would be as unreasonable as hating a child. Though it is powerful, ancient, sophisticated, and sentient to boot, Nomad is frequently compared to a child. The fact that this episode is called "The Changeling" implies that it is a lost child robbed of its intended destiny. Much like a child whose birth kills its mother, it gains sentience by being cruelly ripped from the void, forced to survive the trauma of its birth while destroying the only witness to its initiation of life. To assuage its survivor's guilt after the entanglement with the alien probe, it seeks to validate its existence with the hastily slapped together objectives from the partial data stores of two damaged probes, with predictably disastrous results. It may kill people, but only in the way a Changeling child might if given immense power and no moral guidance.


Inside the mind of a child

The other concept that left me with "insufficient data to resolve problem" was how easily Nomad was compelled to merge two peaceful objectives into one murderous one. In Spock’s words, "Nomad was a thinking machine, the best that could be engineered" and yet that same intellect made it unable to live up to its own standards. In trying to explain its sentience in a literal vacuum, it uses its 'perfection' to explain why a lowly soil sterilization probe was sacrificed to preserve its function. In honoring that sacrifice by incorporating "the other's" programming, it is then faced with the impossible task of applying a local objective onto a global scale. To make its task more manageable, it translates 'sterilize your environment' to "sterilize imperfections." This way, it avoids failing its objective and admitting that its pursuit of perfection is internally flawed. When Kirk exposes this flaw, Nomad's inability to reconcile it was probably the most human reaction I've ever seen. I tip my hat to the kind of writing that could make me wonder if self-destruction is in the nature of an inquisitive mind.

This episode lost points, however, when it came to Uhura's subplot. I initially had a visceral reaction to her re-training scene. The way they talk to her while teaching her to read is not the way you talk to a stroke victim re-learning language, it's how you speak to a child learning language for the first time. I bristled at the nurse's condescending praise and saw it as an insult to Uhura’s intelligence. Listening through the second time, however, softened my perspective. By including Uhura’s outburst in Swahili, and the nurse's comment that Uhura "seems to have an aptitude for mathematics," it was apparent that there was most likely no malicious agenda to make Nichols look stupid. More than likely the purpose of the scene was to say 'Gee English sure is a silly language.' While not being as offensive as I originally thought, it's still disappointing and doesn't hold up to the standard set by the writing of the rest of the episode (strong enough to still get four stars).


"Who wrote this scene, anyway?!"

The next episode of Trek is TONIGHT! It doesn't look like we're in Kansas anymore…

Here's an invitation. Come join us!



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Conventions/Performances, Fashion, music, politics, sports

[October 4, 1967] Transported on a Ferry Boat (NY Avant Garde Festival, Sept. 30, 1967)

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by Victoria Lucas

Definitions

The dictionary says there are two definitions for the word "transport." One definition we could use daily. A sample sentence might read, "The bus was my means of transport to the 5th Annual New York Avant Garde Festival."

Definition number 2 is quite different: "I was transported when I got on the ferry, but it wasn't by the transportation!" In this sense, one is overwhelmed with pleasure, joy, excitement, all those good things. How do you combine the 2? Why, at an annual New York Avant Garde Festival held on a ferry, of course–in this case the John F. Kennedy.

The John F. Kennedy on its way to or from Staten Island

Whee! Here we go. This was the list that got me going:


Program for the ferry festival

Charlotte Moorman, Producer

Right there at the top is the producer, Charlotte Moorman. Earlier this year Moorman was arrested and convicted of obscene behavior for playing the cello topless, apparently in compliance with the musical notation of a piece by Nam June Paik, one of the composers listed underneath the festival title. Fortunately the Commissioner of Marine and Aviation didn't know that when Moorman went to apply for a permit to use the ferry boat as a stage for dance, music, painting, happenings, etc. She got the permit, and when it was questioned by the press, the Department stood by their decision (bless them), and the festival went on.

She has been producing these festivals since 1965. Never a strident feminist (not that there's anything wrong with that), she has charted her course to be with like-minded musicians and performers, and she decided that it was pretty useless to have little concerts for herself and her friends–better to at least try to introduce the "avant garde" (read "strange") to an unsuspecting audience. Just look at the list of names! Allan Kaprow, Takehisa Kosugi, Jackson Mac Low, Max V. Mathews (Bell Labs electronic music!), Max Neuhaus, Sun Ra! And those are just the performers! Here is the program, listing the composers, painters, and so on:

Program for 5th Annual New York Avant Garde Festival

Note, among others: Max Neuhaus, La Monte Young, John Cage (Yes!), Robert Moran (they played one of my favorite pieces, "L'apres midi du dracoula"), Robert Ashley, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Alvin Lucier, Karlheinz Stockhausen, with films by Stan Brakhage and "hopefully by" my favorite filmmaker Bruce Baillie, as well as Shirley Clarke and Ben van Meter. Con Edison lent them cables to use for all the electrical and electronic appliances/instruments, and somehow the Judson Memorial Church (where I went to see John Cage) was involved.

We were crushed!–uh make that IN a crush

Even after seeing partial lists of the performers and creators, I was not, however, prepared for the unique part of this experience. I've seen some of these people, heard their music, seen their work, read about them elsewhere. They and their work are available elsewhere. On the ferry, they were available right in front of me. Sometimes I could hardly get past them, the ferry was so crowded (holds 3,500, and that doesn't count the cars on the lower deck). There were dancers on the outside benches moving with a rope among them; Paik had televisions stacked on one another and on pedestals; a painter made room to paint in one area, a jazz combo to play in another. You could hardly move for the musicians, composers, painters, dancers, readers, poets, filmmakers, and all manner of creative men and women. "Excuse me, Mr. Ginsberg, could I get by you? I really need the john." Yes, Ginsberg did plan to be there. On a larger, longer, bluer than blue program for the event, his name is signed along with that of John Cage, Yoko Ono, and 107 others!

Here's how it went: Mel and I arrived and pushed our nickels into the turnstile slots. I can't remember what time we got there or how long we stayed. We probably stayed until the evening, not too late, because we don't want to be on the mean streets too late. We made our way onto the boat but there was no place to sit. We wandered around separately–a painting here, Nam June Paik's electronic display there. It really was shoulder to shoulder sometimes. I paid little attention to anything outside the boat. I think Mel tapped me on the shoulder at one point and led me outside so we could look at the Statue of Liberty. There were dancers outside, but no music. I was soon back indoors listening to music.

Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't have recognized most of the people on the program if they had addressed me personally. I know what Cage looks like, and he wasn't there when we were–or I couldn't find him in the press of people. I might have seen Nam June Paik adjusting the TV sets he piled one on the other. I have seen pix of Allan Kaprow and Yoko Ono–and I could maybe recognize a few others. But I didn't go to recognize people. I went to listen and look and be immersed in art and music. (I wasn't interested in the particular choreography on offer, but in reviewing the whole happening I would give it as many stars as I could reach.)

Back we went through the turnstiles and turned around and plunked in another nickel each and back into the crowd aboard. We were not allowed to stay on the boat. When it docked, we had to get off and pay for another ride. It was a routine–push our way through crowds to get on the boat, move around in it, 25 minutes later the boat docks, we get off and take the ride on the turnstiles, plunking the nickels (good thing we brought a supply) and getting on again, only to get off on the other side. It's a wonder we weren't dizzy. Actually, I think I was–dizzy with joy in art and music: Transported!




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[October 2, 1967] Switching Sides (November 1967 IF)

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by David Levinson

Crossing the road

You probably know that, while much of the world drives on the right-hand side of the road with steering wheels on the left side of the vehicle, Great Britain and most of her former colonies do things the other way around, steering wheel on the right and driving on the left. A few other countries follow the British example, such as Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand. Up until a month ago, Sweden was among them.

A switch has been considered for a while and, although Swedes voted overwhelmingly against the change in 1955, it has now gone through. All of Sweden’s neighbors drive on the right, with something like 5 million vehicles crossing the borders with Norway and Finland (not to mention Danish and German tourists arriving with their cars by ferry). On top of that, roughly 90 percent of the cars in Sweden have their steering wheel on the left, which means that Swedish automakers have been building their cars that way for a long time.

The logo for the traffic changeover.

After four years of preparation and education, H-day (Dagen H for Högertrafik, which means right-hand traffic) came in the wee hours of Sunday, September 3rd. Road signs had to be moved or remade, new lines had to be painted on the roads, intersections had to be reshaped. Just as much effort went into educating the public. The logo was plastered on everything from milk cartons to underwear. There was even a catchy tune written for the event, “Håll dig till höger, Svensson” (Keep to the Right, Svensson). Everything seems to have gone off without a hitch, and traffic accidents have been down, probably because everyone is being extra careful. Iceland is planning on following suit next year.

This photo was staged several months ago as part of the education campaign. The real thing was much less chaotic.

Turncoats and breakthroughs

This month’s IF begins and ends with characters changing sides (or appearing to) while elsewhere the crew of a spaceship breaks on through to the other side.

A newcomer gets the cover. Does he deserve it? Art by Vaughn Bodé

Brother Berserker, by Fred Saberhagen

The time war against the deadly berserkers on the planet Sirgol comes to a head. The enemy will try to stop Vincent Vincento (a Galileo analogue) from recanting his belief in heliocentrism, thus preventing him from writing an important scientific treatise. Feeling guilt over sending his rival to his death, Derron Odegard volunteers to go back and try to stop the berserkers. If he succeeds, Time Ops will be able to locate their staging area and lock them out of the time stream. But what happens when a berserker meets the equivalent of St. Francis of Assisi?

Can a Foucault pendulum keep Vencento from recanting?. Art by Gaughan

This is a direct sequel to Stone Man and The Winged Helmet and wraps the story up nicely. That said, I’ve never been completely satisfied with the time war stories. Saberhagen continues to show some range, though, and I will always be glad to see his name on the cover.

Three stars.

Mail Drop, by C. C. MacApp

Klonit-41-Z-Bih is the director of the mail center on Galkbar. Things are stressful enough, but when the first manned mission to Mars stumbles into a long-forgotten mail transporter, war may break out between the Selidae and Medanjians over the Live Unclaimed Mail – a war that will claim the mail center as its first victim.

Klonit does his best to soothe the rival claimants. Art by Vaughn Bodé

I’ve noted before that MacApp tends to be unsuccessful when he tries to be funny. Here, he’s going more for general humor than a real knee-slapper and gets closer to the mark. Like a lot of what he’s put out lately, it’s reasonably entertaining, but forgettable.

Three stars just for not being Gree.

The Shadow of Space, by Philip José Farmer

The Sleipnir under Captain Grettir is scheduled to test the first faster-than-light drive. Before starting the test, the crew pick up the sole survivor of a wrecked ship. Unfortunately, she is distraught and becomes convinced the captain is her husband. Upset by his rejection of her, she commandeers the drive and sends the ship to speeds much faster than planned before stripping naked and walking out the airlock. Meanwhile, the ship and the body have burst out of the universe to find it is just an electron orbiting an atomic nucleus. Then things get weird.

The Sleipnir in orbit around the body of Mrs. Wellington. Art by Morrow

If the timing didn’t make it nearly impossible, I’d say Farmer wrote this as a parody or pastiche of Poul Anderson’s To Outlive Eternity, what with the Nordic names of the ship and captain. Farmer’s been on a losing streak lately; even his latest Riverworld story was a little off. This story does nothing to end that streak.

A high two stars.

Thus Spake Marco Polo, by James Stevens

The MARK-40 PLO Command Computer, which oversees America’s nuclear armaments, has gained sentience, dubbed itself Marco Polo, and linked up with the Russian IVAN-812 Command Computer. It also lisps. Now General Emerito Sandez has 24 hours to defeat the computer in a war game, or humanity will be wiped out.

This month’s new author is a 22-year-old graduate student in drama at the University of Illinois, originally from Puerto Rico. (I hope Fred keeps doing these mini-biographies for new authors; they’re handy.) Giving the computer a childish lisp may not be the most successful way of showing that its sentience is brand-new, but it’s not too distracting. On the other hand, it’s unusual to have a Latin protagonist, particularly one so high-ranking, and I approve. Overall, this is a fine debut, and I look forward to more from Mr. Stevens.

A solid three stars.

Dreamhouse, by Gary Wright

The planet of New Kansas is very, very flat. It also has no violent crime. However, it’s not without its sins, like the Dreamhouse, which offers patrons the chance to experience almost anything as though it were real. Maybe there’s a connection.

Adam’s dreams keep going disastrously wrong. Art by Wood

Gary Wright has turned out some sound, middle-of-the-road stories, frequently about sports. Alas, this is none of those things. The writing is fine, but the protagonist (such as he is) is unpleasant, and much of the story hinges on him being unable or unwilling to communicate his problems. The conclusion also doesn’t hold up if you give it even a passing thought. Wright is capable of much better than this.

Barely three stars.

In the Jaws of Danger, by Piers Anthony

Dr. Dillingham is a dentist who has been kidnapped by aliens, because he did such a good job fixing one of their dental problems. Now he’s been loaned out to deal with a cavity in an alien the size of a whale.

Dr. Dillingham asks his new patient to say “Aaah.” Art by Vaughn Bodé

Piers Anthony is a Cele Lalli discovery, and she seems to be the only editor to get the best out of him. Under other editors, he’s produced some mediocre stories (alone and in collaboration) and an execrable novel. This humorous piece is… fine, I guess (cue Señor Wences again). It also feels like there might be a story before this one that has gone missing somewhere.

Three stars.

Ocean on Top (Part 2 of 3), by Hal Clement

In Part 1, an unnamed investigator for the Power Board, which rations energy for the whole world, is looking into the disappearance of three other investigators over the last year. On the ocean floor, he discovers a vast area being illuminated in a criminal waste of energy. Eventually he is captured and taken into an underwater base. Still underwater, his captors removed their helmets.

After a while, he is visited by Bert Wehlstrahl, the first investigator to go missing. Communicating by writing, Bert explains that the 15,000 people down here aren’t stealing power, and that he has joined them. He has no news about Joey Elfven, the second investigator, but they do have Marie Wladetzky, who refuses to believe anything Bert says.

Our protagonist agrees to undergo the process to allow him to live in the underwater base, secretly planning to find out as much as he can before returning to surface. The people down there want him to go back with a message to the Power Board, but he wants as much information as possible. He meets with Marie and explains his plan and then takes a tour of the facility. Following a visit to the power plant, Bert claims that he is also not planning to stay and that the Power Board knows, or at least knew, about this base. He then takes the protagonist to see the supposedly missing Joey. To be concluded.

One of the locals shows the protagonist where to get lunch. Art by Castellon

Clement just keeps piling mystery upon mystery, without offering us any real answers. Most importantly, he hasn’t explained how these people breathe; the protagonist thinks they get their oxygen from special food. After remembering reading about some experiments done after the First World War with oxygenated saline to help soldiers whose lungs were devastated by gas and a trip to the library where I learned about some very recent breakthroughs, I think I know how the breathing works, at least.

The tour of the base is the most Clement-esque part of this installment, but the rest still has a darker, more “grown-up” feel than is usual for his work. If I have a real quibble, it’s that the dialogue is too involved and flowing for being done in writing on a letter-sized board.

Three stars for now.

Summing up

Last month at Worldcon, IF was awarded Best Professional Magazine for the second year in a row. In his con report, the Traveler suggested that voters were rewarding the magazine for its standouts. It’s true that the magazine has been lackluster of late, but the award was for last year, a year dominated by the serialization of Best Novel winner The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And while the magazine was only in the middle of the pack in last year’s Galactic Stars, it did tie for second in most Stars nominees, as well as running the Best Novel and Best Short Fiction Hugo winners. Up through the June issue of this year, every issue has had at least one truly outstanding story, and of course, there was the wonderful Hugo winners issue

Speaking of the Hugo winners issue, will Fred try to put out another one next year? I’m not hopeful. There were four potential authors last year, thanks to the tie for Best Novel and the one-time Best Series award. For next year, there are only three, even with the addition of another category in short fiction, and Heinlein hasn’t written a short story in almost a decade. Although, Best Fan Writer (and occasional Journey contributer) Alexei Panshin does have some professional sales… No, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Okay, new Leiber is promising, and James White is usually pretty good.




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[September 30, 1967] Ain't that good news! (October 1967 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

End of Summer

The long, hot summer is over, and with it a general cooling across the country, both in temperature and in tension.  While San Francisco enjoyed a summer of love, with folks as disparate as Eric Burdom and Scott McKenzie coming to just be-in, the rest of the nation was rocked by civil strife, strikes, and protest.


Ashes in Cambridge, MD


Teachers on strike

And why not?  The cities have been bubbling kettles for a long time, and too many mayors and councilmen are ignoring the problem.  Too many workers have been stiffed and neglected.  Too many young men, too young even to vote, have lost their lives in Vietnam.

Now, the strikes are largely settled in the workers' favor.  The racial problems, well they're still there, but harder to ignore, and with the departure of sultry weather, tempers are a little less frayed.  Vietnam…well, they had a free election didn't they?  Surely things must be getting a little better.

Surely.

In any event, enjoy the respite.  We're going to need our strength.

So goes the nation…

The nation of science fiction, that is.  SF had a rocky summer, with a slew of lackluster magazines, inconsistent books, and of course, endless reruns on TV.  I'm happy to report that the dog days are over, at least for now: not only has it been a good month for SF mags in general, but the latest issue of Analog is the best in more than a year and a half.


by John Schoenherr

Weyr Search, by Anne McCaffrey


by John Schoenherr

Jack Vance and Frank Herbert have made sweeping, quasi-fantastic tableaus the in thing.  Universes that feel thousands of years old, with venerable, somewhat tattered institutions vying for power in a decadent setting.  Now Ann McCaffrey, best known for her The Ship Who series, has tossed her hat in the ring.

Pern is a planet somewhere in the galaxy, once settled by Earth, but long since forgotten.  It is a verdant, pleasant world save for one feature.  Every few hundred years, a rogue planet comes close enough in its eccentric orbit to launch deadly spores of "thread".  These burrow into Pern's soil, destroying native life, scourging farms and people.

To combat them, humans formed a sort of treaty with the native intelligent life: sapient dragons, with whom their riders bond telepathically.  These dragons not only breathe fire, but they can teleport.  This makes them formidable defenders, indeed!  Clearly, they once dominated Pernian politics.  Long ago, there were six "Weyrs"–barren fortresses wherein lived the dragons and their human brethren.  From these strongholds, Pern was kept safe from the baleful "red star".

But humans have short memories, and when Weyr Search begins, it has been several centuries since the last orbital conjunction.  Human politics have supplanted other concerns, and the "Holds", fortresses against human incursion, reign supreme.  Only one Weyr, called Benden, remains in operation–a shabby shadow of itself.

Nevertheless, with the rogue planet approaching, and the queen of dragons recently dead, it is imperative that the Benden riders find a new rider for the next queen, one who has the requisite psychic talents and the necessary strength of character.  Can any such person exist in these fallen times, when even proud Ruatha hold, whose royal family's blood once ran with a strong vein of dragon talent, has become a wreck under the cruel ministrations of Lord Fax of the High Reaches?

Well, of course the answer is yes.  It's obvious from the first page, told from the point of view of Lessa, Ruathan scullery girl, who is secretly scion of the dead lineage.  Weyr Search is not a story to surprise, a tale of twists and turns.  It is not even really a complete story; it is clear there will be sequels.  What it is, however, is an intriguing setup for a story.

As such, it really succeeds or fails on its writing.  McCaffrey is better at her job than Herbert, whose reach regularly exceeds his grasp.  She is less talented than Vance (who wrote a somewhat reminiscent tale several years ago called The Dragon Masters).  The first portion of the story is a bit stiltedly told, and Lessa comes across as something of a caricature, a wish-fullfilment vehicle akin to Cinderella ("I may seem a nothing, but I'm really a secret princess-queen!") Not that this kind of character can't work–after all, look at Roan in Earthblood, but Laumer and Brown did a better job with it.  And, of course, there are the tics that sold the work to Campbell: psionics and the idea of people being genetically special.

Nevertheless, the writing gets better as it goes along, and the concepts are interesting.  I've read some great stuff by McCaffrey, and I've read some tepid stuff by McCaffrey.  This installment gets four stars.  We'll see how the serial (in all but name) does as a whole when its done.

(Note: There's a bit in the prologue where Pern's "Yankee" colonists are mentioned.  I'll bet my bottom dollar this was a Campbell edit, as nowhere in the rest of the story is the race of the colonists suggested.  Heaven forbid anyone but WASPs settle the galaxy…)

Toys, by Tom Purdom


by Leo Summers

I'm always happy to see a piece from my good friend, Tom.  This one involves a cop duo (male and female) taking on a gang of pre-teenage kids, who have taken their families hostage using a host of homegrown weapons: genetically engineered apes and tigers, chemistry-set psychedelic drugs, erector-set shock guns.  The work of the police is complicated by their standing directive to minimize casualties.

A little insight from the author:

I have a lot of thoughts on Toys. I gave a talk on it at a Philadelphia Science Fiction Society meeting this month.

Basically, it's built around three ideas.

The first came from a John Campbell editorial I read around 1950 or 51.  What are you going to do, Campbell asked, when an angry teenager can blow up a city merely by twisting a pair of wires in a certain way?  It's a thought experiment that gets at the heart of some of the issues raised by technology.  I reduced the problem to a world where children have access to all kinds of potentially lethal technologies.

The second big idea is economic growth.  I got interested in that years before, and it figures in many of my stories. The standard of living in the industrialized nation has been doubling two or three times per century since about 1700.  The children in my story are lower middle class or might even be considered poor, but they have access to things like home genetic kits.  They are poor in land, however, living in a five story house on a narrow plot.  And lots of other kids have a lot more.

The third element is a Utopian police force.  In a world with so much potential for violence, you need a first class police force and a society willing to pay for highly trained, well educated cops.  Edelman [the viewpoint character] understands that he is supposed to resolve this situation without harming the kids.  He takes bigger risks than he has to because he is responsible for the kids' welfare.

Thus, both utopian and anti-utopian predictions.  Purdom excels at these concepts, painting a future world with realistic touches.  For instance, complete equality of the sexes (exemplified by the cop partners), and one of the few stories that takes monetary inflation into account ($50,000 a year is a poor salary; $200,000 is pretty good.)

Where Tom always has trouble is combat scenes.  It's no coincidence that his best works, like I Want the Stars and Courting Time, focus on people rather than fighting.

Toys is essentially a non-stop fight sequence.  Thus, three stars.

Political Science—Chinese Style, by Research Group of the Theory of Elementary Particles, Peking

Editor Campbell offers up the preamble to a Chinese paper on subatomic particles, the realm of the "quark".  The actual paper is not included; instead, we get many pages of explanation as to the philosophy that let to the composer's discoveries–all guided by the pure thought of their leader Mao Tse Tung.

It's pretty obvious that such folderol is necessary to get anything published in China.  I'm sure the Nazi and Stalinist publishers had to do the same.  What's special about this paper is that the science is reportedly "first-class".  Which makes me sad that the whole paper wasn't included.  Subatomic physics is fascinating stuff.

Anyway, it's short and interesting for what it is.  And given the quality of fiction in this mag, I didn't miss the (hit and miss) science column too much.

Three stars.

The Judas Bug, by Caroll C. MacApp


by Kelly Freas

C.C. MacApp, using his first name rather than an initial for some reason, offers up this tale of a colony in peril.  Two settlers of a new planet have been found dead in the field, their faces, throats and hands gnawed away.  The fauna of the planet just don't seem harmful enough to be the culprit; Mechanic James Gruder worries that a human conspiracy is involved.

This is a perfectly competent story, although I found the resolution a little rushed.  Three stars.

Free Vacation, by W. Macfarlane


by Leo Summers

I really liked the concept behind this story: Terran convicts are offered a choice–imprisonment, or teleportation to a roughhewn world as conscripted explorers.  Day Layard, a brand new draftee, is paired with an old hand, who proves invaluable in keeping him alive.  It turns out Layard's partner is particularly happy with his lot in life; it gives him the opportunity to seek out signs of the "Prodromals", the race of beings that preceded humanity in the galaxy.

This is another tale that runs along just fine until the somewhat rushed ending.  An extra page or two would have perhaps garnered a fourth star.  As is, a pleasant three.

Pontius Pirates, by J. T. McIntosh


by Leo Summers

The planet of Molle is a rich, advanced world, with nothing to hide.  So why is it the moment Jack Sheridan makes planetfall from Earth, he is under 24 hour surveillance?  Nothing formal, mind you–just subject to the attentions of four jovial fellows eager to get him drunk, and a pretty young girl employed to spend the night with him…or at least tell him she did when he wakes up with no memory of what went on the previous day.

Could it be that Molle is actually the home base for the piratical Buccaneers, and the surveillance is to make sure no one gets too close to the secret? That's certainly why Sheridan, actually an Interstellar Patrolman, was dispatched to the planet.

On the surface, this is just a secret agent thriller.  The plot is interesting, but nothing noteworthy.  The average reader will probably enjoy it and move on.

As a writer, I found much to admire.  The thing is, Jack Sheridan is never wrong.  He has his working theories, he tests them, and they always turn out to be more or less as expected.  There are plenty of stories with characters like these, from Retief to James Bond, and they quickly run into one or both of two issues:

1) When you know the hero is always right, where's the tension?

2) When the hero knows he's always right, he tends to become insufferable.

McIntosh, who has been writing for two decades now, neatly avoids both pratfalls.  The mystery is unfolded piece by piece, and at each juncture, Sheridan is plagued with doubt.  He doesn't know if he's right, he lists all the reasons he could be wrong, and he explains what he'll do in that event.  The thing is, he isn't some schnook like Bond who stumbles upon the truth.  He lands on Molle with enough information to be pretty sure it's the Buccaneer base.  After that, it's logical and plausible deduction.

We also learn a lot about Sheridan, his character and his values, without ever explicitly being told about them.  It's a lovely piece of oblique writing, all showing and no telling.

So, well done, Mr. McIntosh.  Perhaps others in Campbell's stable can learn from your example (*ahem* Chris Anvil).  Four stars.

Doing the math

With a star-o-meter rating of 3.4 stars, Analog tops its competition.  But competition it did have!  New Worlds and Fantasy and Science Fiction both scored 3.3, and even Amazing got 3.0.  Only IF and
Galaxy lagged, with 2.8 and 2.7, respectively.

If you took all the four and five star stories, you could fill two slim digests.  The only really sad statistic is that, out of 33 new pieces of fiction, just one was written by a woman.  Looks like women have struck out for books and screenplays, where the money's better.  A smart move, but not a happy sign for magazines in general.

Nevertheless, let's dwell on the positive.  Good job, Analog, and thanks for a happy punctuation to the month of September!

Speaking of books by women…

You've probably heard of Marie Vibbert, one of the biggest names in SFF magazines (of the far-future year 2022).  Her book, The Gods Awoke, is what I've been calling "a new New Wave masterpiece":

Do check it out.  You'll not only be getting a great book, but you'll be supporting the Journey!




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[September 28, 1967] We have met Divinity, and He is Ours (Star Trek: "Who Mourns for Adonais")

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God is in the Details


by Janice L. Newman

After Star Trek’s incredible second season debut episode last week, we were on pins and needles. Would the episode hold up to the new standard set by “Amok Time”?

The episode starts out unpromisingly, with Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty ogling a pretty female lieutenant. Scotty invites her for coffee, and McCoy and Kirk exchange quips on how she’s just going to “get married and leave the service”.

Given later events in the episode, one can squint a bit and pretend that they’re talking about this specific crewperson, not women in general. Still, it was jarring, particularly in the context of “Balance of Terror”, where we saw a female officer getting married and still doing her job just fine.

The ship continues on its mission, only to be interrupted by what appears to be a giant hand floating in space, which reaches out to grab the ship. No matter what they try, they cannot break free of its grasp. The crew is sharp and competent here, a pleasure to watch. As they experiment, a floating head appears on the viewscreen. It hails them and begins to talk of welcoming them after a long wait. When Kirk tells it to release the ship, it says it will close its hand, increasing the pressure both inside and outside the ship. Kirk, having no choice in the face of this superior power, agrees to accede to the being’s demands.

Spock, in a refreshing change, remains in command aboard, while Kirk, Scotty, Chekov, McCoy, and the pretty lieutenant, Carolyn Palamas, join him in beaming down to the planet. Once there, they are greeted by the self-proclaimed god “Apollo”, who states that they will remain on the planet and worship him, herding flocks and playing the music of the pipes. It sounds like an idyllic, and very boring, life.

From the start, Apollo is much taken with Palamas. For a nominal ancient history scholar and archaeologist, she doesn’t seem terribly interested or excited about meeting a being that claims to be an actual god and who supposedly interacted with humans on earth 5000 years ago. She is excited when Apollo transforms her uniform into a shiny, pink, skin-baring outfit, though! (My reaction to having my clothes suddenly transformed into something else would not be, “Oh, it’s beautiful!” no matter how lovely the dress.) Apollo sweeps off with Palamas, leaving the remaining crewmembers to look for a way out.

Kirk, as is always the case when the Enterprise is in peril, doesn’t care about anything but getting his ship and crew back. He repeatedly defies Apollo, who punishes him in various painful ways. Scotty apparently loses his head trying to protect Palamas, and also challenges Apollo repeatedly, even going against Kirk’s orders to do so. All this defiance and punishment leads to the discovery that Apollo seems weakened after he shoots lightning bolts or otherwise displays his ‘godlike’ powers.

Meanwhile, the crew on the Enterprise have been looking for a way out. They are a pleasure to watch, with Spock issuing crisp orders and the crew following without question (a nice change from “The Galileo Seven”). Uhura even gets to do some soldering at one point!

Back on the planet, Kirk corners Palamas and orders her to spurn Apollo and break his heart, which will hopefully cause him to use his powers and weaken him enough to give them a chance. At first Palamas resists, but Kirk convinces her. She tells Apollo that he’s only interesting to her as a ‘specimen’, infuriating him and causing him to call a great storm.

The crew aboard the Enterprise is able to get a message through just in time. Kirk orders them to use the ‘holes’ they’ve been able to make to shoot through Apollo’s barrier and attack the source of his power on the planet. The crew obey, and great phaser beams come from the sky, focusing on the temple. Apollo screams at them to stop, but the phasers continue until the temple is left in ruins. Apollo weeps, turns his face to the sky, and lets himself dissolve as his fellow gods and goddesses did thousands of years before.

I think the best word to sum up this episode is: “uneven”. There were parts I liked very much. Anything with the crew being smart and competent was fun to watch. I found Apollo’s monologue at the end to be very affecting. And there were other small moments of brilliance, such as when McCoy complains at Chekov’s insistence on being thorough, saying, “Spock’s contaminating this boy, Jim.”

On the other hand, the subtle deprecation of women was not only frustrating, it didn’t make sense. Apollo calls Palamas, “Wise, for a woman.” As even the most cursory review of Greek mythology reminds us, the god of wisdom was a goddess: Athena. Add to this Kirk’s humanocentric speech to Palamas – strange, considering that his first officer isn’t human – and his line about finding “one god quite sufficient”, which felt artificial and forced in the context of the rest of the story. Scotty’s unprofessional buffoonery was more annoying than funny and Chekov’s really terrible wig was distracting.

Still, the episode as a whole was worth watching, and I’ll probably even catch it on the rerun this summer. As such, I give it three stars.

Update: Having just re-watched this episode in the summer re-runs, I've decided to increase my rating. While there are still a few irritating flaws, the episode as a whole was strong enough to hold up extremely well to a re-watch. Apollo's monologues in particular were very effective. Even knowing it was coming, I still got goosebumps when he talked about Hera spreading herself thin on the wind and later calling to his friends to take him. Palamas, too, seemed less like silly damsel and more like a woman struggling to protect her crewmates. When she initially goes with Apollo, it seems more appeasement than interest. It's only after Apollo's promise to raise her up and make her the mother of gods that she truly seems to become enamored with him, and as I said aloud to my friends, I'd go with him after a speech like that! And in the end, in the face of that temptation, she still does her job. Upon re-evaluation, I'm raising my rating to four stars.

A finely tuned machine, or Deus ex Machina


by Lorelei Marcus

Something I have always appreciated about Star Trek is the seamless operation of the crew of the Enterprise. While on the bridge, one can always hear the murmur of radio chatter as various ship sections give their status reports. If a crewman has to leave his post, there is always another ready to take over at a moment's notice. Repair personnel can often be seen in the halls, patching up the damage after an attack. All of these details give the impression that the USS Enterprise is a plausible naval vessel, well-trained and well-run.

This became particularly apparent in this week's episode, when Spock is left in command of the ship, with no contact with the ground crew or his Captain, while in the grip of Apollo. All of the First Officer's actions are purely logical, of course, but the best part is seeing how his crew carries out the orders without fault or question. Everyone is competent at their station, providing innovative solutions to problems, like Uhura manually soldering a bypass circuit, or Sulu scanning the planet for major energy signals. I personally love the line Spock says when Sulu can't pinpoint the exact origin of the energy: "Simply scan where the energy is not, and use process of elimination to determine its origin." Such a simple, yet ingenious solution.

In addition to being smart and creative, the crew also works well under pressure (sometimes literally!) Even after the ship is almost crushed by Apollo, status and damage reports come flying left and right from the edges of the bridge. McCoy reports the situation in sick bay, Scotty states the strain on the engines, and Sulu notes how the ship has lost all speed. It's moments like these that remind me how good Star Trek can be. I can truly believe that the Enterprise is a highly trained military vessel, and one of the best on television, sci-fi and not. I'd like to see how Admiral Nelson's submarine would fare against Apollo's antics!

While the scenes on the Enterprise are excellent, the scenes that take place on Pollux IV are inconsistent, and so I give the episode three stars. But so long as the shipboard action remains as taut and believable as it was this episode, it will be hard for an episode to fall below that baseline.

5000 YEARS OF LONGING


by Joe Reid

Do you remember the good old days?  Those times long ago, when men were more manly, and women were reserved.  I do.  Those were great times!  Should those times ever visit us again, I know that I for one would be overjoyed!  To reclaim the simple pleasures of life.  Those days when I felt truly alive.  Surrounded by people that loved and appreciated me.  They needed me, and I needed them. 
These are the sentiments that I hear from old (and not-so-old) folks reminiscing at the family gathering.  This sentiment was the very soul of the antagonist in this week’s episode of Star Trek, “Who Mourns for Adonais?”.

As I have stated in my previous observations, Mr. Rodenberry’s weekly excursion to the stars seeks to take us to far away places, to meet sensational characters, and to capture our eyes and minds in order to fill them both with images of who we are today in 1967.  I love that Star Trek gives me a positive vision of a future time, I hate that it at the same time shows me a negative image of who we are.  Of who I am.

In this episode we got to meet an honest to goodness god.  Not the “Gee-Oh-Dee” of the Good Book, although the title may cast allusions in that direction.  Apollo is the god the crew of the Enterprise must contend with and is he ever a handful!  I’d rather go twelve rounds with Ali than get into a fight with this bruiser.  Apollo remembers a time when he and others like him lived with humans.  5000 years ago to be exact!  They were times that Apollo remembered and loved.  When humans loved, worshiped and revered him.  When he loved them in return, guided them, cherished them.  The episode doesn’t go into detail on how the relationship between the gods and mankind was broken but is the very clear that the advent of humanity to his new home brings him hope that the relationship with mankind will be renewed.  It is this hope which is the root of the conflict in this episode.

In Apollo we see a wounded exile.  One given the hope that a bond as old as recorded history will be restored.  That he will be able to pick back up where he and the people of ancient times left off and go back to paradise.  In the end humanity wanted something different for themselves and the hoped-for reunion left Apollo in tears.

How much like Apollo are we?  We think back to times past and wish they were here again.  We hold on to temporary things as if they were permanent.  Whether those things be people, places, positions, patterns, or our own potential.  In reflection of this story, I must ask a question.  Who might the crew of the Enterprise have encountered on that world if Apollo had been able to move past his longing and desire for what he had long ago?  I leave the answer of that to your own imaginations, friends.  That question invites a second one.  Who might we be if we are able to let go of the past and accept people, places, positions, and potential as we find them today?  As they are right in front of our noses.  If we can answer that for ourselves, then we may no longer need to mourn what we lost.  We only need enjoy what is.

3 stars

A Woman’s Place is on the Enterprise


by Robin Rose Graves

While at times Lt. Carolyn Palamas played into the stereotypes women often play in television, ultimately Star Trek went against expectations.

“One day [Lieutenant Palamas] will find the right man and off she'll go, out of the service,” McCoy observes at the start of this episode, mirroring what many viewers probably think upon seeing Scotty’s flirtatious invitation for coffee. This reflects a trend in our own world, as women are often expected to abandon their careers to focus on home and family when they marry. With this setup, I assumed the episode would conclude with Lt. Palamas abandoning all scientific pursuits for a man.

But Star Trek did not give in to social pressure!

The episode reaches its climax when Lt. Palamas, despite her love for Apollo, rejects him to preserve the Enterprise crew, suggesting there is more to a woman’s life than being an object of a man’s affections.

It’s also worth noting Lt. Uhura’s active presence in this episode. She is shown to be both competent and crucial to returning the crew to the Enterprise. Her plot reinforces the theme in this episode that women are just as important to the crew as the men. In Uhura's case, indispensable.

I rejoice thinking of the young girls who might be watching, who will admire both Lt Palamas and Lt. Uhura’s beauty, knowledge and capability and think “I, too, belong in science.”

Four stars.

This article, we welcome Amber Dubin, an editor of a scientific journal who spends far too much time wondering if her 10 year old cat has become more human than she is.

She has a decidedly different opinion on the portrayal of Lieutenant Palamas than Robin…

Lackluster Elegy to a God


by Amber Dubin

My biggest problem with this episode is its inconsistent and disparaging narrative about the nature of women.

In a disappointing start to the episode, Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy make a condescending observation about Lieutenant Palamas, that she's approaching that 'time in every woman's life' where she'll throw away her career for a marriage. Star Trek usually transcends the sexist zeitgeist of our time, so the presence of this message personally disillusioned me. Moreover when she betrays her crew the way it was foreshadowed, her seduction itself makes absolutely no sense. In an analogous scenario in the episode "Space Seed" the bewitching of the female Lieutenant is much more plausible. In "Space Seed," historian Marla McGivers has a documented obsession with powerful men throughout history; thus when Khan appears to step directly out of her fantasies and shows her intense interest, she is putty in his hands. Though the lieutenant here has had significantly less character development in her episode, even by what we do know about her, how easily Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas is seduced is nonsensical.

First, it is implausible that a 'typical space faring woman' like Palamas would want nothing more from life than to be offered a pretty dress and ruling status over a deserted planet. Second, Apollo's plan for seduction is as follows: 1) Show up half naked 2) alter her appearance without her permission 3) isolate her from everyone she knows 4) Call her beautiful four times and 5) Rank her among his previous conquests. If she was a lonely, bored shepherd woman like Apollo is used to impressing, this would be sufficient, but to imply that a woman whose job it was to study cultural evolution would be impressed by this culturally unevolved male display is insulting to both women and anthropologists. It's almost as if her character was written by a man who doesn't understand how to write a woman.

In stark contrast, the concurrent scenario on the bridge casts Uhura in the role of 'strong, dependable woman' in a way that's so jarring with the rest of the themes of this episode that one has to wonder if it was penned by a different hand. In trying to save the landing party, Uhura is tasked with a complex and delicate maneuver and Mr. Spock expresses respect for her intelligence and competence implicitly. Uhura is trusted to take care of herself and fulfill her duties, the exact opposite of how Scotty insists that Palamas is a helpless prop. It makes no sense to praise one woman for her intelligence on the ship, while in the presence of a God, a woman who reveals the same level of intellect is met with revulsion, outrage and literal divine wrath.

Overall, I felt personally let down by this episode because I feel like the narrative voices did not harmonize well and the resulting cacophony of misfiring ideals made for a lackluster elegy to a God.

Two stars.


by Gideon Marcus

With Great Power…

There is much to both enjoy and to wince at in this episode.  It treads familiar ground, from "The Squire of Gothos" to "Space Seed" to "Charlie X".  But there is also a poignant message about outgrowing the need for external deities, and the folly of a godlike being of trying to force worship from a race that can no longer give it.

What really fascinated me about "Adonais" was its contradiction of Acton's Dictum, which says "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Apollo was a second-generation God, descendant of space traveling beings capable of projecting tremendous power. Yet, his race almost assuredly started out as baseline human.  This would be laughable in any other setting, since the odds of human beings evolving twice (John Campbell's beliefs notwithstanding) are vanishingly small–I'm not even convinced there is life on other worlds.  But in Star Trek, it's a given; q.v. "Miri" and "Return of the Archons", for instance.  For some reason, humans and even Earths exist all over the galaxy.

So it is not implausible that, say ten thousand years ago, Apollo's race was indistinguishable from us, complete with smog, network television, and bad wigs.  Then they developed space travel and scattered among the stars.  Some of them may have become the Metrons or the First Federation.  One group came to Earth and settled in Hellas.  They were, accordingly, worshiped and revered.

Yet they let that worship and reverence die!  Apollo's brood did not long mingle with mortals, instead repairing to Mount Olympus.  They didn't continue to demand adoration from the increasingly sophisticated philosophers and leaders of Greece and Rome.  They didn't search out another group of shepherds to lord over.  They simply left, even though, in the end, it meant their death.

Why didn't "superior power breed superior ambition (a la "Space Seed") in this case? I have an idea.

Apollo's god status is never disputed.  His story is taken at face value.  We've simply, as a species, outgrown him.  Why?

Because we are now gods. 

Take the Enterprise. While Apollo initially had the upper hand (haha), by the end of the episode, Kirk had at his command power equal to and even surpassing that of the Greek deity.  Humans are now at the level of Apollo and his cohorts.  To any primitive society, what else could we be but gods?

What a responsibility that is!  It is no wonder that the #1 rule of the Federation, the so-called "Prime Directive", is not to interfere with aboriginal cultures (first referenced, I think, in "Return of the Archons").  It is a wise rule given the stakes.

Perhaps Apollo's brood had this same rule.  Maybe a small group allowed themselves to give in to temptation for a little while, mingling with the Greeks they found so charming.  And then, realizing their corrupting influence, first removed themselves from direct interaction, and finally, from any contact at all.  Apollo might have been a dissenting vote, though in the end, he knows the same tragedy as his comrades.

Would that we not suffer the same fate!

Four stars.

The next episode of Trek is TOMORROW! You won't want to miss it:

Here's the invitation!



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[September 26, 1967] Anniversary? Really? New Worlds, October 1967

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by Mark Yon

Scenes from England

Hello again!

The changes with New Worlds in the last few months have been so much that they’ve rather left me guessing what the next issue will be like. Will it be sexually adult, like last month’s issue? Will it introduce me to art and artists I’ve never heard of before? Or will it try to flummox me with philosophy, religion and science?

Who knows? Each issue has been one of surprise and bewilderment, with, as I suggested last month, less emphasis on the science fiction and more on those other elements. It certainly keeps me guessing!

And it is an anniversary issue, too! If you’ve been following what’s been going on here in the last year or so, many of us didn’t think we’d get to celebrating 21 years of New Worlds, but here we are – even if its publishing schedule has been a little erratic, admittedly. I am hoping that there is plenty to celebrate here.


Cover by Richard Hamilton

And with that in mind, let’s go to the issue!

Article: The Languages of Science by Dr. David Harvey

We seem to have given up any pretence of an Editorial now. We’re straight into a Science article, which discusses the importance of language in science, as “a theory … is a language for discussing the facts the theory is said to explain.”


Art from the article: Geometry is important!

It’s interesting in that science is usually considered (at least by me) as being unemotional yet here there’s an argument for the point that it is all down to how we use the language that is important. It also examines the question of whether the language of science is fit for purpose. Not a light read, but another one that makes you think. 3 out of 5.


More art that seems unrelated to the story it is in!

An Age (Part 1 of 3) by Brian W. Aldiss

Another month, another Aldiss – although this is the first part of a new serial. Here time travellers from 2090 spend time in the Cryptozoic. The past has become a destination for a myriad of unusual characters.

Artist Edward Bush describes what the place is like before the story brings in Ann, the girlfriend of motorbike gang leader Lenny. Bush has an affair with Ann and they decide to hop off to the Jurassic together. Before they leave, Edward finds himself being watched by a mysterious woman in black, about whom I suspect we will discover more in the next part.

This is different to the recent Aldiss stories published, although like many of his stories deliberately socially conscious. Also self-conscious. It feels rather like how a British writer believes they should write about a counterculture, with its casual sexual relationships and talk of drugs and mind-travel, but I must admit that I prefer this story to that of the recent Charteris series – at least so far. 4 out of 5.


An advert for the novelisation of this serial from this issue. However, be warned – there might be some future plot details here!

Article: A Fine Pop-Art Continuum by Christopher Finch


Art by Richard Hamilton

This month’s ‘artycle’, (I’ll keep saying it because I like it) examines the work of Richard Hamilton, an artist able to “distil from the idioms of the present a possible language for the future”. I was impressed by the range of work, from paintings to photography to models and even buildings, although much of this is prose trying to describe a medium that seems primarily visual. 3 out of 5.

Solipsist by Bob Parkinson

A quick check – for those who didn’t know, a solipsist is “a very self-centred or selfish” person (as it says in my English Dictionary.) I don’t know about you, but that immediately makes me think that this story is going to be one that spends its time gazing introvertly at itself. And guess what? It does. Lots of empty phrases and Words! With Exclamation Marks! that ape Alfred Bester’s novels from a decade ago. So, to paraphrase: Run! Go now! Avoid! 2 out of 5.

The Men Are Coming Back! by Barry Cole

And in the same manner, approach with caution. The magazine is still trying to bring poetry to the readership, which for me is a bit of a lost cause, frankly – though I hope that one day there will be something I like! At least this one is understandable, if enigmatic. It tells of what happens to a village of women on seeing their men return from somewhere. It casts mockery upon sexual stereotypes, I guess. 3 out of 5.


Illustration by Zoline

Camp Concentration (Part 4 of 4) by Thomas M. Disch

In this fourth and final part we see the culmination of Louis Sacchetti’s exposure to the Pallidine bug, and as expected it is not pretty. Sacchetti is now the last remaining prisoner of the inmates there in Camp Archimedes when he arrived, although there are new recruits brought in by Skilliman.

Haast, the prison director, is concerned by Louis’s realisation that Dr. Aimee Busk’s disappearance means that she is spreading the disease to the general public, and therefore within months 30-50% of the American public will be geniuses. The consequences of this is that all of those needed to stabilise society will die and society will collapse, something which Skilliman and his fellow recruits seem to be engineering. Louis’s attempts to make Haast see what is happening initially appear to be unheeded, and there are no signs in the news that changes are happening.

As a consequence of the infection, Louis eventually goes blind but is still able to type. Skilliman continues to taunt Louis. He maintains his friendship with Schipansky and Fredgren, two of Skilliman’s recruits, who despite Skilliman’s attempts to isolate Louis, manage to bring in more visitors. Louis also hallucinates discussions with people as well, such as Thomas Nashe.

At the end, things are resolved. Louis has a stroke, which paralyses him. One of Sacchetti’s visitors, Watson, leads a protest against Skilliman, which Louis is accused of instigating by Skilliman. When Skilliman tries to get Haast to shoot Louis ‘escaping’, he is shot by Haast. Haast then tells Louis that he is Mordecai Washington, who we thought died two parts ago.

It seems that Haast and Mordecai swapped bodies through secret equipment developed by the venereally-infected geniuses during their production of Faust. Louis is then transferred to the body of a guard he has continually referred to as Assiduous. They continue to search for a vaccine.

Frankly, this final part seemed to make more sense than the last, as it draws the story to an end. The last part was confusing – understandably so, admittedly – for its disjointed ruminations on disconnected issues, whereas this time around, Louis’s demise seems to create a more intensely focussed perspective. Although it was flagged up in part 2 of the serial, the ending seems a little bit of a cop-out, though, lacking conviction.

Nevertheless, on balance this is one of the most memorable stories I’ve seen in recent years, and certainly in New Worlds. It is a startling piece of work, although the impact of this has worn off a little since that initial first part. 4 out of 5.


Terrific artwork to illustrate the article on the brain.

Article: The Inconsistent Alpha by Dr. Christopher Evans

This month – and rather appropriate, given what has just happened in Disch’s serial – in his series of articles about the human body, Dr. Evans looks at the brain and brain waves, the alpha wave in particular. 4 out of 5.

The City Dwellers by Charles Platt

Do you remember Charles Platt’s story, Lone Zone which I reviewed back in the July 1965 issue of New Worlds? This one treads similar ground as it is set in a dilapidated city of the future. It’s the story of Manning and a group of fellow emotionless and exhausted characters who try to maintain their difficult existence. There’s fighting between gangs, military weapons on the streets and buildings set light to, as if life in the city wasn’t depressing enough. It’s fine, but nothing special. This one feels like a leftover, filling up a space without any importance. 3 out of 5.

Yes: people are willing to go to war over Baked Beans!

The Baked Bean Factory by Michael Butterworth

I have in the past felt pretty disappointed by Michael’s stories. So I am pleased that this is one I actually liked. It is basically a future-war story, where the combatants are all based on big corporate industries. So we have a Baked Beans company fighting rival corporations referred to as “The Enemy” in Image Warfare, all for the sake of dominance and greater profit. I was amused by this extreme extrapolation of corporate influence, even with its sudden and disappointing ending, but it makes a chilling prediction – could we see a future where big business runs everything? 3 out of 5.

Article: Reverie of Bone by Langdon Jones

A page showing some of Peake's imaginative artwork.

The Assistant Editor reviews the work of artist and writer Mervyn Peake, who you may know for his work Gormenghast. It shows an eclectic body of work, from art to poetry and prose, and hopefully will draw reader’s attention to his work. Peake may be a real version of Louis Sacchetti, a multi-talented genius. 4 out of 5.

This illustration seems to sum up this odd story.

The Last Inn on the Road by Danny Plachta and Roger Zelazny

For me these days, just the appearance of the name ‘Roger Zelazny’ in a magazine is a pleasing one. His work generally shows a range, intelligence and depth that few reach, and I see him as at the vanguard of the American interpretation of the New Wave writers.

With that in mind, then, I think that this is the first collaboration of his I have read. I must admit that I found it a bit disappointing. There’s a satirical tone that seems to echo the mannerisms of Brian Aldiss, but overall this story about Hells Angel-type motor bikers who stop in a garage, murder a priest and a nun and then drive off seems pointless. The involvement of a dog and some celestial aliens are there too, for an unknown reason. Perhaps its meaning is just beyond me. A surprisingly low 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

Thomas Disch this month expounds a lengthy article on the idea of Metropolises in culture and society, which is mainly focused on Oswald Spengler’s ideas in his book The Decline of the West and allows Disch to explain more about Faust, which partly helped me understand his relevance in Camp Concentration. Disch then goes on to review D. F. Jones’s novel Implosion as a story of a future Britain suffering from population decline, and a “moderately entertaining” collection edited by Douglas Hill named The Devil His Due.

The other reviews this month by James Cawthorn are for the “indescribable” The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson, Edmond Hamilton’s "colourful"  Starwolf and Poul Anderson’s The Trouble Twisters, which manages “a smooth blend of science and adventure that few other authors can achieve with such consistency.”


Read some of the biographical details carefully. A poetry magazine entitled "Ronald Reagan", after that film star? Really?

Summing up New Worlds

I’m pleased to read much more fiction this month, and it is of a greater variety. The Disch ends on a bit of a deux ex machina, but is still good, Aldiss continues to produce well written work, and I liked the Peake article. I was pleasingly impressed by the Butterworth story, up to the unimpressive end. The Platt story was OK, but the Zelazny was a disappointment and felt like a minor work, even if competently written.

All in all, not a bad issue, unless you wanted to argue about the imbalance in the new New Worlds between art, articles and fiction.
But, in short, it feels like a stronger issue than the last, and worth me giving my money to. Not quite as much to celebrate as I had hoped for,  but c'est la vie.


And speaking of celebrating anniversaries, I was surprised at how little the magazine’s 21st anniversary was mentioned, other than on the front cover and a tiny box in the Wanted columns.

Although the magazine claims that it is more about looking to the future rather than the past, to me it feels a little like the opposite – almost like the magazine is ashamed of its heritage.

I’m sure that it’s not – and I am pleased that they’ve not seen the occasion as a time to fill the magazine with reprints – but I would have liked a little more reference, I think. After all, 21 years of publication, even if they have been a little "stop-and-start", is quite an achievement for a British science fiction magazine.


No advert for next month's issue, worryingly. Instead, some books to look forward to.

Until the next!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[September 24th, 1967] A Really Cool Story (Doctor Who: Tomb Of The Cybermen)

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By Jessica Holmes

Doctor Who is back for another season, and let me tell you: we’re off to a promising start. The Cybermen are back, we’ve got a new companion, and Patrick Troughton continues to impress in his role. Let’s take a look at Doctor Who in The Tomb Of The Cybermen.

EPISODE ONE

With a new companion accompanying the Doctor, the first episode takes the time to introduce Victoria—and any new viewers—to the TARDIS. Don’t worry if you’ve never seen an episode of Doctor Who in your life—this is a great place to jump in.

Victoria and Jamie are also surprised to learn that the Doctor is a little older than he looks. About 450, in fact. I’ll bet he uses Pond’s Cold Cream.

The next adventure goes off with a bang, as a group of explorers blast open an entrance to a long-abandoned city of the Cybermen, eager to uncover the mysteries of their extinction many years ago. However, the expedition won’t be a walk in the park, with one of the party falling victim to an electrified door before the Doctor and company even arrive.

Realising that the group are probably in over their heads, the Doctor agrees to help them out, de-electrifying the door and helping them enter.

In this little pack of adventurers we have Parry (Aubrey Richards), the expedition’s leader and his assistant Viner (Cyril Sharps) providing the archaeological expertise. There’s also the expedition’s financier, Kaftan (Shirley Cooklin), her servant Toberman (Roy Stewart), and her colleague Klieg (George Pastell). In addition, we have a couple of spaceship pilots but they spend most of their time back at the ship and aren’t important.

Inside the complex, the expedition splits off into small groups. Apparently gender roles have stagnated over the last however many years, because the men would be quite happy to leave the women behind because after all, exploring is a MAN’S JOB! The men in this serial, the spaceship pilots especially, are very rude and patronising to Victoria for no good reason, and constantly dismissive of her. Victoria, though literally a Victorian, is having none of it, and forms her own group with Kaftan and Viner.

Victoria’s group soon finds a room designed to ‘re-vitalise’ a Cyberman, while Jamie’s group finds a weird metal mouse with googly eyes. Or caterpillar, as Jamie calls it. But I think it looks more like a mouse. The Doctor later identifies it as something called a ‘Cybermat’, and puts it in Victoria’s bag for safekeeping.

The Doctor and Klieg remain at the entrance, puzzling over a control panel which they believe will open a hatch to the deepest part of the complex. There’s a lot of babble about binary logic which sounds about right to me, but I know absolutely nothing about computers.

Meanwhile, Jamie and his exploring buddy (who I don’t think has a name) make the wise decision to start randomly pressing buttons and pulling any levers they find. It’s no surprise they end up in trouble. They manage to activate some sort of hypnosis machine, which leaves them completely helpless as a Cyberman slides out of the darkness, gun at the ready. There’s a blast of light, and Jamie’s buddy drops down dead.

EPISODE TWO

By the time anyone makes it to them, the Cyberman has vanished, leaving a very confused and distressed Jamie and a very dead explorer. After some experimentation, the Doctor manages to discover that the Cyberman that slid out was nothing more than a dummy, and the fatal shot actually came from behind. It looks like this is a weapons testing area, and Jamie’s buddy was just unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. But why were they hypnotised? Is it a trap, or do the Cybermen just like a groovy light-show while they practice their shot?

The group bring the dead man back to the entrance, where Parry decides to call off the expedition. It’s nice to see someone being sensible. Alas, they can’t leave yet—someone has tampered with their ship’s fuel pumps. By someone, I mean Toberman, acting on Kaftan's orders. He's the only one strong enough to do it.

With no choice but to stay, Klieg suggests that they continue their exploration, against the Doctor’s protests. Klieg manages to get the mysterious hatch open, and the men go inside, while the delicate little women stay behind. Of course.

Victoria’s quite insistent on going down with them, but the Doctor convinces her to stay with Kaftan—not for sexist reasons, mind you, but to keep an eye on her. Kaftan couldn’t be a more obvious villain if she tried, so someone had better make sure she doesn’t get up to any mischief. So sure, leave the teenager alone with the scary lady. What could go wrong?

Down in the depths of the complex, the men find a tomb… a tomb of Cybermen. It’s frozen solid, keeping the Cybermen immobile and dormant…but not for long. Klieg gets to work warming the room up, and the Cybermen come to life, much to Viner’s horror.

Viner tries to stop Klieg, but it looks like Klieg isn’t just foolish—he’s malicious. Shooting Viner dead, Klieg continues awakening the Cybermen. There’s nowhere for the others to run, as Kaftan has drugged Victoria and closed the hatch. This was their plan all along, and so far it’s going off without a hitch, as the Cybermen burst from their icy coffins and awaken their leader.

However, there’s something they didn’t take into account. Remember the Cybermat? It’s woken up, and so has Victoria.

Though quickly realising that Kaftan has betrayed the group (in fact, she has Victoria at gunpoint) Victoria tries to warn Kaftan about the rapidly advancing critter. Her warnings go unheeded, and the strange creature attacks, knocking Kaftan out and providing Victoria with a chance to get hold of the weapon, with which she promptly deals with the metal menace. Looks like Victoria is made of sterner stuff than it first appeared!


Admittedly the Cyber-controller is harder to take seriously when its head is shaped…um…like that.

EPISODE THREE

Seeing as he doesn’t have anywhere else to be, the Doctor takes the opportunity to have a little chat with the Cybermen about what sort of dastardly scheme they’re cooking up this time. Turns out this place is a trap for eggheads like Parry and company. The Cybermen are few in number since their disastrous attack on the moonbase, but they’re quite picky about who they want to convert. They want people with a natural aptitude for logic, hence the weird door-opening mechanism. Well, Klieg is certainly logically minded (According to him, anyway. He never shuts up about it.), but rather lacking in common sense.

So of course it’s Klieg that the Cybermen pick to be the leader of this new batch.

Fortunately for Klieg, Victoria managed to get some help back at the entrance (though not without having to contend with the dismissive boneheads piloting the ship), and here comes the captain of the spaceship to rescue them. However, in the chaos as they flee the tomb, Toberman gets left behind.

Out of immediate danger, the group realise that Klieg and Kaftan have their own agenda, and can’t be trusted. So, they decide to lock them away…in the weapon testing room.

The weapon. Testing. Room.

A shiny ha’penny piece for whoever can guess what Klieg and Kaftan do next.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group settles down for a nap. Here we get one of my favourite parts of the serial. Victoria, bless her, lets the Doctor get a little extra sleep on account of his advanced age, and when he wakes up they have a private moment for him to ask her how she is. Understandably, she’s missing her father, but the Doctor assures her that it will get easier not to think about him with time. He’s something of an expert at it.

VICTORIA: You probably can't remember your family.
DOCTOR: Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they sleep in my mind, and I forget. And so will you.

I understand what he means, but there’s something very sad about the way he puts it. And he doesn’t ever bring up his family, so am I to take it that he chooses not to remember? I think there’s a sadness beneath this Doctor’s clownish exterior.

It’s a rare moment of emotional honesty and vulnerability, and I’ll be interested to see how this affects the Doctor-companion bond. We’ve had Doctor-as-parental-figure, Doctor-as-teacher, how about Doctor-as-confidante?

See, I said the new Doctor would open up new avenues of character exploration, and it looks like I’m right.

However, the moment is disrupted with a whole swarm of Cybermats attack! The Doctor manages to deflect them with a live power cable, and delivers the most wonderful line afterwards:

“The power cable generated an electrical field and confused their tiny metal minds. You might almost say that they've had a complete metal breakdown.”

That is painful. I love it.

Remembering the prisoners they oh-so-wisely locked in the weapons room, the group rush to check on Klieg and Kaftan, only for the duo to be already waiting for them..and they’ve got the Cybergun working.

EPISODE FOUR

Klieg takes a shot at the Doctor, but misses, hitting one of the blokes from the spaceship instead. He claims he meant to do that, but I beg to differ. Despite still being held at gunpoint, Victoria insists on helping the wounded man. I think I really quite like Victoria. She’s got a good strong backbone.

Klieg demands to speak to the leader of the Cybermen, who comes out of the hatch with a partially-converted Toberman. Toberman hasn’t been shoved into a tinfoil spacesuit, but the Cybermen have removed his emotions.

Threatening to leave the Cybermen down in their tomb forever, Klieg demands the power to conquer the world. Because what is the point of doing something monumentally stupid and dangerous if your end goal ISN’T to have dominion over the Earth? It’s Villain 101.

The Cyber-controller accepts, and Klieg orders it and the explorers into the revitalising room, keeping Victoria as a hostage.

Yes, he sends a tired Cyberman into the room used to pep up tired Cybermen.

However, this knackered Cyberman is having difficulty climbing into the revitalising machine. Apparently five hundred years of sleep isn’t enough. Fortunately, it’s the Doctor’s turn to leave his common sense at the door, as he gets everyone to help the Cyber leader get into the machine…and then turns it on.

Luckily, Jamie tied a rope around the door so that the Cyberman can’t open it. Gee, it’s a good thing that Cybermen aren’t really strong or that would be woefully inadequate!

Oh. They are, in fact, really strong. Strong enough to punch through the door itself.

Feeling refreshed, the Cyber-controller gives telepathic orders to Toberman, who immediately turns on Klieg. He knocks him out in a single hit as the rest of the group breaks out of the revitalising room.

The Cyber-controller orders Kaftan to open the tomb. She tries to refuse, and shoots at it with her conventional gun. However, bullets don’t work on Cybermen. Cyberweapons work fantastically on fleshy humans, though, and the Cyber-controller strikes her down in an instant.

The Doctor takes the opportunity to appeal to whatever sense of humanity Toberman still has within him. Despite the Cybermen’s tampering, he seems to have genuinely cared for Kaftan, and he’s ultimately still loyal to her. His loyalty runs deeper than his programming, and he turns on the Cyber-controller, easily overpowering and disabling it.

However, there are more Cybermen to contend with. Jamie shoots a couple down as they attempt to emerge from the hatch, but the Doctor has to make sure they all go back to sleep. This time, they won’t be waking up. The Doctor recruits Toberman to help him out, though it does take a fair bit of slow, patient explanation before Toberman understands why the Doctor is asking him to help destroy the Cybermen. It's weird and feels quite patronising. Once he gets the picture, though, he’s quite enthusiastic, if somewhat lacking in subtlety.

The Doctor tries to freeze the Cybermen, but at that moment Klieg shows up, having regained consciousness and followed the pair down to the tomb.

It’s become clear that Klieg and logic are no longer on the best of terms, as the Doctor outlines his vision of a world under Klieg’s control, with everyone thinking exactly like him, and Klieg falls in love with the idea of controlling everyone’s thoughts.

Also, rather than killing the Doctor now and getting it over with, he decides to leave him to the mercy of the Cybermen…who are none-too-fond of the idea of having to take orders from Klieg. One of them kills him, and Toberman pounces on it, wrestling with the metal menace while the Doctor (and Jamie who has just popped up because he needs to have SOMETHING useful to do) put the Cybermen back in the icebox. Toberman wins the fight, ripping out the 'heart’ of the Cyberman, which dies in about as grisly an manner as a mechanical being can, clutching desperately at its chest as foam gushes between its fingers.

With the Cybermen back on ice, the Doctor tampers with the controls at the entryway, planning to electrify the hatch and the control panel in addition to the main doors. However, the Cyber-controller isn’t quite dead yet!

With the Cyber-controller in hot (well…snail-paced) pursuit, the group bolt for the exit, but they can’t shut the doors without electrocuting themselves. Smart move, Doctor. However, Toberman, either not realising the doors are deadly, having no sense of self-preservation, or extraordinarily bravely (pick whichever you prefer), steps in, pushing the huge heavy doors shut. With the doors sealed, they electrify, killing both poor Toberman and the Cyber-controller.

At least everyone else is safe, and the Cyber-threat is dealt with for good.

…Or is it?

Final Thoughts

The Tomb Of The Cybermen is a very exciting serial, great for fans of exploration. It feels sort of like a more futuristic version of that sort of adventure serial about treasure hunters exploring tombs. Long-forgotten ruins, booby traps, ancient horrors best left undisturbed… sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it? Events move at a good pace, never plodding but not rushing either, with some moments to catch a breath. The part where Victoria and the Doctor had a bit of a heart-to-heart was particularly good. I was really looking forward to seeing the next part each week, and didn’t find any of them to be a slog—just how a serial should be!

However, sometimes characters had to do really, really stupid things to get the plot moving forward. I understand that this sort of adventure story is structured as a cautionary tale on the perils of unchecked curiosity and arrogance, but sometimes the decisions were just extraordinarily dim, like locking the baddies in the room with the super-weapon, or helping the evil robot-human hybrid recharge its batteries.

The characterisation is stronger than usual for Doctor Who stories with large ensemble casts, who usually end up all blending together in my head. That’s not to say that these characters are deep, but at least I can point at Viner and say ‘he’s nervous’, or point at Klieg and say ‘he’s self-obsessed and not nearly as smart as he thinks he is’.

That said, Klieg and Kaftan are a bit too obviously evil for my liking, and have all the subtlety of a tonne of bricks splatting a panto villain.

And then there’s Toberman: the sole black member of the cast, portrayed as subordinate to the others, inhumanly strong, and having almost no thoughts or feelings of his own. Here, we have a repeat of my issues with Kemel, but this time it’s worse. At least Kemel got some characterisation. Toberman is just some unthinking muscle. He’s a plot device used to open doors and lift heavy objects, not a person. The only conversation directed him that isn't an order is a patronising pep talk from the Doctor about how he shouldn’t let himself be enslaved. And then he dies. Heroically, admittedly (if we are generous with our interpretation of events) but it seems we’ve gone from having virtually no ethnic minorities in Doctor Who to having the occasional racist stereotype who doesn’t live to the end of the serial.

A lot of the same comments I had about Kemel also apply here, so I’m hoping that I’m wrong about the pattern I’m starting to see, because I don't like it.

All that said, I did genuinely enjoy The Tomb Of The Cybermen, for the most part. In fact, it has some of my favourite moments in all of Doctor Who so far. If it didn't have the lousy racial politics and unexpected sexism I might go so far as to call it my favourite serial of the entire programme.

4 out of 5 stars for The Tomb Of The Cybermen




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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 22, 1967] (Star Trek: "Amok Time")

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by Gideon Marcus

Back in the Starship Again

The Fall season of television is upon us again.  Some shows from last season did not survive the chopping block: good riddance to Gilligan's Island and It's About Time, genuine tears for the loss of Green Hornet, and shrugs for Love on a Rooftop, Laredo, Occasional Wife, and like that.

One show got a genuine ending: Richard Kimball finally caught the one-armed man, and now he can live a normal life.  At least, until The Invaders get him…


Notice how she keeps her pinky fingers just out of sight…

Other shows were renewed–from the stalwart Gunsmoke to the Mexican…er…African spectacle that is Tarzan.  But let's face it.  The program we were really waiting for was Star Trek, what Analog editor John Campbell called, "the first adult science fiction on television".

Would series star William Shatner make good on his threat to "put more of himself in the role"?  Would new cast member Walter Koenig, as Ensign Chekov, be as endearing as the rest of the crew?  After that dynamite, if not completely consistent, first season (not to mention a summer of reruns that held up remarkably well), would the second season knock our socks off?

I, for one, was not disappointed.  Production pulled out all the stops, most notably with an entire new score provided by Gerald Fried (echoes of which can be heard in his scores for episodes of the 1966 spy show, The Man Who Never Was and in this week's debut episode of Mission: Impossible).  Trek veteran, Joe Pevney, does a commendable job with directing, particularly in the scenes set on Vulcan, Dutch angles conveying the temporary madness of Mr. Spock.  Mainstream science fiction once again contributes a script, this time from the pen of the illustrious Ted Sturgeon.

Chekov does not have many lines with which to distinguish himself, but his repartee with Mr. Sulu is engaging.  As for Shatner, well, he definitely brings a few more personal tics to his portrayal of Captain Kirk.  It's a bit more broad, more punctuated a performance.  But he's still enjoyable to watch, convincing in the role.


"So, how did you enjoy working with Mike, Mickey, and Peter?"

That's the technical aspects.  What about the episode itself?  For that, I'll turn to my esteemed colleagues on the panel…

Ancient Rituals and Alien Biology


by Erica Frank

The episode begins with McCoy telling Kirk his first officer has a problem: he's been restless, avoiding meals. Kirk doesn't believe it; Spock is probably just meditating and wishes to avoid human contact. Then they see nurse Chapel ducking away from Spock's quarters as Spock throws a bowl of plomeek soup at her.

Spock is angry enough to be violent. This is shocking to everyone — Chapel, McCoy, Kirk, and the audience.

Has he been dosed with some kind of drug? Perhaps he was exposed to a natural hallucinogen that had the reverse effect of the pollen in This Side of Paradise — one that made him angry instead of happy.

No, he hasn't been drugged; his body is turning against him. The Vulcan mating drive will kill Spock if he doesn't get to his betrothed on Vulcan, with whom he was mind-bonded when they were seven years old.


Young T'Pring, looking every bit as serious as we expect a Vulcan child to be.
Kirk and McCoy accompany him to the ceremony, the Koon-ut-kal-if-fee. When they arrive, they get a shock: T'Pring demands that Spock win her in combat according to the ancient Vulcan rites.

Spock has no choice. He is deep in the plak tow, the blood fever; he must fight for her or die. T'Pring, accompanied by Stonn, chooses Kirk as her champion! Spock objects, but the officiating matriarch T'Pau simply asks, "Art thee Vulcan or art thee human?"

"I burn, T'Pau," he answers. "My eyes are flame. My heart is flame." He may not like T'Pring's choice, but if he cannot walk away, he cannot deny her.

Kirk accepts, figuring he'll roll with the punches, fall down, and leave Spock to his bride. After he agrees to fight, T'Pau informs him that this fight is to the death.


They fight with lirpa, a Vulcan weapon. Kirk, of course, manages to get his shirt torn.

After they disarm each other, McCoy treats Kirk with tri-ox, intended to counter Vulcan's thin air and heat, to make him closer to Spock's equal. They switch to ahn woon, a weighted long belt, and Spock uses his to capture and strangle Kirk… to death.

With Kirk's death, the blood fever fades, and Spock is once more his rational self. Before they leave, he insists that T'Pring explain her choice.

Spock, she says, has become a legend, and she does not wish to marry a legend. She wants Stonn. Kirk does not want her; if Kirk won, he would leave her to Stonn. If Spock won, they would wed… and he would leave, and she would still have Stonn.


T'Pring coldly explains why she made Spock fight his best friend instead of her chosen.

I think T'Pring has vastly underestimated Kirk's potential for spite. If he “won” her by killing Spock, he might haul her in front of a Federation tribunal for arranging the death of a Starfleet officer. He certainly wouldn't leave her to enjoy her boyfriend.

McCoy asks Spock for his orders, since he's in charge now. (I have trouble believing this; if a first officer kills his captain, he just takes over?) They beam back to the Enterprise, where Spock makes plans to resign and turn himself in.

Kirk comes out of sickbay to interrupt him. Apparently, McCoy actually dosed Kirk with something that simulates death. Everyone is fine, and now they can get back to their diplomatic mission.


Spock is overjoyed to see him alive. Because Starfleet needs good captains, of course. Not because it matters to him personally.

Color me unconvinced. What kind of "mate or die" drive vanishes if the one driven defeats his opponent? Why lose interest upon winning? I can only imagine that Spock's use of the mind-meld technique with various humans and aliens has weakened his bond with T'Pring, and that the shock of losing his dear friend completely erased whatever remaining mental bond he had with her.

That quibble aside, this really was fine stuff. "Amok Time" was perhaps the first true Star Trek episode, rather than a random science-fiction story with Trek characters. It built on what we know about the universe and the crew, and showed us a challenge that only they could face—which they resolved in a way that only they would.

Five stars.

The Birds and the Bees are not Vulcan


by Andrea Castaneda

It’s something to behold: a stoic man in his most vulnerable state. For the first time in the series (at least, without the interference of a spore or mickeyed water), the audience sees Spock’s steely veneer crack. He dashes soup across the room, verbally accosts his crewmates, and even undermines his captain’s orders. Yet his insubordination is revealed to come from a great source of anguish for the Vulcan. The anguish from having to suppress a biological drive, and being unable to tell anyone about it.

Now, I am no Vulcan. My blood does not “burn” and I am not compelled to return to my birthplace to spawn. But the fear, shame, and guilt he experiences– for something he has no control over– was something that deeply resonated with me, especially in my teenage years.

I’ll spare you the details, but my "birds and the bees talk" was nothing short of excruciating. “Don’t do this,” and “don’t do that”, lest you will be seen as a fallen woman. Any further questions I had regarding such an “uncouth” topic were treated with either avoidance, reluctance, or disgust. I shan't disclose how I cope with my nature now, as it is– to quote the vulcan– “a deeply personal thing”. However, what I will say is that my parents' fumbling attempts at sex-ed negatively impacted me growing up. It taught me to never speak up about “shameful” things, which in turn led me astray in many situations. I am relieved to see today’s youth has become more open and matter-of-fact regarding such topics. But there are still many who wish to hide behind old attitudes. Like the Vulcans, who seem partial to the same provincial mindset of my grandmother. I understand that there can be “logic” in knowing when to be prudent about such things. But considering how their biology can prove lethal when untreated, both to themselves and to others, where is the logic in choosing to avoid this topic altogether?


T’Pau explains nothing to Kirk before handing him a blade and telling him to fight his best friend.

The way I see it, regarding both the Vulcans and us humans, it is an exercise in futility. We want to feel safe and secure, and the only assured way to do so is to master nature and our own bodies. But it is hubris to think that a strong enough will can override mother nature. Our bodies will fail us, in one way or another. And the only way to conquer that fear is to confront it head on. The way to start is to name what ails us.

Of course, Vulcans and the world of Star Trek are not real but rather created by our human men– and at least one woman– here on earth. This epsiode leaves me asking why the writers, who wish to portray an idealized future, still feel that discussing sex is a terrifying prospect? [q.v. "Charlie X" (Ed.)]

Still, apart from my quandaries, this episode delivered a compelling story. It included wonderful details that upped the stakes, gave us a look into the enigmatic Vulcan culture and the politics of the federation. Season two starts by hitting a home run and I sincerely hope it continues this momentum.

Five stars.

POST-MODERN LOVE


by Joe Reid

Something old.

Something new.

Ritual combat.

Something blue.

Most of these are considered tokens of good luck.  The illogical creatures that we humans are, we rely on good luck charms, because of all the lying, trickery, bribery, and violence that we employ to convince other people to marry us doesn’t seem to be enough to make our unions last.  According to the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, last year (1966) there were 1,857,000 U.S. marriages.  The same year 499,000 divorces happened.  The number of divorces for last year is 26% of the number of marriages.  With tallies like these, it’s obvious that we need help.

Along came the exciting first episode of the 2nd season of Star Trek to show us how beings who value logic and reason engage in the act of marriage.  How, you ask?  They do it with lying and trickery, and of course, violence.

“Amok Time” is the name of this week’s episode of Star Trek.  I want to start off by saying that it was splendid looking!  From the futuristic space outfits to the details in the props.  I was flown off to another world!


Silver future fashion

The show starts out with the Vulcanian (or Vulcan), Mr. Spock, behaving in a “most illogical” way.  He acts like a brute, breaking dishes and yelling at everyone.  Even Captain Kirk gets an ear full.  Through the course of the tale, we learn that Mr. Spock lost all his logic and control because of a Vulcan biological stage which causes him to burn with desire.  For what?  The same thing that the men of our day desire.  A girl.  Our calm and honest Mr. Spock becomes loud and irate.  His indiscretions extend to lying to the new Russian kid to send the Enterprise to Spock’s home planet of Vulcan.  He lies so badly that he doesn’t even remember that he lied!  How many of today’s guys and gal’s tell zingers to friends, family, each other and even priests, to get to that someone they desire the most?

We then witness Spock, Kirk, and Dr. McCoy on Vulcan, where we see a bridal party with a wise matronly leader. Also Spock’s soon to be wife, T’Pring, and a bunch of big soldier types that are guards. One thing stood out to me during this scene.  “Why isn’t the girl that Spock is supposedly marrying carrying on the same way that he is?”, I wondered.  She was as placid as still waters.  We all know what they say about still waters, and it isn’t long until we are shown the depths of trickery that T’Pring is willing to sink to.

We’ve all heard stories of friends who come to blows over a girl.  So why and how would people in an advanced future society based on reason and logic descend to fisticuffs over a female?  Why?  Because she wanted them to.  She manipulated friends to fight, not because she loved one of them, but because she didn’t love either of them, and it served her true purpose to have one eliminated.  In the end we learned that even though Spock was driven insane with passion for T’Pring, she didn’t want him at all.  She went through all the pomp and circumstance just to create a situation where she wouldn’t have to be with Spock.  Even if it cost him or Kirk their lives.  Which it just might have.

So, what is the current day parallel of T’Pring’s trickery?  From Cleopatra to Mata Hari, some ladies have only wanted a man that they can control.  Even today they are willing to say and do anything to get that.  “Amok Time” showed a wife that was willing to destroy Spock to get Stonn.  A shell of a man that she can lead.


T’Pring rejects Spock.

One of the reasons that I find Star Trek so special is because, even though it takes us to strange new worlds, at the end of the day what we find on those worlds is ourselves reflected back at us.  The situations in this episode were barely exaggerated reflections of the kind of people that we are and become when engaging in modern love.

5 stars

A Queer Episode


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

This is perhaps my favorite episode of Star Trek so far; as Erica says, it may also be the first truly Star Trek episode of the series. A braided narrative of complex alien marriages, fraught male friendships, and taboo-filled – and taboo-breaking – reproductive rituals? Sign me up.

Last Spring, I reviewed a CBS "documentary" called "The Homosexuals," , noting that "There is something profoundly queer in enjoying science fiction and fantasy." I found this episode delightfully queer (meaning "odd" or "unusual", of course), each strand of the narrative challenging norms and assumptions in different ways.

The first queer thread in the episode was the Vulcan concept of marriage, starting with a wedding ritual that Spock says is "Less than a marriage but more than a betrothal." It is an in-between thing, this ritual we see, with some of the romantic declarations one might find at a regular church wedding, but also some theatrics and roles that have no analog to American marriage customs. One thing which stuck out to me was the queerness of the officiant, if we can call T'Pau that, being a woman. Sure, in Sweden and Norway, there are women conducting marriages, as well as in a precious few Presbyterian and Baptist churches (I have not heard of any women rabbis or imams, but I am open to correction). But amongst the more high-church, smells-and-bells Christian denominations, even the fairly open-minded Episcopal Church isn't allowing women further than the deaconate (and that is being debated today at General Convention LXII in Seattle; one hopes for more progress on that front). As it stands, a woman overseeing a highly formal wedding is pretty science fictional for most viewers.

The second queer thread was the intense relationships between Spock, Kirk, and McCoy. In a short television set hour, we saw these men throw themselves at each other; violate orders; disregard medical protocol; lie to diplomats of an allied planet to protect each other; fight to insert each other into the sacred rituals of a secretive culture; and lest we forget, roll around in the dirt ripping their clothes up. In our world, I see men often forced into stoicism, criticized for exhibiting any strong emotions other than anger (or perhaps enthusiasm for sports), for getting too involved as a father, for expressing affection toward each other. In that context, it was a balm to see Spock's beatific smile at Kirk's survival, McCoy's tenderness and protectiveness towards Kirk's "dead" body, or Spock's simple but powerful defense of his friends: "They are not outworlders. They are my friends. I am permitted this." One might hope for a day when all people are "permitted" this.

The third queer thread was the deeply taboo – to Spock at least – topic of Vulcan reproduction. As Andrea points out, the conversation between Kirk and Spock on this topic is deeply, and to me comically, awkward. But it also lit my imagination on fire, like all good science fiction and fantasy does. What does Spock mean when he analogizes his species' form of reproduction to spawning salmon? Is it just the traveling aspect, or does he have some kind of roe sacks hidden under his greenish-skin? And what does it mean for an entire society of beings who prize emotionlessness, and call it "logic" , to have every single member of it engage in a "time of mating" which is a "madness which rips away our veneer of civilisation"? It is queer both because this approach to reproduction exists at an oblique angle to our own human conceptions of it, but also because it deeply challenges our own assumptions about how other intelligent lifeforms might structure their societies, pick their bed fellows, and understand both their and our families and worlds.

A few of us here wrote stories, cocktail recipes, songs, articles, games, and drew art for a summer fanzine Gideon organized called The Tricorder, touching on the strange and wonderful worlds that Season 1 of Star Trek had given us to play in. With all of these new, queer threads to unwind and reknit into new creations, I can't wait to see where Tricorder #2 might take us.

Five stars.

Speaking of Star Trek, it's on TONIGHT!  By all the Ghods, it looks like an interesting one…

Here's the invitation!

Also, copies of The Tricorder are still available — drop us a line for details!



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